Saudi 9/11 and U.S.S. Cole bombing connection

We already knew that 15 out of the 19 suspected hijackers on 9/11 were Saudi Arabian. Now we learn that the Pentagon today says that Abdal-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian is being charged with the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000. He faces the death penalty. CIA Director Michael Hayden said this year that al-Nashiri was waterboarded in 2002 and 2003 while being interrogated in secret prisons. al-Nashiri says he confessed to being a part of the bombing only because he was tortured by the U.S.

If 16 out of 20 terrorists that have attacked the U.S. are from Saudi Arabia, why have we not attacked that country? Why Afganistan? Why Iraq? Why now possibly Iran? If it is not already clear to you that this is all about power and oil and not about terrorists, you may want to open your eyes.

Veterans Affairs by guest blogger Carl Young

By Carl Young
Something needs to be done soon for local veterans who once were able to get their healthcare needs taken care of in Humboldt County.
The Department of Veteran’s Affairs has recently come up with a way to reduce local fee basis care arrangements for veterans to a trickle.
The reason why? The VA doesn’t have enough money to maintain current fee basis services. Their response has been to point at one word in the VA Regulation Manual: "May." Working with the wide latitude that little three-lettered word provides, officials shrug their shoulders and talk about funding problems.
The bottom line is money. As the VA struggles with funding losses, the Bush administration and its political puppets in the VA keep slashing funding while trying to fool the people with propaganda.
To make matters worse, the lucky veteran that does get authorization for health care here is faced with another problem. Because payment is often slow to local providers, and there have been some cases of no payments at all, they are becoming fewer all the time.
Locally we have the Eureka Veterans Clinic, which despite it’s limitations, is providing some basic health care that veterans didn’t have here a couple of decades ago. When a veteran’s needs are more than the clinic can provide they apply for a local fee basis care arrangement, with local providers.
The process starts when the veteran’s doctor says they need a service that the clinic doesn’t provide.
Only those veterans that meet a very stringent criterion "may" be granted authorization to see a local provider. This referral process goes from Eureka to San Francisco where some authorization clerk there either gives their blessings, or they turn their thumbs down (excluding emergencies). There is no official rejection sent to the veteran needing the care, they must know to manage their own care, which means seeking assistance from Eureka VA’s Social worker, their primary care provider or Congressman Thompson’s’ office. After some time the veteran may receive the bad news, and places allot of frustration for all concerned.
Veterans who have been getting fee basis care for years locally are now being told they have to go south for treatments. How is the VA pulling this off, you may wonder? One tactic is telling veterans they have to go to a veteran’s hospital irregardless if it’s a hardship because of distance or other reasons.
The problem is the VA is no longer playing by its’ own rule book where there is a clause for qualifying for local care if the distance is too great. To further confuse the issue, no one seems to know how far is too far.
After talking with a supervisor in San Francisco I was informed that the operational word "may" applies when it comes to deciding if the veteran gets local health care, or if they have to travel.
How arbitrary is that? I was also informed that the VA is a health plan, not insurance! What the heck does that mean? Semantics can be sneaky when you’re talking about accountability with the VA.
What I’m hearing is that veterans are now at the mercy of nameless VA authorization clerks and an inadequate budget who decides a veteran’s case based upon their own individual interpretation of the manual and the status of funding. It’s apparent that we need to fix Title 38 of the Code of Federal Regulations Section 17.52 (a) to state that the VA "shall," and not "may," authorize fee basis requests.
As more veterans in Humboldt County find themselves faced with the long drive to Ft. Miley to get health care, they are also faced with new challenges like being self-employed and not being able to afford missing a day of work. At which time they can decide if they are able to travel over two hundred fifty miles, and in most cases spend the day and half getting their necessary care, at Ft. Miley.
It’s not the veteran’s fault that the VA is not getting the funding it needs. Yet, it’s the veterans who suffer while politicians play games. Now’s the time for Congressman Thompson to step up and to push for legislation to fix the weasel-wording in Title 38 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
As you read this there are veterans around you being denied local health care - even though they meet the stringent requirements of the VA. It’s all about money. Now, let’s make it about the veterans in our community.
I urge you, your friends and family, to contact Congressman Thompson’s office and tell him what you think about removing the "maybe" in the treatment for our veterans. New priorities need to come out for a full funding process that assures continuation of all programs for veterans that have earned them.
And to make matters worse the Medicare payment rate to physicians is being reduced by 10.6% in July, doctors will be forced to accept less money for medical procedures or opt out all together. In the past these reductions have caused doctors to turn away Medicare, veterans under the "fee for services” program, and active duty military (including their families and retirees) using their TRICARE benefits. Without action from the Senate more doctors will turn us away.
I leave you with this one final thought: what would you do if your health care depended upon one little ambiguous word that was interrupted by someone whose been told to cut back on health care services because of money, ?
Carl Young is the past-President of the Humboldt Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America. His email address is carlhandup@att.net

Who will be the next U.S. Dictator?

Who will be the next U.S. dictator? The current president has put into place everything he needs to be a dictator. With the circumventing of the U.S. Constitution, the kingdom set up in the vice presidents office and no accountability to congress, the next president will inherit these awesome powers. Powers to wage war without declaring one. Powers to spy on their opponents. Powers to enrich their buddies and their companies. Powers to ignore the U.S. and International rule of law. Powers to lie to the world. Powers to destroy the American middle class. Powers to put people in jail without charging them with a crime. The list goes on and on. What we need to consider when we vote for the next president is, what type of dictator do we want? The next president could nationalize the oil companies or take over another country that has oil. What type of dictator do we want? John Mc Cain as dictator? Barack Obama as dictator? I would have to admit that in a country run by a dictator, I would rather have someone that cares about the poor and middle class, someone with optimistic rhetoric than a pessimist war monger. No matter who we vote for, the possibility that radical change could be ahead has been made possible by George Bush and Dick Cheny. It is unlikely that the next president will give back the awesome power that has been stolen by the current administration. It is something that should be considered this November.

More Time Spent on Pot investigation than 9/11

Are we spending more money investigating marijuana in this country than 9/11? 25 different agencies and some 450 agents swarmed the North Coast this week looking into pot grows. Can we get this kind of aggressive investigation into the events of 9/11? The feds say that 25 to 60 million dollars worth of marijuana has been seized this week here in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties. This stems from a 2 year investigation. That's more time than was spent on the official 9/11 investigation. Does anybody know the costs of this 2 year pot investigation? 11 million dollars was spent investigating 9/11.
Where are our priorities? Welcome to the New World Order!

Barack Obama Supports Immunity for Telcoms

He said last year that he would filibuster the FISA bill if it contained immunity for the telecommunications companies that illegally spied on Americans. Barack Obama, along with 79 other senators voted for the bill. I generally like Obama, however, I support a candidate that would investigate what started this entire thing, the 9/11 terror attacks. The FISA bill, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the destruction of the U.S. economy, the temporary loss of Habeas Corpus, the shredding of the U.S. Constitution, the emerging police state are all symptoms of what happened that day. Bush waited 441 days to begin an investigation into 9/11 and then appropriated 10's of millions of dollars less for the investigation than was spent to investigate White Water and Monica Lewinski Why? I'll tell you why, because the Bush Crime Family doesn't want the world to know what happened that day. The truth would erode the neocon takeover of the Middle East and America. Now it appears that Bush will get away with spying on Americans because no prosecution of Telcom companies means no investigation into the legalities of what Bush did in regards to spying on Americans. Thanks Obama for nothing!
Thank you Christopher Dodd, Ron Wyden, Patrick Leahy, Russ Feingold , Barbara Boxer and Bernie Sanders, for at least standing up for the U.S. Constitution. Cynthia Mckinney, you look more beautiful with every day that passes.

Good Bye 4th Amendment, Hello FISA

The House today voted to give George Bush and the Telcom's the right to spy on Americans. Local congressman Mike Thompson voted against it. Thank you Mr. Thompson. It is now up to the Senate to stop this but they don't have enough votes or the will to fight a Republican Filibuster. Good bye 4th amendment of the U.S. Constitution!
Here's a link to how they voted:http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll437.xml
I am considering getting a pager, taking the battery out of my cell phone and only using my phone as a last resort. The powers that be can turn on your cell phone via remote and listen in when ever they want. The only way to stop this is to take the battery out of your phone.
We need to boycott the Telcom's by using less e-mail and phone calls. When we do have to use e-mail and phones, we should acknowledge that we know they are listening or reading our information and we should give false or misleading information to muddy up the waters. The more bad information gathered, the less impact FISA will have on the average American. We have to fight back! Spreading disinformation is one way we can say to those that would violate our Constitutional rights, chew on this!
Does anybody have any better ideas?

Pot Grow Houses

A lot of talk lately here in Humboldt County about pot grow houses. The Arcata Eye this week has an article about the amount of electricity they consume. They say that PG&E transformers are burning up due to the increased power consumption used by the grow houses. I'm not going to get into the legality of Proposition 215 and medical marijuana, but I did want to address the excessive power consumption. The answer is simple. LED lights. That's right, the bright little lights in your key chain light. Now these are being made with light spectrum that work well for growing plants. They are somewhat expensive now but with all of the local demand for both pot and electricity, I would think the price will be coming down soon. Even so, if you could eliminate the heat caused by old fashioned grow lights, and the big PG&E bill, whats not to like?
Also with the LED lights, there is little or no interference with am radio signals like the 5-thousand watt KGOE 1480 am signal I work for. Grow houses can sometimes be detected just by driving around and listening to the am radio. If you drive by a house and hear a ton of buzz on the radio that goes away at the rate you leave the house, that's a pretty good indication of grow lights and lots of electricity consumption. Save energy, don't burn down the house and leave am signals alone with these new LED lights. It's the groovy thing to do if you have to grow.

Grumpy old Republicans

I have some neighbors that are card carrying Republicans. They are mostly unhappy and scared to death. They do well for themselves financially and are retired. They have a big boat and an R.V., a real nice 2 story house in the redwoods near the ocean, with a stream on one side.
They have another house in a warmer climate. Most retired people would be envious of them, unless they knew them. They are afraid that all us little people will be unemployed and wandering the streets, looking for trouble due to high gas prices. They cower in their house and keep everything locked up tight. They are afraid to go out and do the things they used to do. They used to travel to fun exotic places but are now afraid to do this anymore. I blame their fear on two sources. 1. The pastor John Hagee, they have been known to watch him on t.v. and 2. Fox News, the only source they trust for news. Both of these are out to scare us to death so that we will need them for their advice. So that we will continue to seek their knowledge of terrorists, gays, homeless people, people that look differently from them, the devil, and those evil liberals. It is sad that in the golden years of their life they can't laugh, love and enjoy the time they have left with friends and family. They used to have lots of friends. Now, no one comes over to see them unless they are there to fix the appliances or cable tv. It seems that they have run away all their friends because of their hatred, bigotry and their constant fear of loosing all their possessions or having them scratched or something. The whole thing makes no sense to me. If I live that long and am not in the gutter or some sort of prison for agitators, I certainly hope I can enjoy my life, my family and I hope I haven't run off all of my friends.
I wish them no ill. Feeling a bit sorry for them I left a copy of a Frank Sinatra C. D. on their doorstep the other day. How can you listen to Sinatra without smiling? I hope they smile and fall in love again. In love with each other, in love with life, in love with every new day.
But I'm just a bleeding heart hoping for things some would consider impossible. I still believe that with love all things are possible.

Sorry Rush Limbaugh, no riots at this years convention

If this story from Fox News (as they call themselves) is true, protesters at this years Democratic National Convention won't be rioting like comedian Rush Limbaugh was dreaming about. Instead, they will be cleaning their pants. I want to thank my bro for turning me on to this. http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/06/10/activists-preparing-against-use-of-brown-note-at-dem-convention/
This is different from the crowd control device that causes burning feeling on the skin. To thwart that, one only needed to be wearing tin foil to bounce the microwaves away. There are ways to deal with this new weapon of the police state, my suggestion....Depends.

Airforce taking rap for Bush

Remember when a B52 was loaded with 6 live nuclear missiles and flown across the U.S. last year? What ever became of the big investigation that was supposed to take place? Jeff Rense has some words to say about our "Tefflon President", (he misspelled Tefflon on purpose he says).
Here is an excerpt of a blog by Mr. Rense followed by a link to the entire blog.


If you are Mr. Tefflon, you can order nuclear weapons flown over US soil ­ yet another violation of the law. He let the investigation run its course, then pinned the blame on the highest ranking career officers he wised to remove. There must always be a scapegoat to take the rap somewhere. The white house has repeatedly lied to the media on numerous occasions, and it's lying yet again when it says it had nothing to do with this. Those USAF officers who resigned were at the very top of the USAF chain of command.

These same men, Chief of staff Mosely and Secretary Michael Wynn are taking the rap for everything gone wrong in the past ­ including warhead components shipped to Taiwan "by mistake." This story has the same tone of honesty as a crooked police officer planting an unregistered gun in someone's vehicle.

Minot airbase near Bismarck, North Dakota is where the nuclear weapons originated. CNN announced on May 30, 2008 that same base failed an inspection. [1] How convenient that this takes place now. It was just two months ago in March 2008 that Minot was re-certified to handle nuclear weapons. And now we hear about the resignation of top veteran USAF officers!

As I've stated clearly in a former essay some months ago, there has been a chain of command in place for some 50 years to control the movement of any nuclear weapon from storage to an aircraft. Stored in specially sealed and tamperproof containers, these weapons require sign-offs by safety officers for removal from storage and special containers, ordinance officers who handle them and everyone else down the line that has any responsibility associated with them.

Since the US military is staffed by an all VOLUNTEER force, why would an entire chain of command and airmen put all their careers, reputations, paychecks and retirement pensions at risk and risk a courts martial and possible time in Leavenworth? It's not possible to justify such an idea, yet that's what we've been led to believe. Instead, two innocent men are punished to make it all believable to the public and satisfy the public need for justice in the matter.

Sharp military people put numerous safeguards in place in the middle of the last century to prevent this very thing from happening. But above all, to move even one of these weapons out of storage onto a plane (and there were six of these weapons) requires an EXECUTIVE ORDER from none other than the president.

Here's a link to the whole blog by Jeff Rense.
http://www.rense.com/general82/take.htm

Can someone besides the President give the order to start world war III?
Evidently a base commander can do this. Just like in Dr. Strangelove. Either that or Bush is covering this up like so many other Executive Orders that are too secret for us to know about.
It's a shame that he has to make the Air force his scapegoat for his ill advised war mongering.