Why the LAPD's Hunt for Dorner Is Indefensible

The hunt for Christopher Dorner, which injured innocent civilians, reveals how little the department has changed.

Photo Credit: SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

February 16, 2013  |  

 http://www.alternet.org/why-lapds-hunt-dorner-indefensible?paging=off

In hunting down Christopher J. Dorner, hell-bent on murderous revenge over being fired from the Los Angeles Police Department, officers twice fired without warning on three innocent civilians, wounding two of them.
That innocent people get shot by cops who think their own safety is paramount, whose actions show they value their own lives more than those of people they are sworn to protect, is part of a major problem in America that has not abated much despite decades of efforts to make policing more professional and less brutish. It is the policy of police departments that police cannot kill innocents to save themselves, in effect, that sometimes your sworn duty is to die. But, on the streets, it is far too often another story entirely.
The victims of this Feb. 7 police violence bore no resemblance to Dorner or his vehicle. The deranged Dorner drove a gray Nissan Titan pickup, while LAPD fired a fusillade into a bright blue Toyota Tacoma pickup from behind, while minutes later Torrance, Calif., police rammed a black Honda Ridgeline pickup and then fired three shots.
Dorner was a large, even hulking, black man. In the blue truck were two Hispanic women. Torrance police shot at a surfer, a white male slight in stature.
Luckily none of these innocents died, though one of the women was shot in the back.
Both LAPD Chief Charlie Beck and the Torrance police quickly issued statements excusing this murderous conduct, a rush to judgment that shows how “to protect and serve” sometimes means “to protect our own.” But valuing police lives more than those of others has a long history in policing and especially in Los Angeles and its surrounding communities. So does a long history of racism in police departments that many officers of all colors have fought with limited success.
Over the last three decades LAPD officers have shot people who tossed a typewriter at them from further than the machine would fly, as well as people who threw, or just threatened to throw, knives from distances of 10 feet or more, posing not much of a risk to the officers. They have shot people who were naked and unarmed, or who police said they thought were armed because of a glint of metal or because they mistook a water pistol for a real gun.
LAPD officers, of course, have also come under actual and scary attacks, like the 1997 shootout in North Hollywood with armored bank robbers whose assault rifles spewed more than 1,100 rounds over 44 terrifying minutes before both were fatally shot by courageous officers with far less powerful weapons.

The issue is one of balance. And that includes recognizing that when you take the oath to become a police officer you never acquire the right to shoot innocent people. The LAPD teaches recruits that they assume the risk that they may have to give up their life to protect innocents, a lesson often forgotten on the streets.
Tom Bradley raised this problem of police putting their safety ahead of those they are sworn to protect shortly after he was elected mayor in 1973.
Bradley told me in 1981 that he asked Police Chief Ed Davis to explain why 300 officers were assigned to rooftop and perimeter patrols at police divisions (called precinct houses in most cities). Davis said police needed protection from armed criminals, citing an infamous incident in the mostly black South Central area where several people stood up at a meeting and urged killing officers.
Years later it came out that those urging attacks on police were all undercover officers, part of a massive worldwide LAPD spying operation in which some officers posed as leading communists and radicals for two decades, including officers in Havana and Moscow. (Doubters are invited to read “Chief: My Life in the LAPD,” by the late Daryl F. Gates, especially pages 72 and 231, as well as my articles about LAPD spying, brutality and mismanagement in the Los Angeles Times in 1980 until early 1983.)
Mayor Bradley said he told Chief Davis that “if armed men inside police stations need protection then unarmed citizens of this city need it more – now get those men out on the streets.” Davis soon put these officers back on the streets.
Bradley was the first black lieutenant on the LAPD and the second black mayor of a major American city (Carl Stokes was first in Cleveland). He was also the grandson of a slave and the son of sharecroppers, a family history that gave him an intense interest in racial equity.
Bradley told me about the racism he dealt with as an officer, including how the department’s culture made some black officers perceive black citizens as greater threats than whites. He reminded me that one of the two officers in the fatal police shooting of Eulia Love, who had threatened a bill collector from the natural gas utility and then threw a knife in the direction of officers who were a safe distance away, was black.
Deputy Chief Lou Reiter told me in 1981 that one police captain repeatedly instructed his officers to treat all blacks as criminal suspects, which made Page One news in the Los Angeles Times. When I asked Police Chief Daryl Gates for his response, Gates compared himself to Jesus Christ and called Reiter his Judas. The captain kept on promoting his racist doctrine.
The official message is that racism and violence against innocents is not tolerated, but comments like those by Chief Gates back then and Chief Beck now send a very different signal. So does the police disciplinary system, which has allowed some of the officers involved in notorious acts of unwarranted LAPD violence, like the 1991 Rodney King beating, to rise to become sergeants, lieutenants and captains.
Racist talk by officers, including the N-word, formed part of Dorner’s manifesto,
a diatribe that also asserted that acts of dishonesty and unprovoked violence permeated the LAPD. Chief Beck has reopened the Dorner case, promising to examine the now dead officer’s accusations. Don’t hold your breath.
A major problem that enables police violence has been chronicled by Joseph Wambaugh, the LAPD sergeant turned novelist. The first novel he wrote, “The Blue Knight,” is built around the courtroom destruction of Bumper Morgan, one helluva street cop whose aging eyes could not have seen what he testified that he saw, even though he got the facts right.
This is known as “testilying,” a theme Wambaugh returned to often in his later books. Senior officers who were appalled by testilying instructed me on its fine points, during the three years I covered LAPD management, revealing its brutality, failure to solve crimes and massive political spying operation, which included using undercover officers as agents provocateur to initiate violence.
In the months ahead we may get sworn testimony about the two Feb. 7 shootings during the Dorner manhunt. Then again, maybe not, as California has a law that protects police officers who are not criminally charged from even being identified.
The more troubling incident was the shooting in the back of Emma Hernandez, a 71-year-old grandmother who at 5 that morning was slowly driving down suburban streets with her daughter delivering the Los Angeles Times when she was shot in the back as she rode in a pickup truck with her daughter, Margie Carranza, 47. Officers coming up from behind opened fire, not taking one or two shots and then assessing, as they are taught by the LAPD, but unleashing a fusillade.
The LAPD official line is that officers mistook the women’s bright blue Toyota pickup for Dorner’s gray Nissan Titan.
Chief Charlie Beck gave what is a well-practiced LAPD response to shots fired without warning at innocent, unarmed civilians, calling it “a tragic misinterpretation” by officers working under “incredible tension.” There is another word that more accurately describes such conduct, which is way outside of LAPD policy: “criminal.”
The official LAPD manual says that the “guiding value when using force shall be reverence for human life,” a policy impossible to reconcile with the Feb. 7 shooting. LAPD officers are only authorized to use deadly force when it “reasonably believed to be an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”
In the case of moving vehicles, “firearms shall not be discharged at a moving vehicle unless a person in the vehicle is immediately threatening the officer or another person with deadly force by means other than the vehicle. The moving vehicle itself shall not
presumptively constitute a threat that justifies an officer’s use of deadly force.”
The L.A. Times, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, reported that at least seven officers fired on the women, striking the truck at least a dozen times as well as nearby cars, trees and garage doors.
Richard Goo, five bullet holes in his nearby house, asked the right question: “How do you mistake two Hispanic women, one who is 71, for a large black male?” An equally good question is how police in suburban Torrance just minutes later mistook a slight, white male for the hulking, black suspect.
Shooting innocent people in the pursuit of a clearly murderous suspect like Dorner is not just wrong, it is indefensible. The question is whether it will result in disciplinary action against not just the officers in the two shootings – who should at least be fired if not indicted – but against the command staff whose first reaction was to defend the conduct.

David Cay Johnston is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist and best-selling author.

5 Outrageous Revelations from Matt Taibbi's Takedown on HSBC's Drug Money Laundering

In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, Taibbi takes on the most criminal bank yet.

February 15, 2013  |  

 

 http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-outrageous-revelations-matt-taibbis-takedown-hsbcs-drug-money-laundering?paging=off

 

 

Matt Taibbi’s most recent Rolling Stonearticle unpacks one of last year’s most shocking bank cases in our era of “Too Big to Jail.” In December, HSBC was punished with a $1.9 billion settlement on drug laundering charges, the largest in American history, yet only five weeks worth of profits for the world’s third largest bank.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Lanny Breuer was uncharacteristically candid when explaining why he refused to pursue criminal charges: “HSBC would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat and the entire banking system would have been destabilized."
People were rightfully outraged when not a single HSBC banker went to jail for a decades’ worth of federal crimes, including money-laundering linked to drug cartels, terrorists and oppressive regimes. Taibbi dove deep into HSBC’s case and history, revealing that the bank’s crimes were even worst than we thought. Here are five shockers from his article:
1. By HSBC’s December settlement, the bank had already received two cease-and-desist letters.
First, in 2003, the Federal Reserve sent a cease-and-desist letter to HSBC demanding the bank take strict precaution not to do business with criminals and terrorists. The letter came after revelations that HSBC had opened accounts for shady characters like Sulaiman bin Abdul Aziz Al Rajhi, one of the “20 early financiers of Al Qaeda.”
Essentially, the Feds caught HSBC engaged in criminal activity and told the bank to stop. But they didn’t. After the first cease-and-desist letter, the bank received dozens of warnings from the OCC, which they continued to ignore.
The second cease-and-desist order came in 2010, after the OCC determined HSBC’s money-laundering controls to be weak. Instead of prosecuting the bank after it had ignored countless warnings, the OCC gave HSBC a second chance.
Taibbi compares the leniency given to HSBC compared to victims of the outrageous “three-strikes” rule: “Three-time losers doing life in California prisons for street felonies might be surprised to learn that the no-jail settlement Lanny Breuer worked out for HSBC was already the bank's third strike.”
2. HSBC covered its tracks when helping oppressive regimes avoid sanctions
Taibbi reports that HSBC used a technique called “stripping” to avoid detection when they did business with countries under U.S. sanction. In particular, HSBC sought to increase its profits by laundering cash for Iran. The author quotes a memo from HSBC’s Middle East subsidiary, HBME:

"It is anticipated that Iran will become a source of increasing income for the group going forward," the memo says, "and if we are to achieve this goal we must adopt a positive stance when encountering difficulties."

To do this, the “bank would remove references to Iran in wire transactions to and from the United States, often putting themselves in place of the actual client name to avoid triggering OFAC alerts,” explains Taibbi.
Taibbi further reports that there is evidence linking HSBC to a slew of other sanctioned countries like, Sudan, Cuba, Burma and North Korea.
3. HSBC ran offshore branches designed specifically for money laundering
In what Taibbi calls the “pinnacle innovation in the history of sleazy banking practices,” HSBC created a so-called “Cayman islands” branch in Mexico that let customers sidestep routine screening when opening accounts. The writer says clients “barely had to submit a real name and address, much less explain the legitimate origins of their deposits.” A 2002 audit revealed that 41 percent of accounts didn’t have complete client information.
When it turned out that American companies used these accounts to sell aircraft to drug cartels, HSBC Mexico finally shutout some of the “Cayman islands branch” clients—but not all of them. Taibbi notes that, “As late as 2012, when HSBC executives were being dragged before the U.S. Senate, the bank still had 20,000 such accounts worth some $670 million.”
4. HSBC did direct business with “the worst trafficking organizations imaginable.”
A part of a major narcotics investigation, federal agents discovered a ton of evidence that implicated HSBC in widespread money laundering. For example, Taibbi reports the bank “played a key role in the so-called Black Market Peso Exchange, which allowed drug cartels in both Mexico and Colombia to convert U.S. dollars from drug sales into pesos to be used back home.” And the dealers HSBC did business with were some of the most violent in the world.
Former federal prosecutor Neil Barofsky told Rolling Stone HSBC worked for Colombia's Norte del Valle and Mexico's Sinaloa cartels — “groups that don't just commit murder on a mass scale but are known for beheadings, torture videos and other atrocities, none of which happens without money launderers.”
Barofsky says he once put a Notre del Valle cartel member behind bars for 10 years on money laundering charges far smaller than what HSBC was involved with.
5. An entire HSBC department was tasked with quickly clearing suspicious behavior
After the OCC sent HSBC its second cease-and-desist letter, the bank hired a bunch of unqualified workers to “investigate” suspicious alerts. In reality, the Delaware-based department was tasked with clearing out skeletons from HSBC’s closet. Taibbi quotes damning emails from HSBC bosses pressuring workers to clear as many alerts as possible, and praising the entire Delaware office when it erased 60 suspicious transactions in a week.
Taibbi interviewed one of these “investigators,” Everett Stern, who described laughably low criteria for clearing an alert.
"Basically, if a company had a website, you could clear them," he told Rolling Stone.
Stern found a slew of suspicious transactions that he was hired to scrub away, including exchanges tied to Hezbollah, Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. He decided to turn whistleblower and alert the FBI.
After that, Lanny Breur slapped HSBC with a deferred prosecution agreement.
"I thought, 'All that, for nothing?' " Stern told Rolling Stone. "I couldn't believe it."

Steven Hsieh is an editorial assistant at AlterNet and writer based in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter @stevenjhsieh.

Motivating Yourself Every Day To Fight The Copyright Monopoly

• Rick Falkvinge
• February 17, 2013

When working for reform or abolition of the copyright or patent monopolies, things can sometimes feel a bit uphill, even though the eventual abolition of these protectionist monopolies seems inevitable. To get energy for activism each day, it helps to understand the Overton Window.
Nobody ever changed the world without making enemies. If you’re not pissing anybody off, you’re probably not doing anything useful to make the world a better place to live in.
There’s an important corollary to that observation, and that is that when participating in activism, nobody should fear criticism from the privileged. Those people like things the way they are, with them in the seat of the privileged, thank you very much. Therefore, changing the world with a passion for justice has always drawn opposition from the powerful.
But powerful ideas, such as the immense benefit to society of having freedom of knowledge and culture, have a tendency to take on a life on their own. Once they gain enough momentum, they tend to snowball.
It’s quite a bit like when you’re riding a rollercoaster in the rearmost car in the train. You know when the train climbs a steep slope, and it’s all uphill, uphill, uphill? Then, the first car in the train passes the crest, and the whole train starts going a little bit easier. Shortly thereafter, the train’s center of gravity passes the crest, and pulls the rest of the train past the crest along with it. At that point, you’re still in the rear car, you’re still going uphill, but the built-up momentum of the train as a whole is enough to take you past the crest and into the realm of the downhill.
There’s an observation that when powerful ideas like the idea of free knowledge and culture hit 10% of a population, they snowball and become reality in short order. You just need to make sure they spread to one in ten people. As we all know, that’s completely doable. It’s not the Tim Kuiks, the Chris Dodds, the Jack Valentis, and the Henrik Ponténs we need to convince. Heck, they’re paid well to not understand a word we’re saying. Never mind the copyright industry lobby. Our goal is talking to everybody else.
There’s a guy named Joseph Overton who worded this as the Overton Window. It describes how the range of politically acceptable ideas in a society is a fairly narrow window, and that what’s considered sensible or acceptable can slide in both directions in and out of this window.
In short, an idea can move along a scale of unthinkable, impossible, heretical, radical, possible, acceptable, plausible, sensible, popular, and policy. Removing these inhumanly unjust monopolies – monopolies that keep medicines out of bloodstreams of the poor, education out of the hands of the needy, food away from the bellies of the hungry, songs away from the singers, and technology away from the supposedly subservient – doesn’t need to be taken all the way to “policy” to succeed as an activist.
(I saw somebody calling these monopolies today’s economic equivalent of the 16th century slave trade. I don’t think that’s particularly far off the mark, to illustrate just how harshly I think the future will judge these protectionist monopolies.)
It’s enough to push the train of the rollercoaster to get its center of gravity past the crest. It’s enough to take the idea from “unthinkable” – which was the case just a decade ago – to somewhere between possible and sensible, and it will happen.
That’s why working as an activist is always uphill, figuratively pushing that rollercoaster train from behind. Once the idea snowballs under its own power, the activist’s work is practically done – at that point, the effort goes into maintenance mode from its previous startup mode.
For myself, I founded the world’s first Pirate Party on January 1, 2006. It was unthinkable that a self-declared pirate could get elected legislator. Absolutely impossible. Under my leadership, the party showed the world in 2009 that it was possible as we put two people in the European Parliament – a huge move on the Overton Window.
As an activist, you will always get flak and harsh words for trying to make the world a better place. Challenging the status quo in unthinkable ways is always met with hostility. But frequently, it’s enough to argue well enough to take a reform from “unthinkable” to “possible” – and we all know that’s in our power.
The reward is in the results.
Change the world.
And have fun. Have fun making defenders of the status quo angry. That’s important. Having fun is reward in itself, too.
(I write a lot more about this in my upcoming book, Swarmwise – The tactical manual to changing the world. You can read the first chapter here. Do let me know if you think the book sounds interesting, as that will make the book get published faster.)

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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Pope Benedict resigned to avoid arrest, seizure of church wealth by Easter

Pope Benedict resigned to avoid arrest, seizure of church wealth by Easter

Posted on February 13, 2013 by itccs

Diplomatic Note was issued to Vatican just prior to his resignation

New Pope and Catholic clergy face indictment and arrest as "Easter Reclamation" plan continues

A Global Media Release and Statement from The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State 

Brussels:
The historically unprecedented resignation of Joseph Ratzinger as Pope this week was compelled by an upcoming action by a European government to issue an arrest warrant against Ratzinger and a public lien against Vatican property and assets by Easter.
The ITCCS Central Office in Brussels is compelled by Pope Benedict's sudden abdication to disclose the following details:
1. On Friday, February 1, 2013, on the basis of evidence supplied by our affiliated Common Law Court of Justice (itccs.org), our Office concluded an agreement with representatives of a European nation and its courts to secure an arrest warrant against Joseph Ratzinger, aka Pope Benedict, for crimes against humanity and ordering a criminal conspiracy.
2. This arrest warrant was to be delivered to the office of the "Holy See" in Rome on Friday, February 15, 2013. It allowed the nation in question to detain Ratzinger as a suspect in a crime if he entered its sovereign territory.
3. A diplomatic note was issued by the said nation's government to the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, on Monday, February 4, 2013, informing Bertone of the impending arrest warrant and inviting his office to comply. No reply to this note was received from Cardinal Bertone or his office; but six days later, Pope Benedict resigned.
4. The agreement between our Tribunal and the said nation included a second provision to issue a commercial lien through that nation's courts against the property and wealth of the Roman Catholic church commencing on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. This lien was to be accompanied by a public and global "Easter Reclamation Campaign" whereby Catholic church property was to be occupied and claimed by citizens as public assets forfeited under international law and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
5. It is the decision of our Tribunal and the said nation's government to proceed with the arrest of Joseph Ratzinger upon his vacating the office of the Roman Pontiff on a charge of crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy.
6. It is our further decision to proceed as well with the indictment and arrest of Joseph Ratzinger's successor as Pope on the same charges; and to enforce the commercial lien and "Easter Reclamation Campaign" against the Roman Catholic church, as planned.
In closing, our Tribunal acknowledges that Pope Benedict's complicity in criminal activities of the Vatican Bank (IOR) was compelling his eventual dismissal by the highest officials of the Vatican. But according to our sources, Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone forced Joseph Ratzinger's resignation immediately, and in direct response to the diplomatic note concerning the arrest warrant that was issued to him by the said nation's government on February 4, 2013.
We call upon all citizens and governments to assist our efforts to legally and directly disestablish the Vatican, Inc. and arrest its chief officers and clergy who are complicit in crimes against humanity and the ongoing criminal conspiracy to aid and protect child torture and trafficking.
Further bulletins on the events of the Easter Reclamation Campaign will be issued by our Office this week.
Issued 13 February, 2013
12:00 am GMT
by the Brussels Central Office

Roman Church admits the Pope’s Guilt: Joseph Ratzinger to Evade Justice and Hide out in the Vatican for his own legal immunity and “protection”

Roman Church admits the Pope’s Guilt: Joseph Ratzinger to Evade Justice and Hide out in the Vatican for his own legal immunity and “protection”

Posted on February 16, 2013 by itccs

Latest Update – Interview with Kevin Annett by Alexander Backman

Exclusive Breaking News: Friday February 15, 2013
12 midnight GMT

An Urgent Update from the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) – Brussels

Rome:
In a statement to Reuters today, Vatican officials announced that Joseph Ratzinger will remain a permanent resident of Vatican City after his resignation. Doing so will offer him legal protection from any attempt to prosecute him in connection with sexual abuse cases around the world, Church sources said today
"His continued presence in the Vatican is necessary, otherwise he might be defenseless".
This startling admission of guilt by the church is also a direct obstruction of justice, and lends more weight to the charge by the ITCCS and others that the Vatican has arranged with the Italian government to shield Ratzinger from criminal prosecution, in violation of international laws ratified by Italy.
Commentary:
The Vatican decided today to give permanent sanctuary to a proven war criminal by allowing Joseph Ratzinger to obstruct justice and evade prosecution for crimes against humanity. And the government of Italy is colluding in this abrogation of international law.
This decision validates our claims about the criminal conspiracy surrounding Ratzinger and his Vatican co-conspirators. It also makes it clear that the Vatican is a rogue power that is flaunting every law to conceal its own criminality.
In response, the ITCCS calls upon its affiliates and all people of conscience to use our upcoming Easter Reclamation Campaign to converge on Rome and the Vatican to force the extradition of Ratzinger from Vatican City, and place him and his accessories on trial for crimes against humanity.
Commencing Sunday, March 24, 2013, our activists and others will begin an escalating series of Catholic church occupations and seizures of church property to bring about Ratzinger's extradition and reclaim stolen wealth from the criminal corporation known as Vatican Inc. – in the name of the legion of their victims, both living and dead.
.. and from Kevin Annett – The Rat Scurries Back to Vat!
Those whom the gods destroy, they first drive insane. Especially, it seems, in Rome.
Why would the oldest and wealthiest institution on our planet deliberately prove what its critics say about it, by first tossing their leader, a proven crook, out of his office after he's threatened with arrest, and then giving him shelter to avoid prosecution? That's the kind of panic and illogic displayed by a junior document-shredder, not a credible or wise body of men.
And that gives all of us hope.
Rome's incredible admission that they can't have the Pope stand trial has strengthened our cause and legitimacy enormously,  proving that no matter how big is your guilty opponent, provoking him for long enough will cause him to destroy himself by his own fear and stupidity.
Protecting Ratzinger within the walls of the Vatican may halt justice for a moment, but it violates a basic rule of warfare, which is to never give your enemy a permanent focus for their attack. Ratzinger, the evil Emperor, now a permanent fixture in the Vatican? The absurdity of offering such an ongoing focus to the civilized world's hatred of catholic criminality is also a sign that the church is adrift and improvising. But it also shows how genuinely worried is the Vtaican about the legal offensive mounted by our affiliates, lawyers for torture survivors, and the International Criminal Court.
The Vatican is pulling out all stops to keep Ratzinger out of court. Their loyal, one-man owned Italian media is assaulting the crap out of yours truly and our ITCCS these days, playing the "Deny, Distract and Discredit" strategy of any damage-controlling corporation.
Tottering Liz Windsor, aka Queen of England, is making a special and unprecedented trip to Rome on March 6 to kiss the ring, or other parts, of the new CEO of Vatican Inc. And Italian President Napolitano is meeting with President Obama today in Washington to undoubtedly line up more American backing for the Pontiff – not that Obama needs much encouraging, having stood loyally behind Ratzinger's claim of "diplomatic immunity".
But all to no avail, ultimately. When the Bloody Emperor stands naked, only our illusions keeps him protected and immune from the final accounting that is coming.
The tornado that followed my first exorcism outside the Vatican in 2009, and the lightning that struck it on the day of Benedict's resignation, were not accidental. Joe Ratzinger should know from the history of his own former SS buddies that criminal institutions can run, but they can't hide – even behind all the wealth and pomp in the world.

Pope Benedict to seek immunity and protection from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on February 23

Pope Benedict to seek immunity and protection from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on February 23

Posted on February 14, 2013 by itccs

International Tribunal calls on Napolitano to "not collude in criminality", and announces global campaign to occupy Vatican property and launch human rights inquiry in Italy

Rome (9 am local time):
Pope Benedict, Joseph Ratzinger, has scheduled a meeting with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for Saturday, February 23 to discuss securing protection and immunity from prosecution from the Italian government, according to Italian media sources.
Ratzinger's meeting follows upon the apparent receipt by the Vatican of a diplomatic note from an undisclosed European government on February 4, stating its intention to issue an arrest warrant for Ratzinger, who resigned from his pontificate less than a week later.
In response to the February 23 meeting, the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS), through its field Secretary, Rev. Kevin Annett, has written to President Napolitano, asking him to refrain from assisting Ratzinger in evading justice.
The ITCCS letter states, in part,
"I need not remind you, Mr. President, that under international law and treaties that have been ratified by Italy, you and your government are forbidden from granting such protection to those like Joseph Ratzinger who have aided and abetted criminal actions, such as ordering Bishops and Cardinals in America and elsewhere to protect known child rapists among their clergy.
"Your obligation to the Vatican through the Lateran Treaty does not negate or nullify the requirements of these higher moral and international laws; nor does it require that you give any protection or immunity to a single individual like Joseph Ratzinger, especially after he has left his papal office."
A copy of the complete text of the ITCCS letter follows.
In response to the documented crimes of child torture, trafficking and genocide linked to Pope Benedict and Vatican officials, the ITCCS will be sponsoring a series of ongoing protests and occupations of Roman Catholic churches and offices through its affiliates around the world beginning in Easter week, March 24-31, 2013, and continuing indefinitely.
These actions will accompany the legal efforts to bring Joseph Ratzinger and other Vatican officials to trial for their proven complicity in crimes against humanity and criminal conspiracy.
The Easter Reclamation Campaign will seize church property and assets to prevent their use by child raping priests, who are protected under Catholic canon law. Citizens have this right to defend their communities and children when the authorities refuse to do so, under international law.
Rev. Kevin Annett and an official delegation from the ITCCS Central Office will also be convening a formal human rights inquiry in Rome commencing the week of May 13, 2013, to consider further charges against the Vatican and its new Pope  for crimes against humanity and obstruction of justice.
Rev. Annett and his delegation will be working with organizations across Italy in this investigation. In 2009 and 2010, he held rallies outside the Vatican and met with media and human rights groups across Italy to charge the Vatican with the death of more than 50,000 aboriginal children in Canada.

——————-

An Open Letter and Appeal to Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Republic of Italy from Rev. Kevin D. Annett, Secretary of the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
 

14 February, 2013
Al Presdente della Repubblica Italiana Giorgio Napolitano
Presidenza della Repubblica
c/o Palazzo del Quirinale
00187 Roma
Italia                                
  
Dear President Napolitano,
On behalf of our Tribunal and people of conscience everywhere, and of the millions of victims of church abuse, I am making an appeal to you regarding your upcoming meeting with Joseph Ratzinger, who will retire soon as Pope Benedict, the Pontiff of the Church of Rome.
Our understanding is that, in the wake of pressure to have him resign his office because of his proven complicity in concealing child trafficking in his church and other crimes against humanity, Joseph Ratzinger is seeking the assistance of the Italian government in securing protection and immunity from legal prosecution.
I need not remind you, Mr. President, that under international law and treaties that have been ratified by Italy, you and your government are forbidden from granting such protection to those like Jospeh Ratzinger who have aided and abetted criminal actions, such as ordering Bishops and Cardinals in America and elsewhere to protect known child rapists among their clergy.
Your obligation to the Vatican through the Lateran Treaties does not negate or nullify the requirements of these higher moral and international laws; nor does it require that you give any protection or immunity to a single individual like Joseph Ratzinger, especially after he has left his papal office.
The need for you to abide by international law and not be seen to collude with Joseph Ratzinger is even more true when one considers the enormity of the crimes of which the Vatican and its highest officials are clearly guilty, according to considerable evidence gathered and documented by our Tribunal and other groups, and acknowledged by many governments.
In Canada alone, the Roman Catholic Church and its Vatican agents have been found guilty of responsibility for genocide and the deaths of at least 50,000 aboriginal child children in the Jesuit-initiated Indian residential school system, that operated until 1996.
In Ireland, more than 10,000 women suffered and were exploited in the Catholic-run Magdalene Laundries, where many of them died. Similar church-run institutions all over the world have caused enormous mortality, disease and ruination for millions of children. And yet the church has never been held accountable or prosecuted for these deaths and the theft of enormous wealth from entire nations.
With the recent initiative of at least one European government and a host of lawyers to bring Joseph Ratzinger and other church officials to trial for these crimes, we feel it is incumbent on you neither to assist nor to be seen to assist or condone the attempt by him to evade, obstruct or delay justice, lest you open yourself to a charge of being an accessory to a crime.
On behalf of our Tribunal and of many people who cannot speak, I call on you to stand on the law of nations and humanity, and offer no support or protection to Joseph Ratzinger or his accessories in their efforts to evade responsibility for their proven crimes.
I look forward to your reply, and to discussing this with you more when I visit your country in May with a human rights delegation to investigate this matter more closely.
Sincerely,
Kevin D. Annett, M.A., M.Div.
Secretary, The International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State
Central Office, Brussels
cc: world media

THE TRUTH BE TOLD

Posted by George Freund on February 16, 2013 at 12:40 PM

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The Vatican has announced the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. The Pontiff is too old and frail to fulfil his obligations to the church. It is one of those nice and innocent white lies that mask the cold, hard truth of the matter. In the modern era, no one resigns. They have to be caught red handed with the smoking gun so to speak. When they do resign it is a negotiated settlement for the good of the team - team rotten that is.
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There have been sordid revelations of child abuse since Cardinal Ratzinger first was elected to his role as leader of the faith. His brother Georg Ratzinger openly admitted to slapping around boys in the choir he ran. Allegations of a sexual nature were supposed to have occurred outside his tenure. This is the curse of the papacy. Rev. Kevin Annet formaly from B.C. has been a one man crusade against the genocide committed on the indigenous people of Canada by the church. He has documented 50,000 deaths never mind rapes and molestations. He is now affiliated with the International Tribunal into Crimes of Church and State (ITCCS) from Brussels.
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The Tribunal has served the Vatican's Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, with a diplomatic note alluding to a pending arrest warrant for Pope Benedict. An unnamed country which I would assume would be Belgium assisted with making the warrant legitimate. The Vatican is obligated by treaty to effect arrest for an EU warrant. The note was issued on Feb. 4th. Nobody resigns anymore. They got to have you dead to rights. The I'm too sick story is a red herring. He is older and slower, but they go unto death.
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Another provision is a commercial lien will be placed on the property and wealth of the church as of March 31st. They further allege impropriety with the Vatican Bank which was widely reported not that long ago. Back in 2010 Chairman of the Vatican Bank Ettore Gotti Tedeschi was investigated for money laundering my Italian police in the transfer of €23 million to J P Morgan Frankfurt and Banca del Fucino. At issue was the failure to identify the receiving account holder. Vatican Bank Director General Paolo Cipriani was also investigated. The money was seized for safe keeping and returned in 2011.
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Of course there is no forgetting the death of God's Banker Roberto Calvi who was found hung from Blackfriar's Bridge in 1982 with $15,000 and bricks stuffed in his pockets. He was suspected of leading a £150 million money laundering operation. His death was ruled suicide for years even though 'conspiracy' buffs knew different. After Pope John Paul II passed away, five men were charged and acquitted in his murder. A probe is still ongoing at this time. The Istituto per le Opere Religiose (Vatican Bank) was also linked to the £2 billion collapse of Credito Ambrosiano. So you see there are millions if not billions of reasons Pope Benedict XVI is resigning. All that pressure from various investigations is causing his health to wane.
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But don't worry the Vatican has appointed another man to head the Vatican Bank. You would be hard pressed to find a better German. Ernst von Freyberg will get the job. He was Chairman of Blohm and Voss shipyards. Yes they made U boats in WWII, but that was long ago. The warships under contract to the German Navy are ours no so I'm not that concerned. However, he is a Knight of Malta. That is a 900 year old Vatican army that fought crusades past and present. We must remember the Vatican is much more than a church. It is a nation state as well. It is the surviving remnant of the Roman Empire. Pontifex Maximus was essentially the deputy head of state after Caesar. This last remnant has no greater aspiration than to restore the glory of ancient Rome and rule the world by hook or by crook as one of the three foremost groups vying for the role. They are the red (communists), the gold (corporate fascists) and the black (Vatican). That is not supposed to be part of your worldview.
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Furthermore Herr Freyberg was a banker too. That is left out of the media C.V. He worked for Three Cities Research, Inc. That smells because they're banksters' sanctuaries those three cities. He was co-founder and CEO of the consulting firm DC Advisory (Daiwa Corporate Advisory Limited, part of the Japanese Daiwa Shoken Group Honsha ) in Germany. There's a RED FLAG! Daiwa Securities Group goes back to 1902. In WWII they were the financial arm of the Emperor and the Japanese government. In WWII the gold and the black worked together for world dominion. I see and smell the same rat(zinger) again. Daiwa is establishing an IT network for the reclusive state of Myanmar.
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Herr Freyberg also is affiliated with a youth group called Das Präsidium des Malteser Hilfsdienstes e.V. Some things are best left in their original German like the Malteser. It is the who's who of German aristocracy. When you see the names of the German military industrial complex that two world wars were fought with you wonder if this isn't the nouveau Hitler youth. They include Thyssen of course and Präsident Dr. Constantin von Brandenstein-Zeppelin, Stauffenberg (Hitler plotter), and Löwenstein. Löwenstein was a part of the Holy Roman Empire. So nothing has changed in the history of war and conflict. Somebody is coming over with some of his boys to take over the world for the Anti-Christ. It is the Vatican. It was built upon a rock Peter, and Jesus said what about him?
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Matthew 16:23
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King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
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But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.
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Now you know the truth be told. Christ provided the compass. The papacy and the Roman Empire seized the catholic faith and turned it away from the church of Christ. Turn away and return to the Mount. A great sermon was preached there. There are prophecies the next Pope will be Anti-Christ. There is time to see the errors of the past and change the outcome. The truth sets us free.
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Hitler admiring the artifacts of the Holy Roman Emperor in Vienna.
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As they appear today.

State of the Union Address: None Dare Call It Treason

we are a nation of  nit-wit's  who play with our poop !  WE THE PEOPLE  have allowed /SELECTED  scum of the lowest form ---how  EVEN  the demons in Hell  ...look at em in awl  ,wonderment :o   ..the shit in D.C. (degenerate city)  lowest form of human being there is lol .....&   ARE  proud of their filth ,basement ----can & will look you dead fucking straight in the eye /cam  & say  blah,blah,blah ,blah    &  the only reason their mouth moves is because 'their'  puppet /elites  got 'their'  arms jammed  UP their asses like an ventriloquist :O  dummy  lol  ....i mean come the fuck on America !!!    going to KEEP saying it  --George Calin   was / IS  right  there's some more people  ,who need hit on the fucking head with a hammer   -- um is this gonna put me on HMS   seecrudly   or whatever fucking NAZI   name you wanna call  em , evil no good mother fuckers   ....EVEN satan himself  sleeps with 1 eye open around them  LMAO            EVEN  the Galactic Council  or whatever freaking name  'they'   go by  lol     are  ALL UNANIMOUS   we cannot let THESE motherfuckers OFF their planet lol   in ALL  the language's ,clicks fucking clacks 'they' EVEN  'they don't have words   4  the shit  that float's   around the  Potomac  LMAO         &   if   that offends yer sense  of  inabilities  ,yer wearing a helmet  & fucking mittens ...what  DO  you care   ....we are ALL going down the drain wit our  thumbs up our asses  ...........go-in      we weeeeeeeeeeeeeee   WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE  lmao   

State of the Union Address: None Dare Call It Treason

by Dave Hodges -  thecommonsenseshow.com

February 13, 2013

Either my fellow countrymen are ignorant beyond belief, or President Obama is the greatest liar to ever occupy the White House, or both, but I could hardly contain myself as I listened to the fiction coming out of the President’s mouth at last night’s State of the Union Address.
In the paragraphs below, I have included some of the most incredulous statements which came out of his mouth. Below Obama’s statements, I respond to his false assertions in order that the lay person will be motivated enough to conduct some much needed research on this President and his actions in order to expose the globalist agenda.
Excerpts from the President’s State of the Union Address are in red, my responses are in blue.

The State of the Union

Fifty-one years ago, John F. Kennedy declared to this Chamber that “the Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress…It is my task,” he said, “to report the State of the Union – to improve it is the task of us all.

First of all sir, you are no Jack Kennedy. Secondly, President Kennedy respected and defended the Constitution. You, sir, have made a mockery of the Constitution. Through the record use of issuing Executive Orders, you have made yourself into the equivalent of a tin horn dictator. 
The most egregious violations of the Constitution you have committed, centers around your approval of the NDAA which allows you to arrest and murder American citizens without due process of law. This was the day that the Republic died, and you were the overseer of the final demise of this great country.

Tonight, thanks to the grit and determination of the American people, there is much progress to report. After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home. After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over six million new jobs. We buy more American cars than we have in five years, and less foreign oil than we have in twenty. Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding, and consumers, patients, and homeowners enjoy stronger protections than ever before.

Mr. President, you have helped to perpetuate the continuance of an empire in which its foreign policy is underwritten by its corporate-controlled, endless wars of occupation, in which you have helped to make the United States the most hated nation on earth. If a country did not desire to be a puppet of the Federal Reserve’s Petrodollar scheme as well as to capitulate to the central bankers (i.e. the International Bank of Settlement), they got invaded and their leaders were murdered as evidenced by our most recent invasion of Libya.
And when our brave military men and women come home, you have them demonized. You have incarcerated your military detractors with false imprisonment as in the case of Brandon Raub. American veterans are killing themselves at the rate of 22 per day. Your administration supports the MIAC report which calls veterans the number one domestic terror threat in America.You are the number one enemy of our troops.

Under your leadership, the housing market remains an  unmitigated mess. Under your leadership, the Department of Justice refuses to prosecute anyone from the six megabanks for their complicity in stealing homeowners mortgages through the multiple selling of their housing titles. Also, your administration has been complicit by ignoring the fact the Federal Reserve Board is printing $40 billion per month, in Mortgage Backed Securities to buy property. You are an accomplice to this grand theft of the housing market by the globalists.
What protections for the housing market are speaking of Mr. President? Isn’t MERS still operating when everyone connected with it should be in prison?

The American people don’t expect government to solve every problem. They don’t expect those of us in this chamber to agree on every issue. Our work must begin by making some basic decisions about our budget – decisions that will have a huge impact on the strength of our recovery

Mr. President, you can begin by repudiating the derivatives debt created by the Wall Street bankers which comprises 93% of the nation’s debt. You can stop expecting middle-class America to pay for the excesses and making up for the mistakes made by Wall Street.

Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health care costs. The reforms I’m proposing go even further.

It’s true that cost increases have eased, but even your own experts say that’s due to the sluggish economy, not to the health care law.  Secondly, the main provisions of health care are not yet fully in effect. But Mr. President, your healthcare law will significantly raise our taxes in 14 different areas.
What could you possible mean by going further on Obamacare? I have already documented how the death panels are real and that Americans are going to be paying significantly more than they are for the health care that we had before you were elected. The draconian healthcare laws were written by the insurance companies and you are their puppet.
Going even further is a frightening thought,  I cannot imagine anything worse that what you have brought to the American people unless, of course, we are looking at a mandatory termination age in which all people that reach a certain age will be euthanized similar to the 1970′s movie Logan’s Run.

Now is our best chance for bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform that encourages job creation and helps bring down the deficit.

I am glad that you brought that up Mr. President. You promised the American people that you would only raise taxes on incomes in excess of $200,000 per year. That was a bold-faced lie. Many mainstream media outlets are reporting that you have increased taxes on incomes as low $22,000. While Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet pay no taxes, under your system of taxation, the poor and the middle class are being forced to pay more tribute to the banksters!

Today, our scientists are mapping the human brain to unlock the answers to Alzheimer’s; developing drugs to regenerate damaged organs….

If we have all these wonderful medical advances, Mr. President, then why, according to the CIA Fact Book, has America slipped to 51st in the world in longevity? We are below Cuba in lifespan!
Why are cancer rates skyrocketing? Why is autism exploding among young boys? Why do you continue to ignore the health holocaust in the Gulf which has been perpetrated by your allowance of the spraying of Corexit? Why do you continue to ignore the pleas from the Gulf citizens for help? If you care so much for our health, then why do you continue to spray us with poisonous chemicals from the air?
Why do you insist on jet fuel additives (i.e. fluoride) be in our water? Why have medically negligent deaths in America risen to 225,000 per year? Why do you continue to let Monsanto’s GMO’s be the only industry that does not have to label their ingredients so we can make an informed choice at the grocery store?

But for the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change.

Have you not heard of Climategate? Did you not know that the global warming crowd got caught cooking the books and that their hacked emails revealed that they knew that the mean temperature of the earth had slightly decreased in the past 15 years? Don’t you have advisers who read the papers who could have informed you of that?
Oh, I forgot Mr. President, after the global warming professors at East Anglia University and Penn State got caught lying, they changed their operating name from global warming to climate change. What a great strategy!  If the temperatures go up, it’s because of man- made climate change. If the temperatures go down, it’s because of man- made climate change. If there is more rain, it’s because of man- made climate change. If it rains less, it’s because of man- made climate change. Your cap and trade backers have rigged this game to the point that with any slight variability in weather patterns, it becomes man’s fault and mankind must be punished by de-industrializing everyone except for the elite while charging average people an arm and a leg for subsistence energy use. Mr. President, this makes you the enemy of humanity!

…in the meantime, the natural gas boom has led to cleaner power and greater energy independence. That’s why my Administration will keep cutting red tape and speeding up new oil and gas permits…      

Really, Mr. President? What about the report I published which stated that the U.S. government is sitting on $128 trillion of underground mineral reserves which if unleashed would push the United States to unparalleled prosperity? What about your failure to complete the Keystone Pipeline which would lower energy costs? What about the untapped oil resources in Alaska?
Cleaner energy? Why have you given almost a billion dollars away to two solar companies who produced nothing with the enormous amount of taxpayer monies they were given?

..fixing the legal immigration system to cut waiting periods, reduce bureaucracy, and attract the highly-skilled entrepreneurs and engineers that will help create jobs and grow our economy.

Mr. President, why are we not stepping up enforcement against the drug cartels which are beginning to wreak havoc upon our country instead of supplying them with arms under Fast and Furious?
Why don’t you require immigrants to learn English and pass a test on the Constitution? Or don’t you do this because you doing your very best to destroy the Constitution?
Why do we need to attract skilled foreign workers when 40% of our college graduates cannot find work? I thought you were elected to be President of the United States, not El Presidente of the World!

I signed a new executive order that will strengthen our cyber defenses by increasing information sharing, and developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs, and our privacy. Now, Congress must act as well, by passing legislation to give our government a greater capacity to secure our networks and deter attacks.

Thank you, Mr. President, for reminding us of your dictatorial propensities. To the 20% of the country that are waking up to your flavor of tyranny, we know that this is a backdoor to gain control of the internet so that your detractors, those whom you don’t murder through the invocation of the NDAA, will be forever silenced in the electronic forums of tomorrow.

Let’s also make sure that a high school diploma puts our kids on a path to a good job.

Mr. President, you have made such a mess of the economy, that Generation Y, the Echo Boom generation, is in an economic quagmire and they are losing hope. As you should know, only 60% of college graduates obtain employment. Of those who get hired, only half of those new hires obtain full time work. In other words, under your stellar leadership, today’s college graduates have about a 30% chance of obtaining full time work. And where do the rest live Mr. President? These adult children are increasingly living with their adult parents much like we witness in third world countries.
Mr. Obama, If you have aspired to be the dictator of a third world country, you are well on your way to realizing that dream(s) (of your real father, Frank Marshall Davis).

..no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour. This single step would raise the incomes of millions of working families.

Good idea Mr. President. A higher minimum wage will produce higher taxes for your Federal Reserve benefactors. In turn, those who earn slightly more than minimum wage will demand raises, thus increasing taxes even more. This inflationary cycle will spread all the way up the economy and result in bracket creep resulting in a massive increase in tax revenues.

Let’s put people back to work rebuilding vacant  homes in run-down neighborhoods.  

Good idea Mr. Obama. The Federal Reserve Board will need some help restoring the vacant homes that they are purchasing with the people’s mortgage backed securities. The Fed certainly has learned the art of using Other People’s Money. They could not have done this without you turning a blind eye to this massive theft and fraud.  Is this the version of the Obama New Deal?

To boost American exports, support American jobs, and level the playing field in the growing markets of Asia, we intend to complete negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership. And tonight, I am announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union – because trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs.

Oh no, another trade agreement? I know that Barry Sotero went to Occidental College and therefore, I could excuse his historical ignorance. But didn’t Barack Obama go to Harvard? And don’t your advisers have college degrees and are experts in something? Then why in the hell would you want to bring another trade agreement to America unless you are planning to deliver a final knockout punch to industry? Didn’t you learn at Harvard that NAFTA and CAFTA led to massive unemployment in this country as it removed tariffs as a barrier to overseas factory relocation  in search of cheap labor, while being able to ship in their pproducts duty-free?
In your U.S. History classes, Mr. President, did you not learn about the Payne Aldrich Tariff controversy? Did you not learn that the globalists of a century ago began to reduce tariffs in order to exploit overseas labor markets and then ship their slave labor products back into the country tariff free? Did you not learn this nation never needed an income tax until the globalists convinced Woodrow Wilson to reduce tariffs, one of America’s main sources of revenue? And now you want to bring us another trade agreement which will witness the further exodus of manufacturing that we have managed to hang on to?

……who believe in the 2nd Amendment….

You have made no secret of your desire to disarm the American people. Why? Actions are inspired by motivations and on the surface, your actions and support of the these false flag school shooting events are puzzling, unless we consider the fact that you have an ulterior set of motives.
Mr. President, what could possibly motivate you to disarm the citizens? Are you opening the door for invasion and making the job easier for Chinese and Russian troops? Or, are you planning to rule for life by declaring martial law and want to per-emptively reduce the opposition by disarming the people?

The True State of the Union

Mr. Obama, you are the great usurper. You are the great destroyer. You are a traitor to the American people and you should be brought to justice and punished to the full extent of the law.
This is the snap shot of the true State of the Union. America is broke, in moral decline, being dumbed down, being poisoned from multiple sources and we are being ruled by the central bankers who have hijacked our government. Yet, we are Americans, we can recover. But first, we must rid ourselves of the traitorous leadership that has led us to the brink of annihilation. We must remove these despots from office and put them on trial for prison.  Then we can begin the process of healing.