At least five Iranian companies stationed in Afghanistan are covertly funding Taliban militants, paying them salaries of $233 a month with a $1,000 bonus for killing an American soldier, according to the Sunday Times of London.
Blowing up a US military vehicle is worth $6,000, making insurgents better paid than any Afghan police officer or soldier.
“Iran will never stop funding us, because Americans are dangerous for them as well,” said a Taliban treasurer, who travels from the mountainous Wardak province to an Iranian construction company that operates out of Kabul to pick up the cash.
“The money we get is not dirty. It is for jihad,” he said.
The treasurer said he has picked up almost $79,000 in the past six months.
Afghan intelligence and Taliban sources told the Times that the firms – set up with foreign aid money within the past six months – provide cash for a network of district Taliban treasurers to pay battlefield expenses and bonuses for killing the enemy and destroying their vehicles.
The Iranian companies win contracts to supply materials and logistics to Afghans involved in reconstruction. The money often comes in the form of aid from foreign donors.
Profits are transferred through poorly regulated Afghan banks – including Kabul Bank, which is partly owned by President Hamid Karzai’s brother Mahmood – to Tehran and Dubai.
From there, the money returns to Afghanistan through the informal Islamic banking system known as hawala.
”This means the companies involved in funding the insurgency can cover their tracks easily. It makes it harder for us to trace the cash flow,” a senior Afghan intelligence official said.
He said the Iranian companies had been formed with the intention of winning contracts funded by foreign aid so that donors’ cash could be channeled into the insurgency.
The Iranian embassy in Kabul refused to respond to the allegations.
Every day brings new revelations of how shady and dishonest the leaders of the Ground Zero mega-mosque initiative are, and how fishy the whole endeavor has been from the beginning. “Mosque building owners nixed $18M offer before taking $4.8M one,” by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein in the New York Post, September 5:
The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price.
The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned.
El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009—a job as a property manager for a son of the family, Sethian Pomerantz.
New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 – $18 million cash – and wondered whether money changed hands under the table, according to sources close to the deal.
Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site, had inked a purchase agreement and even had keys to the existing building, according to sources and documents obtained by The Post.
But Kukiko Mitani – whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property – and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek’s deal disappeared, sources said.
Glodek, who owns the ChefsDiet food delivery service and several Manhattan properties, declined to comment.
The property is now at the heart of one of the most divisive issues in the country—whether it should be the location of a $100 million mosque and community center. The location two blocks from Ground Zero has been called insensitive, and questions have been raised about whether extremists will help fund the project. Recent polls show that 70 percent of New Yorkers want it moved.
El-Gamal had his eye on the property for years before buying it in 2009.
Calling Generals “Birthers”? That’s the left’s way of supporting Obama no matter the law of the land, no matter who has the true gravitas of a life’s experiences, and a proven record of leadership. Calling your opponent’s names when they disagree with you is the ultimate “low-road” in political discourse.
True Leaders
Men who stand up for the rule-of-law and the Constitution. Men who defend LTC Lakin, and like him, uphold their oaths, even in retirement:
Major General Carroll D. Childers ARNG (Ret.)
Major General Paul E. Vallely US Army (Ret.)
Lieutenant General Thomas G. McInerney USAF (Ret.)
Major General Jerry R. Curry US Army (Ret.)
More to come I am sure!
(Note: LTG is a three-star Flag Officer, MG is a two-star Flag Officer)
The High Road – The CONSTITUTION of the United States of America!
Its simple folks, when Flag Officers come forward and support a fellow soldier, a fellow Command Officer, its called honor, dignity, love of country, loyal and allegiant, and most of all patriotic. Simply, its living up to their oaths, one that does not go away after retirement.
...support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Its all about the Constitution, and the rule-of-law! When the press and short-sighted Americans start to worship their leaders, defending them regardless of the law, its called the rule-of-man. Star power has no place in our land, and is exactly the opposite of what our founders so ingeniously created for us for all time.
STAND UP AMERICA- Support our troops who have been incarcerated wrongly, the mean and women who defend us all! The people who live up to their oaths.
Its time for every soldier, every officer, and every American, to stand up and support these patriotic leaders, not the usurpers of patriotism, the ones who abase our proven leaders. Time to show your true colors as our men and women in uniform fighting as they have for over 200 years for our rights and liberty.
If evidence in the court martial trial of Lieut. Col. Terry Lakin – the Bronze-Star-decorated lead flight surgeon who has knowingly triggered his own court martial in his efforts to verify the Constitutional eligibility of President Obama – might be an “embarrassment” to President Obama, the presiding judge Army Col. Denise R. Lind has in effect ruled, then there just won’t be any evidence in the court martial trial of LTC Terry Lakin.
Is this really America 2010, or have we taken a time-warped detour to 1930s Soviet Union?
Army Col. Denise R. Lind today [September 2] ruled in a hearing regarding the evidence to be allowed in the scheduled October court-martial of Lakin that he will be denied access to any of Obama’s records as well as any testimony from those who may have access to the records.
With her decision, Lind mirrored a number of federal judges who have ruled on civil lawsuits over Obama’s eligibility. They have without exception denied the plaintiffs’ access to any requested documentation regarding the president’s eligibility.
Lind ruled that it was “not relevant” for the military to be considering such claims, that the laws allegedly violated by Lakin were legitimate on their face and that the chain of command led up to the Pentagon, and that should have been sufficient for Lakin.
Paul Rolf Jensen, Lakin’s civilian attorney, said the case would continue. But he said the courts now have denied his client the opportunity to present his defense.
Jensen had argued that under U.S.C. Rule 46, a defendant put on court martial has the right to call any and all witnesses and obtain any evidence in his or her defense.
Lind, who took 40 minutes to read her decision to the court, disagreed.
She said opening up such evidence could be an “embarrassment” to the president, and it’s up to Congress to call for impeachment of a sitting president.
So, presumably, just taser the canary-colonel and throw him in the back of a paddy wagon, right?
This, incredibly, is treatment literally recommended by one of the Army prosecutors in the Lakin case, LTC Steven Brodsky. As related on the website of the American Patriot Foundation, a foundation dedicated to the support of LTC Lakin, the following exchange occurred after LTC Lakin’s August 2 hearing. read more
The following report is solely the product of the authors and is posted here for the public to view, and discern for themselves. It is a scholarly work and may clear up many questions readers may have.
Courts Martial Defense
For LTC Terrence Lakin
By J.B. Williams and Timothy Harrington
World Net Daily, which has been following the Lakin trial step-by-step from the beginning, is reporting:
FT. MEADE, Md. – A career officer in the U.S. Army [Col. Denise R. Lind] acting as a judge in the prosecution of Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin today ruled that the military is no place for Barak Obama’s presidential eligibility to be evaluated.
According to the WND report, presiding authority Col. Denise R. Lind used the following arguments to deny LTC Lakin proper access to a defense, summarized in the following three paragraphs taken from the 40 minute long reading of her decision
Army Col. Denise R. Lind today ruled in a hearing regarding the evidence to be allowed in the scheduled October court-martial of Lakin that he will be denied access to any of Obama’s records as well as any testimony from those who may have access to the records.
With her decision, Lind mirrored a number of federal judges who have ruled on civil lawsuits over Obama’s eligibility. They have without exception denied the plaintiffs’ access to any requested documentation regarding the president’s eligibility.
Lind ruled that it was “not relevant” for the military to be considering such claims, that the laws allegedly violated by Lakin were legitimate on their face and that the chain of command led up to the Pentagon, and that should have been sufficient for Lakin.
We find foundational flaws in Col. Lind’s decision, which Lakin’s defense team must seize upon in order to alter the current course of this trial.
1 – Lind’s authority is derived from the same place as LTC Lakin’s and all other members of the United States Military – from the supreme command of the office of Commander-in-Chief, the President of the United States.
2 – Lind is attempting to use her authority under her Commander-in-Chief to break the military chain of command, isolating the Commander-in-Chief of the US Military specifically, exempting the President from his position of authority in the chain of command, without which, Lind herself has no authority to convene the Courts Martial.
3 – Lind then reaches outside of the US Military Justice system to the Civil Court, relying upon civil court precedent to deny Lakin any access to discovery and thereby, a proper defense guaranteed him by the US Constitution and UCMJ, Uniform Code of Military Justice. Civil Court precedent has no legal standing in a UCMJ criminal proceeding. In fact, the UCMJ is based upon the Articles of War (aka War Articles) and is a “penal system” unlike the US Justice System – as explained by Col. William Winthrop in Military Law and Precedents. As a result, precedents set in courts outside of the UCMJ are without legal standing in any UCMJ proceeding.
4 – Not even in the UCMJ can the United States government deny the accused his/her right to a trial, complete with discovery of related evidence. Yet Lind attempts to do so, under the authority derived from her Commander-in-Chief. If the chain of command is broken, then Lind herself has no authority.
5 – Lind’s statement that the legality of the Commander-in-Chief is “not relevant” in matters of military command is false on its face. As stated in a sworn affidavit filed by LTG Thomas G. McInerney executed on August 20, 2010 – “In refusing to obey orders because of his doubts as to their legality, LTC Lakin has acted exactly as proper training dictates. – By thus stepping up to the bar, LTC Lakin is demonstrating the courage of his convictions and his bravery. – That said, it is equally essential that he be allowed access to the evidence that will prove whether he made the correct decision.”
6 – Lind attempts to break the chain of command at The Pentagon level, which she claims has no issue with the current Commander-in-Chief and that this should be good enough for Lakin. Yet she cannot break this chain of command without eliminating her own authority, and Lakin’s oath requires that he decide for himself whether or not his orders are legal, as affirmed in LTG McInerney’s sworn affidavit.
7 – At issue is not whether or not LTC Lakin refused orders, but rather whether or not he “unlawfully” refused orders. If his orders were not “lawful,” including but not limited to, emanating from a “lawful” chain of command which begins with a lawful Commander-in-Chief, then Lakin must be found NOT GUILTY of “unlawfully” refusing orders.
At the heart of the matter is whether or not his orders to deploy were “lawful.”
LTC Lakin has questioned whether or not his deployment orders were “lawful” on the basis that he believes that the Commander-in-Chief from which those orders are issued, may not be “lawful,” therefore making any orders from the top of military command “unlawful.”
To determine whether or not Lakin is correct in his decision to refuse orders, it is paramount to discover with certainty whether or not his orders were issued by a “lawful” command.
As we know, Article II – Section I requires that only a “natural born citizen” of the United States can hold the office of President, Commander-in-Chief.
In this regard, a fatal misstep in the Lakin defense has opened the door for the illegitimate statements now being made by Col. Denise R. Lind. read more
Raffol, a Boston based real estate executive was charged in federal court with engaging in a scheme to conceal illegal campaign contributions made to Democrat Party campaign committees. He was also charged with witness tampering.
Raffol served as executive vice-president for a Boston company that provided management services to a portfolio of real estate holdings, including several publicly subsidized housing communities in Dorchester and Roxbury.
The prosecution alleges that as part of its business, executives from the company actively solicited campaign contributions from individuals for elected candidates for federal, state, and local office throughout the years. These executives did so primarily to advance the business interests of the company, including to obtain support for public financing of a large-scale, mixed-use development project within the City of Boston.
The Federal Election Campaign Act limits the amounts individuals can contribute to election campaigns and political campaign committees, prohibits corporations from making direct contributions to federal candidates, and requires the true identity of each contributor to be disclosed.
It is alleged that, as part of an effort to increase the amount of campaign contributions to candidates who supported the company’s projects or who might support these projects in the future, executives and senior management directed Martin Raffol to solicit campaign contributions from vendors who regularly did work for the company.
Raffol in turn allegedly engaged in an ongoing scheme whereby he reimbursed the vendors for thousands of dollars of campaign contributions he solicited from them. This included vendors who provided general contracting services, energy services, and security services. According to the Information, as a result of Raffol’s scheme, the true source of these vendor’s campaign contributions were disguised from the FEC, similar state authorities, campaign committees and ultimately, the public.
In total, Raffol allegedly caused over $12,000 in illegal campaign contributions to candidates running for federal office, specifically Democrat candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. It’s further alleged that he funneled over $30,000 in illegal contributions to other Democrat Party candidates running for state and local office, including candidates for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Senate, House of Representatives, District Attorney, Mayor of the City of Boston and Boston City Council.
This scheme caused numerous reports, which falsely indicated the source of these contributions to be unwittingly filed by the relevant political committees with the FEC and similar authorities. The prosecutors also allege that Raffol engaged in witness tampering to conceal the illegal campaign contribution scheme and to prevent law enforcement from learning of the scheme. In particular, Raffol instructed a cooperating witness to lie to authorities if authorities questioned him about the campaign contribution scheme.
FT. MEADE, MD. – A career officer in the U.S. Army acting as a judge in the court-martial process for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin today ruled that the military is no place for Barak Obama’s eligibility to be president to be evaluated.
Army Col. Denise R. Lind today ruled in a hearing regarding the evidence that will be allowed in the scheduled October court-martial for Lakin that he will be denied access to any of Obama’s records as well as any testimony from those who may have access to those records.
Lt. Col. Lakin, MD, Flight Surgeon
With her decision, Lind plunged into lockstep with a number of federal judges who have ruled on civil lawsuits over Obama’s eligibility. They have without exception denied the plaintiffs’ any access to any requested documentation regarding the president’s eligibility.
Lind ruled that it was “not relevant” for the military to be considering such claims, that the laws allegedly violated by Lakin were legitimate on their face and that the chain of command led up to the Pentagon and that should have been sufficient for Lakin.
Paul Rolf Jensen, Lakin’s civilian attorney, said the case would continue. But he said the courts now have denied his client the opportunity to present his defense.
Jensen had argued that under U.S.C. Rule 46, a defendant being put on court martial has the right to call any and all witnesses and obtain any evidence in his or her defense.
Lind, who took 40 minutes to read her decision to the courtroom, disagreed.
She said opening up such evidence could be an “embarrassment” to the president and anyway, it should be Congress that would call for impeachment of a sitting president.
The decision came just days after a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who commanded forces armed with nuclear weapons said the disclosure of Obama’s documentation is not just critical to Lakin’s defense, but to the preservation of the nation itself.
The vehement statements came in an affidavit from retired Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, a Fox News military analyst, that was disclosed by an organization generating support for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin.
Lakin had invited his own court-martial because he is unable to follow orders under the chain of command with Obama at its head unless the president’s eligibility is documented.
McInerney, who retired in 1994 after serving as vice commander in chief of USAF forces in Europe, commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing and assistant vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, among other positions, said the chain of command issue is critical, since officers are obligated both to follow orders and to disobey illegal orders.
Lt. General Tom McInerney, USAF (Ret.), Fox News Military Analyst
See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential-eligibility mystery!
“Officers in the United States military service are – and must be – trained that they owe their highest allegiance to the United States Constitution,” he said in the affidavit.
“There can be no question that it is absolutely essential to good order and discipline in the military that there be no break in the unified chain of command, from the lowliest E-1 up to and including the commander in chief who is under the Constitution, the president of the United States. As military officers, we owe our ultimate loyalty not to superior officers or even to the president, but rather, to the Constitution.”
He explained “good order and discipline requires not blind obedience to all orders but instead requires officers to judge – sometimes under great adversity – whether an order is illegal.”
“The president of the United States, as the commander in chief, is the source of all military authority,” he said. “The Constitution requires the president to be a natural born citizen in order to be eligible to hold office. If he is ineligible under the Constitution to serve in that office that creates a break in the chain of command of such magnitude that its significance can scarcely be imagined.”
THE Constitution, Words Have meaning
Lakin is being supported by the American Patriot Foundation, which said the affidavit is for use in Lakin’s trial, scheduled Oct. 13-15.
Lakin’s defense counsel asked for the president’s school records as well as a deposition from the custodian of Obama’s birth records that may exist in Hawaii.
Lakin is a physician and in his 18th year of service in the Army. He posted a video asking for the court-martial to determine Obama’s eligibility.
He is board certified in family medicine and occupational and environmental medicine. He has been recognized for his outstanding service as a flight surgeon for year-long tours in Honduras, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He was also awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan and recognized in 2005 as one of the Army Medical Department’s outstanding flight surgeons.
McInerney commanded forces equipped with nuclear weapons.
“In my command capacity I was responsible that the personnel with access to these weapons had an unwavering and absolute confidence in the unified chain of command, because such confidence was absolutely essential – vital – in the event the use of those weapons were authorized,” the general wrote.
“I cannot overstate how imperative it is to train such personnel to have confidence in the unified chain of command. Today, because of the widespread and legitimate concerns that the president is constitutionally ineligible to hold office, I fear what would happen should such a crisis occur today.”
He said Lakin is acting “exactly” as “proper training dictates.”
Lakin, the foundation said, has been compelled to act because he swore an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. Obama’s eligibility to be president has been questioned, he argues, and Obama has refused all efforts to obtain documents that could determine his eligibility.
The controversy stems from the Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President.”
A number of challenges and lawsuits have been based on the constitutional requirement, some alleging Obama does not qualify because he was not born in Hawaii in 1961 as he claims. Others say he fails to qualify because he was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the United Kingdom when he was born, and the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens from eligibility.
Complicating the issue is the fact that besides Obama’s actual birth documentation, he has kept from the public documentation including his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, baptism records and his adoption records.
Lakin declined to follow deployment orders after he tried through military channels to affirm the validity of orders under Obama’s command and was rebuffed. He had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan again.
Lakin is not the first officer to raise questions. Others have included Army doctor Capt. Connie Rhodes and Army reservist Maj. Stefan Cook.
In at least one of the earlier disputes, the Army simply canceled the orders rather than allow the argument to come to a head.
Lakin had posted a YouTube video challenging the Army to charge him over the issue.
As WND reported, Lakin posted the video of his challenge to Obama to document his eligibility March 30.
The headlines report the way the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been lying and some, myself included, are calling for an end to this snakes’ nest of global deception.
I keep waiting for some environmental group to announce that the Earth is running out of oxygen. It’s the kind of huge lie that environmentalists of every description engage in. There’s plenty of oxygen and, despite the latest lies about carbon dioxide (CO2), the great oceans of the world are not turning into reservoirs of acidity. Together these two gases are the basis for all life on Earth.
If you remember nothing else, remember that any reference by anyone to “greenhouse gas emissions” involves the lie that they influence the weather or the world’s climate.
Since 1988, when the United Nations created the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the vast global warming hoax existed for two purposes, the enrich those involved and to impose a one world government. The effort required mobilizing the leaders of nations to spread the word that the planet was dramatically warming and that carbon dioxide was the cause.
One has to marvel at the audacity of this scam. There were so many parties that had to be involved that it boggles the mind to consider that a mere handful of alleged “climate scientists” who created the computer models and provided the falsified data were able to corrupt so many real scientists into collaborating. The prospect of vast amounts of governmental and foundation funding made the process easier.
The scientists who spoke out against it were labeled “deniers”, but they were the truth-tellers and it took years of effort, culminating in four international conferences to debunk the global warming hoax. It was not, however, until November 2009 with the leak of the conspirator’s emails that the truth became widespread.
This evil scheme was supported and continues to be supported by many world leaders. President Obama traveled to Copenhagen in December 2009 to participate in a UN conference that was intended to impose one-world government and more recently the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, made mention of “climate change”, the code words that replaced global warming.
The IPCC was so successful that at its height in 2007 it shared a Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. This prize is now so worthless that future recipients may not wish to be so honored.
Yes, there is climate change. There has, for 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s existence, always been climate change. There have been ice ages, magnetic reversals, volcanic activity, tsunamis, earthquakes and a host of other natural events.
To suggest, however, that climate change is influenced by too much carbon dioxide lacks all scientific merit. There simply isn’t enough CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere to have any impact.
The single most powerful determinant of the Earth’s climate was and is the Sun.
Putting aside the United Nations’ never-ending effort to exert authority over all the nations and all the peoples of the world, global warming was about an audacious scheme to monetize carbon dioxide; to sell “carbon credits” and, by doing so, enrich those who were behind the scheme. read more
