Posted by Lisa Armellino on 07/29/10

Thank you in advance for participating in our urgent national poll.

Please click here: http://fs6.formsite.com/westerncenterjournalism/form276293850/index.html

Please Note:
The Western Center for Journalism values your privacy and will not rent, sale or share your email address with third parties.

 
Posted by silverfalcor on 05/17/10
Last updated 05/17/10

Breaking News!! OATH KEEPERS PROVE SOME TROOPS REFUSED TO CONFISCATE GUNS DURING KATRINA

• Posted by Mark Marchesi on May 17, 2010 at 1:32pm in Pennsylvania
• Written by: Stewart Rhodes Founder of Oath Keepers

This edited story is for space purposes. I don't know if you need an Oath Keeper's Account to see the entire blog, but it is posted here: http://oathkeepers.ning.com/group/pennsylvania/forum/topic/show?id=3512273%3ATopic%3A537642&xg_source=msg_group_disc I encourage all readers to check out Oath Keepers. Blessings, Dona Witmer

OATH KEEPERS EXCLUSIVE

We know that wholesale gun confiscation happened during Hurricane Katrina. We watched the Chief of Police of New Orleans declare on national television that "no one [no private citizen] will be able to be armed, we're going to take all the weapons." We watched an old lady being tackled in her own kitchen and disarmed.

In fact, that atrocious event was one of the reasons I started Oath Keepers. But I also knew, from my service as an Army paratrooper, that there are men of courage, honor, and integrity in the military who would refuse to obey such orders. My goal with Oath Keepers is simply to increase their numbers and harden their resolve. But when it came to Katrina, we did not have concrete proof that some said no - until now.

A Stand-Up Example from Katrina Emerges

This past week, on Friday May 14, 2010, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Sgt. Joshua L. May of the Utah National Guard who told me how he, along with the majority of the men in his unit, refused to participate in any gun confiscation while deployed to assist during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

I finally discovered Sgt. May and his story only because after a speech I gave in Logan Utah on May 13, 2010, a local resident, Farley Anderson, walked up and told me about what Sgt. May had done. Upon hearing of it, I knew I just had to talk to him, so I had Mr. Anderson track down Sgt. May's number and I called him at 11pm and invited him to breakfast the next morning. Until that night, Sgt. May hadn't even heard of Oath Keepers (which is ironic since he is a shining example of an oath keeper). We met for the first time that next morning, Friday, May 14, 2010. During breakfast, Sgt. May told me his story, and then I asked him if we could go outside and do an interview in the restaurant parking lot. He agreed that his story needed to be told and the below video is the result.

 You can watch the video here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HRZfvtYlCY&feature=player_embedded

This is the first of four parts to that interview we have now posted on YouTube. This first ten minute segment contains Sgt. May's main statement of how, while deployed to assist during Hurricane Katrina, he, along with the majority of the men in his unit, informed their commander that they would not under any circumstances participate in gun confiscation.  . . . Sgt. May is indeed a shining example of what it means to honor the oath, and it is important to know that he was not alone then, and is not alone today. There are many, many other "Sgt. May's" out there. The mission of Oath Keepers is simply to increase their numbers and improve their understanding of the Constitution.

 
Posted by taylorg on 09/29/09

The Federal Reserve System has disclosed to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. that it has gold swap arrangements with foreign banks that it does not want the public to know about. 

The disclosure, GATA says, contradicts denials provided by the Fed to GATA in 2001 and suggests that the Fed is indeed very much involved in the surreptitious international central bank manipulation of the gold price particularly and the currency markets generally. 

The Fed's disclosure came this week in a letter to GATA's Washington-area lawyer, William J. Olson of Vienna, Virginia (http://www.lawandfreedom.com/), denying GATA's administrative appeal of a freedom-of-information request to the Fed for information about gold swaps, transactions in which monetary gold is temporarily exchanged between central banks or between central banks and bullion banks. (See the International Monetary Fund's treatise on gold swaps here: 

The letter, dated September 17 and written by Federal Reserve Board member Kevin M. Warsh (see http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/bios/board/warsh.htm), formerly a member of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, detailed the Fed's position that the gold swap records sought by GATA are exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

Warsh wrote in part: "In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under Exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of Exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you."

When, in 2001, GATA discovered a reference to gold swaps in the minutes of the January 31-February 1, 1995, meeting of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee and pressed the Fed, through two U.S. senators, for an explanation, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan denied that the Fed was involved in gold swaps in any way. Greenspan also produced a memorandum written by the Fed official who had been quoted about gold swaps in the FOMC minutes, FOMC General Counsel J. Virgil Mattingly, in which Mattingly denied making any such comments. See... http://www.gata.org/node/1181 

The Fed's September 17 letter to GATA confirming that the Fed has gold swap arrangements can be found here:

http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedResponse-09-17-2009.pdf

While the letter, GATA says, is far from the first official admission of central bank scheming to suppress the price of gold (for documentation of some of these admissions, see

http://www.gata.org/node/6242  and http://www.gata.org/node/7096, it comes at a sensitive time in the currency and gold markets. The U.S. dollar is showing unprecedented weakness, the gold price is showing unprecedented strength, Western European central banks appear to be withdrawing from gold sales and leasing, and the International Monetary Fund is being pressed to take the lead in the gold price suppression scheme by selling gold from its own supposed reserves in the guise of providing financial support for poor nations. 

GATA will seek to bring a lawsuit in federal court to appeal the Fed's denial of our freedom-of-information request. While this will require many thousands of dollars, the Fed's admission that it aims to conceal documentation of its gold swap arrangements establishes that such a lawsuit would have a distinct target and not be just a fishing expedition.

 In pursuit of such a lawsuit and its general objective of liberating the precious metals markets and making them fair and transparent, GATA again asks for financial support from the public and from all gold and silver mining companies that are not at the mercy of market-manipulating governments and banks. GATA is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit educational and civil rights organization and contributions to it are federally tax-exempt in the United States. For information on donating to GATA, please visit here:

People also can help GATA by bringing this information to the attention of financial news organizations and urging them to investigate the Fed's involvement in gold swaps particularly and the gold (and silver) price suppression generally.

 
Posted by Lisa Armellino on 07/12/09

July 10, 2009 For Immediate Release

Subject: Supreme Court invites us to make our case

Do you have a right to Freedom of the Press, or do only the New York Times and the major broadcasters have that right? As it stands now...

* The major established corporate media companies can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing federal elections, but you cannot.
* You are subject to the limitations of the campaign finance laws, but media companies are not.
* The media companies have Freedom of the Press, but you do not.

The campaign finance laws have...

* Protected incumbents by making it almost impossible for challengers to raise money
* Destroyed your ability to infuence who your representatives will be
* Gutted your rights to free speech, free association, and freedom of the press
* Silenced you, and people like you, for the benefit of incumbents and the established corporate news media

We want to change this. We've made one stab at doing so before, but we believe we have a much better chance now. Let me explain...

Starting in 2002 we initiated a lawsuit that attempted to overturn the campaign finance laws. Our tools for doing this were...

* An organization called RealCampaignReform.org
* A lawsuit that featured several co-plaintiffs, including Congressman Ron Paul as our lead plaintiff
* An excellent legal strategy developed by our attorneys, William J. Olson, Herb Titus, and John Miles

Previous attempts to overturn the campaign finance laws argued that these laws restrict the Freedom of Speech. The government counter-argued that money is not speech and that therefore, by some twisted logic, Congress can control how campaign money is raised and spent. The courts agreed. This created a situation in which...

* Challengers have great difficulty raising sufficient funds to unseat incumbents
* The established corporate news media have undue and overwhelming influence on American elections, because they're not subject to the same laws you are

To fully understand that second point, just think about how the establishment media treated Ron Paul during the 2008 presidential campaign. They constantly tried to make it look like Ron Paul was unworthy of consideration. Media companies can spend unlimited amounts of money influencing how Americans think about candidates, but YOU cannot.

When we last tried to challenge the campaign finance laws, our attorneys, in a stroke of brilliance, sidestepped the failed free speech arguments of the past, and instead argued that Freedom of the PRESS is the crucial issue...

* Freedom of the Press is an individual right, not just an institutional right
* Freedom of the Press is a distinct right, which any grammarian can see by simply reading the First Amendment
* The right of Freedom of the Press REQUIRES capital - Xerox machines, handbills, and broadcasting facilities aren't free
* The campaign finance laws infringe this individual right
* Failure to protect the Freedom of the Press for individuals would eventually lead to encroachments on the freedom of the institutional press too

We lost the case, but we may have planted seeds in the minds of some of the Justices. These seeds could eventually grow into victory. Witness, for instance, our quote of the day from Justice Scalia.

In fact, it seems like our new day in court may finally have arrived, because...

The High Court has asked for new briefs in a campaign finance case involving Citizen's United, one of our co-plaintiffs in the original case.

From what we can tell it seems like the Supreme Court may be realizing that it can no longer exempt "news stories, commentaries, and editorials" of the corporate broadcasting companies from FEC financial and disclosure requirements, while forcing such requirements on "non-media" corporations.

This could be a "break in the dam" that could eventually wash away the "incumbent protecting," anti-First Amendment, campaign finance laws. We need your help to seize this opportunity. We need to fund the creation of an amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief that will reassert our "freedom of the press" arguments. We're on a tight deadline to make this happen...

* The brief must be filed with the Supreme Court by the end of the month
* Our attorneys must begin work now to meet that deadline
* This means we need unscheduled and un-budgeted funding to pay for this work, immediately
* Immediately means this week -- today!
* In other words, this is URGENT!

Please help with a tax deductible contribution to the Downsize DC Foundation using our secure contribution form at DownsizeDC.com.

If you make a $60 or above contribution to this effort, we'll send you a printed copy of the brief, as it was filed according to Supreme Court specifications, once it's completed and submitted to the Court. If you're mailing your check, please be sure to include your email address. If you're giving online, we'll send it to the address you used on the contribution form.

We're not doing this alone. We have other partners helping pay the legal expenses. But honestly, we're not going to be very effective here if there aren't some $1,000, $500, and $250 contributions made to this effort, today.

We need assistance from all who can provide it. If you can't afford to make a $60 or more contribution, but you can afford a smaller amount, we'll send you an email with a pdf of the brief, once it's completed and filed with the Court. Make your contribution on our secure form and be sure to give us your email address so we can send you the pdf file of the brief.

This really is a great opportunity to help restore the First Amendment and free elections. Let's not miss the chance.

Please contribute what you can to make sure this brief gets written and filed on time. But we need your financial help to make it happen!

Did I mention that this is urgent?

Jim Babka

President

Downsize DC Foundation

P.S. If you're mailing your check, please make it out clearly to the "Downsize DC Foundation" as most checks come in for DownsizeDC.org. The mailing address, which is provided on the secure form, is...

1931 15th St.

Cuyahoga Falls, OH 44223

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