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Quinault Valley Guns & Blades / Urban Escape & Evasion Course International Relations * Military * Terrorism * Business * Security www.kcandassociates.org [email protected] Kathleen Louise dePass Press Agent/Publicist .360.288.2652 Triste cosa es no tener amigos, pero más triste ha de ser no tener enemigos porque quién no tenga enemigos señal es de que no tiene talento que haga sombra, ni carácter que impresione, ni valor temido, ni honra de la que se murmure, ni bienes que se le codicien, ni cosa alguna que se le envidie. A sad thing it is to not have friends, but even sadder must it be not having any enemies; that a man should have no enemies is a sign that he has no talent to outshine others, nor character that inspires, nor valor that is feared, nor honor to be rumored, nor goods to be coveted, nor anything to be envied. -Jose Marti

From the desk of Craig B Hulet?

Are You A Teenager Who Reads News Online? According to the Justice Department, You May Be a Criminal During his first term, President Barack Obama declared October 2009 to be “National Information Literacy Awareness Month,” emphasizing that, for students, learning to navigate the online world is as important a skill as reading, writing and arithmetic. It was a move that echoed his predecessor's strong support of global literacy—such as reading newspapers—most notably through First Lady Laura Bush's advocacy. Yet, disturbingly, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) of both the Bush and Obama administrations have embraced an expansive interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) that would literally make it a crime for many kids to read the news online. And it’s the main reason why the law must be reformed. As we’ve explained previously, in multiple cases the DOJ has taken the position that a violation of a website’s Terms of Service or an employer’s Terms of Use policy can be treated as a criminal act. And the House Judiciary Committee has floated a proposal that largely adopts the DOJ’s position, making it possible to prosecute a user for accessing website for a purpose other than intended by the publisher. For a number of reasons, including the requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, many news sites have terms of service that prohibit minors from using their interactive services and sometimes even visiting their websites. Take, for example, the Hearst Corporation’s family of publications. If you read the terms of use for the Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, or Popular Mechanics websites, you’ll find this language, screamed in all-caps: "YOU MAY NOT ACCESS OR USE THE COVERED SITES OR ACCEPT THE AGREEMENT IF YOU ARE NOT AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD.” In the DOJ’s world, this means anyone under 18 who reads a Hearst newspaper online could hypothetically face jail time. But Hearst’s publications aren’t the only ones with overly restrictive usage terms. U-T San Diego and the Miami Herald have similar policies. Even NPR is guilty, saying teenagers can’t access their “services” (including the site, NPR podcasts and the media player) without a permission slip: “If you are between the ages of 13 and 18, you may browse the NPR Services or register for email newsletters or other features of the NPR Services (excluding the NPR Community) with the consent of your parent(s) or guardian(s), so long as you do not submit any User Materials.” Some sites must have recognized the problem and crafted their policies to only forbid users under the age of 13. These include the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the Arizona Republic. NBCNews.com uses this wording:

"By using or attempting to use the Site or Services, you certify that you are at least 13 years of age or other required greater age for certain features and meet any other eligibility and residency requirements of the Site.” This means that inquisitive 12-year-olds who visit NBCNews.com to learn about current events would be, by default, misrepresenting their ages. Again, this could be criminal under the DOJ's interpretation of the CFAA. We’d like to say that we’re being facetious, but, unfortunately, the Justice Department has already demonstrated its willingness to pursue CFAA to absurd extremes. Luckily, the Ninth Circuit rejected the government’s arguments, concluding that, under such an ruling, millions of unsuspecting citizens would suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the law. As Judge Alex Kozinski so aptly wrote: "Under the government’s proposed interpretation of the CFAA...describing yourself as 'tall, dark and handsome,' when you’re actually short and homely, will earn you a handsome orange jumpsuit." And it’s no excuse to say that the vast majority of these cases will never be prosecuted. As the Ninth Circuit explained, “Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Instead of pursuing only suspects of actual crimes, it opens the door for prosecutors to go after people because the government doesn’t like them. Unfortunately, there’s no sign the Justice Department has given up on this interpretation outside the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, which is why the Professor Tim Wu in the New Yorker recently called the CFAA “the most outrageous criminal law you’ve never heard of.” The potential criminalization of terms of service is a prime reason that Congress needs to overhaul CFAA and it’s certainly why the House Judiciary Committee should abandon the seemingly DOJ-drafted bill it floated recently and instead sit down with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, Rep. Darrell Issa, and others to negotiate real reform. Are you a minor with a thirst for information? You, and your parents who vote, should together tell Congress to fix CFAA.

"White Men Have Much to Discuss About Mass Shootings" read the headline of a piece in the Washington Post's Outlook section Sunday. Having spent most of our adult life in the opinion journalism business, we are no stranger to the instinct for provocation. But really, Washington Post, this is embarrassing.

The authors, identical twin sisters called Charlotte and Harriet Childress, "are researchers and consultants on social and political issues," whatever that means, according to their Post shirttail bio. They have a book called "Clueless at the Top," which is not an autobiography but a meditation "on outdated hierarchies in American culture," whatever that means. Their website informs visitors that the twins "received close to a million dollars in grants from the National Science Foundation." The NSF is a federal agency, so your tax dollars have subsidized the authors of what can only be described as a racist rant. Here's the opening: Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we'd have political debates demanding that African Americans be "held accountable." Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities. But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room. Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years--not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine--have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders' opinions were widely discussed. There is so much wrong with this, we could write a column about it. Which, come to think of it, is exactly what we are doing even as we type. To begin with, while it's true that all but a few mass murderers have been men, the twins cherrypick their examples and simply ignore nonwhite killers. They leave out Colin Ferguson, the black man who opened fire in a Long Island Rail Road train in 1993, killing 6 and wounding 19. "He had a number of problems in his life, and every problem he was involved in he attached some racial motivation to the person and institution he was dealing with, regardless of their race," detective Mel Kenny of the Nassau County Police told the New York Times. The Times also reported that in response to the shooting, "several prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Herbert W. Daughtry, held a news conference on the steps of [New York] City Hall, urging that blacks in general not be blamed for the crime." Blacks in general were not blamed for the crime. Contrary to the Childress twins' speculation, "the public" did not "tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities." As National Review Online's Robert VerBruggen notes, the twins also omit two nonwhite mass murderers of Asian heritage: Korean immigrant Cho Seung-Hui (32 dead, 17 wounded at Virginia Tech in 2007) and Laotian immigrant Chai Soua Vang (6 dead, 2 wounded at Meteor, Wis., in 2004). "Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in

malls and movie theaters," the twins assert--a lie that is technically true, since Cho and Vang massacred their victims in other locations. In addition, including the Fort Hood shooting is a stretch. The defendant in that case, Nidal Hasan, is white according to standard racial taxonomy. But he is also Arab-American, which makes him a nonwhite minority by the conventions of contemporary identity politics. The facts of the case suggest the motive was related to a nonracial aspect of his identity that also puts him in the minority: his religion, Islam. Verbruggen cites a claim by lefty journalist David Sirota that "70 percent of mass shooters have been white men." Sirota regards that as a gross disproportion "in a country where only 30 percent of the population is white men." But as VerBruggen notes, the disparity is almost completely explained by sex: Men, for reasons that are surely biological, have a much greater propensity for physical violence than women do. What's even weirder about the Childress twins' piece is that their counterfactual actually is not counterfactual at all if you broaden the scope beyond acts of mass murder to murder more generally or all violent crime. Blacks do in fact commit a large disproportion of violent crimes, and while the subject is not taboo in respectable public debate, it is delicate. Example: A week before the twins' piece, the Post published a news article titled "Gun Deaths Shaped by Race in America." The Post's analysis found: "Whites are far more likely to shoot themselves, and African Americans are far more likely to be shot by someone else." No mention was made of the racial distribution of homicide perpetrators. But the absolute strangest thing about the twins' racist rant is the self-satisfied tone. They think they're breaking a taboo, bravely challenging convention by scapegoating white men. Give us a break. Antiwhite and antimale bigotry couldn't be less courageous or more clichéd. It's been a constant feature of academic discourse for decades and of journalistic writing for years. It has been the dominant theme of political coverage since Barack Obama's re-election. And it's not just the twins. Consider this outburst from Mark Karlin, editor of something called Buzzflash at Truthout: You won't find anyone willing to dare say it much in the media, but a good percentage of the white men who oppose gun control of any sort--and who back measures that would even allow alleged terrorists and straw purchases for drug dealers to buy guns--are just afraid that without their guns, their phallic power will be reduced to size. You can feel at least temporarily reassured when a long-barreled assault weapon compensates for just another average manhood; it's an irresistable [sic] testosterone high to the beleaguered white male. Call this Freudian psychobabble analysis, but when you add it into the mix of just angry white males who want their guns to show that they are still top dog on the political, social and marital hierarchy, you got [sic] a good percentage of the psychologically need gun owners [sic].

In this case, replace "white" with "black" and you'd actually have something no one remotely respectable would dare say, especially a white dude like Karlin. But a racist attack on white men is so boring it's not even offensive, although it probably should be. And let's put Karlin on the couch for a moment. He begins by touting his own courage, then he goes on to describe his chosen scapegoats as cowards with tiny genitals. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not this time. Karlin is doing exactly what he claims white male gun-owners do. That's the logical phallus-y at the center of his argument. He's Not Good Enough When a woman marries young, it's a personal threat to Amanda Marcotte, the Slate blogress who has the hilarious distinction of having been forced to resign in disgrace from the John Edwards campaign. Yesterday Slate's women's section, known as "DoubleX," published a sweet and contrarian essay by Julia Shaw, who became a bride at 23 after initially resisting the idea: I wasn't anti-marriage. I thought I would get married, but it would be later after a flurry of accomplishments. When David and I started dating, his senior year and my sophomore year, I worried he would derail my education. He definitely had all the qualities I wanted in a man: intelligence, ambition, good character, plus he was a true gentleman. Still, I asked him, "You're not asking me out because you want to get married by graduation?" This was a Christian college we went to, so my question was not out of bounds. I still regret those words. Looking back, my artificial, rigid timeline of success almost derailed my real happiness. Marcotte could not let this go unanswered. Within 22 hours she had posted a forceful rebuttal: Watching conservatives desperately try to bully women into younger marriage with a couple of promises and a whole lot of threats is highly entertaining but clearly not persuasive. Women marry later because it makes sense given their own career aspirations. . . . I'm glad young marriage is working out for Shaw, but for the majority of women, dating and cohabitating until they're more sure is working out just fine. If he's good enough to marry, he'll still be around when you're ready to make that leap. That last sentence is a perfect laboratory specimen of feminist rationalization. Consider the Shaw counterfactual--or, if you like, consider the Kate Bolick factual. The man wants to marry, the woman doesn't. It happens not infrequently, as members of both sexes are known to pursue suboptimal reproductive strategies. Best of the Web Today columnist James Taranto on why Princeton alumna Susan Patton was right to suggest that smart women should try to seek out husbands in college. Photos: AP The woman rejects the man's proposal but keeps dating him, or maybe she eventually dumps him, as Bolick did. In due course she changes her mind and decides she would like to spend the

rest of her life with him after all. But by that point he's moved on to someone else, or he's just gotten fed up and he dumps her. Again, here's Marcotte's advice for the young woman: "If he's good enough to marry, he'll still be around when you're ready to make that leap." Let's translate that from feminist-speak to English: If the romance fails, his inadequacy as a man is entirely to blame; you have no responsibility for making it work. If you follow that advice, you're likely to end up alone. Marcotte seems to imagine it will be a consolation that you'll be resentful too. Fox Butterfield, Is That You? "[Susan] Patton's piece is peppered with a number of bold, potentially offensive assertions, but she deserves some credit for offering advice on an important subject that's all too often neglected."--Walter Russell Mead, The-American-Interest.com, April 1 Metaphor Alert "Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said, 'Today's charges demonstrate, once again, that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government. The complaint describes an unappetizing smorgasbord of graft and greed involving six officials who together built a corridor of corruption stretching from Queens and the Bronx to Rockland County and all the way up to Albany itself. As alleged, Senator Malcolm Smith tried to bribe his way to a shot at Gracie Mansion-Smith drew up the game plan and Councilman Halloran essentially quarterbacked that drive by finding party chairmen who were wide open to receiving bribes. After the string of public corruption scandals that we have brought to light, many may rightly resign themselves to the sad truth that perhaps the most powerful special interest in politics is self-interest. We will continue pursuing and punishing every corrupt official we find, but the public corruption crisis in New York is more than a prosecutor's problem.' "--FBI press release, April 2 Out on a Limb
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"The fatal shooting of a north Texas district attorney and his wife, just two months after an assistant district attorney was gunned down near the local courthouse, could have a chilling effect on recruiting future prosecutors, officials said."--Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times website, April 1

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"Police: Couple Dead in Murder-Suicide Both Ailing"--headline, Associated Press, April 2

Charlotte and Harriet Childress are researchers and consultants on social and political issues. They are the co-authors of “Clueless at the Top: While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty, and Happiness,” on outdated hierarchies in American culture. Imagine if African American men and boys were committing mass shootings month after month, year after year. Articles and interviews would flood the media, and we’d have political debates demanding that African Americans be “held accountable.” Then, if an atrocity such as the Newtown, Conn., shootings took place and African American male leaders held a news conference to offer solutions, their credibility would be questionable. The public would tell these leaders that they need to focus on problems in their own culture and communities. But when the criminals and leaders are white men, race and gender become the elephant in the room. Nearly all of the mass shootings in this country in recent years — not just Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Tucson and Columbine — have been committed by white men and boys. Yet when the National Rifle Association (NRA), led by white men, held a news conference after the Newtown massacre to advise Americans on how to reduce gun violence, its leaders’ opinions were widely discussed. Unlike other groups, white men are not used to being singled out. So we expect that many of them will protest it is unfair if we talk about them. But our nation must correctly define their contribution to our problem of gun violence if it is to be solved. When white men try to divert attention from gun control by talking about mental health issues, many people buy into the idea that the United States has a national mental health problem, or flawed systems with which to address those problems, and they think that is what produces mass shootings. But women and girls with mental health issues are not picking up semiautomatic weapons and shooting schoolchildren. Immigrants with mental health issues are not committing mass shootings in malls and movie theaters. Latinos with mental health issues are not continually killing groups of strangers. Each of us is programmed from childhood to believe that the top group of our hierarchies — and in the U.S. culture, that’s white men — represents everyone, so it can feel awkward, even ridiculous, when we try to call attention to those people as a distinct group and hold them accountable. For example, our schools teach American history as the history of everyone in this nation. But the stories we learn are predominantly about white men. To study the history of other groups, people have to take separate classes, such as African American history, women’s history or Native American history. And if we take “Hispanic American History,” we don’t expect to learn “Asian American History,” because a class about anyone but white men is assumed not to be inclusive of anyone else.

This societal and cultural programming makes it easy for conservative, white-male-led groups to convince the nation that an organization led by white men, such as the NRA or the tea party movement, can represent the interests of the entire nation when, in fact, they predominately represent only their own experiences and perspectives. If life were equitable, white male gun-rights advocates would face some serious questions to assess their degree of credibility and objectivity. We would expect them to explain: What facets of white male culture create so many mass shootings? Why are so many white men and boys producing and entertaining themselves with violent video games and other media? Why do white men buy, sell and manufacture guns for profit; attend gun shows; and demonstrate for unrestricted gun access disproportionately more than people of other ethnicities or races? Why are white male congressmen leading the fight against gun control? If Americans ask the right questions on gun issues, we will get the right answers. These answers will encourage white men to examine their role in their own culture and to help other white men and boys become healthier and less violent. David Stockman: 'The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually' By The New York Times, Herald-Tribune / Monday, April 1, 2013 By DAVID A. STOCKMAN GREENWICH, Conn. -- The Dow Jones and Standard & Poor’s 500 indexes reached record highs on Thursday, having completely erased the losses since the stock market’s last peak, in 2007. But instead of cheering, we should be very afraid.

David Stockman

Over the last 13 years, the stock market has twice crashed and touched off a recession: American households lost $5 trillion in the 2000 dot-com bust and more than $7 trillion in the 2007 housing crash. Sooner or later — within a few years, I predict — this latest Wall Street bubble, inflated by an egregious flood of phony money from the Federal Reserve rather than real economic gains, will explode, too. Since the S.&P. 500 first reached its current level, in March 2000, the mad money printers at the Federal Reserve have expanded their balance sheet sixfold (to $3.2 trillion from $500 billion). Yet during that stretch, economic output has grown by an average of 1.7 percent a year (the slowest since the Civil War); real business investment has crawled forward at only 0.8 percent per year; and the payroll job count has crept up at a negligible 0.1 percent annually. Real median family income growth has dropped 8 percent, and the number of full-time middle class jobs, 6 percent. The real net worth of the “bottom” 90 percent has dropped by one-fourth. The number of food stamp and disability aid recipients has more than doubled, to 59 million, about one in five Americans. So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble. When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth. THIS dyspeptic prospect results from the fact that we are now state-wrecked. With only brief interruptions, we’ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy. As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (“clean” energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests. The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralyzed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating

“demand,” even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top 1 percent with speculative windfalls. The culprits are bipartisan, though you’d never guess that from the blather that passes for political discourse these days. The state-wreck originated in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt opted for fiat money (currency not fundamentally backed by gold), economic nationalism and capitalist cartels in agriculture and industry. Under the exigencies of World War II (which did far more to end the Depression than the New Deal did), the state got hugely bloated, but remarkably, the bloat was put into brief remission during a midcentury golden era of sound money and fiscal rectitude with Dwight D. Eisenhower in the White House and William McChesney Martin Jr. at the Fed. Then came Lyndon B. Johnson’s “guns and butter” excesses, which were intensified over one perfidious weekend at Camp David, Md., in 1971, when Richard M. Nixon essentially defaulted on the nation’s debt obligations by finally ending the convertibility of gold to the dollar. That one act — arguably a sin graver than Watergate — meant the end of national financial discipline and the start of a four-decade spree during which we have lived high on the hog, running a cumulative $8 trillion current-account deficit. In effect, America underwent an internal leveraged buyout, raising our ratio of total debt (public and private) to economic output to about 3.6 from its historic level of about 1.6. Hence the $30 trillion in excess debt (more than half the total debt, $56 trillion) that hangs over the American economy today. This explosion of borrowing was the stepchild of the floating-money contraption deposited in the Nixon White House by Milton Friedman, the supposed hero of free-market economics who in fact sowed the seed for a never-ending expansion of the money supply. The Fed, which celebrates its centenary this year, fueled a roaring inflation in goods and commodities during the 1970s that was brought under control only by the iron resolve of Paul A. Volcker, its chairman from 1979 to 1987. Under his successor, the lapsed hero Alan Greenspan, the Fed dropped Friedman’s penurious rules for monetary expansion, keeping interest rates too low for too long and flooding Wall Street with freshly minted cash. What became known as the “Greenspan put” — the implicit assumption that the Fed would step in if asset prices dropped, as they did after the 1987 stockmarket crash — was reinforced by the Fed’s unforgivable 1998 bailout of the hedge fund LongTerm Capital Management. That Mr. Greenspan’s loose monetary policies didn’t set off inflation was only because domestic prices for goods and labor were crushed by the huge flow of imports from the factories of Asia.

By offshoring America’s tradable-goods sector, the Fed kept the Consumer Price Index contained, but also permitted the excess liquidity to foster a roaring inflation in financial assets. Mr. Greenspan’s pandering incited the greatest equity boom in history, with the stock market rising fivefold between the 1987 crash and the 2000 dot-com bust. Soon Americans stopped saving and consumed everything they earned and all they could borrow. The Asians, burned by their own 1997 financial crisis, were happy to oblige us. They — China and Japan above all — accumulated huge dollar reserves, transforming their central banks into a string of monetary roach motels where sovereign debt goes in but never comes out. We’ve been living on borrowed time — and spending Asians’ borrowed dimes. This dynamic reinforced the Reaganite shibboleth that “deficits don’t matter” and the fact that nearly $5 trillion of the nation’s $12 trillion in “publicly held” debt is actually sequestered in the vaults of central banks. The destruction of fiscal rectitude under Ronald Reagan — one reason I resigned as his budget chief in 1985 — was the greatest of his many dramatic acts. It created a template for the Republicans’ utter abandonment of the balanced-budget policies of Calvin Coolidge and allowed George W. Bush to dive into the deep end, bankrupting the nation through two misbegotten and unfinanced wars, a giant expansion of Medicare and a tax-cutting spree for the wealthy that turned K Street lobbyists into the de facto office of national tax policy. In effect, the G.O.P. embraced Keynesianism — for the wealthy. The explosion of the housing market, abetted by phony credit ratings, securitization shenanigans and willful malpractice by mortgage lenders, originators and brokers, has been well documented. Less known is the balance-sheet explosion among the top 10 Wall Street banks during the eight years ending in 2008. Though their tiny sliver of equity capital hardly grew, their dependence on unstable “hot money” soared as the regulatory harness the Glass-Steagall Act had wisely imposed during the Depression was totally dismantled. Within weeks of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008, Washington, with Wall Street’s gun to its head, propped up the remnants of this financial mess in a panic-stricken melee of bailouts and money-printing that is the single most shameful chapter in American financial history. There was never a remote threat of a Great Depression 2.0 or of a financial nuclear winter, contrary to the dire warnings of Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed chairman since 2006. The Great Fear — manifested by the stock market plunge when the House voted down the TARP bailout before caving and passing it — was purely another Wall Street concoction. Had President Bush and his Goldman Sachs adviser (a k a Treasury Secretary) Henry M. Paulson Jr. stood firm, the crisis would have burned out on its own and meted out to speculators the losses they so richly

deserved. The Main Street banking system was never in serious jeopardy, ATMs were not going dark and the money market industry was not imploding. Instead, the White House, Congress and the Fed, under Mr. Bush and then President Obama, made a series of desperate, reckless maneuvers that were not only unnecessary but ruinous. The auto bailouts, for example, simply shifted jobs around — particularly to the aging, electorally vital Rust Belt — rather than saving them. The “green energy” component of Mr. Obama’s stimulus was mainly a nearly $1 billion giveaway to crony capitalists, like the venture capitalist John Doerr and the self-proclaimed outer-space visionary Elon Musk, to make new toys for the affluent. Less than 5 percent of the $800 billion Obama stimulus went to the truly needy for food stamps, earned-income tax credits and other forms of poverty relief. The preponderant share ended up in money dumps to state and local governments, pork-barrel infrastructure projects, business tax loopholes and indiscriminate middle-class tax cuts. The Democratic Keynesians, as intellectually bankrupt as their Republican counterparts (though less hypocritical), had no solution beyond handing out borrowed money to consumers, hoping they would buy a lawn mower, a flat-screen TV or, at least, dinner at Red Lobster. But even Mr. Obama’s hopelessly glib policies could not match the audacity of the Fed, which dropped interest rates to zero and then digitally printed new money at the astounding rate of $600 million per hour. Fast-money speculators have been “purchasing” giant piles of Treasury debt and mortgage-backed securities, almost entirely by using short-term overnight money borrowed at essentially zero cost, thanks to the Fed. Uncle Ben has lined their pockets. If and when the Fed — which now promises to get unemployment below 6.5 percent as long as inflation doesn’t exceed 2.5 percent — even hints at shrinking its balance sheet, it will elicit a tidal wave of sell orders, because even a modest drop in bond prices would destroy the arbitrageurs’ profits. Notwithstanding Mr. Bernanke’s assurances about eventually, gradually making a smooth exit, the Fed is domiciled in a monetary prison of its own making. While the Fed fiddles, Congress burns. Self-titled fiscal hawks like Paul D. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, are terrified of telling the truth: that the 10-year deficit is actually $15 trillion to $20 trillion, far larger than the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of $7 trillion. Its latest forecast, which imagines 16.4 million new jobs in the next decade, compared with only 2.5 million in the last 10 years, is only one of the more extreme examples of Washington’s delusions.

Even a supposedly “bold” measure — linking the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security payments to a different kind of inflation index — would save just $200 billion over a decade, amounting to hardly 1 percent of the problem. Mr. Ryan’s latest budget shamelessly gives Social Security and Medicare a 10-year pass, notwithstanding that a fair portion of their nearly $19 trillion cost over that decade would go to the affluent elderly. At the same time, his proposal for draconian 30 percent cuts over a decade on the $7 trillion safety net — Medicaid, food stamps and the earned-income tax credit — is another front in the G.O.P.’s war against the 99 percent. Without any changes, over the next decade or so, the gross federal debt, now nearly $17 trillion, will hurtle toward $30 trillion and soar to 150 percent of gross domestic product from around 105 percent today. Since our constitutional stasis rules out any prospect of a “grand bargain,” the nation’s fiscal collapse will play out incrementally, like a Greek/Cypriot tragedy, in carefully choreographed crises over debt ceilings, continuing resolutions and temporary budgetary patches. The future is bleak. The greatest construction boom in recorded history — China’s money dump on infrastructure over the last 15 years — is slowing. Brazil, India, Russia, Turkey, South Africa and all the other growing middle-income nations cannot make up for the shortfall in demand. The American machinery of monetary and fiscal stimulus has reached its limits. Japan is sinking into old-age bankruptcy and Europe into welfare-state senescence. The new rulers enthroned in Beijing last year know that after two decades of wild lending, speculation and building, even they will face a day of reckoning, too. THE state-wreck ahead is a far cry from the “Great Moderation” proclaimed in 2004 by Mr. Bernanke, who predicted that prosperity would be everlasting because the Fed had tamed the business cycle and, as late as March 2007, testified that the impact of the subprime meltdown “seems likely to be contained.” Instead of moderation, what’s at hand is a Great Deformation, arising from a rogue central bank that has abetted the Wall Street casino, crucified savers on a cross of zero interest rates and fueled a global commodity bubble that erodes Main Street living standards through rising food and energy prices — a form of inflation that the Fed fecklessly disregards in calculating inflation. These policies have brought America to an end-stage metastasis. The way out would be so radical it can’t happen. It would necessitate a sweeping divorce of the state and the market economy. It would require a renunciation of crony capitalism and its first cousin: Keynesian economics in all its forms. The state would need to get out of the business of imperial hubris, economic uplift and social insurance and shift its focus to managing and financing an effective, affordable, means-tested safety net.

All this would require drastic deflation of the realm of politics and the abolition of incumbency itself, because the machinery of the state and the machinery of re-election have become conterminous. Prying them apart would entail sweeping constitutional surgery: amendments to give the president and members of Congress a single six-year term, with no re-election; providing 100 percent public financing for candidates; strictly limiting the duration of campaigns (say, to eight weeks); and prohibiting, for life, lobbying by anyone who has been on a legislative or executive payroll. It would also require overturning Citizens United and mandating that Congress pass a balanced budget, or face an automatic sequester of spending. It would also require purging the corrosive financialization that has turned the economy into a giant casino since the 1970s. This would mean putting the great Wall Street banks out in the cold to compete as at-risk free enterprises, without access to cheap Fed loans or deposit insurance. Banks would be able to take deposits and make commercial loans, but be banned from trading, underwriting and money management in all its forms. It would require, finally, benching the Fed’s central planners, and restoring the central bank’s original mission: to provide liquidity in times of crisis but never to buy government debt or try to micromanage the economy. Getting the Fed out of the financial markets is the only way to put free markets and genuine wealth creation back into capitalism. That, of course, will never happen because there are trillions of dollars of assets, from Shanghai skyscrapers to Fortune 1000 stocks to the latest housing market “recovery,” artificially propped up by the Fed’s interest-rate repression. The United States is broke — fiscally, morally, intellectually — and the Fed has incited a global currency war (Japan just signed up, the Brazilians and Chinese are angry, and the German-dominated euro zone is crumbling) that will soon overwhelm it. When the latest bubble pops, there will be nothing to stop the collapse. If this sounds like advice to get out of the markets and hide out in cash, it is. David A. Stockman is a former Republican congressman from Michigan, President Ronald Reagan’s budget director from 1981 to 1985 and the author, most recently, of “The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America.” DHS buying billions of rounds of ammunition in order to "significantly lower costs." NaturalNews) Responding to a letter from Sen. Tom Coburn, the Department of Homeland Security -- an agency that has no business being armed in the first place -- says it's buying billions of rounds of ammunition in order to "significantly lower costs." It's all about saving money, you see. DHS isn't arming up in anticipation of a shooting war on the

streets of America, and it's not buying thousands of armored assault vehicles for that purpose either. No, DHS is only buying all this ammo to save you money! This response by DHS, of course, is an obvious lie. Why? Because a significant portion of the bullet purchases specify hollow point rounds. In case you didn't know, hollow points are significantly MORE expensive than "ball" ammo (FMJ). Under the Geneva convention, hollow points are illegal to use in war because they cause far greater tissue damage, too. So they can only be used domestically, inside the United States in a civil action, not an international war. If DHS really wanted to "significantly lower costs" on ammunition, it would have purchased FMJ rounds (full metal jacket), not hollow points. But in April of 2012, ammunition manufacturer ATK announced it had been awarded a DHS purchase contract for 450 million rounds of hollow point .40 caliber ammo. That's almost half a billion rounds right there, and they're all hollow point rounds. The press release claimed, "The special hollow point effectively passes through a variety of barriers and holds its jacket in the toughest conditions." You can read the full original press release at Infowars.com. The press release on the ATK website, by the way, has been modified to remove any mention of "450 million rounds." Read it here: http://www.atk.com/news-releases/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-co... First it was a conspiracy theory that the bullets existed... now it's a verified fact that billions of rounds are being purchased Infowars.com initially publicized this story. With the outstanding reporting of Kurt Nimmo, Paul Joseph Watson, Alex Jones and others, the alternative media forced this story into the mainstream. But for most of 2012, anyone who claimed DHS was purchasing all this ammo was labeled a "conspiracy theorist" by the leftist delusional media which somehow believed that all this hardware being purchased by DHS was imaginary. Over time, of course, as all the contracts came out and the proof was undeniable, the mainstream media was forced to admit it wasn't a conspiracy theory after all. A Forbes.com report that called for a "national conversation" signalled a breakthrough in mainstream awareness of the issue, and it was soon followed by members of Congress demanding answers from DHS. The cover stories collapse The first response from DHS was that there were no bullets. They didn't exist. The contracts were purely fictional and DHS had no intention of actually taking delivery on any bullets. When that cover story was exposed as an obvious lie, the story shifted to its current distortion:

"We bought all that ammo to save you money!" (By the way, where are the apologies to all of us who first reported the DHS ammo purchases and were called conspiracy theorists for breaking the story on now-verified facts?) Ah, so now the bullets DO exist after all, but we should all be thankful DHS is buying all these bullets because it's a wonderful example of fiscal responsibility, you see. Because when a government is economically on the verge of collapse, operated by criminals and destroying the liberties of the people, the most important way to "save money" is to load up on billions of rounds of ammo. It makes perfect sense, does it not? But now the "saving money" cover story is also collapsing due to the fact that most of the bullets purchased are hollow point rounds, and hollow point rounds are the most expensive rounds you can buy. This includes hundreds of thousands of sniper rounds, by the way, which are specified in the purchase contracts as "BTHP" -- meaning "Boat Tail Hollow Point." These sniper rounds are long-range bullets with remarkable flight stability. Depending on the ballistics coefficients and muzzle velocities, some of these bullets have ranges of well over one mile. Exactly who does DHS need to shoot with hollow point bullets at a range of one mile? Private citizens are buying 50 million rounds EACH WEEK According to my sources, private citizens across the USA have been buying up far larger quantities of ammo than DHS. At peak production, U.S. ammunition manufacturers can produce nearly one billion rounds of ammo each week. Most of that production goes straight to the Pentagon for military use. But roughly one-twentieth of it is available for the law enforcement and civilian markets. That comes to 50 million rounds each week being placed on the market. Most of this is being frantically bought up by individual gun owners. Most ammo doesn't even make it to store shelves, as full pallets are being trucked off in back lots mere minutes after they arrive at gun shops and retailers. If these numbers are accurate -- and I'm not 100% sure of their accuracy yet -- this means U.S. civilians could be buying up to 2.4 billion rounds of ammo in a year's time, outpacing even DHS ammo purchases. Even more impressively, private citizens are buying up millions of guns each month. All these hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo and millions of firearms are being hidden away until they are needed. It doesn't take long to realize what's really happening here: a massive arms race is underway in America. Rest assured that gun purchasers are not buying guns just so they can turn them in. They are not buying ammo just to turn around and register it with the government. They are not buying 30-round magazines for the purpose of registering them with the criminal, traitorous lawmakers of states like Connecticut. They are buying guns and ammo in order to prepare an armed defense against a corrupt, criminal government that has abandoned the rule of law (the

Constitution) and is now aggressively stripping Americans of their guaranteed fundamental rights (the Bill of Rights). Citizens should stockpile ammo just like DHS If it comes to a shooting war, private citizens are allies of sheriffs, veterans and many members of law enforcement, including many federal officers. Entire communities will likely band together to defend themselves against federal coercion or even UN troops attempting to overtake and occupy American cities. Informed Americans know that stockpiling ammo is a wise activity, especially given the likely need to help arm your local sheriffs deputies who are sworn to help defend your community against tyranny. (www.OathKeepers.org) Additionally, stockpiling ammo is exactly what the government is doing, so if anybody asks why you and I are stockpiling ammo, our answer can be exactly the same as DHS: "We're doing it to significantly lower costs by purchasing in bulk!" Thus, the argument that individuals don't "need" all that ammo falls flat on its face. "Need" is not a requirement in the eyes of the government. The only justification necessary is a claim to be "saving money" no matter how much ammo is being stockpiled. The next time someone asks you why you "need" an AR-15, just reply, "I'm buying them in bulk to significantly lower costs, just like our government!" The same retort can be used to justify purchases of armored vehicles and long-range sniper rounds, too. The left will never see the bullets coming Shockingly, voters on the left who are terrified that individuals might stockpile ammo are mysteriously quite comfortable that DHS is doing exactly that on a much larger scale. Individuals are not to be trusted in a socialist nation, you see. Only the government can be trusted, they believe. Little do these people know that most of these DHS bullets are ultimately meant for them. The first place DHS will set up operations will be the high-density cities, where status quo residents are surprisingly easy to be rounded up, marched to the edge of open pits, then ordered to thank their government executioners while being shot in the head with .40 caliber hollow point bullets that were "purchased in bulk to save money!" Rejoice! Mass murder has never been so affordable. You may not think any of this could possibly happen, but then again, you probably didn't think DHS was buying 2+ billion rounds of ammo when we first reported it. (I'm talking to newer visitors now, not long-time Natural News readers.) Like most people, you are hopelessly ignorant of reality, and you have bet your life on the lies of a criminal government that places no value whatsoever on your existence. You live in a never-ending state of denial because the zone of denial is far more comfortable than facing the truth that your own government is arming against you, amassing enough ammunition and armored assault vehicles to wage a 20-year war on the streets of America, all while gutting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (to the cheers

of the socialist left). If you believe DHS is buying all this just for "training purposes," you are a fool. Any organization that needs two billion rounds of ammunition to "train" is a standing army. Two billion rounds of ammunition in the hands of a corrupt, criminal government does not create "security." America is raising a generation of interns "People my age expect to start at the bottom," says one 25-year-old. "But in this economy the bottom keeps getting lower and lower." By Hannah Seligson | March 30, 2013

IN MANY WAYS, Kate is a perfect reflection of the opportunities and hardships of being young today. She's smart and motivated and has a degree from an Ivy League school, yet at 25 she worries she'll never attain the status or lifestyle of her boomer parents. She majored in political science and has a burnished social conscience, something she honed teaching creative writing in a women's prison. But Kate's most salient — and at this point, defining — generational trait might be that she doesn't have a full-time job. Instead, she has been an intern for a year and a half. She had one internship at a political organization and another at a media company and is now an unpaid intern at a lobbying firm. To make ends meet, she works as a hostess three or four nights a week, which means she often clocks 15-hour days. "I don't mean to sound like I have an ego, but I am an intelligent, hard-working person," Kate says. "Someone would be happy they hired me." It's a refrain heard many times from the millions of 20-something Kates who are scrambling to find jobs with a steady paycheck and benefits. After all, who wants to still be an intern at an age when you should have a 401(k) and a modicum of job security, or at least be earning more than you did at your summer job during high school? "People my age expect to start at the bottom," Kate says, "but in this economy the bottom keeps getting lower and lower." When I ask Kate how many jobs she's applied for, she says, "Like a million." Desperate as she is, the Department of Labor doesn't consider her to be unemployed, because she has two jobs. Instead, Kate, who often works more than 60 hours a week, is in a class of workers who don't show up in government reports. She's one of the "permaterns" — those perpetual interns, mostly in their 20s — who have been battered by the recession and are holding out hope that the conventional career wisdom that an internship leads to a job isn't folklore from a bygone era.

The serial intern isn't unique to D.C. You can find young people languishing at film studios in Los Angeles and magazine empires in New York City. The permatern phenomenon points toward wider trends in the economy — namely the cutthroat competition for knowledgeeconomy jobs, the lack of investment in this generation, and the skills gap between what a generation weaned on a liberal-arts education is trained for and what the in-demand skills and professions are right now (i.e., not another poli-sci or English major). The result? For many in Washington, the American dream starts with a highbrow internship that pays $4.35 an hour — then another, and maybe another. That's how much Jessica Schulberg, 22, made for the 10 months she worked at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a haven for academics and journalists researching public-policy issues. Every month, before taxes, Jessica was paid a stipend of $700, supplemented by waitressing and bartending. "I felt like 10 months was a long time to be there," says Jessica. But with only a bachelor's degree, she felt she wasn't qualified for many entry-level jobs, a suspicion confirmed by numerous rejections. The places where she was applying — think tanks and nonprofits — were all "receiving a million applications from people just like me," she says. So Jessica went with plan B: two years of graduate school to earn a master's in international politics. A partial scholarship made the decision easier, but Jessica says she'll have to go into debt to cover some of the $50,000 a year in tuition. She'll graduate next year. Somewhat amazingly, Jessica is upbeat about her situation. The internship at the Wilson Center made her feel like one of the lucky ones. During her stint, she assisted foreign-policy heavyweights like Michael Adler, a foreign correspondent for Agence France-Presse, on a book about diplomacy in Iran. She did research for Mark Mazzetti, a national-security correspondent for The New York Times. WHEN DID "LUCKY" become working for below minimum wage for months? Jessica doesn't pause when I ask her this — it's clearly a bargain she has mulled many times: "You either do what you like to do for free or you have an entry-level job for $25,000 where you answer the phone and are someone's assistant." Has it always been this hard to break into even the most competitive jobs in D.C.? In a word, no. Take Mazzetti, 38, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. When he was starting out, Mazzetti interned at The Economist's Washington bureau. "In the old days, there were internships in journalism that gave paths to more regular jobs," he says. His internship turned into a position that sent him to Austin. "I could pay the rent, and it was a blast," he recalls. "It does seem like, in general, it is harder to get anything full-time and permanent in Washington now because of the economy," Mazzetti says. "Young and incredibly smart people have to take jobs for no money or very little money."

Internship coordinators around town say they're seeing more applicants with advanced degrees and previous internships than in the past. But the full-time jobs that are supposed to follow a prestigious internship aren't as plentiful as they once were. A 2012 study by consulting firm Millennial Branding found that while 91 percent of the 225 surveyed employers said students should have one to two internships before they graduate, half of the employers hadn't hired any interns in the previous six months. In other words, internships don't always lead to a job offer. Those internships that offer a path to a full-time position are that much more competitive. At the Atlantic Media Co., which publishes The Atlantic and several other magazines, a high percentage of fellows move into other roles in the organization. But an internship at the company is among the toughest to land: The company receives 1,000 résumés for 25 positions. That's about a 2 percent acceptance rate. After hearing these numbers, I began to understand why Jessica felt lucky. Maybe she is fortunate to be earning $4.35 an hour at her ivory-tower job while she works nights and weekends as a waitress. Maybe a 10-month paid internship followed by graduate school and then perhaps another internship is the new lucky, particularly at a time when so many young people can't find work at all. Still, I wondered: Where was the anger at the injustice that a smart young woman couldn't find a permanent job and had to keep prolonging her $4.35-an-hour internship? "I don't think you can be angry," Jessica says. "It's just how it is. People older than me are struggling." Ross Perlin, 29, author of Intern Nation, views the situation as much more insidious. "Low-paid and unpaid work is the new normal," Perlin says, "and if you can't do those internships you may be totally shut out of certain fields. How is that fair?" The economics of being a permatern are pretty brutal. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Jessica can stay on her parents' health insurance until she's 26, defraying a major expense. Without that safety net, it's unclear what she'd do — either forgo health insurance or ask for a subsidy from her parents, who can afford mini-bailouts for their daughter. The job market hasn't always been structured in a way that requires college graduates to work for less than a barista for months or years on end. Perlin says that before the internship boom, in the 1950s and '60s, the expectation was that employers would invest in young people and that they, in turn, would pay the investment back by becoming taxpayers and active members of society. "There has been a cultural shift toward something more sinister — that you have to invest in yourself and we are each out there on our own," Perlin explains. "There is no idea of a social investment in our promising young people. Increasingly, you invest in your own human capital or your family does. There is no sense of shared responsibility." BUT AREN'T THERE jobs for the hordes of serial interns? Don't they just need to lower their sights? No one, after all, is forcing them into professions that make getting into Harvard look

easy. Isn't this just another example of the entitled Gen Y attitude that sees some work as beneath them? Kate maintains she isn't holding out for the perfect job but will wait until she gets a careerbuilding job — a luxury she has as the child of 1960s idealists, and, more important, one with no student loans. And she points out that, according to a recent poll, her college major — political science — is among the least employable due to a saturation in the marketplace. Not everyone in the generation meets such a fate. Jessica's brother, who is 28 and a mechanical aerospace engineer, has been gainfully employed since the day he graduated from college, Jessica says. So here's another chasm in the 20-something cohort: the one between the liberalarts kids and the engineering and science majors. "Engineering is an in-demand skill," Jessica says. "International relations/policy kids are a dime a dozen, so the intern pay difference makes sense in that regard." The expectation that one's career should be fulfilling is another reason why the mid-20s, or even early-30s, intern has become a familiar sight in Washington offices. "People in this generation, despite the recession, are looking for what they really want to do, so they take a hit in the form of an internship to land one of those coveted jobs that pays the bills and is fun," says Ryan Healy of career-advice site BrazenCareerist.com. But Aaron Smith of youth-advocacy organization Young Invincibles sees permaterns to be more a result of the economic rug's being pulled out from under this generation. "The economy needs to add a really high number of youth jobs over the next 10 years to get us back to where we were before," he says. Like others, Smith sees a mismatch between the jobs that are available and what young people are seeking and trained for. "There is a huge demand for [people in science, engineering, and math], and we don't produce enough of those graduates to fill that need," Smith says. "Students need to be more cognizant of the labor market." But as long as Washington continues to be a hub of politics, media, nonprofits, and development agencies, young people will continue to flock here to elbow their way into the region's übercompetitive ecosystems. They just might find that interning for a year or two is part of the long, hard slog into the permanent, full-time workforce. Or they'll give up or go with plan B. On the bright side, Lauren Berger, founder of InternQueen.com, a website that helps students find internships, says she isn't seeing serial interns as much as she did during the peak of the recession in 2008 and 2009. She says that when she gets emails from people who have been interning for four years, she replies, "Enough with the internships already." If only some had that choice.

Domestic drones and their unique dangers Dismissive claims that drones do nothing more than helicopters and satellites already do are wildly misinformed
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Glenn Greenwald guardian.co.uk, Friday 29 March 2013 10.48 EDT

AR Drone: almost certainly the world's first Wi-Fi enabled iPhone-controllable miniature flying device. The use of drones by domestic US law enforcement agencies is growing rapidly, both in terms of numbers and types of usage. As a result, civil liberties and privacy groups led by the ACLU while accepting that domestic drones are inevitable - have been devoting increasing efforts to publicizing their unique dangers and agitating for statutory limits. These efforts are being impeded by those who mock the idea that domestic drones pose unique dangers (often the same people who mock concern over their usage on foreign soil). This dismissive posture is grounded not only in soft authoritarianism (a religious-type faith in the Goodness of US political leaders and state power generally) but also ignorance over current drone capabilities, the ways drones are now being developed and marketed for domestic use, and the activities of the increasingly powerful domestic drone lobby. So it's quite worthwhile to lay out the key under-discussed facts shaping this issue. I'm going to focus here most on domestic surveillance drones, but I want to say a few words about weaponized drones. The belief that weaponized drones won't be used on US soil is patently irrational. Of course they will be. It's not just likely but inevitable. Police departments are already speaking openly about how their drones "could be equipped to carry nonlethal weapons such as Tasers or a bean-bag gun." The drone industry has already developed and is now aggressively marketing precisely such weaponized drones for domestic law enforcement use. It likely won't be in the form that has received the most media attention: the type of large Predator or Reaper drones that shoot Hellfire missiles which destroy homes and cars in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and multiple other countries aimed at Muslims (although US law enforcement agencies already possess Predator drones and have used them over US soil for surveillance).

Instead, as I detailed in a 2012 examination of the drone industry's own promotional materials and reports to their shareholders, domestic weaponized drones will be much smaller and cheaper, as well as more agile - but just as lethal. The nation's leading manufacturer of small "unmanned aircraft systems" (UAS), used both for surveillance and attack purposes, is AeroVironment, Inc. (AV). Its 2011 Annual Report filed with the SEC repeatedly emphasizes that its business strategy depends upon expanding its market from foreign wars to domestic usage including law enforcement:

AV's annual report added: "Initial likely non-military users of small UAS include public safety organizations such as law enforcement agencies. . . ." These domestic marketing efforts are intensifying with the perception that US spending on foreign wars will decrease. As a February, 2013 CBS News report noted, focusing on AV's surveillance drones:

"Now, drones are headed off the battlefield. They're already coming your way. "AeroVironment, the California company that sells the military something like 85 percent of its fleet, is marketing them now to public safety agencies." Like many drone manufacturers, AV is now focused on drone products - such as the "Qube" that are so small that they can be "transported in the trunk of a police vehicle or carried in a backpack" and assembled and deployed within a matter of minutes. One news report AV touts is headlined "Drone technology could be coming to a Police Department near you", which focuses on the Qube.

But another article prominently touted on AV's website describes the tiny UAS product dubbed the "Switchblade", which, says the article, is "the leading edge of what is likely to be the broader, even wholesale, weaponization of unmanned systems." The article creepily hails the Switchblade drone as "the ultimate assassin bug". That's because, as I wrote back in 2011, "it is controlled by the operator at the scene, and it worms its way around buildings and into small areas, sending its surveillance imagery to an i-Pad held by the operator, who can then direct the Switchblade to lunge toward and kill the target (hence the name) by exploding in his face." AV's website right now proudly touts a February, 2013 Defense News article describing how much the US Army loves the "Switchblade" and how it is preparing to purchase more. Time Magazine heralded this tiny drone weapon as "one of the best inventions of 2012", gushing: "the Switchblade drone can be carried into battle in a backpack. It's a kamikaze: the person controlling it uses a real-time video feed from the drone to crash it into a precise target - say, a sniper. Its tiny warhead detonates on impact." What possible reason could someone identify as to why these small, portable weaponized UAS products will not imminently be used by federal, state and local law enforcement agencies in the US? They're designed to protect their users in dangerous situations and to enable a target to be more easily killed. Police agencies and the increasingly powerful drone industry will tout their utility in capturing and killing dangerous criminals and their ability to keep officers safe, and media reports will do the same. The handful of genuinely positive uses from drones will be endlessly touted to distract attention away from the dangers they pose. One has to be incredibly naïve to think that these "assassin bugs" and other lethal drone products will not be widely used on US soil by an already para-militarized domestic police force. As Radley Balko's forthcoming book "Rise of the Warrior Cop" details, the primary trend in US law enforcement is what its title describes as "The Militarization of America's Police Forces". The history of domestic law enforcement particularly after 9/11 has been the importation of military techniques and weapons into domestic policing. It would be shocking if these weapons were not imminently used by domestic law enforcement agencies. In contrast to weaponized drones, even the most naïve among us do not doubt the imminent proliferation of domestic surveillance drones. With little debate, they have already arrived. As the ACLU put it in their recent report: "US law enforcement is greatly expanding its use of domestic drones for surveillance." An LA Times article from last month reported that "federal authorities have stepped up efforts to license surveillance drones for law enforcement and other uses in US airspace" and that "the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday it had issued 1,428 permits to domestic drone operators since 2007, far more than were previously known." Moreover, the agency "has estimated 10,000 drones could be aloft five years later" and "local and state law enforcement agencies are expected to be among the largest customers." Concerns about the proliferation of domestic surveillance drones are typically dismissed with the claim that they do nothing more than police helicopters and satellites already do. Such claims are completely misinformed. As the ACLU's 2011 comprehensive report on domestic drones explained: "Unmanned aircraft carrying cameras raise the prospect of a significant new avenue for the surveillance of American life."

Multiple attributes of surveillance drones make them uniquely threatening. Because they are so cheap and getting cheaper, huge numbers of them can be deployed to create ubiquitous surveillance in a way that helicopters or satellites never could. How this works can already been seen in Afghanistan, where the US military has dubbed its drone surveillance system "the Gorgon Stare", named after the "mythical Greek creature whose unblinking eyes turned to stone those who beheld them". That drone surveillance system is "able to scan an area the size of a small town" and "the most sophisticated robotics use artificial intelligence that [can] seek out and record certain kinds of suspicious activity". Boasted one US General: "Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we're looking at, and we can see everything." The NSA already maintains ubiquitous surveillance of electronic communications, but the Surveillance State faces serious limits on its ability to replicate that for physical surveillance. Drones easily overcome those barriers. As the ACLU report put it:

I've spoken previously about why a ubiquitous Surveillance State ushers in unique and deeply harmful effects on human behavior and a nation's political culture and won't repeat that here (here's the video (also embedded below) and the transcript of one speech where I focus on how that works). Suffice to say, as the ACLU explains in its domestic drone report: "routine aerial surveillance would profoundly change the character of public life in America" because only drone technology enables such omnipresent physical surveillance. Beyond that, the tiny size of surveillance drones enables them to reach places that helicopters obviously cannot, and to do so without detection. They can remain in the sky, hovering over a single place, for up to 20 hours, a duration that is always increasing - obviously far more than manned helicopters can achieve. As AV's own report put it (see page 11), their hovering capability also means they can surveil a single spot for much longer than many military satellites, most of which move with the earth's rotation (the few satellites that remain fixed "operate nearly 25,000 miles from the surface of the earth, therefore limiting the bandwidth they can provide and requiring relatively larger, higher power ground stations"). In sum, surveillance drones enable a pervasive, stealth and constantly hovering Surveillance State that is now well beyond the technological and financial abilities of law enforcement agencies. One significant reason why this proliferation of domestic drones has become so likely is the emergence of a powerful drone lobby. I detailed some of how that lobby is functioning here, so will simply note this passage from a recent report from the ACLU of Iowa on its attempts to persuade legislators to enact statutory limits on the use of domestic drones:

"Drones have their own trade group, the Association for Unmanned Aerial Systems International, which includes some of the nation's leading aerospace companies. And Congress now has 'drone caucuses' in both the Senate and House." Howie Klein has been one of the few people focusing on the massive amounts of money from the drone industry now flowing into the coffers of key Congressional members from both parties in this "drone caucus". Suffice to say, there is an enormous profit to be made from exploiting the domestic drone market, and as usual, that factor is thus far driving the (basically nonexistent) political response to these threats. What is most often ignored by drone proponents, or those who scoff at anti-drone activism, are the unique features of drones: the way they enable more warfare, more aggression, and more surveillance. Drones make war more likely precisely because they entail so little risk to the warmaking country. Similarly, while the propensity of drones to kill innocent people receives the bulk of media attention, the way in which drones psychologically terrorize the population simply by constantly hovering over them: unseen but heard - is usually ignored, because it's not happening in the US, so few people care (see this AP report from yesterday on how the increasing use of drone attacks in Afghanistan is truly terrorizing local villagers). It remains to be seen how Americans will react to drones constantly hovering over their homes and their childrens' schools, though by that point, their presence will be so institutionalized that it will be likely be too late to stop. Notably, this may be one area where an actual bipartisan/trans-partisan alliance can meaningfully emerge, as most advocates working on these issues with whom I've spoken say that libertarianminded GOP state legislators have been as responsive as more left-wing Democratic ones in working to impose some limits. One bill now pending in Congress would prohibit the use of surveillance drones on US soil in the absence of a specific search warrant, and has bipartisan support. Only the most authoritarian among us will be incapable of understanding the multiple dangers posed by a domestic drone regime (particularly when their party is in control of the government and they are incapable of perceiving threats from increased state police power). But the proliferation of domestic drones affords a real opportunity to forge an enduring coalition in defense of core privacy and other rights that transcends partisan allegiance, by working toward meaningful limits on their use. Making people aware of exactly what these unique threats are from a domestic drone regime is the key first step in constructing that coalition. Harms from the Surveillance State One of the most difficult challenges in all discussions of privacy rights is articulating what most people instinctively already know: why privacy is so vital and why a ubiquitous Surveillance State is so destructive. Here is the speech I gave last year in Chicago in which I attempted to articulate those reasons

Modern History Sourcebook: Benito Mussolini: What is Fascism, 1932

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) over the course of his lifetime went from Socialism - he was editor of Avanti, a socialist newspaper - to the leadership of a new political movement called "fascism" [after "fasces", the symbol of bound sticks used a totem of power in ancient Rome]. Mussolini came to power after the "March on Rome" in 1922, and was appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel. In 1932 Mussolini wrote (with the help of Giovanni Gentile) and entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism. Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death.... ...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after... ...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society.... After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage.... ...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...Given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State.... The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State.... ...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.... ...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.

This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history. Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.

Obamacare Already Starts Collapsing Into Medical-Industry Feeding Frenzy Posted on April 3, 2013 by WashingtonsBlog Eric Zuesse. Part of the Obama Administration’s promise to the American people regarding Obamacare was that the enormous waste in America’s medical expenses would be reduced. The reversal of that promise has already begun, with the Administration’s announcement on April 1st, that is will increase instead of (as had been promised) decrease, taxpayer subsidies to private health insurance companies. Estimates of this waste already range generally around 40%. On 15 May 2007, Reuters headlined “US Health Care Expensive, Inefficient: Report,” and announced: “Americans get the poorest health care and yet pay the most compared to five other rich countries,” according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund. “The U.S. health care system ranks last compared with five other countries on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes.” In other words, the U.S. was paying gold for garbage. “Canada rates second worst. … Germany scored highest, followed by Britain, Australia and New Zealand.” Moreover: “Per capita health spending in the United States in 2004 was $6,102, twice that of [top-rated] Germany, which spent 3,005. Canada spent $3,165, New Zealand $2,083 and Australia $2,876, while Britain spent $2,546 per person.” On top of that: “U.S. doctors are the least wired, with the lowest percentage using electronic medical records or receiving electronic updates on recommended treatments.” The conservatives’ myth that “free market” healthcare is more efficient, or is better, or is even more “wired,” than socialized health insurance, benefits only the corporate providers within the system, and the stockholders of those corporations. [Comment by Washington's Blog: We don't think capitalism is the problem ... Indeed, we don't even have free market capitalism in America today. Instead, we have fascism, communist style socialism, kleptocracy, oligarchy or banana republic style corruption ... choose your label. Also, while Mr. Zuesse is passionately progressive, we are trying to follow the Founding Fathers' advice to be non-partisan.] Everyone else loses. On 14 March 2012, the Journal of the American Medical Association, headlined “Eliminating Waste in US Health Care,” and estimated that the waste amounted to somewhere between 21% and 47% of the total U.S. medical expenses, mixed public and private. One of the most wasteful parts of the entire system now is Medicare Part D “Advantage” private supplemental insurance plans, which are heavily subsidized by U.S. taxpayers, and yet, on

average, still are costlier to Medicare recipients than is the government-run Part B program. On 25 July 2008, the Los Angeles Times bannered “Medicare Part D a Boon for Drug Companies, House Report Says: Taxpayers pay up to 30% more for prescriptions under the privately administered program” than under the publicly administered one, and Nicole Gaouette reported that, “U.S. drug manufacturers are reaping a windfall from taxpayers because Medicare’s privately administered prescription drug benefit program pays more than other government programs for the same medicines. … In the two years Medicare Part D has been in effect, drug manufacturers have taken in $3.7 billion more than they would have through prices under the Medicaid program.” For example, “Bristol-Myers made an additional $400 million from higher prices for a single drug, the stroke medication Plavix.” Part D, including “Advantage,” was sold by President George W. Bush to Congress on the basis of the President’s estimate that it would add “only” $395 billion to the deficit during its first ten years. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who had previously been the head of Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors, was now the head of the Congressional Budget Office, and on 20 November 2003, right before the crucial House vote, he wrote to Congress, “CBO estimates that enacting the legislation would result in direct spending outlays totaling $395 billion.” This figure was crucial, because opponents had already said that any such legislation which would cost more than $400 billion (these were ten-year estimates, 2004-2013) would be unacceptable. Two months after the legislation was passed, the White House Budget Director revised that cost-estimate upward to the range of $534-$551 billion. Then, on 11 March 2004, Tony Pugh of Knight Ridder Newspapers headlined “Bush Administration Ordered Medicare Plan Cost Estimates Withheld,” and he opened: “The government’s top expert on Medicare costs [Richard S. Foster] was warned that he would be fired if he told key lawmakers about a series of Bush administration cost estimates that could have torpedoed congressional passage of the White House-backed Medicare prescriptiondrug plan.” On 2 April 2004, the Los Angeles Times headlined “Medicare Secrecy Inquiry Is Silenced: House Republicans stop Democrats from delving further into why the prescription drug bill’s true cost estimates were kept from Congress.” On 9 February 2005, the White House reestimated what this legislation would cost the federal Government over ten years: $720 billion. That’s $320 billion more than congressmen had been promised when they voted to pass the legislation. (Almost no Democrats voted to pass it, but Republicans needed this cover from the Administration – “only $395 billion” – so that they could justify this program when speaking about it to their constituents.) So, now with a Democratic President, on a 15 February 2013 Friday night news dump, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced a 2.3% reduction in subsidies to

insurers who provide plans under Part D. This was supposed to be part of the cost-efficiencies in Obamacare, and an important part of the projected reductions in the growth of the federal debt. But then, after lots of lobbying by those insurers, CMS reversed itself on April 1st, and said that instead those subsidies would increase 3.3%. Reuters headlined on April 2nd, “In Reversal, US to Raise Medicare Advantage Payment Rate,” and announced, “In a reversal that followed intense lobbying from the health insurance industry,” the CMS “said on Monday it will increase the rate by 3.3 percent in 2014, reversing a 2.3 percent cut announced in February.” The many “free market” fans of increasing this Republican federal subsidy to big businesses were applauding. At fool.com, Sean Williams bannered “The Insurance Industry Shows Obamacare Who’s Boss,” and exulted “The insurance industry effectively dictated itself a raise.” He pointed out that Humana, Universal American, UnitedHealth, and Health Net, “generate 63.5%, 75%, 25%, and 25%, respectively, of their revenue from Medicare Advantage.” He didn’t note, however, that this “revenue” comes from enormous subsidies that are paid by U.S. taxpayers to those companies. CNN headlined on April 2nd, “Health Insurance Stocks Surge on Medicare Rate Hike,” and reported that all insurers jumped at least 4%, and “Humana, which has the greatest exposure to Medicare Advantage, jumped nearly 10%.” This is how America’s “free market” works. But it is also how Americans spend twice as much per person and receive inferior health care, as compared to other industrialized countries. And now, with Obamacare, it is how these subsidies will be increased, not reduced, and the federal government’s debt will rise even higher than is being projected, while the largest corporations will thrive. So: President Obama is working, as he has since he first became President, with Republicans in Congress to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. After all, Humana, UnitedHealth, and other health insurance companies – and the mega-banks on Wall Street – all need that money. “Entitlement” recipients shouldn’t be so “greedy.” They need to share more of it with the megabanks and the corporations in the DJI and S&P. Every mass shooting over last 20 years has one thing in common... and it's not guns Tuesday, April 02, 2013 by Mike Adams The following is a republishing of an important article written by Dan Roberts from AmmoLand.com. It reveals the real truth about mass shootings that bureaucrats and lawmakers are choosing to sweep under the rug: psychiatric drugs. If you want to know the real reason why mass shootings are taking place, this is the "inconvenient truth" the media won't cover.

As part of a collective grassroots effort to defend the Bill of Rights against usurpers and tyrants, Natural News is republishing this article without asking for permission first. When it comes to fighting tyrants and defending liberty, the unstated agreement across the entire liberty-loving grassroots community is, "Use our articles; help spread the word!" Every article I write here on Natural News, for example, may be reprinted with credit and a link back to the original source article on NaturalNews.com. Here's the full article by Dan Roberts: (Ammoland.com) Nearly every mass shooting incident in the last twenty years, and multiple other instances of suicide and isolated shootings all share one thing in common, and its not the weapons used. The overwhelming evidence points to the signal largest common factor in all of these incidents is the fact that all of the perpetrators were either actively taking powerful psychotropic drugs or had been at some point in the immediate past before they committed their crimes. Multiple credible scientific studies going back more then a decade, as well as internal documents from certain pharmaceutical companies that suppressed the information show that SSRI drugs ( Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors ) have well known, but unreported side effects, including but not limited to suicide and other violent behavior. One need only Google relevant key words or phrases to see for themselves. www.ssristories.com is one popular site that has documented over 4500 " Mainstream Media " reported cases from around the World of aberrant or violent behavior by those taking these powerful drugs. The following list of mass shooting perpetrators and the drugs they were taking or had been taking shortly before their horrific actions was compiled and published to Facebook by John Noveske, founder and owner of Noveske Rifleworks just days before he was mysteriously killed in a single car accident. Is there a link between Noveske's death and his "outting" of information numerous disparate parties would prefer to suppress, for a variety of reasons? I leave that to the individual readers to decide. But there is most certainly a documented history of people who "knew too much" or were considered a "threat" dying under extraordinarily suspicious circumstances. From Katherine Smith, a Tennessee DMV worker who was somehow involved with several 9/11 hijackers obtaining Tennessee Drivers Licenses, and was later found burned to death in her car, to Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Gary Webb, who exposed a CIA Operation in the 80's that resulted in the flooding of LA Streets with crack cocaine and was later found dead from two gunshot wounds to the head, but was officially ruled as a "suicide", to Frank Olson, a senior research micro biologist who was working on the CIA's mind control research program MKULTRA.

After Olson expressed his desire to leave the program, he was with a CIA agent in a New York hotel room, and is alleged to have committed "suicide" by throwing himself off the tenth floor balcony. In 1994, Olson's sons were successful in their efforts to have their fathers body exhumed and re examined in a second autopsy by James Starrs, Professor of Law and Forensic science at the National Law Center at George Washington University. Starr's team concluded that the blunt force trauma to the head and injury to the chest had not occurred during the fall but most likely in the room before the fall. The evidence was called "rankly and starkly suggestive of homicide." Based on his findings, in 1996 the Manhattan District Attorney opened a homicide investigation into Olson's death, but was unable to find enough evidence to bring charges. As I said, I leave it to the individual readers to make up their own minds if Noveske suffered a similar fate. On to the list of mass shooters and the stark link to psychotropic drugs. • Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to the public. • Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded. • Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event. • Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac. • Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft. • Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days. • Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment. • Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others. • A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school. • Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..

• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another. • Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others. • TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates. • Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat. • James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers. • Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania • Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California • Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times. • Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman. • Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic's file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister. • Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications. • Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants. • Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled. • Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself. • Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the

family's Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002. • Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara's parents said ".... the damn doctor wouldn't take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil...") • Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002, (Gareth's father could not accept his son's death and killed himself.) • Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family's detached garage. • Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet. • Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill. • Woody __, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms. • A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased. • Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and "other drugs for the conditions." • Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine. • Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system. • Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide. • Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.

• Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his New York high school. Missing from list... 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds.... • What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21...... killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az? • What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24..... killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado? • What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or? • What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct? Those focusing on further firearms bans or magazine restrictions are clearly focusing on the wrong issue and asking the wrong questions, either as a deliberate attempt to hide these links, or out of complete and utter ignorance. Don't let them! Force our elected "representatives" and the media to cast a harsh spotlight on this issue. Don't stop hounding them until they do. Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/039752_mass_shootings_psychiatric_drugs_antidepressants.html#i xzz2Pd4ntwp5

Craig B Hulet was both speech writer and Special Assistant for Special Projects to Congressman Jack Metcalf (Retired); he has been a consultant to federal law enforcement DEA, ATF&E of Justice/Homeland Security for over 25 years; he has written four books on international relations and philosophy, his latest is The Hydra of Carnage: Bush’s Imperial War-making and the Rule of Law - An Analysis of the Objectives and Delusions of Empire. He has appeared on over 12,000 hours of TV and Radio: The History Channel “De-Coded”; He is a regular on Coast to Coast AM w/ George Noory and Coffee Talk KBKW; CNN, C-Span ; European Television "American Dream" and The Arsenio Hall Show; he has written for Soldier of Fortune Magazine, International Combat Arms, Financial Security Digest, etc.; Hulet served in Vietnam 1969-70, 101st Airborne, C Troop 2/17th Air Cav and graduated 3rd in his class at Aberdeen Proving Grounds Ordnance School MOS 45J20 Weapons. He remains a paid analyst and consultant in various areas of geopolitical, business and security issues: terrorism and military affairs. Hulet lives in the ancient old growth Quinault Rain Forest.