The First Amendment Gone Wild: Big Pharma’s “Right” to Find Out What Doctors Are Prescribing

http://www.multinationalmonitor.org/editorsblog/index.php?/archives/67-The-First-Amendment-Gone-Wild-Big-Pharmas-Right-to-Find-Out-What-Doctors-Are-Prescribing.html#extended

The founders of the United States took the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the concepts of free speech and freedom of conscience very seriously.

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech,” said Benjamin Franklin.

“Information is the currency of democracy,” intoned Thomas Jefferson — one of countless Jefferson odes to the central importance of ideas and free transmission of information in fostering a working democracy.

But could they possibly have imagined the twisted purposes to which the First Amendment is put today?

Two crucial developments in U.S. constitutional jurisprudence — the grant of Bill of Rights protections to corporations, and the extension of First Amendment protections to commercial speech — have enabled corporations to invoke the First Amendment to defend their right to hawk goods, so long as they are legal, by almost any means short of outright lying or clear deception.

Now corporations are suggesting the First Amendment should effectively immunize them from government-imposed rules related to the simple commercial exchange of information.

This new expansion of the First Amendment to block broad public regulatory powers emerges from efforts in New England to control one of the most insidious pharmaceutical marketing practices.

Anyone who watches television in the United States, or reads magazines, is familiar with drug company advertisements to consumers. But these represent a relatively small fraction of industry marketing expenditures.

Drug companies devote much more money, and time, to influencing those with the power to prescribe medicines — as much as $34 billion in the United States, more than eight times what is spent on direct-to-consumer marketing.

The most important element of the marketing onslaught directed at doctors is “detailing” — the activities of the sales representatives who visit doctors constantly, and provide free lunches, free pens, free charts and other free goodies (including, very importantly, free samples). The average primary care physician sees drug detailers more than five times a day.

When a sales rep walks into a doctors office, he or she knows a lot about that doctor — including exactly what medicines the doctor prescribes, and in what quantities. How can this be?

Pharmaceutical companies purchase the information from data-mining companies, the largest of which is IMS Health. Pharmacies track what drug is sold to each customer. IMS buys the data from the pharmacies, deletes all patient names, combines it with data that enables the identification of prescribers for each prescription, and aggregates the information.

Then, when the drug company representatives cheerfully bound in to a doctor’s office, they know exactly what the doctor is prescribing. They know if the doctor prescribes a lot of medicine or a little (drug company reps rate the doctors on a scale of 1-10, or A-F), and whether they go for the rep’s company’s product or a competitor’s or a generic. They know where to focus their efforts, and how to frame their sales pitches.

And, as the New York Times explained, quoting an e-mail message from a pharmaceutical executive to company salespeople, they use the data to “hold [doctors] accountable for all the time, samples, lunches, dinners, programs and past preceptorships that you have paid for and get the business!” The sales reps obviously do not have punitive power over the doctors, but they use the prescribing information to exploit and manipulate the social ties built on the giving relationship.

Neither doctors nor patients consent to this use of prescribing data, and only a tiny few even know about it.

New Hampshire decided to ban this use of the data in 2006. Vermont and Maine followed with similar laws.

IMS sued to block implementation of the laws, and won at the U.S. district court level. Judges agreed with IMS that the New Hampshire and Maine laws violate the company’s claimed First Amendment rights.

The New Hampshire law permits IMS and other data miners to continue to collect prescription data, but they can’t use individualized data — information about specific doctors’ prescribing practices — for commercial purposes.

The law is a “speech restriction because it limits both the use and disclosure of prescriber-identifiable data for commercial purposes,” District Judge Paul Barbadoro found in the New Hampshire case.

This was a misguided determination, challenged by the State of New Hampshire in an appeal argued before the First Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. Leave aside the merits of providing First Amendment protections to corporations, or to commercial speech. Nothing about the New Hampshire law impinges on the expressive values that the First Amendment is intended to protect.

Contends Sean Flynn, the lead attorney for a coalition of public interest organizations supporting the New Hampshire law, “This case is not about speech, it is about industry surveillance of the doctor-patient relationship. New Hampshire acted through its data-mining law to safeguard that relationship, and the public health, by protecting it from industry surveillance and manipulation.”

Flynn says that if the district court’s ruling is upheld, and the principle of commercial speech protections is extended to cover any commercial exchange of text or data, then a host of existing laws are vulnerable to constitutional challenge. These include laws to protect consumer privacy and to mandate disclosure of financial information related to securities transactions.

It is very hard to defend government regulations determined to restrict commercial speech. Under Supreme Court rulings, judges must assess whether a commercial speech restriction advances a substantial governmental interest, directly advances the interest and is no more limiting of speech than necessary. In a case like New Hampshire’s pharmaceutical data-mining restrictions, the test effectively requires the judge to closely scrutinize a government regulation and decide if it is both a good idea, and the best possible and least speech-restrictive way of achieving a desired ends. It gives the judge unwarranted authority — comparable, as former Justice Rehnquist noted, to the discredited turn-of-the-20th-century Lochner authority to strike down economic regulations — and makes it very hard to uphold a challenged regulation.

In applying the test, Judge Barbadoro knocked down the New Hampshire law on numerous grounds. There was no legitimate privacy interest involved, he found, especially since there is no evidence of drug sales reps harassing doctors. Pharmaceutical detailing may result in more brand-name and fewer generic drugs being prescribed, at greater expense, but there is no evidence that prescriber data “is being used to propagate false or misleading marketing messages.” And, he found, there are other ways the State could aim to curb drug company gifts, counter detailers’ messages and educate doctors, and aim to promote greater use of generic drugs.

Just to list the judge’s findings is to show how much inappropriate power the commercial speech test confers on judges in a case like this.

Will the appeals court agree with Judge Barbadoro? We’ll know in a few months.

Could Thomas Jefferson and his contemporaries have imagined the First Amendment being deployed for such purposes?

The world has obviously changed in the last 200-plus years, and Jefferson could not have envisioned even the existence of the modern pharmaceutical industry. But he did understand the threat that corporations posed to a working democracy.

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country,” he wrote.

Bush bails out Wall Street, while Cleveland averages over 160 foreclosures a week

http://www.buckeyestateblog.com/bush_bails_out_wall_street_while_cleveland_averages_over_160_foreclosures_a_week

Time like these make it damn easy to call yourself a liberal.  Bill Callahan has been relentlessly focusing on foreclosures in Cuyahoga County, and finally, I figured out why it’s been mesmerizing to me, thanks to the ongoing bailout of major Wall Street financial institutions.

I’ve known a few Wall Street types in my day, partied with some of ‘em, even.  And lemme tell ya something.  The obscene excess that these guys have enjoyed for the last decade or so make Eliot Spitzer hiring a $4,300 an hour call girl look like picking up a street walker on Prospect Avenue.  These guys had plane-loads of Spitzer whores, weekly, meeting them at the airport to fly them to Las Vegas.   They threw around money like it was dirt.  Snorted it up their noses.  Bought their kids BMW’s for their birthday.  Skied in Aspen, Switzerland, Austria and New Zealand all in the same year.

And for our government to allow them to hand the bill to the Fed, or the taxpayers, at this economic moment, is truly Victorian.  Especially when Bill Callahan has been documenting the following in Cuyahoga County alone.

163 sheriff’s deeds were filed March 10 through March 14.

164 sheriff’s deeds were filed March 3 through March 7.

156 sheriff’s deeds were filed February 25 through February 29.

2,567 new civil foreclosure cases filed in the first two months of 2008.

169 sheriff’s deeds were filed February 18 through February 22.

When will these people get a federal bailout?

FEMA charges newspaper $209,990 for public records

http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080318/NEWS01/80318016

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The Federal Emergency Management Agency is charging a newspaper $209,990 for records documenting the agency’s response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a price deemed “absurd” by one lawmaker.

The Advocate of Baton Rouge must pay that amount before FEMA will turn over copies of more than 2 million pages of documents relating to the inspection and maintenance of government-issued trailers and mobile homes, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

FEMA also gave the newspaper 10 days to pay or said it would consider the request withdrawn.

“The first 100 pages are free,” a FEMA attorney informed The Advocate. “The duplication cost for 2,099,900 pages will be $0.10 per page for photocopying.”

FEMA said none of the documents requested by The Advocate are stored on computers. Agency spokesman James McIntyre said FEMA charges fees for public records when a request is so large or complex that staff members must be pulled from their regular duties to compile the information.

Carl Redman, executive editor of The Advocate, said FEMA has “stalled and delayed” since the newspaper first requested the documents in September 2006.

“They’ve raised the bar so high, it’s impossible to get information,” Redman said. “The idea that any newspaper, let alone a family-owned newspaper, has $200,000 to look at copies of documents is ludicrous.”

The Advocate is requesting copies of contracts, billing invoices and other records associated with the trailers and mobile homes that have sheltered tens of thousands of victims of the 2005 hurricanes.

The newspaper requested the records after complaints surfaced that FEMA trailers were contaminated by hazardous fumes. Recent tests on hundreds of FEMA trailers and mobile homes found formaldehyde levels that were, on average, about five times higher than what people are exposed to in most modern homes.

Redman said the newspaper plans to continue negotiating with FEMA.

“If they wanted to give us the information, they would and they would do it a timely manner,” Redman said. “Obviously, they don’t want to give it to us and they don’t want to do it timely.”

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said FEMA’s response is “an absurd price for the truth.”

“That FEMA would respond that these documents are not available electronically is, at best, unlikely given the vast amount of information the government now stores electronically,” Landrieu added.

Lucy Dalgish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said FEMA frequently waives fees for requests made under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

“FEMA should be embarrassed — $209,000 is nuts,” Dalgish told The Advocate. “They’re trying to use what they can in the law to make your life miserable and make sure no one scrutinizes them.”

The Street on Welfare

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/17/AR2008031702154.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Never do I want to hear again from my conservative friends about how brilliant capitalists are, how much they deserve their seven-figure salaries and how government should keep its hands off the private economy.

The Wall Street titans have turned into a bunch of welfare clients. They are desperate to be bailed out by government from their own incompetence, and from the deregulatory regime for which they lobbied so hard. They have lost “confidence” in each other, you see, because none of these oh-so-wise captains of the universe have any idea what kinds of devalued securities sit in one another’s portfolios.

So they have stopped investing. The biggest, most respected investment firms threaten to come crashing down. You can’t have that. It’s just fine to make it harder for the average Joe to file for bankruptcy, as did that wretched bankruptcy bill passed by Congress in 2005 at the request of the credit card industry. But the big guys are “too big to fail,” because they could bring us all down with them.

Enter the federal government, the institution to which the wealthy are not supposed to pay capital gains or inheritance taxes. Good God, you don’t expect these people to trade in their BMWs for Saturns, do you?

In a deal that the New York Times described as “shocking,” J.P. Morgan Chase agreed over the weekend to pay $2 a share to buy all of Bear Stearns, one of the brand names of finance capitalism. The Federal Reserve approved a $30 billion — that’s with a “b” — line of credit to make the deal work.

I don’t fault Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, for being so interventionist in trying to save the economy. On the contrary, Bernanke deserves credit for ignoring all the extreme free-market bloviation. He doesn’t want the economy to collapse on his watch, so he is willing to violate all the conservatives’ shibboleths about the dangers of government intervention. As a voter once told the legendary political journalist Richard Rovere: “Sometimes you have to forget your principles to do what’s right.”

But if this near meltdown of capitalism doesn’t encourage a lot of people to question the principles they have carried in their heads for the past three decades or so, nothing will.

We had already learned the hard way — in the crash of 1929 and the Depression that followed — that capitalism is quite capable of running off the rails. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was a response to the failure of the geniuses of finance (and their defenders in the economics profession) to realize what was happening or to fix it in time.

As the economist John Kenneth Galbraith noted of the era leading up to the Depression, “The threat to men of great dignity, privilege and pretense is not from the radicals they revile; it is from accepting their own myth. Exposure to reality remains the nemesis of the great — a little understood thing.”

But in the enthusiasm for deregulation that took root in the late 1970s, flowered in the Reagan era and reached its apogee in the second Bush years, we forgot the lesson that government needs to keep a careful watch on what capitalists do. Of course, some deregulation can be salutary, and the market system is, on balance, a wondrous instrument — when it works. But the free market is just that: an instrument, not a principle.

In 1996, back when he was a Republican senator from Maine, William Cohen told me: “We have been saying for so long that government is the enemy. Government is the enemy until you need a friend.”

So now the bailouts begin, and Wall Street usefully might feel a bit of gratitude, perhaps by being willing to have the wealthy foot some of the bill or to acknowledge that while its denizens were getting rich, a lot of Americans were losing jobs and health insurance. I’m waiting.

Dear Lou Dobbs, Who Owns the Federal Reserve?

http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/jesse-richards-commentary/19-jesses-thoughts/665-dear-lou-dobbs-who-owns-the-federal-reserve

Tuesday, 18 March 2008 12:19

Originally published July, 2007. “It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” - Henry Ford May I suggest that everyone who reads this message send a letter to Lou Dobbs, Mr. American Middle Class Champion, and ask him to explain exactly who owns the Federal Reserve and why we allow the Federal Reserve to continue to control our entire economy. Then ask him why he, and everyone else in the media, have refused to explain this to the American people. As Lou says every day: It’s time for answers! Write to Lou Dobbs here: http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9 The real answer to this question is that the Federal Reserve is like a big Mafia loan shark. It owns our nation in the same way a loan shark owns his “clients!” There is absolutely no difference between the two. No matter what the situation, whenever there is news related to the Federal Reserve a big, loud, coordinated, conspiratorial lie of omission is committed by every single news outlet in our nation. What is this lie? It is keeping up the false impression that the Federal Reserve is part of our government! The Fed is a private, for profit bank, that controls our government and economy. They control the money supply, inflation, depression, recessions, etc. They are not accountable to Congress, the executive branch or anyone in government. The revolutionary war was started primarily to get away from a similar situation in England where the Bank of England held the same control over their nation. Revolutionaries realized this and they put an end to it. Unfortunately some traitors in the Senate reversed our true liberation and now we have a private bank controlling our personal financial status. Let me ask you a simple question: what country in its right mind would create a system that would force it to lend itself money and have to repay the money WITH INTEREST? What country would charge itself interest? What nation would put itself out of business by making it bankrupt because of interest? The answer is none! America is not charging itself interest on its debt, the privately owned central bankers are doing this and they are hiding in plain sight! Congress (with the exception of Ron Paul), every US president and every single member of the corporate media are either part of the conspiracy or just plain stupid! Two presidents tried to stop this outrage, and they were both assassinated. Lincoln was set to bypass the central banks in order to finance the Civil War. The banks were going to charge him 24-36% interest on the loans. So Lincoln had Congress pass a law authorizing the printing of full legal tender. These treasury notes would be used to finance the war. Lincoln wrote: “… (we) gave the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they have ever had – their own paper money to pay their own debts…” Now go and research the person who supposedly killed Lincoln and how he relates to bankers. After Lincoln was assassinated Congress revoked the Greenback Law and enacted the National Banking Act. The national banks were to be privately owned and the national bank notes they issued were to be interest-bearing. The Act also provided that the Greenbacks should be retired from circulation as soon as they came back to the Treasury in payment of taxes. John F. Kennedy was the next brave man to take on the Federal Reserve. On June 4, 1963, President Kennedy signed a Presidential Executive Order 11110. This order virtually stripped the Federal Reserve Bank of its power to loan money to the United States Government at interest. Kennedy declared the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank would soon be out of business. This order gave the Treasury Department the authority to issue silver certificates against any silver in the treasury. This executive order still stands today. No president since has had the courage to invoke it for it would mean their demise. The US government is a front for the real controllers; the central bankers. Debt keeps the central banks in control of the world. Nations that eliminate their debt end up on the hit list. When you see nations “liberated” by the US or its allies what normally follows is a central bank extending loans to these liberated nations. The World Bank always comes to the rescue. What a joke this is like having a loan shark come to the rescue of someone who needs food money for his kids! War is the single biggest money making business for the central bankers. Nations go into tremendous debt to finance war. Interestingly enough, but in no way surprising to those of us who know better, the architects of both Vietnam and the Iraq invasion both went on to become the head of the World Bank; Robert McNamara and Paul Wolfowitz. It is the central banks that push the world towards military conflict. Look at your money; it say “Federal Reserve Note!” It is not an American government currency backed by an asset. It is fiat currency backed by nothing. The Federal Reserve lends these notes to the government, with interest! What a scam! How do we permit this? Oh, I know, we permit this because most people don’t know about it…thanks to the criminals in the media. For if the people knew, perhaps Henry Ford’s words would ring true and we would indeed take to the streets to stop this crime! The Federal Reserve is a private bank that owns the sole right to dictate monetary policy for our nation. As a matter of fact shortly after George W. Bush was placed in office by very powerful people, not by the electorate, the Federal Reserve announced that they would no longer report how much money was being printed. Imagine that! Well you don’t have to imagine that because it happened, and your media did not tell you about it, and your Congress sat quiet. Americans let this happen because Americans are pretty much stupid people. They laugh at intelligent people as they dedicate themselves to being suckers who worship a little flag as opposed to a legitimate government. This is the biggest scam and conspiracy on our planet and we must make this part of our daily discussion. Ask questions, and DEMAND answers! Please start by writing to Lou Dobbs! http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?9 Think about it! REFERENCES: THE MONEY MASTERS THE SECRET BIRTH OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE Money As Debt UPDATE: Some people have commented that the president of the United States appoints the head of the Federal Reserve and that is proof that the Fed is indeed part of the government. Well people, the president does present his selection to Congress for approval…but that selection comes from a list of candidates given to him by the Federal Reserve!!! It’s a show, people! Kids…this is not a joke. It is also not a secret. It is public record…not a theory. The Fed is a private for profit bank that does not answer to Congress or the President and it is unconstitutional. It is another responsibility given to Congress by our Constitution that has been ignored or illegally assigned elsewhere by Congress; just as the power to declare war has been signed over to George W. Bush. Look it up…take a minute…this is a huge issue and one that should not be dismissed so quickly because you just became aware of it by reading a blog. Go do some homework. I did…now help me take back our nation! I am fighting for YOU! The least you can do is check your facts before you dismiss what I have written.

Last Updated ( Tuesday, 18 March 2008 12:41 )

Ron Paul: “Making a Recession Great”

http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2008/tst031608.htm

House Democrats recently adopted a budget with massive tax hikes, many of which are directed at those Americans who can least afford them.  By allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, this budget will raise income taxes not only on those in the highest income brackets, but raises the lowest bracket from 10% to 15% as well.  Estates would again be taxed at 55%.  The child tax credit would drop from $1000 to $500.  Senior citizens relying on investment income would be hurt by increases in dividend and capital gains taxes.  It’s not just that the Democrats want to raise taxes on the rich.  They want to raise taxes on everybody.

The problem is, policing the world is expensive, and if elected officials insist upon continuing to fund our current foreign policy, the money has to come from somewhere.   The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have already cost us over $1 trillion.  The Democrats’ budget gives the President all the funding he needs for his foreign policy, so one wonders how serious they ever were about ending the war.  While Democrats propose to tax and spend, many Republicans aim to borrow and spend, which hurts the taxpayer just as much in the long run.

Supporting a welfare state is expensive as well.  Over half of our budget goes to mandatory entitlements.  The total cost of government now eats up over half of our national income, as calculated by Americans for Tax Reform, and government is growing at an unprecedented rate.  Our current financial situation is completely untenable, and the worst part is, as government is becoming more and more voracious, the economy is shrinking.

The bottom line is that Washington has a serious spending addiction.  While both parties debate how to raise the revenue, both parties seem happy to spend over $3 trillion of your money in various ways. While some in Washington criticize the war in Iraq, very few are criticizing the interventionist mindset that got us into the war in the first place.  Many so-called “Iraq War critics,” criticize this administration rather than truly opposing the decades old policies that led to war.  They claim they will eventually get the troops out of Iraq, but the danger is that they simply plan to move them around to other countries, not bring them home.  The American people want peace.  Minding our own business is the best way to achieve it.  Not only is it also a whole lot cheaper, but free trade and friendship with other countries benefits all involved.

This spending spree is exactly the wrong policy for an economy on the brink of recession.  History has shown that all empires eventually crumble under a worthless currency and with an exhausted military.   Since too many of our nation’s leaders haven’t taken the time to learn from history, we are seeing mistakes repeated through recently enacted policies such as the new House budget.

U.S. Military Headed For The Border To Protect Us Or What?

http://www.borderfirereport.net/michael-webster/u.s.-military-headed-for-the-border-to-protect-us-or-what.html

By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter:
As reported by this writer recently a special U.S. Military Task Force has been created to protect our southern border with Mexico . Members of this task force are reported to be preparing to secure our southern border with Mexico by responding with specially trained fast response U.S. Army task force military units. These forces are already in place according to eye witness, with the heart of the power being concentrated in El Paso and Southern New Mexico with a far reaching responsibility from East Texas to Southern California . They are being staged and immediately available as emergency  “on call” units for use against terrorist threats on the nation’s border and local disasters, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Commander. Many Americans are applauding this action as a good move to protect our borders with Mexico . Hopping this action will prevent illegal aliens, human and drug smugglers, and terrorist from entering the U.S. undetected. They feel, if true this is something that is needed and way over due. One American who wants to remain nameless said You can’t fault people for questioning the motives of George W. Bush. After all, he’s done more than any other President to earn the distrust of the American people and demonstrate that he is a traitor.

If the military is on the border to stop illegal border crossers, good. Let George W. Bush and Co. announce it loud and clear. Otherwise, his motives are questionable at best.

Others Americans are afraid that this is just subterfuge. That the real intent of this administration is to suppress decent, control the masses and some even fear it is designed by Bush to delay the elections in the fall. Invade Iran imprison many Americans and designed for him to remain President for as long as he can.

Before President Bush past presidents have been reluctant to use U.S. troops within the borders of the U.S. They have always been leery of the image of armed military troops patrolling American cities or the U.S border with Mexico . Under the Civil War-era Posse Comitatus Act, federal troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement actions, such as making arrests, seizing property or searching people. No one seems to know how this would apply to troops patrolling the border.
In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States . The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush has undo those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the “John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007″ (H.R.5122), which was signed by the commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a “public emergency” and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to “suppress public disorder.”

Section 333, states that in “Major public emergencies; interference with State and Federal law”  “the President may employ the armed forces, including the National Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of (“refuse” or “fail” in) maintaining public order, “in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy.”

Further unthority has been given the Pentagan by the U.S. Congress voting 252-171 to allow the Pentigon to assign military personnel under certain circumstances to help the Homeland Security Department with border security. The House added the provision to a larger military measure.

In an article written by Frank Morales in the late fall of 2006 pointed out that the current President (Bush), “enforcement of the laws to restore public order” means to commandeer guardsmen from any state, over the objections of local governmental, military and local police entities; ship them off to another state; conscript them in a law enforcement mode; and set them loose against “disorderly” citizenry – protesters, possibly, or those who object to forced vaccinations and quarantines in the event of a bio-terror event.

The law also facilitates militarized police round-ups and detention of protesters, so called “illegal aliens,” “potential terrorists” and other “undesirables” for detention in facilities already contracted for and under construction by Halliburton. That’s right. Under the cover of a trumped-up “immigration emergency” and the frenzied militarization of the southern border, detention camps are being constructed right under our noses, camps designed for anyone who resists the foreign and domestic agenda of the Bush administration.

An article on “recent contract awards” in a recent issue of the slick, insider “Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International” reported that “global engineering and technical services powerhouse KBR [Kellog, Brown & Root] announced in January 2006 that its Government and Infrastructure division was awarded an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in the event of an emergency.” “With a maximum total value of $385 million over a five year term,” the report notes, “the contract is to be executed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” “for establishing temporary detention and processing capabilities to augment existing ICE Detention and Removal Operations (DRO) – in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants into the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” The report points out that “KBR is the engineering and construction subsidiary of Halliburton.” (3) So, in addition to authorizing another $532.8 billion for the Pentagon, including a $70-billion “supplemental provision” which covers the cost of the ongoing, mad military maneuvers in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places, the new law, signed by the president in a private White House ceremony, further collapses the historic divide between the police and the military: a tell-tale sign of a rapidly consolidating police state in America, all accomplished amidst ongoing U.S. imperial pretensions of global domination, sold to an “emergency managed” and seemingly willfully gullible public as a “global war on terrorism.”

Make no mistake about it: the de-facto repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) is an ominous assault on American democratic tradition and jurisprudence. The 1878 Act, which reads, “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both,” is the only U.S. criminal statute that outlaws military operations directed against the American people under the cover of ‘law enforcement.’ As such, it has been the best protection we’ve had against the power-hungry intentions of an unscrupulous and reckless executive, an executive intent on using force to enforce its will.

Mr. Morales reported that many feel that the president dealt posse comitatus, along with American democracy, a near fatal blow. Consequently, it will take an aroused citizenry to undo the damage wrought by this horrendous act, part and parcel, as we have seen, of a long train of abuses and outrages perpetrated by this authoritarian administration.

Despite the unprecedented and shocking nature of this act, there has been no outcry in the American media, no reaction from the current presidential canadates and little reaction from our elected officials in Congress. On September 19th, a lone Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) noted that 2007’s Defense Authorization Act contained a “widely opposed provision to allow the President more control over the National Guard [adopting] changes to the Insurrection Act, which will make it easier for this or any future President to use the military to restore domestic order WITHOUT the consent of the nation’s governors.”

Senator Leahy went on to stress that, “we certainly do not need to make it easier for Presidents to declare martial law. Invoking the Insurrection Act and using the military for law enforcement activities goes against some of the central tenets of our democracy. One can easily envision governors and mayors in charge of an emergency having to constantly look over their shoulders while someone who has never visited their communities gives the orders.”

A few weeks later, on the 29th of September, Leahy entered into the Congressional Record that he had “grave reservations about certain provisions of the fiscal Year 2007 Defense Authorization Bill Conference Report,” the language of which, he said, “subverts solid, longstanding posse comitatus statutes that limit the military’s involvement in law enforcement, thereby making it easier for the President to declare martial law.” This had been “slipped in,” Leahy said, “as a rider with little study,” while “other congressional committees with jurisdiction over these matters had no chance to comment, let alone hold hearings on, these proposals.”

In a telling bit of understatement, the Senator from Vermont noted that “the implications of changing the (Posse Comitatus) Act are enormous”. “There is good reason,” he said, “for the constructive friction in existing law when it comes to martial law declarations. Using the military for law enforcement goes against one of the founding tenets of our democracy. We fail our Constitution, neglecting the rights of the States, when we make it easier for the President to declare martial law and trample on local and state sovereignty.”

Senator Leahy’s final ruminations: “Since hearing word a couple of weeks ago that this outcome was likely, I have wondered how Congress could have gotten to this point. It seems the changes to the Insurrection Act have survived the Conference because the Pentagon and the White House want it.”

The historic and ominous re-writing of the Insurrection Act, accomplished in the dead of night, which gives Bush the legal authority to declare martial law, is now an accomplished fact.

The Pentagon, as one might expect, plays an even more direct role in martial law operations. Title XIV of the new law, entitled, “Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Legislative Provisions,” authorizes “the Secretary of Defense to create a Homeland Defense Technology Transfer Consortium to improve the effectiveness of the Department of Defense (DOD) processes for identifying and deploying relevant DOD technology to federal, State, and local first responders.”

In other words, the law facilitates the “transfer” of the newest in so-called “crowd control” technology and other weaponry designed to suppress dissent from the Pentagon to local militarized police units. The new law builds on and further codifies earlier “technology transfer” agreements, specifically the 1995 DOD-Justice Department memorandum of agreement achieved back during the Clinton-Reno regime.(4)

It has become clear in recent months that a critical mass of the American people have seen through the lies of the Bush administration; with the president’s polls at an historic low, growing resistance to the war Iraq, and the Democrats likely to take back the Congress in mid-term elections, the Bush administration is on the ropes. And so it is particularly worrying that President Bush has seen fit, at this juncture to, in effect, declare himself dictator.

Source:
Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of United States Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Defense Commander.

http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html   and http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html  See also, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, “The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance:  Legal Issues,” by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122

Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, “Recent Contract Awards”, Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also, Peter Dale Scott, “Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps,” New American Media, January 31, 2006.

“Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection”, National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43.

© Michael Webster – All Rights Reserved

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Ohio’s voting machines are now an official crime scene

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2008/3054

by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman

March 17, 2008

At least 15 touch-screen voting machines that produced improbable numbers in Ohio’s 2006 statewide election are now under double-lock in an official crime scene. And the phony “Homeland Security Alert” used by Republicans to build up George W. Bush’s 2004 vote count in a key southwestern Ohio county has come under new scrutiny.

The touch-screen machines were locked up after Ohio’s new Democratic Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner, tried to vote last fall. On November 6, she spotted a gray bar with the words “candidate withdrawn” in a slot where the name of Democrat Jay Perez should have appeared. Her husband, voting nearby, told her Perez’s name did appear, as it was supposed to, on his machine.

Perez had been a candidate in the race for Franklin County Municipal Judge. He withdrew his name after the county had finalized its ballots. But it now appears the ES&S machines left his name on some machines but not on others. Perez, a Democrat, wanted to avoid playing a spoiler in the race. But the appearance of his name on some machines may have helped Republican David Tyack win.

Brunner now worries that the state will never find out what happened. County election officials ordered the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation to seize the machines. Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann is conducting an investigation that may cost the state $48,000. Brunner recently told WVKO 1580AM radio: “When you’re talking about democracy, it’s priceless.” In another interview with the Columbus Dispatch, Brunner noted “This is a huge problem. There is great concern that not every voter has the same ballot.”

Ironically, Brunner requested a paper ballot in the March 4, 2008, primary, but a poorly trained poll worker gave her a provisional ballot instead. Two other staffers from her office were also given the wrong ballots. Brunner has since pledged to upgrade the training for Buckeye State poll workers.

Brunner further announced that she’s banning the practice of so-called “sleepovers” where poll workers take the programmable and easily hackable voting machines home with them overnight prior to an election day.

Brunner succeeded Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell as Ohio’s Secretary of State. She has vowed to make sure the Buckeye State does not repeat the experience of 2004, when Blackwell choreographed the theft of Ohio’s 20 electoral votes for George W. Bush, giving him a second term in the White House. Since taking office Brunner has vowed to shift the entire state to voting on paper ballots, a move being fiercely resisted by numerous Republican-controlled Boards of Elections throughout the state. Thus far Brunner has forced the resignations of BOE chairs in two of Ohio’s most populous cities, Cleveland and Columbus.

Matt Damschroder was removed as Franklin County Board of Elections Director on the Sunday prior to Ohio’s 2008 primary election. Damschroder was previously suspended for a month without pay for accepting a $10,000 check from a voting machine salesman at the BOE building. The check, made out to the Republican Party, was delivered on the day the state’s contracts for electronic voting machines were open for bidding. Damschroder was former chair of the Franklin County Republican Party and the state’s leading foe of paper ballots. “Damschroder was very opposed to paper ballots and was stoking the fire against them,” Brunner told WVKO.

Dennis White, the new director of the Franklin County BOE was skeptical of the masking problem, but says if it happened, “it’s huge. We have a federal election coming up this November,” according to the Dispatch. White, who admits to having little knowledge of computers, is the former Ohio Democratic Party Chair.

That election may once again hinge on Ohio’s vote count. In 2006, Franklin County officials failed to conduct mandated tests on each machine, instead testing only one machine per precinct on a random bases. A report by SysTest Labs, a Colorado consulting firm, confirmed that what Brunner saw on her machine was “exactly what you’d see if someone masked a name,” the Dispatch reported.

Investigators also found that the “audit logs” on the voting machines were turned off by a board programmer in April, 2007, which has hindered investigators from reconstructing software changes. White says the vendor told a board employee how to disable the auditing system, allegedly to speed programming. Brunner said other vendors told her that “You’re never supposed to tell a (client) how to do that.”

In the primary this past March, the BOE allegedly did test all Franklin County’s machines. But some counties ran out of Democratic paper ballots as an influx of apparently Republican and Republican-leaning independents flooded the polls, apparently to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, the Cincinnati Enquirer has reported that a “casual conversation” between a “friendly” FBI agent and the county emergency services director in a parking lot may have contributed to the phony Homeland Security alert that prompted the Warren County BOE to lockdown the vote count in the 2004 election. The BOE declared the emergency and then moved the ballots from the publicly designated vote center to a nearby unauthorized warehouse. They also barred the public and media from witnessing the counting. Warren County, which is outside Cincinnati, then gave Bush 72% of the official vote count, far exceeding expectations. With neighboring Butler and Clermont Counties, Warren gave Bush a margin of 140,000 votes, which exceeded the 119,000 margin by which he allegedly won the election.

The Enquirer reports that “hundreds” of e-mailed complaints poured into the county BOE after the election, including one from an angry voter in the United Kingdom. “Stop destroying our democracy,” said one voter from South Carolina.

The Free Press has previously reported that Warren County BOE employees were told on the Thursday prior to the 2004 election day, that there would be a Homeland Security threat on election day. An examination of the ballots by a Free Press investigation team uncovered numerous irregularities in the Warren County vote that helped give Bush the presidency again.

–

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman co-authored HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA’S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org) and, with Steve Rosenfeld, WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO from New Press.

Aluminum and Vaccine Ingredients: What Do We Know? What Don’t We Know?

http://www.nvic.org/doctors_corner/lawrence_palevsky_aluminum_and_vaccine_ingredients.htm

by Lawrence B. Palevsky, MD, FAAP

Thimerosal, which contains the organic compound ethyl mercury, is a known neurotoxin and used to be a major ingredient in childhood vaccines. There are over 15,000 articles in the medical literature describing the adverse health effects on the human body with exposure to varying amounts and forms of mercury.

In 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urged government agencies to work rapidly toward reducing children’s exposure to mercury from all sources. Because any potential risk was of concern, the AAP and the USPHS (United States Public Health Service) agreed that the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines should be reduced or eliminated.[1] The AAP recommended that it would be a good idea to remove thimerosal from vaccines, even though according to them, there was no evidence linking childhood health issues to thimerosal exposure from vaccines. In 2008, children are still being injected with thimerosal-containing vaccines, and old stocks of thimerosal-containing vaccines manufactured by 1999 continued to be administered to children up to 2003.

However, a growing number of physicians, scientists and parents maintain that thimerosal has played, and continues to play a large role in contributing to the emergence of multiple chronic illnesses in children and adults, including the neurological spectrum disorders. Aluminum, which is present in the environment and in many childhood vaccines, may be affecting the health of our children in ways that we have yet to understand.

Aluminum is a heavy metal with known neurotoxic effects on human and animal nervous systems. It can be found in the following childhood vaccines – DTaP, Pediarix (DTaP-Hepatitis B-Polio combination), Pentacel (DTaP-HIB-Polio combination), Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae B (HIB), Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), and Pneumococcal vaccines.[2]

In 1996, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a position paper on Aluminum Toxicity in Infants and Children which stated in the first paragraph, “Aluminum is now being implicated as interfering with a variety of cellular and metabolic processes in the nervous system and in other tissues.[3]

A review of the medical literature on aluminum reveals a surprising lack of scientific evidence that injected aluminum is safe. There is limited understanding of what happens to children when aluminum is injected into their bodies, including whether or not it accumulates in tissues and organs or is properly eliminated from the body. It is also unknown if genetic factors affect long term adverse health outcomes for those injected with aluminum containing vaccines.

One in 6 children under the age of 18 in this country has developmental/learning disabilities, although the numbers may be higher since this 1994 report was published.[4] Ten percent of all children have asthma.[5] Growing numbers of children are living with different types of allergies. That means they have impairment, or even irreversible damage to their nervous and immune systems. Isn’t it possible that injected aluminum plays a role in affecting the health of our children’s nervous and immune systems, as the science we do have seems to suggest?

What is even more concerning is the lack of accepted scientific data explaining whether injected aluminum interacts with other vaccine ingredients to cause harm to our children. Boyd Haley, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the University of Kentucky completed lab experiments showing the damaging effects on nerve cells when he exposed them to aluminum, especially in the presence of other vaccine ingredients like mercury, formaldehyde, and the antibiotic neomycin.[6] [7] His data, however, have been ignored by the scientific, medical and governmental institutions making vaccine policies.[8] The scientific community needs to be doing these experiments in the lab before shooting kids with these ingredients and declaring unequivocal vaccine safety for all children.

Aluminum is added to vaccines as an adjuvant so vaccines will produce a stronger antibody response and be more protective. It is this role as an adjuvant that may reveal to us the most significant relationship between aluminum in vaccines and the damage it imparts on the long term health of our children’s nervous and immune systems.

A Little Science Review

Children are born with a cellular mediated immune system (TH1 cells – T-helper 1), a humoral immune system (TH2 cells – T-helper 2), and a regulator immune system (TH3 cells – T-helper 3) as major pieces of their overall immune systems. These three arms are immature when babies are born, and begin to mature as children are exposed to their environments through their nervous systems, skin, airways and intestines. Antibiotics, poor nutrition, stress, exposure to heavy metals and other environmental toxins, and the use of vaccines, may interfere with the proper maturing process of these three arms of children’s immune systems. In theory, if the TH system is allowed to mature, and is not interfered with, children will develop a mature, balanced TH1, TH2 and TH3 immune system by age three.

TH1 and TH2 develop to protect children from the outside world, producing inflammation and anti-inflammation responses to foreign particles from the natural environment. TH3 immune cells develop to keep the TH1/TH2 arms of the immune system in check so the body only produces the amount of inflammation and anti-inflammation that is needed to protect itself from exposures in the natural environment.

When TH2 cells are activated properly, either directly via the natural environment, or through a direct signal from the TH1 system, the B cell arm of the immune system is then stimulated, leading to the production of the desired protective antibodies.[9] [10]

It’s important for the reader to know that the hallmark of a healthy, mature immune system in children is demonstrated by an equal and balanced TH1, TH2 and TH3 immune response to the natural environment. TH1, TH2 & TH3 do not work independently, and require a very important synergistic relationship to function properly in our bodies. As soon as one or more of these three arms begins to over or under work in relation to the other, chronic illness begins to express itself.

More on Aluminum

Aluminum is placed in the vaccines to selectively target the up-regulation of the humoral arm (TH2 cells) of children’s immune systems, to drive the production of antibodies. The medical community leads us to believe that this production of antibodies is what imparts for children a protective nature against vaccine-preventable illnesses. Yet, this outcome may come at a cost.

There are multiple articles in the medical literature demonstrating how chronic illnesses like allergies,[11] [12] asthma, [13] [14] [15] eczema,[16] lupus, [17] inflammatory bowel disease, [18] ADD/ADHD[19] and autism[20] all exhibit a skewed production and over-activity of the TH2 arm of the immune system.

Similarly, chronic illnesses like juvenile diabetes mellitus[21] [22] and rheumatoid arthritis,[23] multiple sclerosis,[24] uveits,[25] inflammatory bowel disease,[26] and autism[27] [28] all exhibit skewed production and over-activity of the TH1 arm of the immune system.

While aluminum in the vaccines is specifically targeting the over-activation of TH2 to encourage the body to produce antibodies, any direct or indirect effect of aluminum on the health or maturation of the TH1 or TH3 system is unknown. Yet, in many of these TH2 dominant chronic illnesses, TH1 and TH3 have also been shown to exhibit an impaired immune response to the environment.[29]

Any direct or indirect effect on the health or maturation of the TH1, TH2 and TH3 arms of children’s immune systems from any of the injected vaccine ingredients, either due to their individual action, or due to their combined interaction, is unknown as well.

The important synergistic, balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, in response to the environment is dysfunctional and impaired in all chronic illnesses. Children are not necessarily born with this dysfunction or impairment, although they may inherit the susceptibility from their parents. How then, do children develop the expression of these TH1, TH2, TH3 impairments, into what we describe as chronic illness?

What is clear is aluminum pushes the TH2 immune system to over perform, and multiple chronic illnesses in children show immune systems where the TH2 immune response over performs, while TH1 and TH3 responses are also impaired. Is there a connection? By having this type of effect on the TH2 system, is aluminum in any way contributing to the development of these chronic illnesses in children; especially in those children from families with a genetic history of the above mentioned chronic illnesses?

Does aluminum also affect the TH1 immune response, unbeknownst to scientists, clinicians and parents? Does aluminum play a role in impairing the overall synergistic, balanced activity of TH1, TH2 and TH3, which is a requirement for a healthy immune system response to the natural environment? There is no scientific evidence to clarify our understanding one way or the other, but the evidence may be right in front of us to conclude otherwise.

Aluminum forces the undeveloped and immature immune system of infants and children to produce greater amounts of humoral immune cells (TH2) and antibodies, before their immune systems have a chance to adapt to the world in which they’ve barely had a chance to live in.

Under these circumstances, the activity of aluminum appears to play a vital role in disrupting the maturation of the immune system in infants and children through its effects on TH2 and therefore, on TH1 and TH3.

What effect this has on their overall health in the short or long term is unknown, but this model appears to help us understand how we may be contributing to the development of chronic illness in infants and children with the use of aluminum in vaccines. We also have little understanding of what might happen to the overall health of their immune systems if parents wait until later in life to expose them to vaccines containing aluminum, or if they’re exposed in smaller doses one at a time.

How much of a role does injected aluminum play, either acting alone, or in conjunction with other vaccine ingredients and environmental toxins, in the selection and subsequent development of chronic illnesses, in a susceptible population of children, through the disruption of TH1, TH2, TH3? There is no science to answer this question because no one has investigated this issue.

We have no scientific studies in infants, children or adults to help us understand the nature of the progression of TH1, TH2 and TH3 immune responses to any of the injected materials in vaccines.

You cannot do research on questions that enough people don’t believe is worth asking, or are afraid of what the answers might show if the proper studies were done.

It is unfortunate that we continue to drag out this dialogue by singling out each individual vaccine ingredient as a detriment to the health of our children. First thimerosal needed to be removed, despite contentions from the medical community that there were any real medical reasons to do so, and now aluminum. According to Environmental Defense[30] (formerly known as the Environmental Defense fund), all the vaccine ingredients are poisonous, carcinogenic or potentially harmful to the skin, gastrointestinal, pulmonary, immune and neurological systems in our bodies.

What about formaldehyde? Are we going to wait until another brave physician or scientist writes about the damaging effects of injected vaccine-containing formaldehyde on our children’s brains before we are called to demand that formaldehyde be removed? Or about the problems associated with having Polysorbate-80 in the vaccines?

Polysorbate-80 is used in pharmacology to assist in the delivery of certain drugs or chemotherapeutic agents across the blood-brain-barrier. What viral, bacterial, yeast, heavy metal or other vaccine containing ingredient need to pass into the brains of our children? Do they belong in the brain? Is that part of the needed immune response to protect our children from disease? Do vaccine materials pass across the blood-brain barrier with the help of Polysorbate-80? If so, are there complications from being in the brains of our children? Is this another connection to help us get an understanding of why 1 in 150[31] children have autism, or 1 in 6 children has developmental/learning disabilities?

If we’re going to do justice to the topic of vaccine ingredients, we need to look at the potential harm of all the vaccine ingredients at once, and examine their individual effects on our children’s immune and nervous systems. Then, we can examine the interactive effects of the vaccine ingredients on human tissue, and evaluate the potential for harm, as Dr. Haley has already successfully done.

How many more children need to be potentially harmed before we invoke the precautionary principle and the Hippocratic Oath – First, Do No Harm? If there’s no adequate science, and we have positive evidence of toxicity from aluminum, injected alone or in conjunction with other ingredients, and we have a potential model to understand why certain chronic conditions may be developing in a susceptible population of children, then injecting aluminum containing vaccines into anyone should stop right now until we have the proper scientific proof we need to say otherwise. We need the same scientific proof of safety for all vaccine ingredients and their interactions, and we need parents, scientists and practitioners to stand up and demand nothing less before we make matters worse.

Lawrence B. Palevsky, MD, FAAP
Pediatrician

_______________________________________________________________________

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2 MOTHERING No. 146, January-February 2008, pp. 46-53 [Return]
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