Mexican Military Crosses US Border

March 12, 2010

InfoWars

By Paul Joseph Watson

While the U.S. government and federal authorities busy themselves targeting American citizens as domestic terrorists, it seems they couldn’t care less about the fact that the military of a foreign power is flying around American airspace with wanton abandon.

Residents of Falcon Heights, a south Texas border town, saw a Mexican helicopter hovering over a house shortly after 6pm on Tuesday night. The chopper conducted surveillance for about 15 minutes before flying back to Mexico.

“They had armored individuals in the chopper, open ramp, very military looking, in style and preparation,” said Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr.

“It’s proof the Mexican military sees no boundaries,” reported local KRGV News’ Stephanie Stone, adding that the incident wasn’t the first of its kind and wouldn’t be the last.

“The markings I understand read ‘La Marina’ which is equivalent to the Mexican Navy,” said Gonzalez.

Local residents who saw the chopper refused to talk about it on camera, but the news report showed images of the helicopter.

KRGV contacted nearly a dozen government agencies in an attempt to get answers. After contacting the the FAA about the chopper, KRGV were told to talk to the Customs and Border Protection, who said they knew about the incursion but were apparently unconcerned.

State and local authorities refused to return phone calls about the incident after they were also contacted by KRGV.

“A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman says that a Mexican military helicopter crossed the border into south Texas late Wednesday afternoon before returning to Mexico without landing,” reported the Associated Press.

“Richard Pauza said Thursday that customs officers had spotted the helicopter over U.S. territory near the Falcon Dam in Zapata County sometime after 5 p.m. Pauza said he had no other information.”

While the government trains federal authorities and law enforcement personnel that U.S. citizens are the biggest threat, they couldn’t give a damn about the fact that the military of a foreign government is violating U.S. airspace when it pleases.

Indeed, this only helps the process of acclimating the American people to accept the sight of foreign troops on U.S. soil, a danger Congressman Ron Paul has characterized as a “horrible precedent” which is part of the “NAFTA scheme and globalization and world government.”

Imagine if Soviet bombers or Iranian fighter jets were caught cruising around Los Angeles or Washington D.C. Would the government be at all concerned? Or are they too busy worrying about gun owners, Tea Party activists and Ron Paul supporters?

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Cries for Wall Street Regulation

March 12, 2010

Reuters

By David Morgan

The findings suggest that 82 percent of Americans want the government to clamp down more strongly on Wall Street excesses, with a particular emphasis on bonus schemes that have rewarded employees at loss-making companies such as American International Group.

A Harris release on the February 16-21 telephone survey of 1,010 adults did not specify how financial regulation should be applied but said three-quarters of Americans believe Wall Street companies should pay bonuses only while in the black.

Harris said the U.S. public does see value in Wall Street itself: nearly 60 percent say the financial sector is an essential benefit to the United States.

But a slightly larger majority disagrees that what is good for Wall Street is good for the country, while about two-thirds harbor strong negative views about the people who work there.

By a margin of 66 percent to 29 percent, Americans agree that “most people on Wall Street would be willing to break the law if they believed they could make a lot of money and get away with it,” pollsters found.

Sixty-five percent say most successful people on Wall Street do not deserve the kind of money they make.

A similar majority said those in the financial sector are generally less honest and less moral than the general public.

“Those who manage large banks and other financial institutions can draw some comfort from the majorities who believe that Wall Street is essential and benefits the country, even if these numbers are much worse than they were before the 2008 crash,” Harris said in a statement.

“On the other hand, there is no evidence that the American people have begun to forgive the people in Wall Street or to forget the huge problems that they caused.”

Harris did not provide a margin of error for the poll.

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Government Workers Feel No Economic Pain

March 12, 2010

The Washington Times

By David M. Dickson

The recession and the ongoing jobless recovery devastated much of the private-sector work force last year, sending unemployment soaring, but government workers emerged essentially unscathed, according to data released Wednesday by the Labor Department.

Meanwhile, the compensation for state and local government employees continued to easily outdistance the wages and benefits for workers in private business, a separate Labor Department report showed.

Private-industry employers spent an average of $27.42 per hour worked for total employee compensation in December, while total compensation costs for state and local government workers averaged $39.60 per hour.

The average government wage and salary per hour of $26.11 was 35 percent higher than the average wage and salary of $19.41 per hour in the private sector. But the percentage difference in benefits was much higher. Benefits for state and local workers averaged $13.49 per hour, nearly 70 percent higher than the $8 per hour in benefits paid by private businesses.

Paul Booth, executive assistant to the president at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), attributed the pay difference to a changing government work force that has increased its proportion of higher-skilled workers during the past 15 to 20 years.

“In government payrolls, you no longer have low-wage occupations, such as janitors, whose jobs have been contracted out to the private sector,” he said. This trend has effectively increased the average wage of those higher-skilled workers who remain, said Mr. Booth, whose union represents 1.6 million workers.

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US Mulls Placing Black Boxes in All Cars

March 12, 2010

Reuters

By Kevin Krolicki and John Crawley

Unprecedented discounts after a series of damaging recalls boosted Toyota Motor Corp’s (7203.T: Quote, Profile, Research) (TM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) U.S. sales in early March, as U.S. regulators weighed new auto safety measures.

Toyota’s U.S. sales surged by nearly 50 percent in the first eight days of March compared with the year-ago period due to zero-percent financing offers and other incentives, industry tracking service Edmunds.com and dealers said on Thursday.

Edmunds, which analyzes U.S. auto sales trends, also estimated that Toyota’s U.S. retail market share in early March had jumped to 16.8 percent, up sharply from 12.8 percent a month earlier when safety problems had sent sales tumbling.

“What they’re doing right now is they are picking low-hanging fruit,” said Chester Schriesheim, professor at the University of Miami School of Business Administration.

“These are the people who are undecided about the brand but given the lower price, now that provides incentives to go ahead and purchase,” he said. “But they’re going to exhaust that pool of individuals and then they’ll find it harder in the longer term to raise the prices backward.”

The early sales estimate comes a week after Toyota launched the most aggressive discounts in its history to win over U.S. consumers and recover from an embarrassing slew of product safety problems that have tarnished its reputation and cut into sales and financial results.
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief David Strickland told a congressional hearing on Thursday that the regulator is considering whether to make “black boxes” mandatory for all new vehicles. [ID:nN11246251]

The devices can capture data on speed, braking effort and other details which can be vital in reconstructing accidents.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million vehicles globally to address the risk that accelerator pedals on a range of its vehicles could become stuck because of a loose floor mat or a glitch in the pedal assembly.

Unintended acceleration in the company’s Toyota and Lexus vehicles has been linked to at least five U.S. crash deaths since 2007. Authorities are investigating 47 other Toyota crash deaths over the past decade.

TOYOTA, GM BOOST MARCH INDUSTRY SALES

Edmunds.com said that industrywide U.S. auto sales are tracking to hit a rate of 12.5 million vehicles in March because of the steep discounts on Toyota vehicles and a competitive campaign launched by General Motors Co [GM.UL].

GM is offering car shoppers rebates of up to $3,000 on vehicles including the Malibu mid-size sedan, or zero-percent financing.

Toyota, which has traditionally spurned such discount programs in order to protect resale values, has offered up to $3,000 in rebates and dealer incentives on a range of vehicles, including its top-selling Camry, or cut-rate financing.

Both manufacturers are offering steeper discounts on their competing full-size pickup trucks, GM’s Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra and the Toyota Tundra.
Edmunds said GM’s sales incentives lifted Chevy’s retail market share to 12.9 percent, up from 11.4 percent a month earlier.

Several major Toyota dealers said their own sales were running slightly higher than the Edmunds estimate through Tuesday. That would mark a sharp reversal from sales declines in January and February tied to the automaker’s recall crisis.

Paul Atkinson, president of the Toyota national dealers’ council and a Toyota dealer in Texas, said he expected that the March sales boost from incentives would mirror what the automaker saw during the 2009 “cash for clunkers” program.

Toyota was the big winner from that U.S. government-funded scrappage program, which offered tax credits of up to $4,500 to swap out of older and less fuel-efficient vehicles.

Toyota had a 19.4 percent share of vehicles sold under the “clunkers” program which ran from late July through the third week of August 2009. Toyota’s share was the highest in the industry.

“I truly believe that March could rival cash for clunkers,” Atkinson said.

Sales at his own dealership in early March were running at three times the level of January and February, he said. Customers shopping for the bargains do not appear concerned by Toyota’s recalls, he said.

“Honestly, I think the public has had enough,” he said.

Just this week, as Toyota sought to shift attention away from the safety problems, at least three U.S. drivers reported new cases of driving Prius or Lexus vehicles that appeared to surge out of control.
Atkinson has encouraged Toyota dealers to protest GM’s incentives in March, saying they amounted to a taxpayer-funded program of discounts because the U.S. government funded GM’s restructuring in bankruptcy with $50 billion in aid.

“We just want a level playing field,” he told Reuters. “These GM incentives are kind of like using tax dollars to encourage my fellow citizens to not do business with me.”

GM has defended its use of incentives, saying such discounts are a well-established part of the way cars are sold in the U.S. market.

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US Taxpayers on the Hook for Five Trillion in Bad Debt

March 11, 2010

Yahoo Finance

By Aaron Task

House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank caused a bit of an uproar Friday when he suggested the U.S. government does not guarantee the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Rep. Frank later recanted and backed a Treasury Department statement reassuring investors that, yes, Fannie and Freddie Mae debt is guaranteed by the U.S. government. “Going forward,” he said in a statement, we “will make sure that there are no implicit guarantees, hints, suggestions, or winks and nods…we will be explicit about what is and is not an obligation of the federal government.”

But after years of winks and nods, there’s no doubt that Fannie and Freddie now enjoy an explicit guarantee, according to most observers. The U.S. government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship in September 2008: “This means that the U.S. Taxpayer now stands behind $5 trillion of GSE debt,” according to the Congressional Research Service.

The problem is that $5 trillion of so-called agency paper is not treated as if it is a debt of Uncle Sam for accounting purposes, says Richard Suttmeier, chief market strategist at Niagara International Capital and ValuEngine.com.

“Get it on the balance sheet – that’s where it belongs,” Suttmeier says. “Add it to the $14.2 trillion in [federal] debt and let’s move on.”

Another Time Bomb Ticking But $5 trillion is a lot of money – even by government standards — and moving on may be the problem because of ongoing problems in the housing market, Suttmeier says. “There’s a general concern on Main Street U.S.A. that ‘my neighbors are throwing in their keys, there’s more for sale signs in my community…do I want to buy a new home, risking there’s still downside risk to housing?’ ”

Noting the Case-Shiller 20-City Home Price Index is still 50% above 1999 levels and mortgage delinquencies are still rising despite the rebound in GDP, Suttmeier says “victory is nowhere in sight, particularly when the drain we’re going to see from Fannie and Freddie is unlimited losses between now and the end of 2012 — on top of the $400 billion that’s already been allocated.”

Coincidentally (or not), the FDIC is allowing U.S. banks until 2012 before forcing them to fully write-down bad or toxic loans, which is “another time bomb ticking,” Suttmeier says. “They’re hoping the public market comes back into the mortgage arena, which is going to be hard to do.”

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New British Ad Campaign claims Use of Cash to be an Act of Terrorism

March 11, 2010

InfoWars

By Paul Joseph Watson

A new government commercial currently running on one of Britain’s most popular radio stations is selling one thing – fear – by encouraging Londoners to report their neighbors as terrorists if they use cash, enjoy their privacy, or even close their curtains.

The advertisement, produced in conjunction with national radio outlet TallkSport, promotes the “anti-terrorist hotline” and encourages people to report individuals who don’t talk to their neighbors much, people who like to keep themselves to themselves, people who close their curtains, and people who don’t use credit cards.

“This may mean nothing, but together it could all add up to you having suspicions,” states the voice on the ad, before continuing “We all have a role to play in combating terrorism” (we’re all indentured stasi informants for the government).

“If you see anything suspicious, call the confidential anti-terrorist hotline….if you suspect it, report it,” concludes the commercial.

That’s right, if you are trying to stay out of debt by not having a credit card, you’re obviously a prime candidate to be a suicide bomber.

If you’re watching television or using a computer monitor and want to keep the sun off the screen by closing your curtains, you’re probably operating at the behest of Osama bin Laden.

If you’d rather not let the entire neighborhood know your business then you could be planning to hijack planes and crash them into buildings.

Of course, the sheer lunacy of this commercial on the face of it doesn’t need to be explained in any depth. What’s infinitely more disturbing is the deeper message the government is trying to force upon the public – that everyone has a responsibility to act as a citizen spy, a Stasi informant working for the state, and that everyone is under constant suspicion no matter how apparently benign their behavior.

This has nothing to do with catching non-existent terrorists and everything to do with creating the perception that anyone who attempts to live their life even marginally outside of the system, by not having a credit card for example, is a potential danger to the rest of the sheep who have chosen to remain firmly inside the confines of the pen.

This is about getting the other inmates to police any other prisoner who dares to step outside the boundary of the cell.

Another aspect is the accelerating attempt to create a cashless society where every transaction is tracked and recorded. To predominantly eliminate the use of cash, it has to be demonized as suspicious, dirty and criminal.

People who have been reading this website will know that we have tracked the evolution of these kind of campaigns with increasing horror at their resemblance to the darkest days of Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany.

Similar previous “anti-terror” campaigns have featured posters that imply people who get refunds, live in apartments, or drive vans should be reported. Does that sound incredible? It’s true, the London Metropolitan Police actually ran a campaign encouraging people to report individuals as potential terrorists because they had a home, under the slogan, “Terrorists need places to live. Are you suspicious of your tenants or neighbors?”

As America and Britain sink deeper into militarized police states, society begins to parallel more and more aspects of Nazi Germany, especially in the context of citizens being turned against each other, which in turn creates a climate of fear and the constraining sense that one is always being watched.

One common misconception about Nazi Germany was that the police state was solely a creation of the authorities and that the citizens were merely victims. On the contrary, Gestapo files show that 80% of all Gestapo investigations were started in response to information provided by denunciations by “ordinary” Germans.

“There were relatively few secret police, and most were just processing the information coming in. I had found a shocking fact. It wasn’t the secret police who were doing this wide-scale surveillance and hiding on every street corner. It was the ordinary German people who were informing on their neighbors,” wrote Robert Gellately of Florida State University.

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Terror Watch List Can Follow you to the Grave

March 11, 2010

Wired

By Kim Zetter

You may be dying, figuratively, to get off the government’s no-fly list, but death won’t guarantee removal.

The government’s no-fly list includes the names of dead suspects to help catch people who may try to assume the suspect’s identity, according to government officials who spoke with The Associated Press.

The no-fly list has been shrouded in mystery since it was first developed after the 9/11 attacks. How people get on the list or get off it has been a closely guarded secret, with only bits of information made public during congressional hearings.

The AP has pieced together the broad steps it takes for someone to get on the list, and some of the changes the list has undergone since it was created nine years ago.

The no-fly list has grown from 3,400 people to about 6,000 since last December, but it did not contain the name of airline passenger Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the AP said. The Nigerian tried to bomb a Detroit-bound Northwest airlines flight on Christmas Day using explosives packed in his underwear.

Abdulmuttalab’s name appeared in a terrorism database after his father tipped off U.S. embassy officials in Nigeria that his son might be involved in extremist activity. The government determined that the information did not meet the standard for placing him on the list or for revoking his U.S. visa.

The new names added to the list since his bombing attempt include people associated with al-Qaida’s Yemen branch (with whom Abdulmuttalab had ties), as well as other people from Nigeria and Yemen who might be connected to Abdulmuttalab, the AP said.

The current number on the no-fly list represents a pared down version of the list in 2004 when 20,000 people were on it. Those numbers were culled in 2007, and people who were no longer considered a threat were removed. These included, for example, some former members of the Irish Republican Army who were considered no longer active in terrorist activity.

As AP notes, sometimes it takes just minutes to get on the no-fly list; other times it takes days or months, depending on the information amassed on a subject.

The first step might be a simple tip to law enforcement or an intelligence agent or may come from information gleaned from a wiretapped conversation. The tip is submitted to the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, where it’s entered into a classified database known as Terrorist Identities Datamart Enterprise, or TIDE. The database might include a suspect’s name and relatives and associates. About 2 percent of the names in the database belong to Americans.

Here information is data-mined to connect dots and flesh out partial names and identities. If enough information can be connected to a Terrorist Watchlist target, it’s escalated to the Terrorist Screening Center, also in Virginia, for more analysis. About 350 names are sent to the screening center daily.

Depending on what the analysis turns up, a suspect might wind up on the FBI’s terror watchlist, which includes the names of about 418,000 people — including a New Jersey eight-year-old who regularly gets frisked at the airport. Airport security personnel use the list to single out some travelers for extra screening or interrogation, and the watchlist is also used for screening U.S. visa applicants and gun buyers, as well as suspects stopped by local police.

To get on this list, there must be “reasonable suspicion” that the person is involved in terrorism, according to the AP. People whose names are on this list are singled out for questioning at U.S. borders, but they can still fly. A Justice Department inspector general report last year found that the FBI was mishandling the watch list and failing to add legitimate suspects under terrorist investigation to the list; at the same time not properly updating and removing records from the list so some U.S. citizens are subjected to unjustified scrutiny.

In order to get on the no-fly list, authorities must have the suspect’s full name and age and have information indicating that the suspect is a threat to aviation or national security. The final decision for adding a name to the no-fly list rests in the hands of about six people from the TSA, the AP said.

At this point, a suspect can either be added to a “selectee list,” a list of about 18,000 people who are singled out for extra screening at airports or be put on the no-fly list. Not all people on the no-fly list are prevented from flying, however. Sometimes authorities allow them to travel unimpeded, but place a tail on them to monitor their activity, the AP said.

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National ID Card Will Only Strengthen Big Brother

March 11, 2010

Fox News

By Alex Nowrasteh

The Senate is working toward a ghastly compromise on immigration reform that includes a biometric national identification card for all Americans. The stated purpose of this national ID, which an employee must present before getting a job, is to prevent undocumented workers from being employed. Back in December I warned that a national ID is the inevitable conclusion of the anti-immigration movement. The failure of E-Verify to catch 54% of undocumented workers is only accelerating the call for a national ID.

A national ID hurts American workers while pretending to help them.

First, every worker would have to ask permission from the federal government to get a job. American workers shouldn’t have to beg or plead to anybody to get permission to work. Being employed should be a private agreement between an employer and employee. Period. The government should get out of the way.

Second, carrying around government papers with biometric identification on it conjures up images of a more technologically savvy Oceania or East Germany. No thanks.

Third, the system will exclude millions of legal workers by accident and fail to catch the majority of undocumented immigrants. For instance, if E-Verify were instituted nation-wide 3.6 million Americans would be denied employment each year and have to visit the Social Security Administration to correct their records. The employer either fires them or delays training. Will a biometric ID card make this system better? How does that help American workers?

Fourth, it will cost businesses up to $800 to buy a scanner. Or as Senator Chuck Schumer says, employers can just go down to the DMV. Senator Schumer doesn’t know squat about running a business. The last thing an employer wants to do is spend time at the DMV when he could be spending it improving his business. And all this during an economic slump!

Fifth, it would treat every American like a criminal by requiring them to enter their most intimate and personal data into a government database. One of the benefits of not having committed any crimes is that my information is not in a government record office. I’d like to keep it that way.

Has the very notion of liberty been so diluted in this great nation that no-one is willing to decry this as the naked government power grab that it is? Must every American now ask government permission to get a job? Think what you will about undocumented immigration, is ending it so important that every single American must be entered into a massive government database and given an ID they must present when applying for a job?

It most emphatically is not.

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Amnesty for Illegals Imminent?

March 11, 2010

Politico

By Glenn Thrush

President Barack Obama is summoning two key senators to the Oval Office on Thursday for an update on immigration reform efforts — but one of them, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), thinks Obama should be the one giving the update.

Graham, less than thrilled at the notion of providing the equivalent of a book report to the headmaster in chief, said Obama’s lack of direction on immigration reform is hampering Graham’s efforts to recruit additional Republicans to the cause.

“At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit,” Graham told POLITICO on Tuesday. “One line in the State of the Union is not going to do it.”

For the past six months, Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) — who meet with Obama at 3 p.m. Thursday — have worked on a reform framework. Their plan, which hasn’t been introduced yet, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a liberal must-have) while sweetening the pot for moderates by proposing tough new safeguards, including a biometric national ID card for workers.

To the frustration of many reform advocates, Obama has kept his opinions of the possible deal vague, giving a head nod to reform in his State of the Union speech but not much more.

Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro offered no response to Graham’s challenge but reiterated the administration’s intention to allow Congress to hash things out before Obama weighs in, an approach reminiscent of his health reform strategy.

“The president’s commitment to fixing our broken system remains unwavering,” Shapiro said. “Earlier, the president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done, and he has assigned [Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano to work with stakeholders on that effort.”

Shapiro went on to reiterate Obama’s core principles — not prescriptions — including resolving “the status of 12 million people who are here illegally.” He punted when asked about the controversial ID system, which has the backing of some immigrant groups while sparking fierce opposition from civil libertarians.

“There are a number of options on the table, but we are clear that we need to build on and improve the existing verification system if we are going to get control of the job market for undocumented workers,” he said.

Napolitano, who has held dozens of meetings on the topic with House members and senators, was supposed to attend a previously scheduled Graham-Schumer meeting Monday, which had to be postponed when Graham’s flight from South Carolina was delayed. She’ll be overseas during Thursday’s meeting, an administration official said.

Graham said he wants a greater sense of direction to break the cycle of distrust that doomed comprehensive immigration reform during the Bush administration, despite the support of a Republican president and major party figures like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

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Salmonella Recalls Continue to Grow

March 11, 2010

Fox News

By Luke Funk

The number of products being recalled because of Salmonella fears continues to grow. More than 100 products have been recalled so far.

The Food and Drug Administration announced more than a half-dozen recalls just on Wednesday and admits that the recall could continue to grow over the next several weeks.

A so-called “flavor enhancer” supplied by Las Vegas company Basic Food Flavors that is used in thousands of products is being blamed. Tests show it may be contaminated with salmonella.

The product in question is hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP). The additive is mixed into foods to give them a meaty flavor. The food industry uses it in soups, cheese, sauces, hot dogs, frozen dinners, snack foods, dips and dressings. The FDA says that the company continued to manufacture and ship HVP even after its own testing found Salmonella in the product.

Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, according to the government.

Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses.

Some of the recalled food products include some Herrs potato chips, Pringles potato chips, and Quaker snack mix.

In February, a customer of Basic Food Flavors alerted the FDA that it had detected Salmonella in the company’s HVP product.

That led to an FDA inspection at Basic Food Flavors that began on Feb. 12. That inspection led to the FDA’s positive findings of Salmonella in the manufacturing facility.

FDA inspectors also found problems in the company’s manufacturing processes, including a lack of microbial- contamination control. There were also problems with the cleaning and sanitizing procedures of equipment and work areas where food meant for human consumption was processed, as well as plumbing and drainage issues.

The FDA says the chances of a consumer getting sick are small because the foods are generally cooked before they are packaged. To date, there have been no reports of illnesses.

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