Blog Smith is inspired by the myth of Hephaestus in the creation of blacksmith-like, forged materials: ideas. This blog analyzes topics that interest me: IT, politics, technology, history, education, music, and the history of religions.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Friday, April 8, 2011
Russia wants 'red button' rights for US missile defense system
The United States has said the new shield is needed to protect Europe and itself from long-range missile attacks from rogue states such as Iran.
Well all that is quite interesting given the fact that
the state-run energy company from Russia--Atomstroyexport--is arming Iran currently. The company is re-fuelling Iran's nuclear power plant.
Update: New Madrid Earthquake
Twice the article points out that natural gas wells were shut down recently. Is this going to be an attack now on natural gas?
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Penner Says Government Shutdown to Hurt U.S. Growth
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yIlfleXkP4
April 7 (Bloomberg) -- Rudolph Penner, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, discusses the potential economic effects of a U.S government shutdown if Democratic and Republican leaders fail to agree on a budget before tomorrow's deadline. Penner speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)
Faith The Christian Parody to Rebecca Black‘s ’Friday‘
Sadie B. and Community Christian Church in Chicago.
The Mystery of Obama
By Steve Baldwin, Exclusive to Western Center for Journalism
Posted on April 2, 2011 by Researchers have discovered that Obama’s autobiographical books are little more than PR stunts, as they have little to do with the actual events of his life. The fact is we know less about President Obama than perhaps any other president in American history and much of this is due to actual efforts to hide his record. This should concern all Americans.
A nation-wide network of researchers has sprung up to attempt to fill in the blanks, but at every opportunity Obama’s high-priced lawyers have built walls around various records or simply made them disappear. It is estimated that Obama’s legal team has now spent well over $1.4 million dollars blocking access to documents every American should have access to. The question is why would he spend so much money to do this?
The president who campaigned for a more “open government” and “full disclosure” will not unseal his medical records, his school records, his birth records or his passport records. He will not release his Harvard records, his Columbia College records, or his Occidental College records—he will not even release his Columbia College thesis. All his legislative records from the Illinois State Senate are missing and he claims his scheduling records during those State Senate years are lost as well. In addition, no one can find his school records for the elite K-12 college prep school, Punahou School, he attended in Hawaii.
What is he hiding? Well, for starters, some of these records will shed light on his citizenship and birth.
For example, Obama’s application to Punahou School – now mysteriously missing – would likely contain a birth certificate. And, according to attorney Gary Kreep, “his Occidental College records are important as they may show he attended there as a foreign exchange student.” Indeed, Obama used his Indonesian name “Barry Soetoro” while attending Occidental. Kreep has filed lawsuits challenging Obama’s eligibility to be president and as part of his lawsuit he requested Obama’s records from Occidental. However, Obama’s lawyers quickly moved to stop Occidental from honoring this request.
Furthermore, now that at least three document authentication experts have declared the scanned “Certificate of Live Birth” Obama’s campaign team gave to a pro-Obama website to be an obvious phony; we know that he is hiding something here as well.
Over 49 separate law suits have been filed on the eligibility/birth certificate issue alone, with several of the suits making it all the way the United States Supreme Court, only to be denied a full hearing.
What’s more, there are questions about how he paid for his Harvard Law School education since, despite a claim by Michele Obama, no one has produced any evidence that he received student loans. The Obamas will not release any student loan details despite repeated requests from the Chicago Tribune. However, it appears that his Harvard education may have been paid for by a foreign source. Khalid Al-Mansour, an advisor to Saudi prince Al-Walid bin Talah, told Manhattan Borough president, Percy Sutton, that he was raising money for Obama’s Harvard tuition. Incidentally, Prince Tala is the largest donor to CAIR, a Muslim group declared by the U.S. Government in 2007 as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist financing trial. At least three of CAIR’s leaders have been indicted for terrorist activities. Al-Mansour’s admission opens up speculation as to whether Muslim interests have assisted Obama’s career in the hope he would eventually be in a position someday to promote their interests.
More recently, it was discovered that Obama’s Selective Service card may have been doctored. Federal law requires all American males to register for the Selective Service (the draft) in case a major war broke out. Blogger Debbie Schlussel has discovered solid evidence that Obama’s Selective Service registration form was submitted not when he was younger as required, but rather in 2008 and then altered to look older. Indeed, the forgers forgot to alter the “Document Location Number” which shows that it is clearly a 2008 form. This is fraud and it’s a felony and Schlussel’s allegations are backed up by Stephen Coffman, a former high-ranking Federal agent. Moreover, the document shows a September 4th, 1980 date and the location of the transaction as Hawaii, but at that time Obama was thousands of miles away attending Occidental College in Los Angeles.
The real reason why Obama probably did not submit this form as a teenager is that he assumed his Kenyan or Indonesian citizenship exempted him from this requirement. But clearly, as he grew older and entered politics, he saw that any documents revealing a foreign birth – Selective Service registration, birth certificate, school applications, etc – would be problematic if he ran for the presidency. Thus, it is not a coincidence that every document which contains information about his birth or citizenship is either missing, sealed, or has been altered.
Indeed, everywhere one looks into Obama’s background, we find sealed records, scrubbed websites, altered documents, deception and unanswered questions. Can anyone imagine for a second if John McCain or George Bush had blocked access to his school, medical, and birth records? It would have been headlines in their case, but as with everything else concerning Obama, the media has given him a pass on this.
Of all these marvels, the latest mystery and probably most perplexing is that of Obama’s social security number. It appears that Obama has multiple identities in term of possessing numerous social security numbers. Orly Taitz, an attorney who has filed numerous suits against Obama regarding his eligibility to serve as president, appears to have been the first to discover this. In her suit, representing a number of military officers who are refusing to serve under an ineligible commander in chief, she hired private investigator Neil Sankey to conduct research on Obama’s prior addresses and Social Society numbers. Using Intelius, Lexis Nexis, Choice Point and other public records, Sankey found around 25 Social Security numbers connected with Obama’s name.
However, it may not be as many as 25, since Sankey also searched using closely related names such as: “Barak Obama,” “Batock Obama,” “Barok Obama,” and “Barrack Obama.” There may very well be some Kenyans living in America with the same last name and a similar first name. In any case, I will exclude these records for the purpose of this research and focus only on names spelled exactly like his name. Moreover, we can verify many of the Social Security numbers as valid since they’re connected to addresses at which we know Obama resided. Needless to say, there are also a slew of address and social security numbers connected to addresses in states that Obama has no known connection to.
In Obama’s home state, Illinois, Sankey tracked down 16 different addresses for a Barack Obama or a Barack H. Obama, of which all are addresses he was known to have lived at. Two Social Security numbers appear for these addresses, one beginning with 042 and one starting 364.
In California, where Obama attended Occidental College, there are six addresses listed for him, all within easy driving distance of the college. However, there are three Social Security numbers connected to these addresses, 537 and two others, each beginning with 999.
There are no addresses listed in New York where he attended Columbia University, but there is one listed for him in nearby Jackson, NJ, with a Social Security number beginning with 485.
In Massachusetts – where Obama attended Harvard Law School – we find three addresses, all using the 042 Social Security number. After Obama was elected to the United States Senate in 2005, he moved into an apartment at 300 Massachusetts Ave NW; the Social Security number attached to that address is the 042 one. Yet, three years later, Obama used a different Social Security number for an address listed as: 713 Hart Senate Office Building. This was the address of his United States Senate office. This Social Security number began with 282 and was verified by the government in 2008.
This mystery grows even stranger as other addresses and Social Security numbers for Barack Obama appear in a dozen other states not known to be connected to him. Again, I am excluding those records names not spelled exactly like his name.
1. Tennessee, one address with a Social Security number beginning with 427
2. Colorado, one address, with a Social Security number beginning with 456.
3. Utah, two addresses, with two Social Security numbers beginning with 901 and 799.
4. Missouri has one address and one Social Security number beginning with 999.
5. Florida has two addresses listed for his him, three if you count one listed as “Barry Obama.” One is connected to a Social Security number beginning with 762.
6. In Georgia there are three addresses listed for him, all with different Social Security numbers: 579, 420, and 423.
7. In Texas there are four different addresses listed for him, one is connected to Social Security number 675.
8. There are two addresses listed for Barack Obama in Oregon and one address listed for him in the states of Wisconsin, Michigan, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
All told, there are 49 addresses and 16 different Social Security numbers listed for a person whose name is spelled “Barack Obama.” In some cases, the middle initial “H” is listed. If you were to expand the search to include closely related names such as: “Barac,” “Barak,” and “Barrack” Obama, you would find more than a dozen additional addresses and Social Security numbers.
Finally, the one Social Security number Obama most frequently used, the one beginning with 042, is a number issued in Connecticut sometime during 1976-1977, yet there is no record of Obama ever living or working in Connecticut. Indeed, during this time period Obama would have been 15-16 years old and living in Hawaii at the time.
Nevertheless, all this mystery surrounding Obama appears to be a generational thing. Researchers have discovered nearly a dozen aliases, at least two different Social Security numbers, and upwards of over 99 separate addresses for Ann Dunham, his mother. We do know she worked for the ultra liberal Ford Foundation but we also know she may have earned some income from pornographic poses, as evidenced by photos recently discovered by some researchers—how embarrassing. The only thing researchers are able to find out about Obama’s mother is the fact she made porn. I’m sure that’s a first for presidential mothers.
But we also know that Obama’s mother and grandparents associated with Communist Party leaders such as Frank Marshall Davis, a man who, according to Obama’s book, Dreams from my Father, was his main mentor during much of his Hawaiian boyhood (although Obama tried to disguise his identity in his book). During the Cold War, Davis was named by congressional investigators as a key member of a secretive pro-Soviet networked that existed in Hawaii at that time.
The lack of documents regarding Obama also extends to his mother and to his grandparents. Indeed, researchers have been unable to find marriage licenses for his mother’s two marriages, assuming she was ever legally married. Ditto goes for the marriage license for Ann’s parents. They cannot find birth certificates for her, her parents, or for even for her grandparents. Even more so, despite Obama’s boast of his grandfather’s military service, there’s no record of that either. For reasons no one knows, much of Obama’s life, his mother’s life and his grandparent’s life has been erased from the records as if they never existed.
But why would someone obtain so many Social Security numbers? According to investigators, those who create additional Social Society numbers are typically engaged in criminal activities such as Social Security fraud, tax fraud, real estate fraud, campaign contributions fraud, voter fraud and so on. While the private investigator who compiled this list says multiple social security numbers does not automatically prove there’s criminal activity involved, he states that “having said that, I have personally experienced many, many cases where such information has led to subsequent exposure of fraud, deception, money laundering and other crimes.“What is interesting to note is that Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, was a volunteer at the Oahu Circuit Court probate department and had access to the Social Security numbers of deceased people.
GDP USA
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is a convenient way of measuring and comparing the size of national economies. Annual GDP represents the market value of all goods and services produced within a country in a year. Put differently:
GDP = consumption + investment + government spending + (exports – imports)
Although the economies of countries like China and India are growing at an incredible rate, the US remains the nation with the highest GDP in the world – and by far: US GDP is projected to be $13,22 trillion (or $13.220 billion) in 2007, according to this source. That’s almost as much as the economies of the next four (Japan, Germany, China, UK) combined.
The creator of this map has had the interesting idea to break down that gigantic US GDP into the GDPs of individual states, and compare those to other countries’ GDP. What follows, is this slightly misleading map – misleading, because the economies both of the US states and of the countries they are compared with are not weighted for their respective populations.
Pakistan, for example, has a GDP that’s slightly higher than Israel’s – but Pakistan has a population of about 170 million, while Israel is only 7 million people strong. The US states those economies are compared with (Arkansas and Oregon, respectively) are much closer to each other in population: 2,7 million and 3,4 million.
And yet, wile a per capita GDP might give a good indication of the average wealth of citizens, a ranking of the economies on this map does serve two interesting purposes: it shows the size of US states’ economies relative to each other (California is the biggest, Wyoming the smallest), and it links those sizes with foreign economies (which are therefore also ranked: Mexico’s and Russia’s economies are about equal size, Ireland’s is twice as big as New Zealand’s).
Donald Trump's interview with Meredith Vieira
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Obama impeachment: Bruce Fein on Libya, Video
Bruce Fein, a former high-ranking official in the Reagan Justice Department who wrote the first article of impeachment against Bill Clinton, has drawn up formal articles of impeachment against Obama.
Next Holocaust by Hamas?
Residents in Ashkelon saw a Grad explode in mid-air as the Iron Dome apparently worked. The IDF immediately began bombing targets in Gaza in response to the onslaught.
All 40 rockets can be away in as little as 20 seconds, but can also be fired individually or in small groups in several-second intervals. The BM-21 can be packed up and ready to move in two minutes, which can be necessary when engaged by counter-battery fire.
Egypt
The Egyptians domestically manufacture the rockets "Sakr-36" and "Sakr-18" with a respective range of 36 and 18 km (11 mi), and the latest "Sakr-45" with a superior range of 45 km (28 mi). Rather than a standard HE-Frag round, the Egyptian military prefers a 23-kilogram (51 lb) cluster munition, which can be extremely effective against lightly armored equipment and troop concentrations. Both rockets, as well as the original Soviet models of course, are fired by locally manufactured rocket launchers like the RL-21 (copy of BM-11) and RC-21 (copy of BM-21, similar to the Hadid HM20). The Helwan Machine Tools Company also produces portable systems with one, three, four and eight launch tubes.
Gaza Strip
Since 2006, Hamas and other armed organisations in the Gaza Strip have made use of 122mm Grad rockets and 122mm Grad-style copies made in Iran, and others have been Eastern-bloc editions modified to expand their range and lethality. The rockets were believed to be smuggled into the Gaza Strip via tunnels from Egypt. Some of the rockets were of a Chinese Grad variant. Hamas sources said they were pleased by the performance of the Chinese variants of the BM-21 Grad rocket, which demonstrated a far greater range and blast impact than Palestinian made rockets, as well as Russian-origin Grads or Katyushas.
On 28 February 2008 at least ten 122mm Grad rockets hit the coastal city of Ashkelon. In other incidents, longer range rockets were used, with twice that of the BM-21 Grad. These longer range rockets were erroneously reported by the media to be also Grad rockets.
In the 2010 terrorist attacks on Eilat and Aqaba, nine standard 122mm Grad rockets were used. For the most part, rockets are smuggled into the Gaza Strip through the network of tunnels between the Strip and Egypt.
On 23 February 2011 at least two 122mm Grad rockets were fired at Beersheba hitting and severely damaging a house in a residential area. On 23 March 2011 another two Grad rockets were fired at Beersheba, seriously injuring a civilian.
Hamas have used small man-portable single-tube launchers for rocket in attacks against Israel, designated 122 mm 9P132/BM-21-P. The 122 mm Grad rockets used by these groups in Gaza have a range of about 40 km (25 mi), and can reach the Israeli towns of Ashdod, Beer-Sheva, Ofakim, Gedera, Kiryat Gat, Ashqelon, Sderot, Rehovot, Kiryat Malachi and Gan Yavne.
Iran
D.I.O. from Iran produces copies of the BM-11 and BM-21 systems that can fire the original Soviet rockets as well as the locally developed "Arash" with a range of 20.5 km (12.7 mi). There is also a rocket with a range of 75 km (47 mi).
HM20 - This is the Iranian version of the BM-21, mounted on a Mercedes-Benz 2624 6x6 truck. The launch pack however consists of 2 packs of 20 tubes. Reportedly there is also a version with an automatic reload-system.
HM23 - Lighter 16-round version with two packs of 8 launch tubes.
HMxx - Iranian version of the 30-round BM-11, based on a Mercedes-Benz LA 911B 4x4 truck. Some vehicles are equipped with a light hydraulic crane.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Greta Van Susteren On The Record with Allen West
Allen West and 83 other republicans call for Harry Reid to step down. West describes how he got ALL 435 congressmen to vote in favor of his $35 million dollar spending cut bill.
Global Roundtable: The Future of Economic Competition
Parag Khanna, author of How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance, moderates a panel of international economists Daniel Altman, author of Outrageous Fortunes: The Twelve Surprising Trends That Will Reshape the Global Economy, Dambisa Moyo, author of How The West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly--and the Stark Choices Ahead and Anand Giridharadas, author of India Calling.
http://bigthink.com/series/66?utm_source=Big+Think+Weekly+Newsletter+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ef1418c309-Wednesday_Newsletter_Shakespeare_4_6_2011&utm_medium=email
Obama impeachment: Bruce Fein on Libya
Lawyer drafts Obama impeachment
ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT OF PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA
RESOLVED, That Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following article of impeachment to be exhibited to the Senate:
ARTICLE OF IMPEACHMENT EXHIBITED BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN THE NAME OF ITSELF AND OF ALL OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AGAINST BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT OF ITS IMPEACHMENT AGAINST HIM FOR HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS IN USURPING THE EXCLUSIVE PREROGATIVE OF CONGRESS TO COMENCE WAR UNDER ARTICLE 1, SECTION 8, CLAUSE 11 OF THE CONSTITUTION.
ARTICLE I
In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has usurped the exclusive power of Congress to initiate war under Article I, section 8, clause 11 of the United States Constitution by unilaterally commencing war against the Republic of Libya on March 19, 2011, declaring that Congress is powerless to constrain his conduct of the war, and claiming authority in the future to commence war unilaterally to advance whatever he ordains is in the national interest. By so doing and declaring, Barack Hussein Obama has mocked the rule of law, endangered the very existence of the Republic and the liberties of the people, and perpetrated an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor as hereinafter elaborated.
I.
THE IMPEACHMENT POWER
1. Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution provides: “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
2. According to James Madison’s Records of the Convention, 2:550; Madison, 8 Sept., Mr. George Mason objected to an initial proposal to confine impeachable offenses to treason or bribery:
Why is the provision restrained to Treason & bribery only? Treason as defined in the Constitution will not reach many great and dangerous offences. Hastings is not guilty of Treason. Attempts to subvert the Constitution may not be Treason as above defined--As bills of attainder which have saved the British Constitution are forbidden, it is the more necessary to extend: the power of impeachments.
3. Delegates to the Federal Convention voted overwhelmingly to include “high crimes and misdemeanors” in Article II, Section IV of the United States Constitution specifically to ensure that “attempts to subvert the Constitution” would fall within the universe of impeachable offences. Id.
4. Alexander Hamilton, a delegate to the Federal Convention, characterized impeachable offenses in Federalist 65 as, “offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words, from the violation or abuse of some public trust. They are of a nature which with peculiar propriety may be denominated political, as they relate chiefly to injuries done to society itself.”
5. In 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted three articles of impeachment against then President Richard M. Nixon for actions “subversive of constitutional government.”
6. Father of the Constitution, James Madison, observed that, “Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other…. War is the true nurse of executive aggrandizement.”
7. James Madison also instructed that “no nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
8. The exclusive congressional power to commence war under Article I, section VIII, clause XI of the Constitution is the pillar of the Republic and the greatest constitutional guarantor of individual liberty, transparency, and government frugality.
II.
THE “DECLARE WAR” CLAUSE
9. Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI of the United States Constitution provides: “The Congress shall have the power … To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;”
10. Article II, Section II, Clause I of the United States Constitution provides: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
11. The authors of the United States Constitution manifestly intended Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI to fasten exclusive responsibility and authority on the Congress to decide whether to undertake offensive military action.
12. The authors of the United States Constitution believed that individual liberty and the Republic would be endangered by fighting too many wars, not too few.
13. The authors of the United States Constitution understood that to aggrandize power and to leave a historical legacy, the executive in all countries chronically inflates danger manifold to justify warfare.
14. John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, in Federalist 4 noted:
[A]bsolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.
15. Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 69 that the president's Commander-in-Chief authority
…would be nominally the same with that of the King of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first general and admiral of the confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war, and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies; all which by the constitution under consideration would appertain to the Legislature.
16. In a written exchange with Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym Helvidius, James Madison wrote:
In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture to heterogeneous powers, the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man; not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war, a physical force is to be created; and it is the executive will, which is to direct it. In war, the public treasures are to be unlocked; and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war, the honours and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honourable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace.
17. James Madison also wrote as Helvidius to Alexander Hamilton:
Those who are to conduct a war cannot in the nature of things, be proper or safe judges, whether a war ought to be commenced, continued, or concluded. They are barred from the latter functions by a great principle in free government, analogous to that which separates the sword from the purse, or the power of executing from the power of enacting laws.
18. On June 29, 1787, at the Federal Convention, James Madison explained that an executive crowned with war powers invites tyranny and the reduction of citizens to vassalage:
In time of actual war, great discretionary powers are constantly given to the Executive Magistrate. Constant apprehension of War, has the same tendency to render the head too large for the body. A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
19. In a letter dated April 4, 1798, James Madison wrote to Thomas Jefferson:
The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, & most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war in the Legislature. But the Doctrines lately advanced strike at the root of all these provisions, and will deposit the peace of the Country in that Department which the Constitution distrusts as most ready without cause to renounce it. For if the opinion of the President not the facts & proofs themselves are to sway the judgment of Congress, in declaring war, and if the President in the recess of Congress create a foreign mission, appoint the minister, & negociate a War Treaty, without the possibility of a check even from the Senate, untill the measures present alternatives overruling the freedom of its judgment; if again a Treaty when made obliges the Legislature to declare war contrary to its judgment, and in pursuance of the same doctrine, a law declaring war, imposes a like moral obligation, to grant the requisite supplies until it be formally repealed with the consent of the President & Senate, it is evident that the people are cheated out of the best ingredients in their Government, the safeguards of peace which is the greatest of their blessings.
20. During the Pennsylvania Convention to ratify the Constitution, James Wilson, a future Justice of the United States Supreme Court, observed:
This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must he made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our national interest can draw us into a war.
21. In 1793, President George Washington, who presided over the Federal Convention, wrote to South Carolina Governor William Moultrie in regards to a prospective counter-offensive against the American Indian Creek Nation: "The Constitution vests the power of declaring war with Congress, therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they have deliberated upon the subject, and authorized such a measure."
22. President Thomas Jefferson, who served as Secretary of State under President Washington, in a statement before Congress regarding Tripoli and the Barbary Pirates, deemed himself “unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defense." He amplified: "I communicate [to the Congress] all material information on this subject, that in the exercise of this important function confided by the Constitution to the Legislature exclusively their judgment may form itself on a knowledge and consideration of every circumstance of weight."
23. In a message to Congress in December, 1805 regarding potential military action to resolve a border dispute with Spain, President Thomas Jefferson acknowledged that "Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force.” He requested Congressional authorization for offensive military action, even short of war, elaborating:
Formal war is not necessary—it is not probable it will follow; but the protection of our citizens, the spirit and honor of our country, require that force should be interposed to a certain degree. It will probably contribute to advance the object of peace.
But the course to be pursued will require the command of means which it belongs to Congress exclusively to yield or deny. To them I communicate every fact material for their information, and the documents necessary to enable them to judge for themselves. To their wisdom, then, I look for the course I am to pursue; and will pursue, with sincere zeal, that which they shall approve.
24. In his War Message to Congress on June 1, 1812, President James Madison reaffirmed that the shift in language from make to declare in Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI of the United States Constitution authorized at the Constitutional convention did not empower the Executive to involve the United States military in any action aside from defense against an overt attack. Although President Madison was convinced that Great Britain had undertaken acts of war against the United States, he nevertheless maintained that he could not respond with military force without congressional authorization. He proclaimed:
We behold, in fine, on the side of Great Britain, a state of war against the United States, and on the side of the United States a state of peace toward Great Britain.
Whether the United States shall continue passive under these progressive usurpations and these accumulating wrongs, or, opposing force to force in defense of their national rights, shall commit a just cause into the hands of the Almighty Disposer of Events, avoiding all connections which might entangle it in the contest or views of other powers, and preserving a constant readiness to concur in an honorable re-establishment of peace and friendship, is a solemn question which the Constitution wisely confides to the legislative department of the Government. In recommending it to their early deliberations I am happy in the assurance that the decision will be worthy the enlightened and patriotic councils of a virtuous, a free, and a powerful nation.
25. In his Records of the Convention, 2:318; Madison, 17 Aug., James Madison wrote that the power “To declare war” had been vested in the Congress in lieu of the power “To make war” to leave to the Executive “the power to repel sudden attacks.”
26. Mr. Elbridge Gerry “never expected to hear in a republic a motion to empower the Executive alone to declare war,” but still moved with Mr. Madison “to insert declare—in place of make” in Article I, Section VIII, Clause XI. Id.
27. Mr. George Mason was against “giving the power of war to the Executive, because not safely to be trusted with it; or to the Senate, because not so constructed as to be entitled to it. He was for clogging rather than facilitating war; but for facilitating peace.” Yet Mr. Mason “preferred declare to make.” Id.
28. Mr. Roger Sherman “thought [the proposal] stood very well. The Executive shd. be able to repel and not to commence war.” Id.
29. Delegates to the Federal Convention overwhelmingly approved the motion to insert “declare—in place of make,” to deny the Executive power to initiate military action, but to permit the Executive to repel sudden attacks unilaterally. Id.
30. Then Congressman Abraham Lincoln sermonized:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose — and you allow him to make war at pleasure…. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
31. Crowning the President with unilateral authority to commence war under the banner of anticipatory self-defense, prevention of civilian slaughters, gender discrimination, subjugation of ethnic or religious minorities, or otherwise would empower the President to initiate war without limit, threatening the very existence of the Republic. Although a benevolent Chief Executive might resist abuse of an unlimited war power, the principle, if ever accepted by Congress, would lie around like a loaded weapon ready for use by any successor craving absolute power.
32. Thomas Paine justly and rightly declared in Common Sense that "in America, the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other."
33. Article 43 Paragraph 3 of the Charter of the United Nations provides that all resolutions or agreements of the United Nations Security Counsel “shall be subject to ratification by the signatory states in accordance with their respective constitutional processes.”
34. Article 43 Paragraph 3 of Charter of the United Nations was included specifically to allay concerns that prevented the United States of America from ratifying the League of Nations Treaty in 1919.
35. That treaty risked crowning the President with the counter-constitutional authority to initiate warfare. On November 19, 1919, in Section II of his Reservations with Regard to Ratification of the Versailles Treaty, to preserve the balance of power established by the United States Constitution from executive usurpation, Senator Henry Cabot Lodge resolved as follows:
The United States assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country or to interfere in controversies between nations -- whether members of the League or not -- under the provisions of Article 10, or to employ the military or naval forces of the United States under any article of the treaty for any purpose, unless in any particular case the Congress, which, under the Constitution, has the sole power to declare war or authorize the employment of the military or naval forces of the United States, shall by act or joint resolution so provide.
The rejection of Lodge’s reservations by President Woodrow Wilson and his Senate allies insured defeat of the treaty.
36. Section 2(c) of the War Powers Resolution of 1973 clarifies Presidential authority to undertake military action as follows:
The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.
37. In United States v. Smith, 27 F. Cas. 1192 (1806), Supreme Court Justice William Paterson, a delegate to the Federal Convention from New Jersey, wrote on behalf of a federal circuit court:
There is a manifest distinction between our going to war with a nation at peace, and a war being made against us by an actual invasion, or a formal declaration. In the former case it is the exclusive province of Congress to change a state of peace into a state of war.
38. In Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258, 267 (1890), the Supreme Court of the United States held:
The treaty power, as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments, and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or in that of one of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter, without its consent.
39. In his concurrence in Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 642-643 (1952), which rebuked President Harry Truman’s claim of unilateral war powers in the Korean War, Justice Robert Jackson elaborated:
Nothing in our Constitution is plainer than that declaration of a war is entrusted only to Congress. Of course, a state of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration. But no doctrine that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment of the Nation's armed forces to some foreign venture.
40. All treaties are subservient to the exclusive congressional power to commence war. In Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 18 (1957), the United States Supreme Court held:
There is nothing in [the Constitution’s text] which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution. Nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification of the Constitution which even suggests such a result.
41. Unconstitutional usurpations by one branch of government of powers entrusted to a coequal branch are not rendered constitutional by repetition. The United States Supreme Court held unconstitutional hundreds of laws enacted by Congress over the course of five decades that included a legislative veto of executive actions in INS v. Chada, 462 U.S. 919 (1982).
42. In their dissent in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507 (2004), Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia recognized the “Founders’ general distrust of military power lodged with the President, including the authority to commence war:
No fewer than 10 issues of the Federalist were devoted in whole or part to allaying fears of oppression from the proposed Constitution’s authorization of standing armies in peacetime. Many safeguards in the Constitution reflect these concerns. Congress's authority "[t]o raise and support Armies" was hedged with the proviso that "no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years." U.S. Const., Art. 1, §8, cl. 12. Except for the actual command of military forces, all authorization for their maintenance and all explicit authorization for their use is placed in the control of Congress under Article I, rather than the President under Article II. As Hamilton explained, the President's military authority would be "much inferior" to that of the British King… (Citing Federalist 69, Supra.)
43. On December 20, 2007, then Senator Hillary Clinton proclaimed: "The President has the solemn duty to defend our Nation. If the country is under truly imminent threat of attack, of course the President must take appropriate action to defend us. At the same time, the Constitution requires Congress to authorize war. I do not believe that the President can take military action — including any kind of strategic bombing — against Iran without congressional authorization."
44. Then Senator Joseph Biden stated in a speech at the Iowa City Public Library in 2007 regarding potential military action in Iran that unilateral action by the President would be an impeachable offense under the Constitution:
It is precisely because the consequences of war – intended or otherwise – can be so profound and complicated that our Founding Fathers vested in Congress, not the President, the power to initiate war, except to repel an imminent attack on the United States or its citizens.
They reasoned that requiring the President to come to Congress first would slow things down… allow for more careful decision making before sending Americans to fight and die… and ensure broader public support.
The Founding Fathers were, as in most things, profoundly right.
That’s why I want to be very clear: if the President takes us to war with Iran without Congressional approval, I will call for his impeachment.
I do not say this lightly or to be provocative. I am dead serious. I have chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee. I still teach constitutional law. I’ve consulted with some of our leading constitutional scholars. The Constitution is clear. And so am I.
I’m saying this now to put the administration on notice and hopefully to deter the President from taking unilateral action in the last year of his administration.
If war is warranted with a nation of 70 million people, it warrants coming to Congress and the American people first.
45. In a speech on the Senate Floor in 1998, then Senator Joseph Biden maintained: “...the only logical conclusion is that the framers [of the United States Constitution] intended to grant to Congress the power to initiate all hostilities, even limited wars.”
46. On December 20, 2007, then Senator Barack Obama informed the Boston Globe, based upon his extensive knowledge of the United States Constitution: "The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
III.
USURPATION OF THE WAR POWER OVER LIBYA
47. President Barack Obama’s military attacks against Libya constitute acts of war.
48. Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-4) had the following exchange with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during a March 31, 2011 House Armed Services Committee Hearing on the legality of the present military operation in Libya:
Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, if tomorrow a foreign nation intentionally, for whatever reason, launched a Tomahawk missile into New York City, would that be considered an act of war against the United States?
Secretary Gates: Probably so.
Congressman Forbes: Then I would assume the same laws would apply if we launched a Tomahawk missile at another nation—is that also true?
Secretary Gates: You’re getting into constitutional law here and I am no expert on it.
Congressman Forbes: Mr. Secretary, you’re the Secretary of Defense. You ought to be an expert on what’s an act of war or not. If it’s an act of war to launch a Tomahawk missile on New York City would it not also be an act of war to launch a Tomahawk missile by us at another nation?
Secretary Gates: Presumably.
49. Since the passage of United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 on March 19, 2011, the United States has detonated over 200 tomahawk land attack cruise missiles and 455 precision-guided bombs on Libyan soil.
50. Libya posed no actual or imminent threat to the United States when President Obama unleashed Operation Odyssey Dawn.
51. On March 27, 2011, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that Libya never posed an “actual or imminent threat to the United States.” He further stated that Libya has never constituted a “vital interest” to the United States.
52. United Nations Security Council resolution 1973 directs an indefinite United States military quagmire in Libya, authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians, which clearly contemplates removal by force of the murderous regime of Col. Muammar Qadhafi.
53. In a Letter From the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate sent March 21, 2011, President Barack Obama informed Members of Congress that “U.S. forces have targeted the Qadhafi regime's air defense systems, command and control structures, and other capabilities of Qadhafi's armed forces used to attack civilians and civilian populated areas. We will seek a rapid, but responsible, transition of operations to coalition, regional, or international organizations that are postured to continue activities as may be necessary to realize the objectives of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1970 and 1973.”
54. In his March 21, 2011 letter, President Barack Obama further informed Members of Congress that he opted to take unilateral military action “…in support of international efforts to protect civilians and prevent a humanitarian disaster.”
55. President Barack Obama has usurped congressional authority to decide on war or peace with Libya, and has declared he will persist in additional usurpations of the congressional power to commence war whenever he decrees it would advance his idea of the national interest. On March 28, 2011, he declared to Congress and the American people: “I have made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies, and our core interests” (emphasis added).
56. President Obama’s humanitarian justification for war in Libya establishes a threshold that would justify his initiation of warfare in scores of nations around the globe, including Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Myanmar, China, Belarus, Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Russia.
57. In Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928), Justice Louis D. Brandeis wrote on behalf of a majority of the United States Supreme Court:
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
58. President Barack Obama has signed an order, euphemistically named a “Presidential Finding,” authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, further entangling the United States in the Libyan conflict, despite earlier promises of restraint. Truth is invariably the first casualty of war.
59. In response to questions by Members of Congress during a classified briefing on March 30, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated that the President needs no Congressional authorization for his attack on the Libyan nation, and will ignore any Congressional attempt by resolution or otherwise to constrain or halt United States participation in the Libyan war.
60. On March 30, 2011, by persistent silence or otherwise, Secretary Clinton rebuffed congressional inquiries into President Obama’s view of the constitutionality of the War Powers Resolution of 1973. She failed to cite a single judicial decision in support of President Obama’s recent actions, relying instead on the undisclosed legal opinions of White House attorneys.
61. President Barack Obama, in flagrant violation of his constitutional oath to execute his office as President of the United States and preserve and protect the United States Constitution, has usurped the exclusive authority of Congress to authorize the initiation of war, in that on March 19, 2011 President Obama initiated an offensive military attack against the Republic of Libya without congressional authorization. In so doing, President Obama has arrested the rule of law, and saluted a vandalizing of the Constitution that will occasion ruination of the Republic, the crippling of individual liberty, and a Leviathan government unless the President is impeached by the House of Representatives and removed from office by the Senate.
In all of this, President Barack Obama has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Borders High Level Model (HLM)
Developed via funding from the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Borders High Level Model is a high-fidelity simulation and analysis program that aids policy and decision makers tasked with making key funding choices. Borders HLM uses serious gaming, force-on-force simulation, and a range of other Sandia capabilities.
U.S. Border Patrol Spends $1 Million Making a Videogame Simulating Their Job
Possible Shutdown Looms
The last such shutdown took place 15 years ago and lasted 21 days.
Under long-standing federal rules, agencies would not be affected that provide for U.S. national security, dispense most types of federal benefit payments, offer inpatient medical care or outpatient emergency care, ensure the safe use of food and drugs, manage air traffic, protect and monitor borders and coastlines, guard prisoners, conduct criminal investigations and law enforcement, oversee power distribution and oversee banks.
Mail deliveries will continue in the event of a shutdown. U.S. postal operations are not subsidized by tax dollars.
According to the shutdown scenario described by the administration, the government would have to significantly cut staffing across the executive branch, including workers at the White House and civilian employees at the Defense Department; close to 800,000 workers would be affected. Congress and the federal court system will also be subject to a shutdown.
At the Pentagon, defense officials were finalizing plans that would lay out how the department would deal with a shutdown. But they already have acknowledged that U.S. military troops - including those in war zones - would receive one-week's pay instead of two in their next paycheck if the government closes.
NBC’s Brokaw: Saudis ‘So Unhappy' With Obama They Sent Emissaries to China, Russia Seeking Enhanced Ties
“And a lot of those questions presumably will come from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia,” reported Brokaw on the Nightly News. “I was told on the way in here that the Saudis are so unhappy with the Obama administration for the way it pushed out President Mubarak of Egypt that it sent high level emissaries to China and Russia to tell those two countries that Saudi Arabia now is prepared to do more business with them.”
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Update: Driver Behind Shocking Car Crash Vid Says It’s Real
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
The Path to Prosperity: America's two futures, visualized
This 3-minute video is a visualization of the House Republicans' budget, "The Path to Prosperity," presented by Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee.
For more information on our plan to avert the US's nearing debt crisis and chart a path of growth and prosperity, visit http://budget.house.gov
http://budget.house.gov/fy2012budget/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703806304576242612172357504.html
Monday, April 4, 2011
Food Stamp Participation
Over 44 million Americans are now on the nation’s food stamp rolls — somewhere around 14.3% of the population. The Obama administration insists that the country is on the right track, but is this really what “economic recovery” looks like?
Victor Hanson and Peter Berkowitz -- Revolution in the Arab World
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian, professor of classics, and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author of numerous books, the most recent of which are Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome, which Professor Hanson edited, and The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern, a volume of his essays.
Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is also cofounder and director of the Israel Program on Constitutional Government, has served as a senior consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics, and is a member of the Policy Advisory Board at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Obama Flip Flop
So what exactly did candidate Obama say in 2008 when it came to trying accused terrorists?
First, he was going to close Guantanamo, calling it an ineffective "legal black hole:"
"By any measure, our system of trying detainees has been a failure. Over the course of nearly seven years, there has not been a single conviction for a terrorist act at Guantanamo. There has just been one conviction for material support of terrorism," he said in June of 2008. "Meanwhile, this legal black hole has substantially set back America's ability to lead the world against the threat of terrorism, and undermined our most basic values. But make no mistake: we are less safe because of the way George Bush has handled this issue."
Then, he was going to restore habeas corpus rights to alleged terrorists:
"Our courts have employed habeas corpus with rigor and fairness for more than two centuries, and we must continue to do so as we defend the freedom that violent extremists seek to destroy. We cannot afford to lose any more valuable time in the fight against terrorism to a dangerously flawed legal approach," he also said in June of 2008.
Promising to return America to the "moral high ground" in the war on terrorism, Obama issued a high profile executive order in his first official day as president that required the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year.
But last month, the president signed a very different executive order - one that resumed military trials for Guantanamo Bay detainees. Still, White House officials insisted nonetheless the president "remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay."
Despite that order, civil liberty advocates took solace in the fact the president and his justice department at least appeared to stand behind their vow to try accused terrorists in civilian courts.
That was, until Holder's expected announcement Monday.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Williams Says Fed Needs to Provide More Timely Data
April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Mark Williams, a former Federal Reserve bank examiner who is now an executive-in-residence at Boston University's School of Management, discusses the Fed's release of data on "discount window" lending during the financial crisis and prospects for transparency at the central bank. Williams speaks with Erik Schatzker and Lizzie O'Leary on Bloomberg Television's "InsideTrack." (Source: Bloomberg)
Fed Records Show Borrowing by Some Foreign Banks: Video
Fed Records Show Borrowing by Some Foreign Banks: Video
Mar 31, 2011 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve released thousands of pages of secret loan documents under court order, almost three years after Bloomberg LP first requested details of the central bank's unprecedented support to banks during the financial crisis. Erik Schatzker and Margaret Brennan report on Bloomberg Television's "InBusiness." (Source: Bloomberg)
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior
In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that "stressing academic success is not good for children" or that "parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun." By contrast, roughly 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way.
What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences. This often requires fortitude on the part of the parents because the child will resist; things are always hardest at the beginning, which is where Western parents tend to give up.
Privately, the Western parents may worry that their child does not test well or have aptitude in the subject or that there is something wrong with the curriculum and possibly the whole school. If the child's grades do not improve, they may eventually schedule a meeting with the school principal to challenge the way the subject is being taught or to call into question the teacher's credentials.
Burning Obama
April 3: An Afghan protestor beats a burning effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama during a rally in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Afghan protests against the burning of a Quran in Florida entered a third day with a demonstration in the major eastern city Sunday, while the Taliban called on people to rise up, blaming government forces for any violence. (AP)
Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Secret Lifeline Most at Crisis Peak
The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record.
“The caricature of the Fed is that it was shoveling money to big New York banks and a bunch of foreigners, and that is not conducive to its long-run reputation,” said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2001 to 2007.
Bank of China, the country’s oldest bank, was the second- largest borrower from the Fed’s discount window during a nine- day period in August 2007 as subprime-mortgage defaults first roiled broader markets.
Arab Banking Corp., then 29 percent-owned by the Libyan central bank, used its New York branch to get at least 73 loans from the Fed in the 18 months after Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed. The largest single loan amount outstanding was $1.2 billion in July 2009, according to the Fed documents.
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