Ron Paul: The Federal Reserve is why Americans areprotesting on Wall Street

Ron Paul: The Federal Reserve is why Americans are protesting on Wall Street

By Joshua Altman - 10/05/11 02:10 PM ET Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said Wednesday that as Americans find out what the Federal Reserve is up to, it is “no wonder they are up on Wall Street raising Cain because they know the system is biased against the average person.”

Speaking at the National Press Club, the presidential hopeful said, “The Federal Reserve is bigger and spends more money than the Congress does,” with approximately $15 trillion worth of transactions.

Herman Cain, another challenger for the Republican nomination, said he believes the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests were “orchestrated” to help President Obama, and denounced the protesters during an interview published by The Wall Street Journal.

“I don’t have facts to back this up, but I happen to believe that these demonstrations are planned and orchestrated to distract from the failed policies of the Obama administration,” Cain said.

Democrats are rallying behind the Occupy Wall Street movement, with several lawmakers endorsing the protests in New York City that have begun to spread to other cities.

Several liberal House lawmakers endorsed the protests Wednesday, and the leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said they had been inspired by demonstrators who have been arrested and pepper-sprayed during altercations with police.

“We share the anger and frustration of so many Americans who have seen the enormous toll that an unchecked Wall Street has taken on the overwhelming majority of Americans while benefitting the super wealthy,” Democratic Reps. Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (Minn.) said in a news release. The Real Tea Party to Obama: STOP POLICING THE WORLD! Video Below http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKfuS6gfxPY&feature=

Secret panel can put Americans on ‘kill list’ without any oversight

By Reuters Thursday, October 6, 2011 WASHINGTON (Reuters) – American militants like Anwar al-Awlaki are placed on a kill or capture list by a secretive panel of senior government officials, which then informs the president of its decisions, according to officials.

There is no public record of the operations or decisions of the panel, which is a subset of the White House’s National Security Council, several current and former officials said. Neither is there any law establishing its existence or setting out the rules by which it is supposed to operate.

The panel was behind the decision to add Awlaki, a U.S.-born militant preacher with alleged al Qaeda connections, to the target list. He was killed by a CIA drone strike in Yemen late last month.

The role of the president in ordering or ratifying a decision to target a citizen is fuzzy. White House spokesman Tommy Vietor declined to discuss anything about the process.

Current and former officials said that to the best of their knowledge, Awlaki, who the White House said was a key figure in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, had been the only American put on a government list targeting people for capture or death due to their alleged involvement with militants.

The White House is portraying the killing of Awlaki as a demonstration of President Barack Obama’s toughness toward militants who threaten the United States. But the process that led to Awlaki’s killing has drawn fierce criticism from both the political left and right.

In an ironic turn, Obama, who ran for president denouncing predecessor George W. Bush’s expansive use of executive power in his “war on terrorism,” is being attacked in some quarters

for using similar tactics. They include secret legal justifications and undisclosed intelligence assessments.

Liberals criticized the drone attack on an American citizen as extra-judicial murder.

Conservatives criticized Obama for refusing to release a Justice Department legal opinion that reportedly justified killing Awlaki. They accuse Obama of hypocrisy, noting his administration insisted on publishing Bush-era administration legal memos justifying the use of interrogation techniques many equate with torture, but refused to make public its rationale for killing a citizen without due process.

Some details about how the administration went about targeting Awlaki emerged on Tuesday when the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, was asked by reporters about the killing.

The process involves “going through the National Security Council, then it eventually goes to the president, but the National Security Council does the investigation, they have lawyers, they review, they look at the situation, you have input from the military, and also, we make sure that we follow international law,” Ruppersberger said.

LAWYERS CONSULTED Other officials said the role of the president in the process was murkier than what Ruppersberger described.

They said targeting recommendations are drawn up by a committee of mid-level National Security Council and agency officials. Their recommendations are then sent to the panel of NSC “principals,” meaning Cabinet secretaries and intelligence unit chiefs, for approval. The panel of principals could have different memberships when considering different operational issues, they said.

The officials insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

They confirmed that lawyers, including those in the Justice Department, were consulted before Awlaki’s name was added to the target list.

Two principal legal theories were advanced, an official said: first, that the actions were permitted

by Congress when it authorized the use of military forces against militants in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001; and they are permitted under international law if a country is defending itself.

Several officials said that when Awlaki became the first American put on the target list, Obama was not required personally to approve the targeting of a person. But one official said Obama would be notified of the principals’ decision. If he objected, the decision would be nullified, the official said.

A former official said one of the reasons for making senior officials principally responsible for nominating Americans for the target list was to “protect” the president.

Officials confirmed that a second American, Samir Khan, was killed in the drone attack that killed Awlaki. Khan had served as editor of Inspire, a glossy English-language magazine used by AQAP as a propaganda and recruitment vehicle.

But rather than being specifically targeted by drone operators, Khan was in the wrong place at the wrong time, officials said. Ruppersberger appeared to confirm that, saying Khan’s death was “collateral,” meaning he was not an intentional target of the drone strike.

When the name of a foreign, rather than American, militant is added to targeting lists, the decision is made within the intelligence community and normally does not require approval by high-level NSC officials.

‘FROM INSPIRATIONAL TO OPERATIONAL’ Officials said Awlaki, whose fierce sermons were widely circulated on English-language militant websites, was targeted because Washington accumulated information his role in AQAP had gone “from inspirational to operational.” That meant that instead of just propagandizing in favor of al Qaeda objectives, Awlaki allegedly began to participate directly in plots against American targets.

“Let me underscore, Awlaki is no mere messenger but someone integrally involved in lethal terrorist activities,” Daniel Benjamin, top counterterrorism official at the State Department, warned last spring.

The Obama administration has not made public an accounting of the classified evidence that Awlaki was operationally involved in planning terrorist attacks.

But officials acknowledged that some of the intelligence purporting to show Awlaki’s hands-on role in plotting attacks was patchy.

For instance, one plot in which authorities have said Awlaki was involved Nigerian-born Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound U.S. airliner on Christmas Day 2009 with a bomb hidden in his underpants.

There is no doubt Abdulmutallab was an admirer or follower of Awlaki, since he admitted that to U.S. investigators. When he appeared in a Detroit courtroom earlier this week for the start of his trial on bomb-plot charges, he proclaimed, “Anwar is alive.”

But at the time the White House was considering putting Awlaki on the U.S. target list, intelligence connecting Awlaki specifically to Abdulmutallab and his alleged bomb plot was partial. Officials said at the time the United States had voice intercepts involving a phone known to have been used by Awlaki and someone who they believed, but were not positive, was Abdulmutallab.

Awlaki was also implicated in a case in which a British Airways employee was imprisoned for plotting to blow up a U.S.-bound plane. E-mails retrieved by authorities from the employee’s computer showed what an investigator described as ” operational contact” between Britain and Yemen.

Authorities believe the contacts were mainly between the U.K.-based suspect and his brother.

But there was a strong suspicion Awlaki was at the brother’s side when the messages were dispatched. British media reported that in one message, the person on the Yemeni end supposedly said, “Our highest priority is the US … With the people you have, is it possible to get a package or a person with a package on board a flight heading to the US?” U.S. officials contrast intelligence suggesting Awlaki’s involvement in specific plots with the activities of Adam Gadahn, an American citizen who became a principal English-language propagandist for the core al Qaeda network formerly led by Osama bin Laden.

While Gadahn appeared in angry videos calling for attacks on the United States, officials said he had not been specifically targeted for capture or killing by U.S. forces because he was regarded as a loudmouth not directly involved in plotting attacks.

Message from kynize I don’t know how much more proof the American people need to see that our government is being controlled cooperate with fascist monopoly men bought and paid for by the federal reserve bankers I mean what is going to take to wake you up. if these controllers get there way we are all dead don’t you get that they don’t care about you and me just look at the society they have built everything is upside down these monopoly men control the government through the council on foreign relations (CFR) the trilateral commission the bilderberg group but the big one is the federal reserve all of the bailouts all of the wars all of the poverty all of the unemployment all of the jobs being shipped overseas all the corruption in government starts with the federal reserve they are at the heart of all wallstreet is just used as a tool or a pawn in their grand chess game this is the secret they have been keeping from us the american people these monopoly men want

to destroy america through the inside by corrupting our government like they’ve been doing for decades through tippy toe steps social security is socialism medicare is socialism medicaid is socialism have the department of education is socialism having a central bank like the federal reserve is socialism we’ve been creeping towards socialism for a very long time and nobody ever noticed that’s how they operate in secret please do the research listen to alex jones watch his documentary’s learn who’s the real power structure in the united states why did obama break every promise he made during his run in 08 election why would he want to rein these corrupt bankers in when they helped to get him elected why does the main stream media ignore Ron Paul why did Nixon take us off the gold standard why did the government kill Kennedy why is it impossible to pay off your house and own it why does food and gasoline keep going up why don’t people pay attention to politics because there is a shadow government guiding your life and you don’t even know it we have got to wake up from this nightmare we’ve put our selves in the controllers put sex drugs sports beer and even day to day problems to distract you we a not supposed to be a democracy we are a republic their a big difference the controllers in little steps have turned us in a democracy here the The Pledge of Allegiance "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."to the republic not democracy.“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other fortynine.” - Thomas Jefferson. "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!" Benjamin Franklin, if the founders wanted a "Democracy, they would’ve erected on here in the U.S. my last point is the true enemy of our Republic is the federal reserve through their money printing, they facilitate war, corrupted government, poverty through inflation which inflation is a hidden tax on the people, class warfare, shipping jobs overseas, accompanied by growing the size of government everything , I mentioned is facilitated by the federal reserve through having a monopoly on the creation of our money these federal reserve crooks are not supposed to be part of the government, they are a private corporation issuing united states currency, which is unconstitutional. Only Congress should have the right to coin money this shows they are the true enemy radio host Alex jone is preparing to occupy the federal reserve's bank across the united states over the weekend join us in exposing this fraud called the federal reserve. join us in getting our country back from the banksters in a peaceful protest lets kick the crooks out of our country. LETS END THE FED ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! www.infowars.com/http://prisonplanet.tv/index.php Ron Paul :http://ronpaul2012.com/ Ron Paul :http://www.ronpaul.com / DailyPaulhttp://www.dailypaul.com/