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Billy’s Blog

This blog is dedicated to the massive amount of information Billy has which will help reveal the truth, expose the lies and wake up the deceived as we each connect more dots. He and his father both worked on HAARP in Alaska and on C6 at Eglin AFB in Florida years ago. As a result, whenever HAARP ramps up, he has a seizure. The night of Japan’s earthquake, Billy experienced 4 seizures and was hospitalized March 11-15, 2011.

HAARP documentation

We have changed the chemistry of the atmosphere, specifically of the concentrations of the GHGs. Concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased about 40% since the start of the industrial revolution (from a tight range between 180 to 280 ppm over at least the last million years) to 400 ppm. Concentrations of methane have increased by more than 2.5x since the start of the industrial revolution (from a tight range of 350 to 700 ppb) to over 1800 ppm. The additional heat trapped has warmed our planet by over 0.8°C over the last century, with most of that rise (0.6°C) occurring in the last 3 or 4 decades.

Oceans

Over 90% of the heat trapped on the surface of the planet is increasing the temperature of the ocean water. The increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere acidify the rainfall, and have increased the acidity of the oceans by about 40% in the last 3 to 4 decades (pH of the open ocean has dropped from 8.2 down to 8.05 on the logarithmic scale). An increased drop to a pH of 7.8 will prevent calcium based shells from forming, and threaten the entire food chain of the ocean. Changes in ocean currents, and vertical temperature profiles are leading to more stratification and less overturning which is required to transport nutrients to the surface for phytoplankton to thrive.

Global sea levels are presently rising at a rate of 3.4 mm per year, compared to a rate of about 2 mm per year a few decades ago. Melt rates on Greenland have doubled in the last 4 to 5 years, and melt rates on the Antarctica Peninsula have increased even faster. Based on the last several decades, melt rates have had a doubling period of around 7 years or so. If this trend continues, we can expect a sea level rise approaching 7 meters by 2070.

Land

Higher global average temperatures have increased the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by about 4% over the last several decades, and around 6% since the start of the industrial revolution. Changes in heat distribution with latitude from uneven heating with latitude has slowed the jet streams and caused them to become wavier and fractured, and has changed the statistics of weather. We now have higher frequencies, intensities, and longer duration extreme weather events and also a change in location of where these events occur.

Feedback loops

The sensitivity of the climate system to increased levels of GHG appears to be much higher than previously expected due to many powerful reinforcing feedbacks.

Arctic temperature amplification from exponentially declining sea ice and spring snow cover are the strongest feedbacks in our climate system today. The average albedo (reflectivity) of the Arctic region has decreased from 52% to a present day value of 48% over 3 or 4 decades. The increased absorption of energy in the Arctic has increased the temperature at high latitudes at rates up to 6 to 8x the global average temperature change. The reduced temperature difference between the Arctic and equator has reduced the west to east speed of the jet streams causing them to slow and become wavier and more fractured, and directly causing a large change in the statistics of our global weather.

Methane gas emissions have been rapidly rising in the Arctic region from the terrestrial permafrost and the continental shelf marine sediments, most notably on the ESAS (Eastern Siberia Arctic Shelf). The extremely potent ability of methane to warm the planet (global warming potential GWP is >150, 86, and 34 times for methane relative to carbon dioxide on a few year, several decade, and century timescale, respectively) makes increased emissions an extremely dangerous risk to our well-being on the planet.

My overall assessment

Our climate system is presently undergoing preliminary stages of abrupt climate change. If allowed to continue, the planet climate system is quite capable of undergoing an average global temperature increase of 5°C to 6°C over a decade or two. Precedence for changes at such a large rate can be found at numerous times in the paleo-records. From my chair, I conclude that it is vital that we slash greenhouse gas emissions and undergo a crash program of climate engineering to cool the Arctic region and keep the  methane in place in the permafrost and ocean sediments.

August 2014 record high land and ocean temperature

The combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August 2014 was record high for the month, at 0.75°C (1.35°F) above the 20th century average of 15.6°C (60.1°F).

June–August 2014 record high land and ocean temperature

June–August 2014, at 0.71°C (1.28°F) higher than the 20th century average, was the warmest such period across global land and ocean surfaces since record keeping began in 1880.

The August global sea surface temperature (SST) was 0.65°C (1.17°F) above the 20th century average of 16.4°C (61.4°F). This record high departure from average not only beats the previous August record set in  2005 by 0.08°C (0.14°F), but also beats the previous all-time record set just two months ago in June 2014 by 0.03°C (0.05°F).

The June–August global ocean surface temperature was 0.63°C (1.13°F) above the 20th century average, the highest on record for June–August. This beats the previous record set in 2009 by 0.04°C (0.07°F).

This was the warmest August on record, primarily due to very high Sea Surface Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere.

There is no El Nino event in this period, but some sort of event – hopefully an event not a climate shift – is taking place. If this is an event, the situation will become more normal when it ends, which will be in less than a years time at worst. If it is a climate shift, we are in desperate trouble, though I think it is an event.

It is worth noting that these very high Sea Surface Temperatures are likely to lead to high land temperatures soon, as normally land temperatures in the Northern hemisphere can be expected to exceed Sea Surface Temperatures.

The drought affecting California and the whole of the west of North America, Central America, and large parts of the Brazilian rainforest, though preceding this event was almost certainly down to changes which started before this event but ultimately caused it.

Despite the record high combined average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for August, the global economy will continue as normal and no specific action can be expected to be taken to curb emissions. This will change, if global temperatures continue to rise. Temperatures are high enough to cause global concern, however. More later.

Note: NOAA’s most recient prediction puts the chance of El Niño at 60-65% during the Northern Hemisphere fall and winter.

References

NOAA National Climatic Data Center, State of the Climate: Global Analysis for August 2014.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/8

“Genetic Strains of Ebola that have Never been Seen Before”. Media Lies and US Government Coverup

Here, we’ll quickly review a few very weighty MSM/U.S. Government Ebola lies before discussing what may be the most dangerous Ebola lie yet, which involves the risk of false negative Ebola tests.  The lies in the next few paragraphs are mentioned in this article primarily because they might intersect in disconcerting ways with the false negative problem—a problem the CDC and MSM would rather lie about and pretend does not exist.

The current outbreak (which actually began on or before December, 2013) presents genetic strains of Ebola that have never been seen before.  The Guinea variant of Ebola was itself novel enough to form its own clade.  Now, via Recombinomics and with respect to Sierra Leone, we have:

“The June Sierra Leone sequences have evidence of some drift from the March sequences from Guinea.  A prior Zaire sub-clade, which was found in apes and a chimpanzee and was associated with an outbreak in Gabon in 2002 had strong evidence of recombination, which raises concerns of more evolution in the current sub-clade, which has produced a record number of reported Ebola cases and deaths.”

It is curious indeed that the Ruling Class seems uninterested in broaching, to its serfs, the possibility that these genetic alterations might be causally related to the current outbreak’s dramatically higher fatality counts and, evidently, higher contagion probability.  As to whether the novel viral genotypes might signify that Ebola is now airborne, the CDC continues to insist that the only ones who think it might be airborne are paranoid tinfoil hat wearers—although the United Nations has uttered the heresy that even if Ebola isn’t airborne now, it soon might be regardless of its causal origins.

And then we have the incessantly repeated reckless claim that it is impossible for asymptomatic carriers to transmit Ebola. Who can say this with complete confidence given that we have novel genetic variants of Ebola in play?  Furthermore, any scientist who is remotely competent will observe that asymptomatic transmission cannot possibly be completely ruled out regardless of the fact that we are dealing with new variants—simply because there can never be enough cases to statistically eliminate small probabilities of asymptomatic transmission.  The only scientific question on this issue is whether such probabilities are so small that they can be considered negligible from a practical standpoint—and, right now, we don’t have a tremendous amount of cases at this point to base our conclusions on anyway.

Let’s pivot now to the Ebola test false-negative problem.  False-negative results, of course, occur when tests indicate the absence of a condition even though the condition is in fact present.  For many reasons (including human perceptual and cognitive errors), no test offers 100% accuracy in this respect or any other.  Therefore, there is always some risk that tests returning negative results for Ebola are wrong.  The U.S. Department of Defense has spoken to this issue with reference to the Ebola Zaire variant it says was detected in the current outbreak in West Africa:

“If this test is negative, does that mean that I do not have Ebola Zaire infection?

Most, but not all, people with Ebola Zaire infection will have a positive test. Therefore, if your test is negative, something else may be responsible for your illness. There is a small chance that this test can give a negative result that is wrong (called a false negative) meaning you could possibly still have an Ebola Zaire infection even though the test is negative. Therefore, while a negative test most likely means you do not have an Ebola Zaire infection, your health care provider must consider the test result together with all other aspects of your illness (such as symptoms, possible exposures, and geographical location) in deciding how to treat you.”

So, suppose, for example, that the “small chance” of an Ebola false negative rate is 1%.  It’s bad enough that many will then jump to the conclusion that such a result indicates that there is a 99% chance that the negative result indicates absence of the disease, so let’s show why that construal is wrong.

It is true that, given a 1% false negative rate, the true positive rate is 99%.  This is because the  true positive rate is the complement of the false negative rate.  But all a 99% true positive rate says is that positive test results capture 99% of cases that are in fact positive.

The Ebola-related practical concern addressed in this article is that a 99% true positive rate (also referred to as 99% “sensitivity”), which speaks to what might be informally called the “accuracy” ofpositive test results, does not really say much about the probability that a negative test result should be believed.  To generate that probability, the false negative rate must be combined with the prior probability that the person tested is not afflicted (which of course is by definition the complement of the probability that they are afflicted) with the illness as well as with the true negative rate, which is the probability of negative results when persons are actually negative.  This is the sort of thingBayes’ Theorem does.

The “prior probability” is estimated on the basis of whatever information pertaining to the likelihood of Ebola infection exists before tests are administered.  These are factors such as “symptoms, possible exposures, and geographical location” as the U.S. Department of Defense properly indicates (and isn’t it interesting that a military wing of the U.S. government admits the problem, while the civilian CDC lies by omission).  As the application of Bayes’ Theorem makes clear, the significance of a negative test result varies in terms of its practical significance with the prior probability of Ebola affliction, which means that if the prior probability of affliction is high enough in particular cases, people shouldn’t feel comfortable even if the risk of false negative tests is very low and negative test results do a very good job of capturing those cases that are in fact negative.

What this means is simply that, particularly in view of scores on factors such as friendship and social networks, having lived in and travelled from hot zones might imply that negative Ebola tests applied to such persons have very little significance—especially when cases are viewed in the aggregate.  When one puts this together with the reality that negative test results will often   result in the release of persons who may well be infected into civil society, the extraordinary danger we face is obvious—the more so, again, if we keep hearing smiley-faced CDC/MSM stories about bunchesof negative test results.

Let’s wrap up by synthesizing this conclusion with the U.S. Government/MSM lies noted at the outset.  The lies mentioned at the beginning of the article were included because each interacts with the prospect of potentially widespread false negatives in harrowing ways.  So, for example, all else equal, greater contagion potential suggests greater potential for false negative test results.  And, clearly, all else equal the prospect of airborne contagion implies the same thing.  Furthermore, it is even possible that the novel Ebola strains are such that false negative results are more likely than they were before.

But, even if none of these things is true, the more negative tests we hear about, the more confident we can be that at least one of them is false.  At some point, a threshold will be passed beyond which we can be very confident indeed that someone who is in fact positive has nonetheless been released into civil society on the basis of an erroneous test result.

Viewed together, all of the above suggests that thoughtful observers should be on the lookout for CDC/MSM lies and/or nondisclosures regarding specific biographical details about persons who test negative—because these are what inform prior probability estimates.

Dr. Jason Kissner is Associate Professor of Criminology at California State University. Dr. Kissner’s research on gangs and self-control has appeared in academic journals. His current empirical research interests include active shootings. You can reach him at crimprof2010[at]hotmail.com

Obama’s “War on Ebola” or War for Oil? Sending 3000 Troops to African “Ebola” Areas That Happen to Export Oil to China

Florida Hit with Highest Level of Radioactive Material from Fukushima Outside Japan

Analysis of data from sensitive U.S. monitoring stations for the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor accident, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity: [A] major nuclear event at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station… resulted in a breach of the nuclear fuel integrity and release of radioactive fission products to the environment. Fission products started to arrive in the United States via atmospheric transport on March 15, 2011… Atmospheric activity concentrations of 131I reached levels of 3 x 10^- 2 Bq/m ³ [30,592 microBq/m³] in Melbourne, FL. The noble gas 133Xe reached atmospheric activity concentrations in Ashland, KS of 17 Bq/m³… [These levels] were well above the detection capability of the radionuclide monitoring systems within the International Monitoring System [IMS] of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty [CTBTO]… it should be noted that non-IMS stations located in Richland, WA detected the event one day earlier than any other systems within the US IMS network… The iodine detections reported in this manuscript are solely representative of the particulate iodine atmospheric activity concentration. It is recognized that the gas phase iodine was not collected via aerosol filtration [which] would be useful to assess the event and to quantify the total radioiodine atmospheric activity concentration.

According to remarks included with CTBTO data recently released by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the total iodine-131 in the air was up to 500% of the amount shown.

CTBTO Particulate air monitoring data (.xls file), July 2014: The PTS [Provisional Technical Secretariat] itself issued a number of comments and caveats on the data:… “Since the IMS stations use paper filters to collect the particulate radionuclides in the air, part of the iodine in gaseous form passes through the filter easily. It is estimated that only 20-50% of total iodine (from all forms) was collected in the samples.”

Of the more than 1,500 measurements in the CTBTO data taken since Fukushima began, iodine-131 levels detected in Florida were the highest of anywhere in the world outside of Japan. Florida also recorded 4 of the top 10 daily measurements.

Before the U.N. made this data public, an ENENews report from April 2011 noted that for the specific date of March 22, Florida recorded the highest I-131 level of any  CTBTO monitoring station in the world. See: Melbourne, Florida had highest iodine-131 reading of any CTBTO monitoring station in the world from March 22-23 (CHART)

Hong Kong’s Politics: If not Beijing’s Business, Surely not Washington’s

The so-called “Occupy Central” movement has been so utterly exposed as foreign meddling, that even stalwart supporters of the protests have had to admit US-cash, political, and media support is irrefutably driving the unrest. As is the nature of humanity, pride has overridden the many good intentions, principles, and ideals of ordinary “Occupy Central” supporters, transforming the movement from idealistic but misled, to spiteful and vindictive. 

While these protesters were brave enough to stand up to injustices they perceived Beijing was imposing upon them, they now find themselves incapable of summoning similar courage to confront the injustices their own protest leaders have committed – including deceiving them about their agenda, their allegiances, and their sponsors.

In the wake of the truth, many “Occupy Central” supporters have deferred to increasing levels of cognitive dissonance and after adamantly denying US involvement, have invented a myriad of implausible explanations as to why US meddling in China is now apparently “ok.”

Denial and Delusions 

The initial response to evidence that the US, not the people of Hong Kong, is driving the “Occupy Central” movement through a handful of deeply compromised politicians, media moguls, and protest leaders, is denial. Supporters will outright deny that the US is funding or supporting the protests in any shape, form, or way precisely because they believe that it is a movement of the Hong Kong people. by them, and for them.

However, denial doesn’t last because the evidence is simply overwhelming. “Occupy Central” leaders were literally sitting in Washington D.C. earlier this year scripting the unrest verbatim side by side with the US State Department’s National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, and US Vice President Joseph Biden among others. As part of  ”Why Democracy in Hong Kong Matters” event hosted by NED, Martin Lee and Anson Chan were both in front of an audience representing immense Western corporate-financier and political interests, laying the groundwork for “Occupy Central” and openly begging Washington for support.

Other leaders such as Benny Tai, Audrey Eu, Jimmy Lai, Jospeh Zen, and Joshua Wong were implicated by both the NED’s own documented support for the various organizations they are participants in, or by fellow “Occupy Central” leaders themselves.

After denial comes acceptance – but coupled with delusions. After adamantly denying US involvement in the “Occupy Central” movement specifically because of the negative implications it implies, upon seeing irrefutable evidence that indeed the US is driving the unrest, supporters attempt to claim that the US is simply “supporting democracy” and that there is nothing suspicious or negative about that at all. The delusions deepen when confronted with examples of other US campaigns aimed at “promoting democracy,” such as in Syria, Libya, Iraq, or Ukraine, now embroiled in destructive perpetual violence, division, and chaos and exposed as naked imperial conquest.

Self-Determination: If not Beijing’s Business, Surely not Washington’s 

Ultimately, these delusions conflict with and are diametrically opposed to the many good intentions genuine “Occupy Central” protesters began with – the notion that the people of Hong Kong should decide for themselves their own destiny and reject interference from beyond their territory. While they have been insidiously led to believe Beijing is their only threat, the fact is Washington too, from thousands of miles away, seeks to impose its will, agenda, and interests upon the people of Hong Kong and direct their destiny.

Even many of the overt slogans and talking points articulated by Martin Lee and Anson Chan in Washington earlier this year, then repeated verbatim by “Occupy Central” protest leaders over recent weeks, do not add up to the expectations and intentions of the average “Occupy Central” supporter. In essence, the leadership of “Occupy Central” seem to be defending above all else, the parting demands made by the British as they handed over Chinese territory they had occupied for 142 years. Beijing has no obligation to respect or recognize demands made by a foreign power that had illegally occupied its territory. For “Occupy Central’s” leadership to insist otherwise is the behavior of foreign agents protecting a racket their interests are tied to, not a genuine movement seeking sovereignty and self-determination.

For the “Occupy Central” leadership to insist Beijing honor demands made by parting imperialists, reveals their true allegiance – not to their nation of China, nor their home of Hong Kong, but foreign interests who have for centuries sought to exercise dominion over China and its vast territory, as well as all that rests within China’s traditional spheres of influence.

If “Occupy Central” believes Hong Kong’s political present and future is the business of the people of Hong Kong and not Beijing, then surely they understand such matters are certainly not Washington’s business either. The fact that Washington is so heavily invested in “Occupy Central’s” leadership absolutely contradicts the principles the movement is predicated upon – a fact genuine protesters must reckon with.

Genuine Protesters Must Denounce Compromised “Occupy Central” Leadership 

For genuine “Occupy Central” supporters, there is absolutely no shame in searching for the truth, nor falling into any of the pitfalls that lie along the way. There is shame however, in falling into one of these pitfalls – by following compromised, criminal leaders with sedition in their hearts and foreign cash in their hands – and then convincing oneself that such a pitfall is somehow still “progress.” It is human to fall, it is human to feel embarrassed, but it is also human to rise above our petty pride and pursue the truth no matter what the personal cost.

British Politicians to Face Criminal Investigation Over Scottish Referendum

by Mark Hirst

Police in Scotland will formally investigate allegations that anti-Scottish independence campaigners breached electoral law during the referendum held on September 18.

“We can confirm that Crown counsel has instructed Police Scotland to commence an investigation into alleged breaches of Schedule 7, Paragraph 7, of the Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013,” a statement issued on Saturday by the Crown Office, Scotland’s prosecution service reads.

The allegations relate to comments made by Ruth Davidson, a Member of the Scottish Parliament and leader of the Scottish Conservatives, in which she appeared to know the general results of postal votes arising from “sample opening” of ballot boxes.

Postal vote opening sessions are permitted before the formal poll is conducted to verify signatures and dates of birth against records held by the local Returning Officer. Agents for the two campaigns were allowed to monitor these sessions, but it is a criminal offense, punishable with up to a year’s imprisonment if found guilty, to communicate any information witnessed during the sample opening sessions.

In a television interview with the BBC shortly after the formal poll closed Davidson said “we’ve been incredibly encouraged by the results [of the postal vote],” implying the Scottish Conservative leader knew the outcome of the postal votes before the first formal results had been announced.

In another BBC interview just four days before the referendum John McTernan, a former adviser to Tony Blair said, “It’s important to remember that about a fifth of the electorate, that will be about a quarter of the total turn-out, have voted already. They have voted by postal vote. Those postal votes are running very strongly towards ‘no’. There is a whole bank of votes in.”

McTernan told RIA Novosti he had not been contacted by Police adding, “No reason to believe free speech is a crime.”

According to The Herald newspaper, Davidson has been contacted by Police with the paper quoting a Conservative Party source who said there was, “no suggestion she was accused of doing anything wrong at this stage.”

The independence referendum, which took place on September 18, saw a turnout of 84.59 percent. Scotland has chosen to stay in the United Kingdom with 44.7 percent of Scots having voted in support of independence and 55.3 percent having voted against.

Looting Operation: Corporate Elite Divvies up Detroit as Bankruptcy Plan Confirmation Looms

As the Detroit bankruptcy moves into its final stage, it becomes ever more clear that the corporate-financial oligarchy is implementing the wholesale privatization of an entire US city.

With the full backing of a federal court acting on behalf of powerful corporate and financial interests, a cabal of capitalist politicians and legal and financial bagmen are looting virtually all of Detroit’s basic public infrastructure—including street lights, garbage collection, the water and sewerage department, as well as the city’s world class art museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA).

The last portion of the bankruptcy follows the crafting of a “grand bargain” supported by the major creditors and the unions, along with a deal with one of the main bond insurers, Syncora. Last month, the political establishment in Detroit and Michigan agreed to another arrangement to keep Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr in power until after the bankruptcy is completed, followed by a transfer of control to Mayor Mike Duggan and the City Council. The city will be overseen by a new Financial Review Commission (FRC), which will retain many of the powers now held by Orr.

With these measures in place, the ruling class is moving forward with parceling out Detroit into private fiefdoms allotted to individual billionaires and corporations, while entire sections of the city will be shut down or cut off from basic services.

The conspiring of the city’s ruling class was spelled out in a column published Thursday in the Detroit Free Press by Tom Walsh, “Detroit after bankruptcy: now comes the hard part.” After affirming that, “there’s little doubt” that Rhodes will confirm Orr’s “plan of adjustment,” Walsh describes Orr and investment banker Kenneth Buckfire as temporary hired guns to oversee the transformation of Detroit.

“Think of Orr, Detroit’s outgoing emergency manager, and Buckfire, president of restructuring firm Miller Buckfire, as the outside mercenaries—er, professionals—hired to swoop into Detroit, restore order and achieve specific objectives,” Walsh writes.

Proclaiming that Mayor Duggan “won’t have enough money left in the kitty” once the bankruptcy is complete, Walsh calls for a fully privatized “revival” of Detroit.

Walsh gives tribute to the city’s leading robber barons for organizing “private investment on a massive scale.” He writes, “The encouraging bursts of revival in Midtown and downtown Detroit during the early years of the 21st Century have been driven largely by a dogged band of entrepreneurial corporate chiefs working in tandem with big philanthropic foundations such as Kresge, Ford, Hudson-Webber and others.”

“[Dan] Gilbert, the head of Quicken Loans and Rock Ventures, has bought more than 60 Detroit properties, moved more than 12,000 workers into the city and is a major force in anti-blight efforts. [Roger] Penske led the Super Bowl committee, brought auto racing back to Belle Isle and donated the Clean Downtown truck fleet. The Ilitch family is leading a $650-million arena and entertainment district project as an encore to its earlier renovation of the Fox Theatre and building Comerica Park. Those business groups, along with Henry Ford Health and the Detroit Medical Center, are teaming with the Rapson-led Kresge Foundation and other donors on the M-1 Rail streetcar lines,” Walsh notes.

Walsh concludes that “private sector investment” is the “key to the renewal of Detroit,” and that “only a small part of that investment will come from public funds.”

These plans were elaborated in bankruptcy court testimony on Thursday and Friday, including from Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr, who declared that the bankruptcy plan constitutes “yet another renaissance.”

Asked by Rhodes about the purpose of the Financial Review Commission, Orr gave a response which clearly illustrated the anti-democratic character of the institution. He said that the body would “provide a level of oversight that can be flexible according to the discretion of the commission itself.” In other words, the FRC will determine for itself the appropriate level of involvement in managing the city’s finances, overturning contracts and imposing austerity measures.

Speaking on the Syncora development agreement, which transfers millions of dollars worth of credits and city assets to the bond insurer, Orr acknowledged that the deal will “intensify and broaden the relationship between Syncora and the city.”

Orr’s comments on the Syncora deal highlight the fact that, through the bankruptcy, the city will become a hunting ground for rapacious corporate and financial raiders. Last year the city gave Syncora partial control over the Windsor tunnel to extricate itself from the toxic “swaps deal,” which bled hundreds of millions from Detroit’s budget. Syncora, having profited from the illegal swaps scheme, is being made a first line stakeholder in the future of Detroit.

James Doak of Miller Buckfire gave similar testimony Friday, saying that Syncora “has become a long-term business institution in downtown Detroit,” and that the success of Syncora was “very much linked to the revitalization and economic activity of the downtown area.”

Rhodes asked, “Do you have a sense as to how that relationship will be monitored and executed on the city’s side of it?” Orr responded, “I’m hopeful that the marriage will be better than the courtship,” making an ironic reference to Syncora’s parasitic relationship to the city under the swaps deal.

Orr testified that future revenues will go primarily to the banks. “We will use revenues to pay debt and provide adequate services—not gold-plated or platinum,” Orr said, reassuring the ruling class that the city has no intention of investing in providing services for the broad mass of the population.

Another billionaire and reputed Detroit “booster” (on account of his promotion of corporate-funded development in the city), Roger Penske, also gave testimony Friday. Penske is contributing millions of his own funds to the bankruptcy plan, including some $10 million to the “grand bargain” and millions toward the purchase of 100 new police squad cars. Penske is also contributing money to the M1 rail project, frequently touted in the media as a model for a privately planned and funded transit system.

Penske gave his full support to the bankruptcy plan, saying that through the bankruptcy “a cleansing effect can take place.”

Similar comments from former presidential candidate Mitt Romney circulated in the media Friday underscored that such views are common currency throughout the entire US political and corporate establishment. Romney declared his support for the bankruptcy, saying that “dramatic steps” are necessary “when a municipality begins to circle the drain.” The bankruptcy has also received the full support of the Obama administration, which sees it as a model for other cities throughout the county.

The corrupt dealings surrounding the courtroom are also revealed in ongoing discussions with the Financial Guaranty Insurance Corporation (FGIC), another major insurer. FGIC is set to lose some 95 percent of the $1.1 billion it committed to insuring Detroit’s bondholders. Anonymous sources cited by the Detroit News state that FGIC is offering to drop its opposition to the bankruptcy plan in exchange for some portion of a “$123 million bankruptcy reserve fund, city-owned real estate, including riverfront property east of the Renaissance Center, and a 300-space municipal parking garage on Riopelle Street.”

The bankruptcy is, in substance, a vast looting operation conducted through the mechanism of the bankruptcy courts.

The US Government is Targeting Nonviolent Activists: Judge Refuses to Dismiss “Baseless” Charges Against Palestinian-American

“US federal government is intentionally targeting and prosecuting Arab-American citizens”

Rasmea Odeh had her first hearing in open court on Thursday in front of the new judge who will preside over her trial on immigration fraud charges scheduled for next month.

As the Palestinian-American community leader and her lawyers sat at the defense table, supporters, many of whom had made the five-hour drive from Chicago, packed the Detroit federal courtroom.

Odeh had hoped that Judge Gershwin Drain would rule favorably on a defense motion to dismiss the charges against her, but the judge declined to do so, ensuring that the trial will go forward.

Illegal fruit

Michael Deutsch, Odeh’s lead attorney, argued that the indictment of Odeh was the “fruit of an illegal investigation” by the government targeting the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), the Chicago community organization at which Odeh is associate director.

Last October, Odeh was arrested and indicted for allegedly lying on her US citizenship application a decade ago by failing to disclose her conviction in an Israeli military court for allegedly participating in two bombings in Jerusalem in 1969.

Odeh has pleaded not guilty to the US immigration fraud charge and says the Israeli convictions were obtained in the unfair Israeli military court system based entirely on a confession extracted through prolonged, brutal torture including sexual assault.

If convicted Odeh could face prison time, as well as being stripped of her US citizenship and deported.

Deutsch told the judge that Odeh was selectively investigated because of her protected First Amendment activities educating people about the situation in Palestine, and that it was based on evidence from the four-year-old investigation of the “Anti-War 23.”

In 2010, US authorities raided the homes of several anti-war activists, including Hatem Abudayyeh, AAAN’s director, and summoned two dozen activists before a federal grand jury.

Deutsch said the investigation had been a “fishing expedition” – none of those summoned to the grand jury testified. After four years no one had been charged with any crime and all the papers and property seized in the raid have now been returned.

“As far as we know, there is no ongoing investigation,” Deutsch told the court.

Deutsch argued that US authorities in Chicago had nonetheless passed information from the investigation on to federal prosecutors in Michigan, who indicted Odeh.

Government prosecutor Jonathan Tukel told the judge that Odeh’s attorneys had not shown evidence that their client had been singled out.

But the judge also denied Deutsch’s request to compel US attorneys in Chicago and Detroit to reveal their communications over the matter to the defense.

Speaking to reporters and supporters after the hearing, Deutsch expressed disappointment that the judge had allowed only ten minutes for oral arguments.

However, he said that he was not surprised that the judge declined to dismiss the charges “because the law is very restrictive on that.”

“I just wanted him [the judge] to hear about the history and about the context of this case.”

(Deutsch can be seen commenting on the hearing in the video at the top of the post).

This week the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) added its voice to the calls on the US to drop the charges.

In a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, ADC called the charges against Odeh “baseless,” and said that the case “plays into the belief and perception that the US federal government is intentionally targeting and prosecuting Arab American citizens.”

ADC is “outraged that the federal law enforcement agencies continue to waste resources by targeting nonviolent social activists such as Ms. Odeh, but have yet to bring charges against the Israeli suspects in the terrorist attack that killed Palestinian-American Alex Odeh in 1985,” the letter adds (Odeh was killed by a bomb left at the ADC office which he ran in Santa Ana, California).

Torture expert

Judge Drain did not issue a ruling on a second motion – a defense request to allow Mary Fabri, an expert on torture, to testify in the trial.

Fabri, a clinical psychologist at the world-renowned Kovler Center, already submitted an affidavit on 18 July detailing Odeh’s torture and subsequent post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Deutsch argued that Fabri’s testimony would provide the jury with crucial information about the long-term impact of Odeh’s torture that would help them to judge her state of mind when she allegedly failed to disclose the military court conviction in her citizenship application.

“This is at the heart of our defense,” Deutsch told the court. “The expert should be allowed to testify, and the jury should decide what it means.”

Drain’s ruling, which he promised within a week, will hinge on his reading of whether the law requires that a person had a “specific intent” to defraud the government at the time of their alleged crime.

Defense attorney Jim Fennerty told the court that the US State Department had handed over dozens of boxes of records the defense had been seeking, which a defense researcher was currently sorting.

Odeh’s lawyers believe the records could shed light on what the US government knew about the torture of Odeh, her father and others after their arrests by Israeli authorities.

Another hearing is scheduled for 21 October, with the start of the trial set for 4 November.

Rally and police harassment

As on previous occasions, Odeh’s supporters rallied outside the US Courthouse on Detroit’s Lafayette Street before and after her hearing.

Sarah Martin, one of the Anti-War 23 who had traveled from Minneapolis, Minnesota, told supporters that solidarity rallies were being held simultaneously in Minneapolis, San Jose, California and Tampa, Florida, as hundreds of people telephoned prosecutors urging them to drop the charges.

Since a hearing in September, some officers of the Department of Homeland Security police who protect federal facilities have taken a more aggressive stance toward the rallies.

Early on Thursday morning, this writer was briefly questioned by one officer for taking this photo of the courthouse, an entirely legal activity.

The incident was reported to National Lawyers Guild legal observers present on the scene. After the hearing, Muhammad Sankari, a member of the national Rasmea Defense Committee, was told by police that he could not lead chants with a bullhorn on the sidewalk in front of the building.

He continued to lead chants from across the street. There is no sign that such petty harassment will deter Odeh’s supporters. “We obviously believe that justice was not served today. Too many of our leaders, like Rasmea, are being targeted by the Justice Department for their activism in support of Palestinian liberation,” Sankari said in a press release from the Rasmea Defense Committee. “This case is clearly going to be an indictment of Israel and its brutal policies. We will continue to make that argument as we work to get the charges dropped,” Sankari added.

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