theeconomiccollapseblog.com
Once upon a time in America, people became doctors and nurses because they wanted to help people, building hospitals was a labor of love, lawyers didn't chase ambulances, health insurance companies did not openly abuse their customers and greedy pharmaceutical companies did not dominate the entire health care industry. But today all of that has changed. Why do most people choose a career in the health care industry today? It is because they want to make a lot of money and live a comfortable lifestyle. Why do most health facilities get built today? They get built because someone is hoping to make a huge profit. Why do so many lawyers specialize in medical malpractice? Here's a hint - it is not because they want to make life better for people. Why do health insurance companies keep raising premiums even while they are making record profits? It is because they can and because they are greedy. Why are pharmaceutical corporations some of the most profitable companies on the face of the earth even though their products are harming tens of millions of people? It is because our health care system has become wildly corrupt and is now about making as much money as possible.
Not that everyone in the health care industry is motivated by greed. Some doctors and nurses volunteer a ton of their time to assist the poor and the needy. Others use their vacation time to go overseas and provide free medical care in third world nations. Many religious groups and non-profit organizations build hospitals and clinics because they are truly trying to help people. And there are a few health insurance companies that are trying to play the game honestly.
But unfortunately, those with noble intentions in the health care industry are the exception rather than the rule. Overall, the health care industry in America is all about the money, and it is about time that we quit pretending otherwise.
The following are 20 signs that the health care industry in the United States has become all about making as much money as possible....
1 - Even as the rest of the U.S. economy deeply struggles, America's health insurance companies increased their profits by 56 percent in 2009.
2 - According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America's five biggest for-profit health insurers ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.
3 - The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States received nearly $200 million in total compensation in 2009.
4 - According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers in the United States increased 180% between 1999 and 2009.
5 - Health insurance premium increases are getting totally out of control. For example, the 39% increase in health insurance premiums that Anthem Blue Cross imposed on some California customers last year was so obscene that it made national headlines.
6 - Since 2003, health insurance companies have shelled out more than $42 million in state-level campaign contributions.
7 - There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits in 2008.
8 - Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone.
9 - Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to a CDC report that was just released. According to the report, approximately one-third of all Americans use two or more pharmaceutical drugs, and more than ten percent of all Americans use five or more prescription drugs on a regular basis.
10 - According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
11 - According to a very surprising new study, 85 percent of new pharmaceutical drugs are "lemons" and pose serious health risks to their users.
12 - The Food and Drug Administration reported 1,742 prescription drug recalls in 2009, which was a gigantic increase from 426 drug recalls in 2008.
13 - Shocking new research has found that expectant mothers taking antidepressants have an astounding 68 percent increase in the overall risk of miscarriage. Yet the pharmaceutical companies are essentially doing nothing to stop this.
14 - The use of psychiatric medications among 18 to 34 year old members of the U.S. military and their wives increased by 42 percent between 2005 and 2009.
15 - There are some disturbing new medical studies that suggest that many of the most popular anti-depressant drugs are no more effective than a placebo.
16 - Pharmaceutical companies continue to rake in billions of dollars from selling vaccines and are encouraging even pregnant women to take them, even though there is mounting evidence that taking vaccines while pregnant dramatically increases the rate of miscarriage.
17 - One woman in New Hampshire is seeking more than $24 million in damages from the manufacturer of a prescription drug that she took for shoulder pain. It turns out that as a result of taking the drug, she is now blind and has been left scarred by internal and external burns.
18 - According to one stunning new study, the medical liability system in the United States added approximately $55.6 billion to the cost of health care in 2008.
19 - Pharmaceutical companies have become so greedy that now they are even attempting to patent our genes. It is being reported that over three million gene patent applications have been filed with the U.S. government so far. Tens of thousands of gene patents have already been granted at this point. It is estimated that companies hold approximately 40,000 patents on sections of the human genome right now. Those patents cover approximately 20% of our genes.
20 - According to a recent report, Americans spend about twice as much as residents of other developed countries on health care, but get much lower quality and far less efficiency in return.
Read Article With Links
Friday, September 10, 2010
My Dogs Won't Drink the Rainwater
HenryMakow.com
My Dogs Won't Drink the Rainwater
by Tony Blizzard
Most of this week it has been raining where I live. [Arkansas] Until today it was mostly light rain but this morning there was close lightening and thunder and water coming down by inches an hour. This water is off the Gulf of Mexico, pushed inland by the current storm in the gulf.
In the afternoon, the clouds broke up, the sun finally coming out, so I took my dogs for a walk, first chance in days. But with the sun came truly muggy heat. In a short time the dogs were looking for water. They know all the places in the road ditches where we walk which are a bit deeper and hold puddles of water after a rain. They kept going to these spots as we progressed but they wouldn't drink this fresh rain water after a lick or a smell. Not even where it was still running freely. Finally we hit a spot, a little deeper than the others, where the old dog did half-heartedly drink some. But he soon ended up biting at the water before climbing out of the ditch - I've never seen him do that before.
On arriving home the dogs usually dive into an old 4 or 5 gallon mop bucket I have set to catch rain water off the roof. But they drank very little from it today even though they were obviously thirsty.
Finally, after being in the house for some time, they drank from the well water bucket I keep in the house for them. Now I'll have to watch how they approach the well water the next few days as these rains work their way through the earth into my well. If my well is contaminated by rain laden with those chemicals dumped into the gulf, or with oil, I'm in trouble. Hell, half the country is.
I trust my dogs' senses of smell and taste way over what we're told by government, academia and media. Today there was something about this fresh rain water that they wanted no part of.
Read Original Article
My Dogs Won't Drink the Rainwater
by Tony Blizzard
Most of this week it has been raining where I live. [Arkansas] Until today it was mostly light rain but this morning there was close lightening and thunder and water coming down by inches an hour. This water is off the Gulf of Mexico, pushed inland by the current storm in the gulf.
In the afternoon, the clouds broke up, the sun finally coming out, so I took my dogs for a walk, first chance in days. But with the sun came truly muggy heat. In a short time the dogs were looking for water. They know all the places in the road ditches where we walk which are a bit deeper and hold puddles of water after a rain. They kept going to these spots as we progressed but they wouldn't drink this fresh rain water after a lick or a smell. Not even where it was still running freely. Finally we hit a spot, a little deeper than the others, where the old dog did half-heartedly drink some. But he soon ended up biting at the water before climbing out of the ditch - I've never seen him do that before.
On arriving home the dogs usually dive into an old 4 or 5 gallon mop bucket I have set to catch rain water off the roof. But they drank very little from it today even though they were obviously thirsty.
Finally, after being in the house for some time, they drank from the well water bucket I keep in the house for them. Now I'll have to watch how they approach the well water the next few days as these rains work their way through the earth into my well. If my well is contaminated by rain laden with those chemicals dumped into the gulf, or with oil, I'm in trouble. Hell, half the country is.
I trust my dogs' senses of smell and taste way over what we're told by government, academia and media. Today there was something about this fresh rain water that they wanted no part of.
Read Original Article
If You Are Muslim You Can Opt Out Of The Obamacare Health Care Laws With No Penalties
Gil Guignat
Phoenix Small Business Management Examiner
Isn't this nice. If you are of the Muslim religion, you don't have to give all the new Obamacare healthcare reform regulations and penalties another thought. Because the concept of being compelled to participate in such a healthcare program offends Islamic sensibilities, Muslims are specifically exempt.
As a matter of fact if you are Amish, American Indian or a Chistian Scientist you do not need to participate or pay the taxes associated with healthcare reform. That means not having to be forced to buy healthcare insurance, not paying the taxes or the penalties if you don't get it. Nice!
Here is what the regulations say:
EXEMPTIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS.
—In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information:
In the case of an individual seeking exemption based on the individual’s status as a
member of an exempt religious sect or division, as a member of a health care sharing ministry, as an Indian,
or as an individual eligible for a hardship exemption, such information as the Secretary shall prescribe.”
Senate Bill, H.R. 3590, pages 273-274
There are several reasons why an individual could claim exemption, being a member of a religion that does not believe in insurance is one of them. Islam is one of those religions. Muslims believe that health insurance is “haraam”, or forbidden; because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling. This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in the bill. More...
This means that if you are Christian and abortion is against your religion tough luck.
If you are Jewish tough luck as well.
We wonder why these certain groups get a free ride. We also wonder why the largest religious block in North and South America the Christians are discriminated against like this. Very odd indeed.
There is a lot of food for thought here and a lot of ways to object to this healthcare bill isn't there.
Read Original Article
Phoenix Small Business Management Examiner
Isn't this nice. If you are of the Muslim religion, you don't have to give all the new Obamacare healthcare reform regulations and penalties another thought. Because the concept of being compelled to participate in such a healthcare program offends Islamic sensibilities, Muslims are specifically exempt.
As a matter of fact if you are Amish, American Indian or a Chistian Scientist you do not need to participate or pay the taxes associated with healthcare reform. That means not having to be forced to buy healthcare insurance, not paying the taxes or the penalties if you don't get it. Nice!
Here is what the regulations say:
EXEMPTIONS FROM INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY REQUIREMENTS.
—In the case of an individual who is seeking an exemption certificate under section 1311(d)(4)(H) from any requirement or penalty imposed by section 5000A, the following information:
In the case of an individual seeking exemption based on the individual’s status as a
member of an exempt religious sect or division, as a member of a health care sharing ministry, as an Indian,
or as an individual eligible for a hardship exemption, such information as the Secretary shall prescribe.”
Senate Bill, H.R. 3590, pages 273-274
There are several reasons why an individual could claim exemption, being a member of a religion that does not believe in insurance is one of them. Islam is one of those religions. Muslims believe that health insurance is “haraam”, or forbidden; because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling. This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in the bill. More...
This means that if you are Christian and abortion is against your religion tough luck.
If you are Jewish tough luck as well.
We wonder why these certain groups get a free ride. We also wonder why the largest religious block in North and South America the Christians are discriminated against like this. Very odd indeed.
There is a lot of food for thought here and a lot of ways to object to this healthcare bill isn't there.
Read Original Article
FDA censorship of nutritional science threatens health of all Americans
Mike Adams
NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) Concerned about breast cancer? There are three nutrients that virtually eliminate your risk of the disease, even if you carry "breast cancer genes." Wondering how to cure arthritis? A combination of four different nutrients virtually eliminates arthritis symptoms. Afraid of diabetes? Five different nutrients, all available right now, can help prevent diabetes for mere pennies a day.
And that's just the beginning...
Nutritional cures exist for nearly every major disease, but the FDA doesn't want you to know about them. So it has censored truthful, scientifically-proven information about these substances in order to keep you ignorant about nutritional cures.
Watch my short public service announcement to see more (38 seconds): http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
When one U.S. company offering cherry concentrates began linking to government-funded studies that concluded cherries reduce the symptoms of arthritis, they received a threatening letter from the FDA, demanding they remove the links from their website or face "criminal prosecution." (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)
Similarly, the FDA went on the attack to censor the truth about walnuts, claiming that "walnuts are unapproved drugs" when they are accompanied by truthful, scientific descriptions about their benefits for heart health (http://www.lef.org/featured-article...).
Diamond Foods, a distributor of walnuts, posted a collection of peer-reviewed scientific evidence on its website that described the health benefits of walnuts. In return, here's part of the utterly illogical set of demands Diamond Foods received from the FDA which claim that "walnuts are drugs"...
"Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR). ...Based on claims made on your firm's website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. ...Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs within the meaning of section 201 (g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(g)(B)]. Your walnut products are also new drugs under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)] because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions. Therefore, under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 355(a)], they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application."
In other words, telling the truth about walnuts turns you into a criminal according to the FDA. And if you tell the scientifically-validated truth about how walnuts can help reduce high cholesterol, that act magically transforms your walnuts into unapproved drugs.
And much the same is true when you're talking about green tea or pomegranates or superfoods. If you dare discuss the health benefits of any food or natural substance while you are selling such items, you will be branded a criminal by the FDA, threatened with criminal prosecution and potentially have your company raided by the FDA along with armed law enforcement agents with guns drawn.
Only junk foods are good for you
At the same time the FDA is attacking health foods, it openly allows ridiculous health claims on processed dead junk foods. Frito-Lay potato chips, for example, are allowed to carry claims that they are "heart healthy."
So while genuinely health foods like walnuts and pomegranates cannot make health claims, processed dead foods like potato chips may openly carry FDA-approved health claims!
Are you following this yet? Real food is bad for you. But junk food is good for you. That's what the FDA wants you to believe.
The FDA, you see, doesn't want you to learn the truth about healthy foods. This agency wants you to remain as ignorant as possible about the scientifically-validated health benefits of natural foods, supplements and superfoods while allowing you to be inundated with false and misleading health claims on processed dead junk foods like potato chips.
And can you guess the point of all this? It's fairly obvious, isn't it? The point is to keep Americans in a never-ending state of chronic degenerative disease that will result in a windfall of profits for the drug companies the FDA actually serves.
This is why natural food producers aren't allowed to even link to scientific articles about their foods. The FDA, you see, is in the business of censoring nutritional science.
See more in my short video: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
Can't tell the truth about green tea, either
On August 30, 2010, the FDA sent warning letters to manufacturers of green tea beverages, warning them about making health claims about green tea. One such beverage made by Canada Dry carried a claim that the drink is "enhanced with 200 mg of antioxidants from green tea and vitamin C."
In its threatening warning letter, the FDA insisted that green tea and vitamin C "are not nutrients with recognized antioxidant activity." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...)
Huh? Vitamin C isn't an antioxidant? That's funny, because outside the halls of the FDA offices, vitamin C has antioxidant activity and properties. The laws of chemistry, apparently, are suspended within the FDA's jurisdiction. All the universal laws of physics cease to exist when the FDA is in charge, and they are instead replaced with the FDA's distorted opinions of what those laws should actually be. Antioxidants don't exist. Vitamins are inert substances. Foods contain no medicine. Only pharmaceuticals have biological effects within the human body. These are the far-fetched laws of the universe according to the FDA.
In its never-ending march on nutritional science, the FDA also went after Lipton teas, whose website linked to four scientific studies concluding that green tea has a cholesterol-lowering effect. The FDA warned the Lipton company to remove the links, claiming that they were "misleading" and were effectively making claims that Lipton tea could treat a "disease."
But what if green tea really can help prevent a disease and the FDA just doesn't want you to know about it? That's actually the case with many plant-based nutrients that have powerful protective effects against disease. But according to the FDA's official position, there is no such thing as a food, nutrient or supplement that can prevent or treat any disease.
Vitamin C doesn't prevent scurvy. Vitamin D doesn't prevent rickets. Vitamin B3 doesn't prevent pellagra, according to the FDA. Vitamins are biologically useless substances unless they're patented by drug companies in which case they are magically transformed into "therapeutic chemicals" that may be sold to patients at monopoly prices.
The FDA actually believes that fresh, unprocessed foods have no health benefits whatsoever. That's why no health claims are allowed on such things. But dead processed foods like breakfast cereals can prevent disease, according to the FDA. That's why the agency has allowed such products to carry a multitude of health claims.
It's all part of the FDA's censorship of science about nutrients, foods and supplements. Rather than promoting real scientific knowledge, the FDA is censoring the science to keep the public as ignorant as possible.
In this way, the FDA is an enemy of nutritional literacy because it aims to keep people in the dark about the health benefits of foods, supplements and nutrients.
And because nutritional literacy is crucial to the long-term survival of America, the FDA, through its campaign of enforced nutritional illiteracy, is effectively an enemy of America. The agency has already accomplished incalculable harm to America's population and her economy. And the FDA is just getting warmed up! Now it wants to "step up its enforcement" of so-called "false" food labeling. This is just a cover story to clamp down on truthful health claims the FDA wants to censor.
It is through scientific censorship policies like those practiced at the FDA that America may fall to ignorance, disease and medical bankruptcy. The FDA is actually accelerating America's downfall by isolating people from the nutritional knowledge that could prevent disease, reduce health care costs and save billions of dollars in unnecessary medical costs.
For example, can you imagine the cost savings alone if we as a nation could prevent just one percent of all cancers? According to the National Institutes of Health, cancer costs the USA $228.1 billion in 2008. That's nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Now imagine the savings if we could find a miracle nutrient that could reduce all cancers by three-quarters? That would save America $171 billion per year (not to mention saving human lives at the same time).
And here's the good news: Such a nutrient already exists! It's cheap, safe and readily available. But the American Cancer Society won't talk about it, the FDA won't approve it and your doctor almost certainly won't recommend it. Want to know what it is? Read this article if you don't already know: http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html
How to end the FDA's reign of ignorance and censorship of nutritional science
First off, I highly recommend reading Jonathan Emord's outstanding book on this subject entitled Global Censorship of Health Information (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/09...).
This is a hugely important book on the subject from one of the industry's intellectual giants: attorney Jonathan Emord.
Secondly, if you're in the USA, support the Free Speech about Science Act, a new effort to end FDA censorship over truthful, scientifically-validated health claims for vitamins, foods and nutritional supplements. Click the following link to learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/028879_c...
Finally, recognize that we are beginning to defeat the FDA in court. In particular, the Alliance for Natural Health recently emerged victorious against the FDA in court over the agency's effort to censor truthful information about how selenium can reduce your risk of cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028929_F...)
Now we need more companies to stand up to FDA tyranny and take this rogue agency to court in order to stop its campaign of censorship and oppression against the natural products industry.
Just to be clear about what is a valid health claim
Just to be clear, in no way am I advocating that natural products companies should be able to just think up whatever health claims they want and emblazon their product packages with such things. We need to insist that health claims be "scientifically validated."
For example, if a cherry company could cite five studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that conclude cherries can help ease the symptoms of arthritis, then it should be perfectly acceptable for that company to place corresponding claims on its packaging: "Cherries have been shown to reduce the symptoms of arthritis." (With an appropriate citation on its website that points to the qualifying scientific studies.)
Almost everyone who believes in common sense would agree that this is a sensible approach to allowing health claims on foods and supplements. Yet the FDA's position is that foods and supplements are not allowed to carry any health claims -- even if such claims are scientifically validated and true!
The FDA absurdly insists that no food, no herb, no vitamin and no supplement can possibly have any biological effect on the human body... and if it does, then that magically transforms it into a "drug" requiring $400 million in testing and clinical trials before it can be approved by the FDA. And even then, it would only be available by prescription.
Do you see the catch-22 here? It's sort of like the old "floating witch" test in the witch hunt days: If you float, you're a witch and you get burned at the stake. If you sink, you die but you are declared innocent.
The FDA pulls the same thing with nutritional supplements: If it doesn't work, then it's inert and will be tolerated. But if it actually works, then it's now a "drug" and will be outlawed as an "unapproved drug."
I'm not making this up. This is precisely how the FDA operates at present.
It's a logic trap that I believe has been specifically designed to discredit the entire nutritional supplements industry while promoting the "benefits" of pharmaceuticals -- most of which we now know were falsified through pure scientific fraud, by the way.
Watch my short video to learn more about FDA censorship: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
And share this video with others. Everyone deserves to know the truth about nutrition and health. The FDA cannot keep us all in the dark forever. With your help, we will shine the light of truth on this issue and end the era of nutritional illiteracy that has cost America trillions of dollars and destroyed millions of lives.
Read Article With Links
NaturalNews.com
(NaturalNews) Concerned about breast cancer? There are three nutrients that virtually eliminate your risk of the disease, even if you carry "breast cancer genes." Wondering how to cure arthritis? A combination of four different nutrients virtually eliminates arthritis symptoms. Afraid of diabetes? Five different nutrients, all available right now, can help prevent diabetes for mere pennies a day.
And that's just the beginning...
Nutritional cures exist for nearly every major disease, but the FDA doesn't want you to know about them. So it has censored truthful, scientifically-proven information about these substances in order to keep you ignorant about nutritional cures.
Watch my short public service announcement to see more (38 seconds): http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
When one U.S. company offering cherry concentrates began linking to government-funded studies that concluded cherries reduce the symptoms of arthritis, they received a threatening letter from the FDA, demanding they remove the links from their website or face "criminal prosecution." (http://www.naturalnews.com/019366.html)
Similarly, the FDA went on the attack to censor the truth about walnuts, claiming that "walnuts are unapproved drugs" when they are accompanied by truthful, scientific descriptions about their benefits for heart health (http://www.lef.org/featured-article...).
Diamond Foods, a distributor of walnuts, posted a collection of peer-reviewed scientific evidence on its website that described the health benefits of walnuts. In return, here's part of the utterly illogical set of demands Diamond Foods received from the FDA which claim that "walnuts are drugs"...
"Based on our review, we have concluded that your walnut products are in violation of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) and the applicable regulations in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (21 CFR). ...Based on claims made on your firm's website, we have determined that your walnut products are promoted for conditions that cause them to be drugs because these products are intended for use in the prevention, mitigation, and treatment of disease. ...Because of these intended uses, your walnut products are drugs within the meaning of section 201 (g)(1)(B) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(g)(B)]. Your walnut products are also new drugs under section 201(p) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 321(p)] because they are not generally recognized as safe and effective for the above referenced conditions. Therefore, under section 505(a) of the Act [21 U.S.C. 355(a)], they may not be legally marketed with the above claims in the United States without an approved new drug application."
In other words, telling the truth about walnuts turns you into a criminal according to the FDA. And if you tell the scientifically-validated truth about how walnuts can help reduce high cholesterol, that act magically transforms your walnuts into unapproved drugs.
And much the same is true when you're talking about green tea or pomegranates or superfoods. If you dare discuss the health benefits of any food or natural substance while you are selling such items, you will be branded a criminal by the FDA, threatened with criminal prosecution and potentially have your company raided by the FDA along with armed law enforcement agents with guns drawn.
Only junk foods are good for you
At the same time the FDA is attacking health foods, it openly allows ridiculous health claims on processed dead junk foods. Frito-Lay potato chips, for example, are allowed to carry claims that they are "heart healthy."
So while genuinely health foods like walnuts and pomegranates cannot make health claims, processed dead foods like potato chips may openly carry FDA-approved health claims!
Are you following this yet? Real food is bad for you. But junk food is good for you. That's what the FDA wants you to believe.
The FDA, you see, doesn't want you to learn the truth about healthy foods. This agency wants you to remain as ignorant as possible about the scientifically-validated health benefits of natural foods, supplements and superfoods while allowing you to be inundated with false and misleading health claims on processed dead junk foods like potato chips.
And can you guess the point of all this? It's fairly obvious, isn't it? The point is to keep Americans in a never-ending state of chronic degenerative disease that will result in a windfall of profits for the drug companies the FDA actually serves.
This is why natural food producers aren't allowed to even link to scientific articles about their foods. The FDA, you see, is in the business of censoring nutritional science.
See more in my short video: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
Can't tell the truth about green tea, either
On August 30, 2010, the FDA sent warning letters to manufacturers of green tea beverages, warning them about making health claims about green tea. One such beverage made by Canada Dry carried a claim that the drink is "enhanced with 200 mg of antioxidants from green tea and vitamin C."
In its threatening warning letter, the FDA insisted that green tea and vitamin C "are not nutrients with recognized antioxidant activity." (http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...)
Huh? Vitamin C isn't an antioxidant? That's funny, because outside the halls of the FDA offices, vitamin C has antioxidant activity and properties. The laws of chemistry, apparently, are suspended within the FDA's jurisdiction. All the universal laws of physics cease to exist when the FDA is in charge, and they are instead replaced with the FDA's distorted opinions of what those laws should actually be. Antioxidants don't exist. Vitamins are inert substances. Foods contain no medicine. Only pharmaceuticals have biological effects within the human body. These are the far-fetched laws of the universe according to the FDA.
In its never-ending march on nutritional science, the FDA also went after Lipton teas, whose website linked to four scientific studies concluding that green tea has a cholesterol-lowering effect. The FDA warned the Lipton company to remove the links, claiming that they were "misleading" and were effectively making claims that Lipton tea could treat a "disease."
But what if green tea really can help prevent a disease and the FDA just doesn't want you to know about it? That's actually the case with many plant-based nutrients that have powerful protective effects against disease. But according to the FDA's official position, there is no such thing as a food, nutrient or supplement that can prevent or treat any disease.
Vitamin C doesn't prevent scurvy. Vitamin D doesn't prevent rickets. Vitamin B3 doesn't prevent pellagra, according to the FDA. Vitamins are biologically useless substances unless they're patented by drug companies in which case they are magically transformed into "therapeutic chemicals" that may be sold to patients at monopoly prices.
The FDA actually believes that fresh, unprocessed foods have no health benefits whatsoever. That's why no health claims are allowed on such things. But dead processed foods like breakfast cereals can prevent disease, according to the FDA. That's why the agency has allowed such products to carry a multitude of health claims.
It's all part of the FDA's censorship of science about nutrients, foods and supplements. Rather than promoting real scientific knowledge, the FDA is censoring the science to keep the public as ignorant as possible.
In this way, the FDA is an enemy of nutritional literacy because it aims to keep people in the dark about the health benefits of foods, supplements and nutrients.
And because nutritional literacy is crucial to the long-term survival of America, the FDA, through its campaign of enforced nutritional illiteracy, is effectively an enemy of America. The agency has already accomplished incalculable harm to America's population and her economy. And the FDA is just getting warmed up! Now it wants to "step up its enforcement" of so-called "false" food labeling. This is just a cover story to clamp down on truthful health claims the FDA wants to censor.
It is through scientific censorship policies like those practiced at the FDA that America may fall to ignorance, disease and medical bankruptcy. The FDA is actually accelerating America's downfall by isolating people from the nutritional knowledge that could prevent disease, reduce health care costs and save billions of dollars in unnecessary medical costs.
For example, can you imagine the cost savings alone if we as a nation could prevent just one percent of all cancers? According to the National Institutes of Health, cancer costs the USA $228.1 billion in 2008. That's nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
Now imagine the savings if we could find a miracle nutrient that could reduce all cancers by three-quarters? That would save America $171 billion per year (not to mention saving human lives at the same time).
And here's the good news: Such a nutrient already exists! It's cheap, safe and readily available. But the American Cancer Society won't talk about it, the FDA won't approve it and your doctor almost certainly won't recommend it. Want to know what it is? Read this article if you don't already know: http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html
How to end the FDA's reign of ignorance and censorship of nutritional science
First off, I highly recommend reading Jonathan Emord's outstanding book on this subject entitled Global Censorship of Health Information (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/09...).
This is a hugely important book on the subject from one of the industry's intellectual giants: attorney Jonathan Emord.
Secondly, if you're in the USA, support the Free Speech about Science Act, a new effort to end FDA censorship over truthful, scientifically-validated health claims for vitamins, foods and nutritional supplements. Click the following link to learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/028879_c...
Finally, recognize that we are beginning to defeat the FDA in court. In particular, the Alliance for Natural Health recently emerged victorious against the FDA in court over the agency's effort to censor truthful information about how selenium can reduce your risk of cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/028929_F...)
Now we need more companies to stand up to FDA tyranny and take this rogue agency to court in order to stop its campaign of censorship and oppression against the natural products industry.
Just to be clear about what is a valid health claim
Just to be clear, in no way am I advocating that natural products companies should be able to just think up whatever health claims they want and emblazon their product packages with such things. We need to insist that health claims be "scientifically validated."
For example, if a cherry company could cite five studies published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that conclude cherries can help ease the symptoms of arthritis, then it should be perfectly acceptable for that company to place corresponding claims on its packaging: "Cherries have been shown to reduce the symptoms of arthritis." (With an appropriate citation on its website that points to the qualifying scientific studies.)
Almost everyone who believes in common sense would agree that this is a sensible approach to allowing health claims on foods and supplements. Yet the FDA's position is that foods and supplements are not allowed to carry any health claims -- even if such claims are scientifically validated and true!
The FDA absurdly insists that no food, no herb, no vitamin and no supplement can possibly have any biological effect on the human body... and if it does, then that magically transforms it into a "drug" requiring $400 million in testing and clinical trials before it can be approved by the FDA. And even then, it would only be available by prescription.
Do you see the catch-22 here? It's sort of like the old "floating witch" test in the witch hunt days: If you float, you're a witch and you get burned at the stake. If you sink, you die but you are declared innocent.
The FDA pulls the same thing with nutritional supplements: If it doesn't work, then it's inert and will be tolerated. But if it actually works, then it's now a "drug" and will be outlawed as an "unapproved drug."
I'm not making this up. This is precisely how the FDA operates at present.
It's a logic trap that I believe has been specifically designed to discredit the entire nutritional supplements industry while promoting the "benefits" of pharmaceuticals -- most of which we now know were falsified through pure scientific fraud, by the way.
Watch my short video to learn more about FDA censorship: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=544BD...
And share this video with others. Everyone deserves to know the truth about nutrition and health. The FDA cannot keep us all in the dark forever. With your help, we will shine the light of truth on this issue and end the era of nutritional illiteracy that has cost America trillions of dollars and destroyed millions of lives.
Read Article With Links
The Lion, The Wolves, and the Storms
mikeboldea.blogspot.com
Homeward Bound
There is a great misconception within the body of Christ today, one that is fostered, nurtured and promulgated especially among those new to the faith in Christ. For many denominations and evangelists it is the hook by which they attract people into those large, opulent buildings with steeples that are commonly known as churches but which can be more readily likened to social clubs wherein ten percent of your earnings gets you a couple hours worth of entertainment per week.
As convoluted as this misconception is, it is highly attractive to those who aren’t necessarily looking for a relationship with God, but rather a reason to feel hopeful and positive.
“Come to Jesus, and you will never again have a care in the world. Your wife will love you, your children will respect you, your boss will give you a raise, and you will ascend from victory to victory, never again to know the trials and tribulations of the godless, never again to feel the anxiety and vexation that is the cruel reality of this present life.”
Poetic license notwithstanding, what we are promising the unsaved is a carefree and prosperous life here on earth, and not eternity in the presence of the Creator of all that is. In the estimation of some, once we raise a hand, or say a prayer, we mount up on our white steeds, and with a glint in our eye and a smile on our lips we ride onward toward eternity, never again encountering danger, peril or enemies.
Because many are never taught to expect opposition, attacks and warfare, at the first sign of trouble, they waver in their convictions, retreat, and attempt to find a circuitous route by which they can avoid confrontation. The path toward eternity is not around trials, it is not around tribulation, it is not around warfare, but through them.
There are three things we must contend with in our journey toward eternity, three things that have the singular purpose of distracting us from pursuing Christ and marching ever onward toward our rest.
The first of these is the lion, or the devil, whose only desire is your destruction. The world and those of the world already belong to him, and so he takes no pleasure in seeing their demise, he takes no pleasure in seeing their slavish existence, shackled to the sins and desires that have robbed them of their dignity and humanity. It is the children of God that the enemy desires to destroy; it is the children of God that the enemy desires to once more enslave.
1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”
There are three crucial truths we must glean from these two verses, three truths that will give us strength and encourage us whenever the enemy’s attacks grow in scope and size. The first truth is that we must be sober and vigilant, living with the expectation of the enemy’s attack. When it comes to the enemy attacking the children of God, it is not a matter of if; it is a matter of when.
The second truth we must glean is that by resisting him, and being steadfast in our faith, we will overcome him by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God. The third truth is that we are by no means unique in our sufferings, we have by no means been singled out, but the same sufferings are experienced by our brotherhood in the world.
The second thing that we must be weary of, the second of the three that desires to distract us from pursuing Christ and cementing a true and lasting relationship with Him are the wolves.
Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
There are variations of many things in this world, but there can be no variation when it comes to truth. There is one truth, and His name is Jesus; there is one way, and His name is Christ; there is one life, and that is in Him, and no matter how men might attempt to find a different path, no matter how men might attempt to pervert the uniqueness of Christ, His singularity remains forever true.
A wolf eats sheep. A wolf does not teach, care for, nurture or otherwise desire the wellbeing of sheep; he just wants to fill his belly with their flesh. A wolf will do anything, and say anything to draw the sheep away from the Shepherd, because he knows the lengths to which the Shepherd will go to protect His sheep. If any man, whether highly respected within Christian circles, or someone holding a sign on a street corner attempts to distance you for Christ and place himself in His stead, run!
The last things we sojourners must contend with in this present life are the storms. Coming to Jesus guarantees no man exemption from the storms of this life. The only thing we are assured of is that our Captain, Christ, will steer us through the storms to a safe harbor. When we acknowledge the fact that storms of various sizes and intensities will come, then even in the midst of them we are at peace steadfast in the truth that Christ is also with us.
This journey of faith is by no means easy, God never said it would be, but regardless of how many attacks we will have to endure, regardless of how many wolves we will have to chase away, regardless of how many storms we will have to contend with in this present life, it will all be worth it when we stand before His glory and see Him face to face.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.
View His Blog
Homeward Bound
There is a great misconception within the body of Christ today, one that is fostered, nurtured and promulgated especially among those new to the faith in Christ. For many denominations and evangelists it is the hook by which they attract people into those large, opulent buildings with steeples that are commonly known as churches but which can be more readily likened to social clubs wherein ten percent of your earnings gets you a couple hours worth of entertainment per week.
As convoluted as this misconception is, it is highly attractive to those who aren’t necessarily looking for a relationship with God, but rather a reason to feel hopeful and positive.
“Come to Jesus, and you will never again have a care in the world. Your wife will love you, your children will respect you, your boss will give you a raise, and you will ascend from victory to victory, never again to know the trials and tribulations of the godless, never again to feel the anxiety and vexation that is the cruel reality of this present life.”
Poetic license notwithstanding, what we are promising the unsaved is a carefree and prosperous life here on earth, and not eternity in the presence of the Creator of all that is. In the estimation of some, once we raise a hand, or say a prayer, we mount up on our white steeds, and with a glint in our eye and a smile on our lips we ride onward toward eternity, never again encountering danger, peril or enemies.
Because many are never taught to expect opposition, attacks and warfare, at the first sign of trouble, they waver in their convictions, retreat, and attempt to find a circuitous route by which they can avoid confrontation. The path toward eternity is not around trials, it is not around tribulation, it is not around warfare, but through them.
There are three things we must contend with in our journey toward eternity, three things that have the singular purpose of distracting us from pursuing Christ and marching ever onward toward our rest.
The first of these is the lion, or the devil, whose only desire is your destruction. The world and those of the world already belong to him, and so he takes no pleasure in seeing their demise, he takes no pleasure in seeing their slavish existence, shackled to the sins and desires that have robbed them of their dignity and humanity. It is the children of God that the enemy desires to destroy; it is the children of God that the enemy desires to once more enslave.
1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.”
There are three crucial truths we must glean from these two verses, three truths that will give us strength and encourage us whenever the enemy’s attacks grow in scope and size. The first truth is that we must be sober and vigilant, living with the expectation of the enemy’s attack. When it comes to the enemy attacking the children of God, it is not a matter of if; it is a matter of when.
The second truth we must glean is that by resisting him, and being steadfast in our faith, we will overcome him by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Word of God. The third truth is that we are by no means unique in our sufferings, we have by no means been singled out, but the same sufferings are experienced by our brotherhood in the world.
The second thing that we must be weary of, the second of the three that desires to distract us from pursuing Christ and cementing a true and lasting relationship with Him are the wolves.
Matthew 7:15, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”
There are variations of many things in this world, but there can be no variation when it comes to truth. There is one truth, and His name is Jesus; there is one way, and His name is Christ; there is one life, and that is in Him, and no matter how men might attempt to find a different path, no matter how men might attempt to pervert the uniqueness of Christ, His singularity remains forever true.
A wolf eats sheep. A wolf does not teach, care for, nurture or otherwise desire the wellbeing of sheep; he just wants to fill his belly with their flesh. A wolf will do anything, and say anything to draw the sheep away from the Shepherd, because he knows the lengths to which the Shepherd will go to protect His sheep. If any man, whether highly respected within Christian circles, or someone holding a sign on a street corner attempts to distance you for Christ and place himself in His stead, run!
The last things we sojourners must contend with in this present life are the storms. Coming to Jesus guarantees no man exemption from the storms of this life. The only thing we are assured of is that our Captain, Christ, will steer us through the storms to a safe harbor. When we acknowledge the fact that storms of various sizes and intensities will come, then even in the midst of them we are at peace steadfast in the truth that Christ is also with us.
This journey of faith is by no means easy, God never said it would be, but regardless of how many attacks we will have to endure, regardless of how many wolves we will have to chase away, regardless of how many storms we will have to contend with in this present life, it will all be worth it when we stand before His glory and see Him face to face.
With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.
View His Blog
"Criminals With Badges": Denver's Militarized Police
By: Will Grigg
Featured Liberty News Radio Columnist
"I been forced to write my own laws, and you violated one in there. I just have to find you guilty of contempt of cop."
Bumper Morgan, Joseph Wambaugh's eponymous Blue Knight, justifying his brutal assault on a young man who had casually insulted him.
Jared Lunn, a 21-year-old volunteer firefighter from Brighton, Colorado, visited Denver's LoDo district to celebrate a friend's birthday. The evening was quite pleasant until Jared, who was carrying a pizza and minding his own business, was suddenly punched in the face and knocked flat by someone he had never met.
Shortly after the assailant scurried away the police arrived, and Jared's night took a pronounced turn for the worse.
Perhaps Jared was unaware of the axiom that it is never a good idea to ask the police for help.
Perhaps the fact that he is involved in a "public safety" role led Jared to assume that the police would treat him with courtesy and professionalism. In any case, Jared told Officer Eric Sellers that he had just been assaulted and that he wanted to press charges. Sellers told the victim to go home, and he wasn't impressed when Jared appealed to him as a fellow "public servant."
"Way to `protect and serve,'" muttered Jared in disgust as he walked away.
A violent assault on a mere Mundane is a trivial matter -- but this was a clear-cut case of "contempt of cop," and it could not go unpunished.
Sellers seized Jared and threw him to the ground. While screaming a steady stream of profanities at the terrified young man, Sellers beat him and applied a vicious choke hold. After Jared's body went limp, Sellers wrenched his hands behind his back and handcuffed him with such violence that the victim wouldn't have full use of his hands for a week.
This felonious assault took place in the presence of two other police officers who, in keeping with the oath-bound discipline of their brotherhood, refused to intervene.
"This guy (Sellers) does this all the time," one of the bully's comrades told Chris Fuchs, an eyewitness to the November 23, 2008 assault, after Jared was released. "We don't know how he gets away with it." The obvious reply would be: "He gets away with it because of the guilty collaboration of `good cops' like you."
Two months later, Sellers became annoyed with a young man named John Crespin,whose behavior struck the officer as "nosy." Sellers pulled up into the driveway of John's home and ordered the young man out of the car.
As John complied, his shoulder brushed lightly against Sellers's arm. Infuriated that a Mundane had defiled his sanctified personage through incidental contact, Sellers inflicted a dose of summary "street justice" as an act of ritual purification.
Just as he did to Jared Lunn, Sellers put John in a chokehold while spitting obscenities in his face. After handcuffing the victim, Sellers used his police baton to lift the young man a couple of feet from the ground, then dropped him face-first into the driveway. The representative of the Denver city government's punitive priesthood dragged the bloodied man off the pavement, draped him over the hood of his police car, and administered the laying on of hands.
"He started punching me in the sides while I was already handcuffed," Crespin later told the local NBC affiliate. "I told him to quit, quit, and he wouldn't quit. He did it one more time and he grabbed my face and said, `Who the f*** do you think you are?'"
After being beaten into a lumpy mess, John Crespin -- despite the absence of a criminal history -- was charged with "felony menacing." Terrified and worried about being separated from his newborn child, Crespin accepted a plea bargain agreement that resulted in probation.
Sellers was later found to have used "inappropriate force" against Jared Lunn. The same review found that the officer had compounded that offense through the "commission of a deceptive act" -- that is, lying to internal affairs investigators. According to the Denver PD's existing disciplinary guidelines, this is cause for "presumptive termination." Yet Sellers continues to draw a paycheck as a member of the police force afflicting Denver.
In fact, Sellers -- who, according to his colleagues, commits criminal assaults against innocent people "all the time" -- complained in a court filing that the disciplinary action against him was "excessive," because it specified that another episode of that kind would result in immediate termination.
Denver's Citizen Oversight Board insists, correctly, that Sellers should have been fired already (and prosecuted as well). The Denver Police Protective Association -- that is, local armed tax-feeder union -- has Sellers's back, of course.
This isn't surprising, given that in September 2008 -- just weeks before Sellers assaulted Jared Lunn -- the Denver police union distributed t-shirts to its members depicting a baton-wielding riot cop rising ominously about the city's skyline.
"We get up early, to BEAT the crowds," gloated the inscription. Each member of the Denver PD received one of the commemorative t-shirts, which were created in anticipation of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Sellers apparently perceived that ill-advised pun as a directive and took it to what passes for his heart. Interestingly, Sellers owes his continued employment to a figure who played a critical role in the militarized security preparations for the 2008 convention: Ron Perea, who until recently was Manager of Safety for the City of Denver.
Perea was the Secret Service Special Agent in Charge during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. His previous experience included a stint as head of the Denver Field Office for the Secret Service, a position on the executive board of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Los Angeles, and five years on the Albuquerque Police Department.
It's difficult to imagine someone whose career offers a better core sample of contemporary law enforcement at all levels. So it's quite significant that Perea, as Safety Manager, defined his job in terms of protecting the career prospects of abusive police, rather than protecting the public. As Safety Manager, Perea had the final say regarding complaints of excessive force. His decisions reflected an obvious desire to placate the demands of the police union, rather than holding abusive cops accountable for their offenses.
Perea resigned his post on August 31, barely three months into his $152,000-a-year job, because of rising public disgust over his handling of several recent episodes of criminal violence by the Denver PD. In addition to the leniency he had displayed toward Sellers, Perea refused to discipline Officer Devin Sparks, who severely beat Michael DeHerrera on a LoDo street corner in April 2009.
DeHerrera's friend, Shawn Johnson, had been ejected from a local club after an altercation with a bouncer. When the police arrived, they "arrested" Johnson so violently that DeHerrera made a frantic phone call to his father, Pueblo County Sheriff's Deputy Anthony DeHerrera.
"They're beating up Shawn -- what do I do?" a panicked Herrera asked his father. This apparently is what provoked Sparks to blind-side Herrera, slamming him to the sidewalk and repeatedly beating him with a leather-shrouded metal club called a "sap."
This much is captured by one of the Panopticon-style High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras scattered throughout that section of Denver. However, just as Sparks lays into Hererra, the camera -- which was operated by a Denver PD officer in real time -- suddenly pans up and away from the scene.
Detective John White, a spokesman for the Denver PD, insists that this wasn't an Orwellian "rectification" in real time, but rather a result of a camera following a pre-set program. Whether or not this is true, there is compelling evidence that Sparks and his partner, Corporal Randy Murr, took immediate action to cover up the crime. That evidence, interestingly, comes from an unimpeachable law enforcement source -- Deputy Anthony DeHerrera, who overheard the officers via his son's still-active cell phone.
"The last thing we (the elder DeHerrera and his wife) heard was, `We've got to get rid of the phone, they're recording us.'" The phone went dead -- leaving Michael's parents to wonder if the same was true of their son.
After being beaten unconscious, DeHerrera was charged with "resisting" and "interfering" with the officers, but those charges were eventually dismissed.
The official report filed by Sparks claimed that as Corporal Murr was detaining Shawn Johnson, DeHerrera "was about 1 ft. away and began yelling and screaming at the officers. I advised him numerous times to get back and he refused. I then attempted to detain the defendant at which time he tensed up, made a fist and bladed his body. He then spun to his left attempting to strike me in the face with a closed right fist. I then took him to the ground where he attempted to strike me again...."
In his analysis of the video and other evidence, Richard Rosenthal, Denver's Independent Police Monitor,concluded that the beating was an unwarranted act of violence and that the report filed by Sparks and Murr was "pure fiction."
"In fact, the video shows that the complainant (DeHerrera) did not make any aggressive moves toward (Sparks)," wrote Rosenthal in his review of the case. "Although the complainant was not complying with (Sparks's) orders to get on the ground, the complainant did not make any attempt to strike (Sparks), either before being taken to the ground or upon being taken to the ground." In fact, as Rosenthal observes, the reports filed by Sparks and Murr were completely untainted by the truth.
Perea, claiming that unspecified "witness testimony" substantiated the claim that DeHerrera had threatened the officers, insisted that the "totality" of circumstances justified the beating.
Despite finding Sparks and Murr guilty of falsifying official reports, Perea claimed that they were guilty of "inconsistencies" and "misperceptions," rather than "`willful, intentional, or knowing deception,'" and thus weren't subject to summary termination.
Rather than cashiering the perjurious police officers, Perea merely suspended them three days and "fined" one of them the equivalent of three days' pay. In a footnote to his summary, Rosenthal notes that one of the officers (most likely Sparks) "received more serious discipline because that officer had a prior disciplinary history."
In other words, he was a recidivist and proven perjurer. Nonetheless, Perea perversely insisted that he was still qualified to prowl the streets of Denver armed with various implements of violence and clothed in the supposed authority to inflict lethal violence on anyone who refused to comply with his whims.
Shortly before Perea's resignation, video footage surfaced of another police beat-down as summary punishment for "interference and resistance," this one involving a hapless pedestrian named Mark Ashford.
While walking his dogs in downtown Denver last March 16, Ashford saw an officer pull over a motorist for supposedly running a stop sign.
Acting out of a commendable civic concern, Ashford tapped on the windshield and told the driver he'd be willing to testify that the motorist had actually come to a full stop. This provoked the officer to demand that Ashford provide ID -- a spurious, vindictive, and unwarranted order.
Ashford compiled, and then quite sensibly began to record the incident with his cellphone camera. This prompted the heroic officer to call for backup. The two tax-fattened bullies -- later identified as Officers John Diaz and Jeff Cook -- then shoved the slightly built pedestrian up against a bridge railing, repeatedly punching him and trying to steal the camera.
After beating Ashford into submission, the officers left him handcuffed in a crumpled heap. After being booked on spurious charges -- which were immediately dropped -- Ashford was hospitalized with a concussion and a cut over his right eye.
Seeking to placate growing public concern regarding criminal assaults by Denver police, Chief Gerald Whitman told the local NBC affiliate that "the police department is under control" and that it actually receives fewer use-of-force complaints than departments in most other major cities.
Jared Lunn, who eventually settled his lawsuit against the department, offers a different view.
"Denver police, to me, are basically criminals with badges," he told the Denver Post. "I have no respect for them (and) I somewhat fear them...."
Oddly enough, both Whitman and Lunn are correct: The militarized criminal syndicate called the Denver Police Department is not measurably worse than its counterparts in most major U.S. cities.
Read Original Article
Featured Liberty News Radio Columnist
"I been forced to write my own laws, and you violated one in there. I just have to find you guilty of contempt of cop."
Bumper Morgan, Joseph Wambaugh's eponymous Blue Knight, justifying his brutal assault on a young man who had casually insulted him.
Jared Lunn, a 21-year-old volunteer firefighter from Brighton, Colorado, visited Denver's LoDo district to celebrate a friend's birthday. The evening was quite pleasant until Jared, who was carrying a pizza and minding his own business, was suddenly punched in the face and knocked flat by someone he had never met.
Shortly after the assailant scurried away the police arrived, and Jared's night took a pronounced turn for the worse.
Perhaps Jared was unaware of the axiom that it is never a good idea to ask the police for help.
Perhaps the fact that he is involved in a "public safety" role led Jared to assume that the police would treat him with courtesy and professionalism. In any case, Jared told Officer Eric Sellers that he had just been assaulted and that he wanted to press charges. Sellers told the victim to go home, and he wasn't impressed when Jared appealed to him as a fellow "public servant."
"Way to `protect and serve,'" muttered Jared in disgust as he walked away.
A violent assault on a mere Mundane is a trivial matter -- but this was a clear-cut case of "contempt of cop," and it could not go unpunished.
Sellers seized Jared and threw him to the ground. While screaming a steady stream of profanities at the terrified young man, Sellers beat him and applied a vicious choke hold. After Jared's body went limp, Sellers wrenched his hands behind his back and handcuffed him with such violence that the victim wouldn't have full use of his hands for a week.
This felonious assault took place in the presence of two other police officers who, in keeping with the oath-bound discipline of their brotherhood, refused to intervene.
"This guy (Sellers) does this all the time," one of the bully's comrades told Chris Fuchs, an eyewitness to the November 23, 2008 assault, after Jared was released. "We don't know how he gets away with it." The obvious reply would be: "He gets away with it because of the guilty collaboration of `good cops' like you."
Two months later, Sellers became annoyed with a young man named John Crespin,whose behavior struck the officer as "nosy." Sellers pulled up into the driveway of John's home and ordered the young man out of the car.
As John complied, his shoulder brushed lightly against Sellers's arm. Infuriated that a Mundane had defiled his sanctified personage through incidental contact, Sellers inflicted a dose of summary "street justice" as an act of ritual purification.
Just as he did to Jared Lunn, Sellers put John in a chokehold while spitting obscenities in his face. After handcuffing the victim, Sellers used his police baton to lift the young man a couple of feet from the ground, then dropped him face-first into the driveway. The representative of the Denver city government's punitive priesthood dragged the bloodied man off the pavement, draped him over the hood of his police car, and administered the laying on of hands.
"He started punching me in the sides while I was already handcuffed," Crespin later told the local NBC affiliate. "I told him to quit, quit, and he wouldn't quit. He did it one more time and he grabbed my face and said, `Who the f*** do you think you are?'"
After being beaten into a lumpy mess, John Crespin -- despite the absence of a criminal history -- was charged with "felony menacing." Terrified and worried about being separated from his newborn child, Crespin accepted a plea bargain agreement that resulted in probation.
Sellers was later found to have used "inappropriate force" against Jared Lunn. The same review found that the officer had compounded that offense through the "commission of a deceptive act" -- that is, lying to internal affairs investigators. According to the Denver PD's existing disciplinary guidelines, this is cause for "presumptive termination." Yet Sellers continues to draw a paycheck as a member of the police force afflicting Denver.
In fact, Sellers -- who, according to his colleagues, commits criminal assaults against innocent people "all the time" -- complained in a court filing that the disciplinary action against him was "excessive," because it specified that another episode of that kind would result in immediate termination.
Denver's Citizen Oversight Board insists, correctly, that Sellers should have been fired already (and prosecuted as well). The Denver Police Protective Association -- that is, local armed tax-feeder union -- has Sellers's back, of course.
This isn't surprising, given that in September 2008 -- just weeks before Sellers assaulted Jared Lunn -- the Denver police union distributed t-shirts to its members depicting a baton-wielding riot cop rising ominously about the city's skyline.
"We get up early, to BEAT the crowds," gloated the inscription. Each member of the Denver PD received one of the commemorative t-shirts, which were created in anticipation of the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
Sellers apparently perceived that ill-advised pun as a directive and took it to what passes for his heart. Interestingly, Sellers owes his continued employment to a figure who played a critical role in the militarized security preparations for the 2008 convention: Ron Perea, who until recently was Manager of Safety for the City of Denver.
Perea was the Secret Service Special Agent in Charge during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. His previous experience included a stint as head of the Denver Field Office for the Secret Service, a position on the executive board of the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in Los Angeles, and five years on the Albuquerque Police Department.
It's difficult to imagine someone whose career offers a better core sample of contemporary law enforcement at all levels. So it's quite significant that Perea, as Safety Manager, defined his job in terms of protecting the career prospects of abusive police, rather than protecting the public. As Safety Manager, Perea had the final say regarding complaints of excessive force. His decisions reflected an obvious desire to placate the demands of the police union, rather than holding abusive cops accountable for their offenses.
Perea resigned his post on August 31, barely three months into his $152,000-a-year job, because of rising public disgust over his handling of several recent episodes of criminal violence by the Denver PD. In addition to the leniency he had displayed toward Sellers, Perea refused to discipline Officer Devin Sparks, who severely beat Michael DeHerrera on a LoDo street corner in April 2009.
DeHerrera's friend, Shawn Johnson, had been ejected from a local club after an altercation with a bouncer. When the police arrived, they "arrested" Johnson so violently that DeHerrera made a frantic phone call to his father, Pueblo County Sheriff's Deputy Anthony DeHerrera.
"They're beating up Shawn -- what do I do?" a panicked Herrera asked his father. This apparently is what provoked Sparks to blind-side Herrera, slamming him to the sidewalk and repeatedly beating him with a leather-shrouded metal club called a "sap."
This much is captured by one of the Panopticon-style High Activity Location Observation (HALO) cameras scattered throughout that section of Denver. However, just as Sparks lays into Hererra, the camera -- which was operated by a Denver PD officer in real time -- suddenly pans up and away from the scene.
Detective John White, a spokesman for the Denver PD, insists that this wasn't an Orwellian "rectification" in real time, but rather a result of a camera following a pre-set program. Whether or not this is true, there is compelling evidence that Sparks and his partner, Corporal Randy Murr, took immediate action to cover up the crime. That evidence, interestingly, comes from an unimpeachable law enforcement source -- Deputy Anthony DeHerrera, who overheard the officers via his son's still-active cell phone.
"The last thing we (the elder DeHerrera and his wife) heard was, `We've got to get rid of the phone, they're recording us.'" The phone went dead -- leaving Michael's parents to wonder if the same was true of their son.
After being beaten unconscious, DeHerrera was charged with "resisting" and "interfering" with the officers, but those charges were eventually dismissed.
The official report filed by Sparks claimed that as Corporal Murr was detaining Shawn Johnson, DeHerrera "was about 1 ft. away and began yelling and screaming at the officers. I advised him numerous times to get back and he refused. I then attempted to detain the defendant at which time he tensed up, made a fist and bladed his body. He then spun to his left attempting to strike me in the face with a closed right fist. I then took him to the ground where he attempted to strike me again...."
In his analysis of the video and other evidence, Richard Rosenthal, Denver's Independent Police Monitor,concluded that the beating was an unwarranted act of violence and that the report filed by Sparks and Murr was "pure fiction."
"In fact, the video shows that the complainant (DeHerrera) did not make any aggressive moves toward (Sparks)," wrote Rosenthal in his review of the case. "Although the complainant was not complying with (Sparks's) orders to get on the ground, the complainant did not make any attempt to strike (Sparks), either before being taken to the ground or upon being taken to the ground." In fact, as Rosenthal observes, the reports filed by Sparks and Murr were completely untainted by the truth.
Perea, claiming that unspecified "witness testimony" substantiated the claim that DeHerrera had threatened the officers, insisted that the "totality" of circumstances justified the beating.
Despite finding Sparks and Murr guilty of falsifying official reports, Perea claimed that they were guilty of "inconsistencies" and "misperceptions," rather than "`willful, intentional, or knowing deception,'" and thus weren't subject to summary termination.
Rather than cashiering the perjurious police officers, Perea merely suspended them three days and "fined" one of them the equivalent of three days' pay. In a footnote to his summary, Rosenthal notes that one of the officers (most likely Sparks) "received more serious discipline because that officer had a prior disciplinary history."
In other words, he was a recidivist and proven perjurer. Nonetheless, Perea perversely insisted that he was still qualified to prowl the streets of Denver armed with various implements of violence and clothed in the supposed authority to inflict lethal violence on anyone who refused to comply with his whims.
Shortly before Perea's resignation, video footage surfaced of another police beat-down as summary punishment for "interference and resistance," this one involving a hapless pedestrian named Mark Ashford.
While walking his dogs in downtown Denver last March 16, Ashford saw an officer pull over a motorist for supposedly running a stop sign.
Acting out of a commendable civic concern, Ashford tapped on the windshield and told the driver he'd be willing to testify that the motorist had actually come to a full stop. This provoked the officer to demand that Ashford provide ID -- a spurious, vindictive, and unwarranted order.
Ashford compiled, and then quite sensibly began to record the incident with his cellphone camera. This prompted the heroic officer to call for backup. The two tax-fattened bullies -- later identified as Officers John Diaz and Jeff Cook -- then shoved the slightly built pedestrian up against a bridge railing, repeatedly punching him and trying to steal the camera.
After beating Ashford into submission, the officers left him handcuffed in a crumpled heap. After being booked on spurious charges -- which were immediately dropped -- Ashford was hospitalized with a concussion and a cut over his right eye.
Seeking to placate growing public concern regarding criminal assaults by Denver police, Chief Gerald Whitman told the local NBC affiliate that "the police department is under control" and that it actually receives fewer use-of-force complaints than departments in most other major cities.
Jared Lunn, who eventually settled his lawsuit against the department, offers a different view.
"Denver police, to me, are basically criminals with badges," he told the Denver Post. "I have no respect for them (and) I somewhat fear them...."
Oddly enough, both Whitman and Lunn are correct: The militarized criminal syndicate called the Denver Police Department is not measurably worse than its counterparts in most major U.S. cities.
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1,270 Architects/Engineers Reveal Hard Evidence of Explosive Demolition at World Trade Center on 9/11
Yahoo News
Former US Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK) and Richard Gage, AIA, Founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Discuss Scientific Findings
National Press Club, Washington DC, 2:00 pm, Thursday, September 9, 2010
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Thursday September 9, 2010, Gravel and Gage will host a central press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, presenting hard evidence that all three WTC skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, in NYC were destroyed by explosive controlled demolition.
Senator Gravel notes, "Critically important evidence has come forward after the original government building reports were completed."
This press conference will be webcast at AE911Truth.org and hosted concurrently in cities throughout the world.* Following the conference, there will be a mock debate during which public statements made by government investigators and other defenders of the official account will be presented and responded to in multimedia format. "They refuse to debate us in person," says Gage, "so we will let their public statements represent them."
Gage will release a media-friendly summary of his organization's findings, which are based on forensic evidence as well as video and eyewitness testimony that were omitted from official reports. He will show evidence that the WTC Twin Towers were not destroyed by jet plane impacts or fires, but by pre-set explosives and incendiaries. The non-profit organization, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, will also call for a grand jury investigation of government report lead engineers Shyam Sunder and John Gross of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "They were in a position to know the evidence we have been presenting," says Gage.
Also speaking will be Florida State Professor Lance deHaven-Smith, who coined the academic term State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD). Prof. deHaven-Smith has appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, CBS Nightly News with Dan Rather, and other national TV/radio shows.
The DC press conference will be accessible via webcast AE911Truth.org, 2:00 pm September 9, 2010.
* For information on satellite press conferences in your area, contact CongressionalOutreachTeam [at] ae911truth.org.
To arrange print/broadcast interviews, with Richard Gage, AIA, contact Tania at 510-292-4710, or via email at 1000 [at] ae911truth.org.
CONTACT: David Slesinger 410-499-5403
SOURCE Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Read Article With Links
Former US Senator Mike Gravel (D-AK) and Richard Gage, AIA, Founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth Discuss Scientific Findings
National Press Club, Washington DC, 2:00 pm, Thursday, September 9, 2010
WASHINGTON, Sept. 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On Thursday September 9, 2010, Gravel and Gage will host a central press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, presenting hard evidence that all three WTC skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, in NYC were destroyed by explosive controlled demolition.
Senator Gravel notes, "Critically important evidence has come forward after the original government building reports were completed."
This press conference will be webcast at AE911Truth.org and hosted concurrently in cities throughout the world.* Following the conference, there will be a mock debate during which public statements made by government investigators and other defenders of the official account will be presented and responded to in multimedia format. "They refuse to debate us in person," says Gage, "so we will let their public statements represent them."
Gage will release a media-friendly summary of his organization's findings, which are based on forensic evidence as well as video and eyewitness testimony that were omitted from official reports. He will show evidence that the WTC Twin Towers were not destroyed by jet plane impacts or fires, but by pre-set explosives and incendiaries. The non-profit organization, Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, will also call for a grand jury investigation of government report lead engineers Shyam Sunder and John Gross of the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "They were in a position to know the evidence we have been presenting," says Gage.
Also speaking will be Florida State Professor Lance deHaven-Smith, who coined the academic term State Crimes Against Democracy (SCAD). Prof. deHaven-Smith has appeared on Good Morning America, the Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, CBS Nightly News with Dan Rather, and other national TV/radio shows.
The DC press conference will be accessible via webcast AE911Truth.org, 2:00 pm September 9, 2010.
* For information on satellite press conferences in your area, contact CongressionalOutreachTeam [at] ae911truth.org.
To arrange print/broadcast interviews, with Richard Gage, AIA, contact Tania at 510-292-4710, or via email at 1000 [at] ae911truth.org.
CONTACT: David Slesinger 410-499-5403
SOURCE Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
Read Article With Links
Kansas: Preach Gospel to Muslims – Get Arrested
Paul Williams, PhD
FamilySecurityMatters.org
Attempt to address Muslims in Kansas and you’ll be hauled off in handcuffs to the local police department.
That’s what happened to Pastor Mark Holick of Spirit One Christian Center when he visited the Wichita Islamic Society to speak about the gospel and to distribute religious tracts.
Pastor Holick and fourteen other Christians, including two additional senior ministers, did not step foot inside the mosque - - but merely attempted to engage Muslims in dialogue on a public sidewalk as they left the building.
When the police arrived on the scene, Mr. Holick was handcuffed and forced into a squad car.
When asked what crime he had committed, the police, according to the pastor, said “loitering” and “failure to disperse.”
Mr. Holick told OneNewsNow that it was “very disconcerting to see the gospel squelched — especially on a public sidewalk in a country with a constitutional guarantee of free speech.”
The police allege that the pastor and his followers were blocking a driveway.
Mr. Holick denies this charge by saying: “Of course we never did do that. There would be no reason for us to block vehicles — and they probably have no idea how much I like all of my organs and bones perfectly in the position they’re in right now.”
Previously, Mr. Holick captured headlines by positing this message on the marquee of the Spirit One Christian Center: “America, we have a Muslim president. This is a sin against the Lord.”
Last year, the fiery pastor was taken into custody by the Wichita police for communicating his religious views to gays and lesbians at a homosexual festival that was held in a public park.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org/
Read Article With Links
FamilySecurityMatters.org
Attempt to address Muslims in Kansas and you’ll be hauled off in handcuffs to the local police department.
That’s what happened to Pastor Mark Holick of Spirit One Christian Center when he visited the Wichita Islamic Society to speak about the gospel and to distribute religious tracts.
Pastor Holick and fourteen other Christians, including two additional senior ministers, did not step foot inside the mosque - - but merely attempted to engage Muslims in dialogue on a public sidewalk as they left the building.
When the police arrived on the scene, Mr. Holick was handcuffed and forced into a squad car.
When asked what crime he had committed, the police, according to the pastor, said “loitering” and “failure to disperse.”
Mr. Holick told OneNewsNow that it was “very disconcerting to see the gospel squelched — especially on a public sidewalk in a country with a constitutional guarantee of free speech.”
The police allege that the pastor and his followers were blocking a driveway.
Mr. Holick denies this charge by saying: “Of course we never did do that. There would be no reason for us to block vehicles — and they probably have no idea how much I like all of my organs and bones perfectly in the position they’re in right now.”
Previously, Mr. Holick captured headlines by positing this message on the marquee of the Spirit One Christian Center: “America, we have a Muslim president. This is a sin against the Lord.”
Last year, the fiery pastor was taken into custody by the Wichita police for communicating his religious views to gays and lesbians at a homosexual festival that was held in a public park.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., is the author of The Day of Islam: The Annihilation of America and the Western World, The Al Qaeda Connection, and other best-selling books. He is a frequent guest on such national news networks as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, MSNBC, and NPR. Visit his website at http://thelastcrusade.org/
Read Article With Links
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