Underground stories - Bonus Edition 01-09-14

BONUS EDITION

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Obama signs anti-protest Trespass Bill

Only days after clearing Congress, US President Barack Obama signed his name to H.R. 347 on Thursday, officially making it a federal offense to cause a disturbance at certain political events — essentially criminalizing protest in the States.
RT broke the news last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.
Under H.R. 347, which has more commonly been labeled the Trespass Bill by Congress, knowingly entering a restricted area that is under the jurisdiction of Secret Service protection can garner an arrest. The law is actually only a slight change to earlier legislation that made it an offense to knowingly and willfully commit such a crime. Under the Trespass Bill’s latest language chance, however, someone could end up in law enforcement custody for entering an area that they don’t realize is Secret Service protected and “engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct” or “impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”
The Secret Service serves as the police that protects not just current and former American presidents, but are also dispatched to monitor special events of national significance, a category with a broad cast of qualifiers. In the past, sporting events, state funerals, inaugural addresses and NATO and G-8 Summits have been designated as such by the US Department of Homeland Security, the division that decides when and where the Secret Service are needed outside of their normal coverage.

Senators propose giving Obama ‘fast-track authority’ for trade deals

Lawmakers on Thursday proposed empowering US trade negotiators to push ahead major deals with Pacific Rim and European Union nations, but the move faces stiff opposition.
Three key lawmakers on trade policy introduced a bill to give President Barack Obama “fast-track authority,” which would allow his team to negotiate agreements that Congress could approve or reject — without making changes.
Supporters said the four-year extension of the powers, which last ended in 2007, is indispensable to speeding up trade negotiations.
The Obama administration has put a high priority on the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, seeing it as tying the United States more firmly to the dynamic Asia-Pacific region.
The administration has also opened talks with the European Union on a potentially sweeping pact known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
The trade authority legislation “is critical to a successful trade agenda,” Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement.
“It is critical to boosting US exports and creating jobs. And it’s critical to fueling America’s growing economy,” said Baucus, who Obama recently nominated to be ambassador to China.
The legislation outlines US objectives in trade deals, including the protection of intellectual property and assurances against currency manipulation.
Some lawmakers accuse Japan, which is part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and especially China, which is suspicious of the trade pact, of artificially weakening their currencies to promote exports.

Report: Kerry is Behind European Boycotts

Govt. sources reveal that Kerry is responsible for EU boycott threats, keeps them in check during talks, ready to escalate if talks fail.

Governmental sources report that US Secretary of State John Kerry is behind the European boycott threats on Israeli products and companies operating in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The EU published its guidelines last July, boycotting Israeli companies operating over the 1949 Armistice lines.
At the moment, Kerry is making sure the threats stay in check, but as soon as the peace talks fail he intends to open the floodgates and spur on full-blown international boycotts on Israel, reports Galei Tzahal (IDF Radio).
Palestinian Authority (PA) officials reported last September that Kerry was putting pressure on the EU to delay boycotts so as to give him an opportunity to push Israel into peace talks. That report also appears to support the new revelations regarding Kerry's manipulation of anti-Israel boycotts.
Defense Secretary Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday that Israel was trying to extend the peace talks beyond the determined 9 months.
"It is clear to us that there are large gaps [between us] - and this is not new - but it is certainly in our interest to continue negotiations and to continue to work to stabilize the situation in the relationship between us and the Palestinians," remarked Ya'alon.
Meanwhile for the PA's part, a senior official recently was interviewed on Syrian TV admitting that any agreement will simply be the "first stage" in wiping Israel out completely.
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Cops blast Obama tapping cop killer's lawyer for DOJ civil rights chief 

America's largest police organization, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), sent a letter to President Barack Obama for nominating an attorney with a questionable background to become the head of an important Justice Department post, an "Inside the Beltway" watchdog group reported on Tuesday.

The person selected by Obama – Debo Adegbile – defended a member of the radical Black Panthers who was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer execution-style. And yet Obama is pushing his nomination to head a key division at the Justice Department, the agency responsible for enforcing the law and defending the interests of the United States, according to Judicial Watch.

"Once again we are face-to-face with proof that this president is hell-bent on radicalizing the Justice Department. One need only read the press releases coming from Attorney General Eric Holder to see that his priority is prosecuting businessmen and corporations rather than organized crime, radical groups and terrorists," said former police detective and director of corporate security Henry Melmann.

Obama's nominee to be Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the DOJ spent upwards of ten years in various leadership positions at the Legal Defense and Education Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

During Adegbile's leadership, the NAACP volunteered its services to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal, a member of the Black Panthers, who murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner three decades ago.

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death by the Pennsylvania jury that had convicted him in 1982 while Mumia's supporters – including Debo Adegbile – have long claimed that he was the victim of a racist legal system.

Colorado Made $5M in 5 Days Off Pot. Problem: It's Illegal to Put the Money in Federal Banks 

Ka-ching! Colorado has sold more than $5 million in pot in the first five days of legalized sales.

The only problem? Retailers aren't allowed to put the money in any federally regulated banks, thanks to legislation designed to prevent drug dealers from laundering money. That means that the entire marijuana industry in Colorado has to be conducted in cash transactions. Aside from being incredibly inconvenient, it exposes the industry to infiltration or targeting by criminals.
The Denver City Council unanimously proclaimed on Monday:

"... Forcing Colorado's legal marijuana industry to operate on a cash-only footing creates heightened risks of crime — risks that marijuana businesses themselves will become targets of crime, risks that criminal elements will seek to become involved in the marijuana industry, and thereby risks that governments will be defrauded, employees will be victimized, and customers and nearby neighborhoods will be put in danger ...."

According to Denis Berckefeldt, a spokesman for the Denver auditor, "Anytime you do this much business in cash, it's a target for crime — and it's pretty apparent that's been going on here over the last couple of years. And you can't account for this money. How much have you sold? Are you paying the taxes you're supposed to be paying? How much is hidden? If you don't have a paper trail, you can't track it, and all the seed-to-sale systems in the world won't solve the problem."
The background: According to the council's Charlie Brown, the cash-only system currently in place is so dysfunctional that marijuana shops have taken to using decoys in order to distract potential armed robbers from hijacking the day's sales.
Currently, pot shops have to use state banks to deposit their tax revenues, which are technically free of the federal regulatory requirements due to a lack of language explicitly dealing with marijuana profits. Everything else has to be done with cash.
The Obama administration has previously hinted at a fix, but hasn't taken any action on the issue. Officials in Denver are beginning to get frustrated.
Even Gov. John Hickenlooper, a fierce opponent of legalization, wants the federal government to give some leeway to the Colorado marijuana industry. In a letter to senior D.C. banking officials sent in October, Hickenlooper and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee argued that "In order to achieve the mutual federal and state goal of establishing tightly-controlled marijuana regulatory systems, we urge you to issue inter-agency guidance that will allow legal, licensed marijuana businesses access to the banking system."
The bottom line: There's a clear lack of regulatory oversight on the marijuana business, which could undermine legal pot's benefits to the state government and encourage crime. Even more alarmingly, by not giving businesses clear operating parameters, the federal government is leaving the door open to future crackdowns under a future presidency less amenable to legalization.

EPA Takes Land From State In Violation Of Century-Old Congressional Act

Republican Wyoming Governor Matt Mead issued a statement Monday blasting the Environmental Protection Agency for unilaterally ignoring Congressionally established law in order to take roughly 1 million acres of property out of State jurisdiction and hand it over to two Indian tribes.
The EPA ruled in December that a 1905 law that allowed non-Indians to establish homesteads inside the disputed territory did not end the territory’s reservation status. But Congress had made no such distinction at the time it passed the law.
The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone tribes, each of which occupies the Wind River Indian Reservation (located in the west-central portion of the State), had approached the EPA with a “Treatment as a State” request in order to acquire jurisdictional control over the territory under the Clean Air Act.
The EPA ruling’s overt implication is that the tribes now have the legal prerogative to be notified of any air quality permit filed within 50 miles of the reservation’s boundary.
But the ruling has other implications that concern municipal and State officials — especially “that land that the state, Fremont County and the city of Riverton consider to be under local jurisdiction is, in fact, Indian Country,” according to the WyoFile nonprofit news blog. “And,” WyoFile observes, “as part of the Wind River Indian Reservation, the city and surrounding area could be subject to federal policing, among other laws.”
Mead has responded to the ruling by pledging to ignore it, and to wage a court battle to have the EPA’s decision overturned.
“I understand that the Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes have a different opinion about the Wind River Reservation Boundary,” his statement reads. “My deep concern is about an administrative agency of the federal government altering a state’s boundary and going against over 100 years of history and law. This should be a concern to all citizens because, if the EPA can unilaterally take land away from a state, where will it stop? …The federal government clearly had a predetermined outcome it sought to uphold.”

Pressure Mounts on Reid as 58 Senators Back Iran Sanctions


In a surprise development in Congress, a long-building effort to impose new sanctions on Iran has reached a near-filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Despite months of lobbying against the bill, 58 Senators now support the so-called "Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act," according to a Senate aide close to the process.
The bill's bipartisan backing puts Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an awful bind. Either he defies President Obama and allows a vote on the legislation. Or he goes along with the White House -- and takes on the majority of his fellow senators.
"The only way you can get a vote is if Reid allows it," said a separate Senate aide.  "Hence the question ... Does Reid support sanctions -- yes or no?" 
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