Actor/Comedian Hal Sparks speaks out for 9/11 Truth

Source: 911 Blogger
February 5, 2010

During a fundraiser in New York, We Are Change activists Anthony from Ohio and Danny of New York got a chance to interview comedian/actor/game show host Hal Sparks. Sparks voiced his views on 9/11 truth. He discussed the 19 hijackers, building 7 and the fact that Bin Laden was a known CIA asset. Sparks stated that Americans have a responsibility to at least look deeper, you dont have to go all the way down the rabbit hole with some people, you also cant stick your head in the sand and that the vast majority of Americans are waking up. Sparks also commented on the co-op of the tea party movement by Glenn Beck. He also mentioned that Scott Brown the newly elected Republican Senator of Massachusetts had previously voted against further benefits for 9/11 workers. When asked about Glenn Becks slanderous comments about 9/11 Truth activists, Sparks stated Glenn Beck I think to some degree is mentally incapacitated He had much more to say about Glenn Beck, the details can be found in the video. On behalf of We Are Change and the 9/11 Truth movement, we thank Hal Sparks for his courage to speak truth to power.

SENATE BURGLARY: CIA DOMESTIC BLACK-OP TEAM ARRESTED

Source: Veteran’s Today
February 1, 2010

Last week’s breakin at Senator Mary Landrieu’s office in the New Orleans Federal Building was more than it seemed, much more. All of the 4 arrested had been trained by the CIA and, possibly, Israel. One arrested, Stan Dai, is listed as an Operations Officer of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program and a known expert and lecturer on, not only surveillance but explosives training, assassinations and “false flag operations.” If you wanted a plane to crash, an enemy to get sick and die or a building to blow up, Dai would be the man to know how to make it happen. Problem is, his skills were being used as part of a criminal conspiracy inside the United States against members of our own government.

Original reports on the “break-in” were also wrong. One of those arrested was found blocks away with a covert receiver, managing the office bugs. The man in the car is identified as Stan Dai, Operations Officer for the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Program:

“one of the four was arrested with a listening device in a car blocks from the senator’s offices.” The FBI’s affidavit noted that Flanagan and Basel were in the building with O’Keefe, and a federal law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Dai was the one in the car.”

What is not initially known is whether this was the first attempt or, as is much more likely, an additional incursion to plant new bugs as the ones in place were missing key conversations. Also, it is not known how many “black ops” crews are being run by the CIA inside the United States in violation of their charter or if their operations are being limited to spying on Democratic lawmakers or if operations of a more threatening nature have been performed but remain undiscovered.

Additionally, as this was a covert op against US government investigations of, not only terrorism and terrorism funding but major financial crimes against the United States, it is unclear who the recipient of the “product,” an intelligence industry term for “output” or information put up for “distribution” might be. Potential buyers could be the Republican Party, Israel, Turkey, India, Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea or financial institutions involved in massive money laundering schemes being investigated by the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security of which Senator Landireu is a member.

Learn how the Intelliegence Community Center for Academic Excellence (IC CAE) at Georgetown University and the CIA got involved in this seedy domestic “black ops” group. In a story broken this week:

Dai’s links to the intelligence community appear to be particularly strong. He was a speaker at Georgetown University’s Central Intelligence Agency summer school program in June 2009, and is also listed as an Assistant Director at the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at Trinity in D.C. (note the parallels between the Georgetown program tied to “conservative think tanks” and the GWU program with similar ties and the same characters where we trace Dr. Hasan, Ft Hood mass murderer to)

The university’s president Patricia McGuire told The Associated Press that it promoted careers in intelligence but denied that it trains students to be spies. (a seemingly meaningless statement considering what has happened)

The Trinity program received a “$250,000 renewable grant from the U.S. Intelligence Community” upon launching in 2004, according to its Web site. The program’s goals are stated:

The IC CAE in National Security Studies Program was established during 2005 in response to the nation’s increasing need for IC professionals who are educated and trained with the unique knowledge, skills and capabilities to carry out America’s national security objectives.

The CIA summer school packet also notes that Dai “served as the Operations Officer of a Department of Defense irregular warfare fellowship program.”

Dai has been an undergraduate fellow with the Washington-based national security think tank Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies (FDD), according to his College Leadership Program award biography at the Phillips Foundation — as Lindsay Beyerstein first reported.

FDD claims that it’s partly funded by the US State Department. Its Leadership Council and Board of Advisers comprise many high-profile conservative politicians and public figures — including former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), former Bush official Richard Perle and columnist Charles Krauthammer.

Operatives recruited in universities and managed thru conservative think tanks receive paid “vacations” to Israel and elsewhere, places where they are trained in silent killing, use of poisons, explosives and other potentially useful skills whether their career is in intelligence or politics. As with other terrorist suspects such as those who travel to Afghanistan for their training, these domestic types are funded covertly through the US government but, as we see in New Orleans, rented out to either Israel, India or the Republican party.

This history of this program parallels one from the Nixon administration after the Vietnam War. CIA recruiters subsidized hundreds, perhaps several thousand veterans, Marines, Special Forces and Army Rangers who served in unofficial and semi-official capacities in and out of the US. Some serve to this day. Today’s, if current bio’s are any indication, depend more on ideology than physical bravery or intellectual qualifications. Perhaps the “purity” test left little room for battle hardened veterans who might choose country over party and loyalty over cash.

In a “clarification” of how Israel is involved and sees their cooperation in this domestic terror organization as part of their support of the United States as a trusted ally, we received the following story:

Dai traveled to Israel for two weeks in 2004 on an FDD (Foundation for the Defense of the Democracies, a conservative Washington based “think tank” with CIA ties) -sponsored trip, the Daily Herald reported. “All expenses (room, board and travel) will be assumed by FDD,” FDD’s Web site said of its Israel program.

A host of FDD testimonials from Academic Fellows reveal that many fellows have traveled to Israel for training and field trips. The Foundation says the course includes “lectures by academics, diplomats, military and intelligence officials, and politicians from Israel, Jordan, India, Turkey and the United States.”

FDD proclaims that “Like America, Israel is at the forefront in the war on terrorism.” Further explaining its interest in Israel, FDD declares:

“Both the United States and Israel are democracies, and both face the same enemy. It is this connection between Israel’s experience and the future of the United States that is the essence of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.”

One FDD testimonial, by 2004-2005 fellow Dr. Cathal J. Nolan, highlighted the group’s bond with high-level intelligence and government officials in Israel:

“The access which FDD provided to top government officials–and to academic, police, security service, and intelligence experts at the highest levels–was truly remarkable. I know of no other foundation or fellowship program which is able to provide so much top-level access and first-hand intelligence and security service information in so compact a form, or in such an intellectually stimulating environment.”

No explanation was offered as to how this “stimulating environment” managed to foster attacks on high security government offices, filled with vital intelligence. If Israel and the United States face the same enemy, why is Israel training Americans to attack America? One can’t help but see parallels between “junkets” to Israel for “intelligence training” and Islamic militants who go to Afghanistan for “terrorist” training.

How few Islamic terrorists would we catch if they were aided by Washington “think tanks,” guided by the Department of Defense or funded by the CIA?

Last week, Veterans Today outlined the many high security projects being monitored from Senator Landrieu’s office which included, not only terrorist money laundering and other security issues but investigations targeting tens of billions of dollars being hidden offshore illegally by Americans, many with ties to Israel. The projects subject to spying by this CIA/Israeli operation are, among others: (source: Department of Homeland Security and the United States Senate)

SENATE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE

Current hearings held by the Senate Homeland Security Committee chaired by Landireu, hearings subject to this espionage attack involve:

*
Intelligence reform in the aftermath of the Christmas terrorist attack
*
Overviews of contracting corruption in Afghanistan
*
Planning for securing America’s diplomats around the world
*
The Terrorist Reform and Terrorist Prevention Act (IRTPA)
*
Investigating the root causes of the Ft. Hood attack
*
Securing America from financial crimes
*
America’s Defense from Cyber Attack
*
Development plans for “post surge” Afghanistan

Current investigations by the Sub-Committee on Investigations are:

*
Speculation in trading and how it effects national security
*
How US banks help overseas corporation dodge US taxes
*
Report on Tax Havens hiding billions from the IRS
*
Massive abuses of government credit cards by employees
*
Ending “offshore secrecy” to allow the US to recover billions in tax shortfall
*
Shell Oil credit card interest abuses
*
Medicaid abuse and equipment overcharges
*
Billions in unpaid taxes on Medicaid income by American doctors
*
Speculation in the energy markets costing American consumers billions a year
*
Failures in United Nations reform, waste and corruption
*
Speculation and manipulation that controls and rigs crude oil and gasoline markets
*
and many many more

9/11

*
The Senate HSC is responsible for implementing all intelligence reforms resulting from the findings of the 9/11 commission especially in light of continued failures as demonstrated by the Ft. Hood tragedy and the Detroit terror attack.

Current contracting oversight responsibilities:

*
Overseeing all USAID reconstruction contracts in Afghanistan
*
Investigating massive corruption tied to the US Embassy in Kabul
*
Overseeing all US contractors used in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world in regard to corrupt practices and cost overruns
*
Detecting and Prosecuting Contractor Fraud

No information has been given as to how Federal authorities came to break up this terrorist operation but we are told that informants inside the CIA still loyal to the United States were involved. The arrest of Dai, a highly trained operative blocks away from the scene opens a number of scenarios.

With much of the CIA’s former leadership now employed by Blackwater/Xe, a company owned and controlled by Republican party leadership, the lines between domestic and foreign intelligence operations have become blurred. “CIA agents” killed in Afghanistan recently may all have been Blackwater/Xe employees, some or all former CIA operatives seeking the higher salaries of the private security industry. Has the CIA become “interchangable” with a mercenary group tied to a political party and available for hire by anyone with enough money? The deteriorating security sitiuation in Afghanistan and Pakistan gives creedence to this hypothesis.

The use of forces designated only to be used against American enemies outside the United States against elected officials of our own government, possibly on behalf of an unfriendly foreign government, is a total indictment of the usefulness of our entire intelligence community. Attempts to centralize intelligence resources only tied those resources to individuals whose political ideologies surpassed loyalty to the United States or were superceded by moral flexibility, so often the case with politicians, now popularly described under the term “situational narcissism.” (believing one’s position places one above any moral code or ethical standard)

Significant polarization within the political community during the Bush administration encouraged members of the intelligence community to look on members of the opposition political party as terrorist sympathizers. We are told that many members of the military and intelligence community may be actively involved in “extracurricular” activities, freelancing for individuals no longer in government. Those co-opted by extremist views are vulnerable to ploys from foreign intelligence agencies who represent themselves as part of “right thinking” or “conservative” patriotic groups.

This is a common ploy, developed long ago by the KGB in the Soviet Union and now SOP, (Standard Operating Proceedure) for agencies of friend and foe alike.

It is now a subject for a legitimate investigation as are such “accidents” as the Ohio plane crash that killed Mike Connell, GOP “vote rigging” guru who asked for police protection from Karl Rove tied to rigging the 2004 Presidential Election. Connell’s family believes his death was murder. US Senators, investigative reporters, whistleblowing scientists, “girlfriends” and so many other categories seem to die in numbers well beyond any actuarial table.

We are already spending billions of dollars a year hunting foreign terrorists that threaten the United States. Do we need to double this and go on a “witch hunt” within our own agencies, the ones we entrust with our own security? There is only one answer: Yes, of course we must. We may not have a few “bad apples,” we may have a diseased orchard.

Government Is Too Big to Succeed

Source: Ron Paul / Campaign For Liberty
January 19, 2010

Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission kicked off their first round of hearings on the causes of the economic meltdown on Wall Street. The commission is being compared to the the Pecora Commission launched in 1932 to investigate the causes of the Great Depression. The Pecora commission is beloved by those who believe the solution to every problem is more laws because it was used to justify a number of new laws, including Glass-Steagall. Of course, none of those laws addressed the real causes of the Great Depression. It was the introduction of unsound monetary policy and central economic planning pursued by the Federal Reserve that really threw everything off balance. The Fed was founded in 1913 to stabilize the economy and prevent a recurrence of the short-lived Panic of 1907, but instead it promptly produced the Great Depression which lasted more than 15 years.

The Pecora Commission was stacked with big government sympathizers who blamed the free market and the gold standard without question, and without any consideration of government interference in the economy. This panel is no different. Never will they contemplate how government steered us into this crisis, and what perverse incentives can be removed or repealed so that the market will function more smoothly. Never will they discuss how investment should come from savings, not debt. Never will it occur to them that fiat money, artificially low interest rates and the whole Federal Reserve System might be unwise and unstable, not to mention unconstitutional. The answer will always be more government regulation and oversight. It is predictable that this government panel will eventually come to the firm conclusion that government needs to be bigger, and that the market is just too free.

How sad is this when exactly the opposite is true?

It is big government that gives out tax breaks to engineer behavior, often creating large pockets of malinvestments. It is government that created the FDIC and the Fed as lender of last resort which all encourages moral hazard. It is big government that gives bureaucrats the ability to bail out cronies with taxpayer dollars while screaming that the economic sky is falling if they don’t. It is big government that every year adds new layers to the already labyrinthine regulatory code that smaller businesses can’t keep up with while simultaneously preventing new businesses from emerging. It is big government that misdirects economic productivity into bankrupt businesses that they consider to be too big to fail.

If this panel was serious about understanding the root of the problem, as they claim to be, they would have people testify who understand the crisis and saw it coming. To my knowledge, none of them have received a phone call. The problem is those people would say too many things the government panel would find inconvenient. They would point fingers at too many of the state’s anointed. They would recommend getting government out of the way of the free market and getting back to simply protecting contracts and punishing fraud. But the biggest fraud is perpetrated by the Federal Reserve. No one on this panel takes that viewpoint seriously. Instead, they will be asking people who are still scratching their heads at how they could have missed the housing bubble what new regulations they can put in place to prevent future bubbles. Thus, I don’t expect much real wisdom to come out of this current investigation.

Stranger and Stranger

Source: Roger Pielke Jr.’s Blog
January 19, 2010

The fallout from the IPCC Himalayan glacier situation gets stranger and stranger. Now an IPCC lead author has stepped forward claiming that the error has been known by the IPCC all along. From Agence France-Presse:

A top scientist said Monday he had warned in 2006 that a prediction of catastrophic loss of Himalayan glaciers, published months later by the UN’s Nobel-winning climate panel, was badly wrong.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report said in 2007 it was “very likely” that the glaciers, which supply water to more than a billion people across Asia, would vanish by 2035 if global warming trends continued.

“This number is not just a little bit wrong, but far out of any order of magnitude,” said Georg Kaser, an expert in tropical glaciology at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.

“It is so wrong that it is not even worth discussing,” he told AFP in an interview.

It gets more interesting:

Kaser suggested the initial error originated from a misreading of a 1996 Russian study or from findings on a handful of glaciers that were mistakenly extended to apply to the whole region.

In either case, he suggested, the fact that it found its way into the report underpinning global climate negotiations signalled the need for a reform of the way the IPCC collects and reviews data.

“The review community has entirely failed” in this instance, he said.

Kaser was a lead author in Working Group I of the IPCC report, which dealt with the physical science of climate change.

Its conclusions — that climate change is “unequivocal” and poses a major threat — remain beyond reproach, he said.

The prediction for the Himalayan glaciers was contained in the separately published Working Group II report, which assessed likely impacts of climate change.

More specifically, the chapter focussed on an assessment of Asia, authored by scientists from the region.

“This is a source of a lot of misunderstandings, misconceptions or failures,” Kaser said, noting that some regions lacked a broad spectrum of expertise.

“It is a kind of amateurism from the regional chapter lead authors. They may have been good hydrologists or botanists, but they were without any knowledge in glaciology.”

Kaser said some of the scientists from other regional groups took heed of suggestions, and made corrections ahead of final publication in April 2007.

But the Asia group did not. “I pointed it out,” he said of the implausible prediction on the glaciers.

“For a reason I do not know, they did not react.”

But blame did not rest with the regional scientists alone, Kaser added.

“I went back through the comments afterward, and not a single glaciologist had any interest in looking into Working Group II,” he said.

And there is more:

The IPCC’s Fifth Assessment, scheduled for release in 2013, will probably be adjusted to avoid such problems, said Kaser.

“All the responsible people are aware of this weakness in the Fourth Assessment. All are aware of the mistakes made,” he said.

“If it had not been the focus of so much public opinion, we would have said ‘we will do better next time.’ It is clear now that Working Group II has to be restructured,” he said.

The implications of Kaser’s comments are not good for the IPCC, however that they are interpreted.

Given Rajendra Pachauri’s vigorous defense of the claims made by the IPCC about Himalayan glacier melt, Dr. Kaser’s comment that — “All the responsible people are aware of this weakness in the Fourth Assessment. All are aware of the mistakes made” — raises an eyebrow. It must be the case that Dr. Pachauri either knew of the error or he did not. Neither state of affairs is good for the IPCC.

Consider a further implication: If indeed “all the responsible people are aware” of the mistakes in the IPCC, then what in the world explains their complete silence over the past few years while headlines like the following were being announced to the world?

Think about this statement:

“If it had not been the focus of so much public opinion, we would have said ‘we will do better next time.’”

Is it really the case that IPCC scientists would have continued to sit on a known error with important policy implications in complete silence until their hand was forced by the focus of public opinion? Really?!

I wonder what other known errors are being sat on?

Fed makes ‘a killing’ on AIG contracts

Source: Financial Times
January 20, 2010

The Federal Reserve is sitting on billions of dollars in paper profits from its controversial effort to unwind credit insurance contracts that AIG provided to banks such as Goldman Sachs, people familiar with the matter said.

The Fed rescue has generated criticism because the banks received 100 cents on the dollar for credit insurance they bought from AIG on collateralised debt obligations – financial instruments that promise the buyer cash flows from pools of bonds or loans. This had led to claims that AIG’s rescue was a “backdoor bail-out” of big banks.

However, the central bank is in a position to reap profits from this part of the rescue, which involved the purchase of the underlying CDOs by a New York Fed-financed vehicle, called Maiden Lane III, so that the insurance contracts written on them could be terminated.

At the time of their purchase, the CDOs had a face value of $62.1bn and a market value of $29.6bn. Now, the estimated market value of the CDOs is at least $45bn (£27.5bn), according to several people with direct knowledge of the portfolio.

“With the rally in the credit markets and tightening spreads, the Fed has made a killing – on paper,” said one person familiar with the portfolio.

The people familiar with the portfolio said that it would be difficult to sell all the CDOs because they are generally illiquid. A rapid sale of CDOs could also depress their prices.

At the time of the Fed intervention, the value of the CDOs insured by AIG was falling dramatically and AIG was facing a credit downgrade. AIG was being forced to post more collateral with the banks to which it sold credit insurance and the Fed feared that these demands would wipe out the insurer.

Following the rescue, the value of the CDOs in Maiden Lane III continued to fall, sinking to $20.7bn by March 31 2009. The portfolio’s value rose to $22.4bn by the end of September, the last date for which official statistics are available.

Maiden Lane III was funded with a $24.3bn loan from the New York Fed and $5bn in equity from AIG. Because the CDOs have continued to throw off cash, the balance on the Fed loan is now about $17bn, people familiar with the matter said.

If the CDOs in Maiden Lane III were sold, the proceeds would pay off the Fed loan first, followed by the AIG investment. The Fed would receive 67 per cent of any additional profits, and AIG 33 per cent.

The improvement in the Maiden Lane III portfolio comes as Fed officials face continuing controversy over the circumstances of the bail-out.

US Treasury secretary Tim Geithner, who was New York Fed president at the time of the AIG rescue, is set to testify at a hearing on the matter by The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on January 27.

AIG declined to comment.

Additional reporting by Francesco Guerrera in New York

Mass. Senator Scott Brown Voted Against Helping 9/11 Workers in Order to Subsidize a Golf Course (Video)

Source: 911 Blogger
January 19, 2010

The American Sucker

Source: Daily Paul
January 20, 2010

FBI circumvented law to get phone records

Source: AP
January 20, 2010

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI used a variety of informal methods, from requests by e-mail to Post-it notes, that circumvented the law to obtain thousands of phone call records for terrorism investigations, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report Wednesday.

The 289-page examination said that for several years the FBI obtained some phone records by those methods, by telephone and by what the FBI referred to as “sneak peeks” – all informal approaches that the inspector general found were improper.

The FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit made informal requests for the call records associated with at least 3,500 telephone numbers. The IG said it could not determine the full scope of the practice because of the FBI’s inadequate record-keeping.

Regarding the use of “sneak peeks,” employees of phone companies would check their records and provide the FBI with a preview of the available information for a targeted phone number, without any written justification for the request from the FBI, and often without documentation that such a request had even been made.

Part of the IG’s examination focused on the use of 700 exigent letters to obtain the calling records for more than 2,000 phone numbers from 2003 to 2006. The IG concluded that contrary to the statements in the letters, many of the investigations for which the letters were used did not meet legal standards.

The report also disclosed that as part of a leak investigation, the FBI obtained records for telephone numbers assigned to some reporters at The New York Times and The Washington Post without first obtaining approval from the attorney general as required by federal regulation and department policy.

According to the report, a phone company provided the FBI 22 months of records for a Washington Post reporter’s phone number and provided records to the FBI for the phone number assigned to one of the Post’s bureaus. According to the report, The FBI says it has purged records obtained from both newspapers from its databases.

The FBI’s practices are “troubling” and the bureau and the Justice Department need to take steps to ensure that agents obtain records in accord with the law and department policies, Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a statement.

Reliance on the informal methods represented “an egregious breakdown” in the FBI’s responsibility to comply with the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the report concluded.

“We take the issues raised by the inspector general exceptionally seriously and we have since we first undertook a review a number of years ago,” FBI Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee during an appearance Wednesday on Capitol Hill.

In a statement, Michael P. Kortan, the FBI’s assistant director for public affairs, said the report found no intentional attempts to obtain records that counterterrorism personnel knew they were not legally entitled to obtain.

“No FBI employee obtained telephone records for reasons other than a legitimate investigative interest,” Kortan said.

Supreme Court rolls back campaign cash limits

Source: MSNBC
January 21, 2010

WASHINGTON – In a landmark ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down laws that banned corporations from using their own money to support or oppose candidates for public office.

By 5-4 vote, the court overturned federal laws, in effect for decades, that prevented corporations from using their profits to buy political campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states.

It leaves in place a ban prohibiting corporations and unions from directly contributing funds to candidates for any use.

In a statement, President Barack Obama said that the decision gives ‘a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics.’ The president pledged to work with Congress to ‘develop a forceful response’ to the court’s ruling.

Critics of the stricter limits have argued that they amount to an unconstitutional restraint of free speech, and the court majority agreed.

“The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his majority opinion, joined by his four more conservative colleagues.

Strongly disagreeing, Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.”

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined Stevens’ dissent, parts of which he read aloud in the courtroom.

The justices also struck down part of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.

Advocates of strong campaign finance regulations have predicted that a court ruling against the limits would lead to a flood of corporate and union money in federal campaigns as early as November’s congressional elections.

The decision removes limits on independent expenditures that are not coordinated with candidates’ campaigns.

The case does not affect political action committees, which mushroomed after post-Watergate laws set the first limits on contributions by individuals to candidates. Corporations, unions and others may create PACs to contribute directly to candidates, but they must be funded with voluntary contributions from employees, members and other individuals, not by corporate or union treasuries.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy to form the majority in the main part of the case.

Roberts, in a separate opinion, said that upholding the limits would have restrained “the vibrant public discourse that is at the foundation of our democracy.”

Stevens complained that those justices overreached by throwing out earlier Supreme Court decisions that had not been at issue when this case first came to the court.

“Essentially, five justices were unhappy with the limited nature of the case before us, so they changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law,” Stevens said.

The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute movie that was very critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United wanted to air ads for the anti-Clinton movie and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

But federal courts said the movie looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.

The movie was advertised on the Internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters. Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the Internet.

The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.

The justices convened in a special argument session in September, Sotomayor’s first. The conservative justices gave every indication then that they were prepared to take the steps they did on Thursday.

The justices, with only Thomas in dissent, did uphold McCain-Feingold requirements that anyone spending money on political ads must disclose the names of contributors.

Brezinski admits CFR, Trilateral Groups Write Policy, Manipulate Affairs, Policy & Legislation

Source: <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=28535“>We Are Change Colorado

http://www.newworldorderreport.com/Articles/tabid/266/ID/1298/Zbigniew-Brzezinski-the-Man-Who-Created-the-Mujahideen-Which-Became-Al-Qaeda-Admitted-in-an-Interview-that-the-Trilateral-Commission-and-Council-on-Foreign-Relations-Write-Policy-Manipulate-Influence-World-Affairs.aspx