TPP: The Real Agenda

Sessions argued TPA wasn't just a framework for a process for the president to use in negotiating trade agreements, but instead creates an economic union with wide-ranging powers.

"I’ve been there three times and I can tell you it is far more than a trade agreement,” he said. “It is a creating of an economic union.

"The congressional resource said it is a wide-ranging political and economic partnership that is created, where the Sultan of Brunei gets one vote. The president of the United States gets one vote. Twelve countries — they have the ability to add other treaties and pass them.

"They have the ability to deal with climate issues, wage issues and environmental issues. There’s just no doubt about that."

You remember what I told you a couple of months ago about the real reason that Obama appointed Craig Becker as the Head of the National Labor Relations Board. I told you that although the Supreme Court declared the appointment unconstitutional, Becker stayed for a year in office. During that year, the framework for a national union for illegal immigrants was established.

The federal court stopped Obama from issuing union cards to these workers, which would have formed the world’s largest union at 7.5 million people. Now, he is using the TPP to insert immigration union language. The American people can’t see this, because the guts of the TPP are classified until it is passed. Just like Obamacare.

Congress should not grant President Barack Obama authority to conclude another free trade agreement in Asia, because it would lower American wages and exacerbate income inequality.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would eliminate tariffs and lower other regulatory barriers to trade and investment among the United States, South Korea, Japan and nine other Pacific Rim nations. This makes it easier for foreign goods to be sold in the US at cheaper prices. This will drive thousands of US businesses into bankruptcy, causing unemployment to triple to beyond 25%.

Imports from South Korea are up 3.6 billion, U.S. exports are down marginally and the U.S. trade deficit with the Asian nation has swelled to 5 billion. That free trade deal alone has killed about 25,000 American jobs — mostly in high paying manufacturing activities — and added to downward pressures on wages and worsened income inequality.

President Clinton negotiated a complex bilateral deal to permit China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, but American companies like GM, GE and Microsoft still must manufacture, form joint-ventures with local companies and undertake product development in the Middle Kingdom, and American intellectual property still gets ripped off.

Campaigning in 2008, candidate Obama promised to fix problems like those but he has been weak about confronting Chinese mercantilism, and the $350 billion bilateral trade deficit costs American workers at least 3 million jobs and greatly suppresses wages.

Over the years, China, South Korea and Japan have violated WTO and International Monetary Fund rules by purposefully undervaluing their currencies to subsidize exports and raise prices for otherwise competitive U.S. products in their markets.

Such currency manipulation would wipe out the benefits American businesses may expect from the TPP — just as it has done for bilateral deals struck with China, Japan and South Korea —  by eliminating tariffs and reducing other barriers to trade.

Obama has refused to even formally acknowledge those countries cheat on trade deals already in place by manipulating their currencies or to make strong rules to stop currency manipulation a negotiating goal for the TPP. The president has repeatedly claimed Asian nations won’t sign on to the TPP if it contains a discipline on currency manipulation.

No wonder, look at the advantage currency manipulation affords countries that cheat on the rules already in place.

Applying data from the World Bank, which calculates what national currencies should be worth in U.S. dollars to have comparable purchasing power, the yuan, won and yen currently appear to be at least 50, 25 and 15 percent undervalued, respectively. And those exchange rate practices compel other Asian trading nations to follow similar policies, lest they be shut out of markets by unfairly priced Chinese, Korean and Japanese goods—for example, India’s rupee is only about one-fourth its fair market value.

U.S. multinationals, like GE and IBM, would still profit from the TPP by moving production to Asia to take advantage of labor and other resources made cheaper by manipulated currencies but ordinary working Americans would face more unfairly advantaged foreign competitors, unemployment and even lower wages.

As the president has framed the TPP negotiations, it is simply a bad deal for Americans who own or work for a small business.

Symptoms of failed trade policy

SNAP

Food Stamp Statistics DataTotal annual cost of food stamp program $69,800,000,000

Number of Americans using the food stamp program 41,170,732Percent of population on food stamp program 14%

Year

Total Number of People Receiving Food Stamps

Average Monthly Benefit

2014 46,670,373 $133.85 2011 44,709,000 $133.85 2000 17,194,000 $76.62 1990 20,049,000 $58.78 1980 21,082,000 $34.47 1969 2,878,000 $6.63

State Food Stamp Participation Rate

1 Mississippi 20.80%2 Tennessee 19.90%2 Oregon 19.90%4 New Mexico 19.80%5 Michigan 19.50%6 Louisiana 19.30%7 Alabama 19.10%8 Kentucky 18.80%9 West Virginia 18.50%9 Maine 18.50%

11 Georgia 18.10%12 South Carolina 18%13 Arkansas 16.50%14 Arizona 16.40%15 Florida 16.10%15 Oklahoma 16.10%17 Missouri 15.60%18 Texas 15.40%19 Washington 15.50%20 New York 15.40%21 Rhode Island 15.20%22 Delaware 14.70%23 Vermont 14.60%24 Idaho 14.30%25 Wisconsin 14%26 Illinois 13.90%26 Ohio 13.90%

26 North Carolina 13.90%29 Pennsylvania 13.40%29 Indiana 13.40%31 South Dakota 12.40%31 Montana 12.40%33 Massachusetts 12.30%34 Nevada 12.10%34 Iowa 12.10%36 Alaska 11.90%37 Hawaii 11.50%38 Maryland 11.40%39 Virginia 10.50%39 Connecticut 10.50%41 Kansas 10.30%42 Utah 10%43 California 9.70%44 Nebraska 9.40%45 Minnesota 9.40%45 Colorado 8.80%47 North Dakota 8.70%48 New Jersey 8.60%49 New Hampshire 8.50%50 Wyoming 6.30%

A Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 - a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March.

More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements.

The new rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months - unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program or meet volunteering requirements.

Cash is Probable CauseMany responsible citizens believe in paying with cash and storing their cash at home, in a bank, or in a safety deposit box. But banks & governments have suddenly become hell-bent on abolishing your use and storage of cash, by restricting the ways you can spend & deposit your

U.S. dollars, and reporting countless cash transactions to the police & government. The question is, why?

The frightening fact is, our government has recently instituted numerous programs to track your financial accounts anywhere in the world, but tracking cash is much harder. In addition, our government aggressively pursues numerous programs to confiscate citizen savings & wealth without due process, and it’s much easier to confiscate digital accounts. Thus, cash has become a huge target. So you better act now to move your savings & wealth out of cash and financial accounts, and into private physical assets like gold & silver, before you have nothing left to protect.

The Bankers’ War on Cash

When JPMorgan Chase recently informed customers that the bank will no longer allow cash to be stored in safety deposit boxes, it capped off a frightening trend in banker restrictions on cash usage & storage internationally:

Citi’s Willem Buiter recently advocated abolishing cash altogether in order to “solve the world’s central banks’ problem with negative interest rates.”

Many banks have adopted the policy of banning account holders from storing cash in safety deposit boxes.

Chase instituted a new policy which “restricts borrowers from using cash to make payments on credit cards, mortgages, equity lines, and auto loans.”

The Justice Department has ordered bank employees to consider calling the police on customers who withdraw $5,000 dollars or more.

HSBC is now interrogating its account holders in the UK on how they earn and spend their money as well as restricting cash withdrawals for customers.

Banks in the U.S. are making it harder for customers to withdraw and deposit cash, with Chase imposing new capital controls that mandate identification for cash deposits and ban cash being deposited into another person’s account.

Chase banned international wire transfers while restricting cash activity for business customers (both deposits and withdrawals).

The French government announced it will restrict French citizens from making cash payments over €1,000 euros.

Why the War on Cash?

At the very least, banks imposing restrictions on the use of cash amounts to an attack on anonymity and an example of how financial institutions are positioning themselves to handle the fallout of the next economic crash – at the expense of customers. But it goes even deep than that. Consider the lengths to which our government has gone to track your money worldwide, and the extent to which they have confiscated citizen savings without due process of law.

As the U.S. spirals toward insolvency due to massive over-spending and Fed money-printing, the U.S. government is pulling out all the stops to gain access to your money – no matter where it is across the globe. First, the government started seizing citizen bank accounts with no due process. Then, the Department of Justice and local police started seizing cash from innocent citizens. Now, the IRS threatens foreign nations and financial institutions across the globe to turn over your private data and financial accounts, with the threat of financial warfare if they don’t comply. They’re even threatening our very allies, despite the fact that they have no authority whatsoever over foreign nations!

So in short, if our government is going to these lengths to track down your money and even confiscate citizen savings without due process, isn’t it much easier to track and control digital accounts than cash? Yes. So how does the government remedy this challenge? Join the banks in a war against cash.

Convert Your Savings into Gold & Silver

Yes, we’re all required by law to report our income and pay our taxes. But that doesn’t give the government & banks the authority to track every financial move we make and restrict our usage and storage of cash. These moves reek of absolute desperation on the part of the government & banks. And they have every reason to be desperate. Our national debt has reached the breaking point, and banks are once again gambling trillions on the outrageous derivatives that took down the global economy in 2008. And our entire financial system hangs in the balance.

So do you want to remain vulnerable to the whims of government & banks, or do you want to fully protect your savings & retirement? To get true protection, there’s one asset class that sits outside the system, is completely private, and cannot be tracked and controlled by the government or banks: physical gold & silver.

Jade Helm 2015 Update

A military training exercise that included explosions at a disused school building in Michigan has stunned residents who say they were given virtually no notice that the operation would be conducted in their city.

“I was standing there, and all of a sudden, boom!” Jean Glenn of Flint, Michigan, told WNEM-TV.

“I mean it was loud. It blew up the whole sky or whatever, it was like four or five big bangs,” said Annette Humphrey.

It turns out the city had approved the training, but forgot to inform the people living in the city. But many people are on edge this summer because of the looming Jade Helm 15 military exercises that will extend across several states and multiple jurisdictions.

The U.S. military has told WND that to allay fears and minimize concerns officials have met with local governments and briefed them.

And they say it’s a combination of “inaccurate” information and “personal agendas” that is whipping up fears.

But it appears the message isn’t getting across, since a recent poll showed nearly half of voters are concerned Washington “will use U.S. military training operations to impose greater control over some states.”

Read the warning from Judge Andrew Napolitano, “It is Dangerous to Be Right when the Government is Wrong.”

And one voter in five is “very concerned.”

The results come from Rasmussen Reports, which surveyed 1,000 likely voters last month.

The polling company asked whether the government’s military training plan is an infringement of the rights of citizens, whether the respondent favors or opposes those exercises in their state, and how concerned are they over whether Washington “will use U.S. military training operations to impose greater control over some states.”

The training exercises this summer have been named Jade Helm 15, and WND reported when the concerns moved well beyond the fringe frets over black helicopters and secret prison sites.

That was when Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, released a statement responding to constituents’ worries about Jade Helm 15, an exercise in six states involving thousands of military personnel on public and even private land.

“Over the past few weeks, my office has been inundated with calls referring to the Jade Helm 15 military exercise scheduled to take place between July 15 and September 15, 2015. This military practice has some concerned that the U.S. Army is preparing for modern-day martial law,” Gohmert said.

“Certainly, I can understand these concerns. When leaders within the current administration believe that major threats to the country include those who support the Constitution, are military veterans, or even ‘cling to guns or religion,’ patriotic Americans have reason to be concerned.

“We have seen people working in this administration use their government positions to persecute people with conservative beliefs in God, country, and notions such as honor and self-reliance. Because of the contempt and antipathy for the true patriots or even Christian saints persecuted

for their Christian beliefs, it is no surprise that those who have experienced or noticed such persecution are legitimately suspicious.”

WNEM reported Flint spokesman Jason Lorenz confirmed the city has known about the military’s plans for months.

And the city sent out a statement about the training exercise at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, with the explosions beginning at 2 p.m.

“I think they should have gave us a warning to let us know there was an army thing going on, I really do,” Humphrey told the station.

Lorenz told the station he can’t speak for the Army, but “we try to give people a heads up.”

One of the reasons Jade Helm 15 is getting attention is that the government has designated for training purposes several mostly Republication regions of the country as “hostile.”

“Having served in the U.S. Army, I can understand why military officials have a goal to see if groups of Special Forces can move around a civilian population without being noticed and can handle various threat scenarios,” Gohmert wrote. “In military science classes or in my years on active duty, I have participated in or observed military exercises; however, we never named an existing city or state as a ‘hostile.’ We would use fictitious names before we would do such a thing.

“Once I observed the map depicting ‘hostile,’ ‘permissive,’ and ‘uncertain’ states and locations, I was rather appalled that the hostile areas amazingly have a Republican majority, ‘cling to their guns and religion,’ and believe in the sanctity of the United States Constitution. When the federal government begins, even in practice, games or exercises, to consider any U.S. city or state in ‘hostile’ control and trying to retake it, the message becomes extremely calloused and suspicious.”

Rasmussen found only 16 percent are opposed to such military training, and another 19 percent are undecided. Among voters who oppose military exercises in their state, 82 percent are “concerned that the federal government has greater control in mind,” the poll said.

WND also reported when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order to the Texas State Guard to oversee any activities in his state to ensure that Texans’ “safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed.”

“By monitoring the operation on a continual basis, the State Guard will facilitate communications between my office and the commanders of the operation to ensure that adequate measures are in place to protect Texans,” he told Maj. Gen. Gerald Betty, commander of the Texas State Guard.

U.S. Army Special Operations Command officials responded to some of WND’s questions about the issue, stating in writing that the exercise is to train Special Operations Force to respond to a crisis.

“Different environments provide opportunities to experience new and unique training experiences,” the Army said. “These environments add realism and greater training value for U.S Special Operations Forces.”

An End to Tyranny?

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) used his first speech from the Senate floor to press for legislation that would create a panel to review federal rules, calling for an end to "regulation without representation." 

"Our great nation has been bogged down in recent years with what I believe is one of the greatest hindrances to job growth and economic productivity, and that is the overregulation of our citizens," he said Tuesday. 

ADVERTISEMENTRounds introduced the Regulation Sensibility Through Oversight Restoration Resolution, which would create a joint select committee to review new rules, as well as hold hearings on the impact of those already in place and make recommendations on reducing regulatory overreach.  He added that his legislation would "take a giant leap forward in restoring the people's role in the rule-making process."  "Unfortunately, the voice of the people in the rule-making process has been cut out and replaced by unelected government bureaucrats who think they know better than the farmer or the scientist or the entrepreneur," he said.  Rounds was originally supposed to give his first speech on the Senate floor last month but was prevented from doing that by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who is running for president. The Kentucky Republican spoke on the Senate floor for more than 10 hours, in what he said was a filibuster of a Patriot Act extension. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) congratulated Rounds on his speech Tuesday, saying he focused on "what I think is the single biggest problem confronting our country, creating the slow growth rate that we've had throughout the Obama presidency."  He added that he believes the South Dakota Republican's legislation is a "good solution" to dealing with overregulation. 

Guess Who is Watching Obama Now?

WASHINGTON – After one of them called for the “forced resignations” of President Obama and congressional leaders in response to multiple grievances, including the alleged political purge of hundreds of senior military officers, two retired U.S. generals are creating a citizens’ commission to scrutinize Obama administration actions on national security and economic issues.

“America’s Provisional Leadership Council” will look at major concerns, as outlined by Army Gen. Paul E. Vallely and Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles Jones, in an eight-point paper titled “The Americans Project.”

Vallely sees The Americans Project as a “citizens’ commission” of prominent Americans to provide advice to legislative and executive branches of government.

America’s leaders, he said, will be “held to high standards of performance to solve the nation’s problems of governing. We will scrutinize and provide guidance to federally elected officials on behalf of the citizens.”

The Americans Project, Vallely added, is a “movement, not a new party necessarily. We want candidates to run as Americans first before being a Democrat, Republican or Independent.”

Vallely, who today is chairman of the organization Stand Up America, served as the deputy commanding general of Pacific Command.

Jones, who is vice chairman of The Americans Project of Stand Up America, held numerous Air Force command positions including a tactical fighter wing, a strategic airlift wing and a special operations group.

In calling for the forced resignations of Obama and the leadership of Congress, Vallely outlined suggestions for nationwide rallies and said a peaceful “civil uprising is still not out of question.”

The current crop of leaders, he said, must face a “demand resignation” process, which he explained requires massive grassroots protests and social networking which he envisions can be undertaken through his organization. An example of a “forced resignation,” he said, was that of President Richard Nixon.

“Our federal government continues down the path of destroying America,” Vallely said. “Americans must now stand up and put America back on the right track.”

Workable solution

Vallely and Jones in their paper say “The Americans” leadership has developed workable solutions to “help solve and fix what has without question stunted our nation’s ability to clearly, legally and peacefully function as a constitutional republic.”

“Honest, selfless political leadership is the first key to America’s economic and debt recovery and secure future for all citizens and their children,” they say. “That means voters must band together and vote for positive ‘America first’ leadership rather than self-serving greed and corruption within the two major political parties that have for decades and are now rapidly tearing the United States of America apart.”

In their paper, Vallely and Jones call for adherence to the Constitution with strict congressional oversight of all executive actions.

In an apparent reference to the cutback in overall U.S. military readiness, they call for a strong national defense but stipulate that “in no way” would the U.S. military ever be used against U.S. citizens, a reference to a growing concern among many Americans.

The paper decried the historic $17 trillion government debt, concerns over continued unemployment and excessive tax rates on businesses and citizens.

Their solutions? Vallely and Jones call for abolishing the Federal Reserve and the Internal Revenue Service system, the intended result of which would be that “all political plundering of the peoples’ wealth via taxation will be stopped.”

In abolishing the Federal Reserve System, all U.S. government financial and economic functions would be turned back to the U.S. Treasury.

The IRS would be immediately abolished and replaced by a sales tax on specified items for partial financing of the U.S. government.

The retired generals condemned the illegal alien “invasion,” which they said would be stopped with a secured border double fence, calling for penalties on employers who hire illegal aliens.

“There will be absolutely no jobs, no social services, no welfare nor medical services allowed to be provided to illegal alien invaders,” they say, with the exception of emergency medical care only until the illegals can be deported.

“American jobs are for U.S. citizens, returning military veterans, part-time high school students and the elderly,” they said. “When U.S. employers cannot find workers and can fully justify seeking foreign workers, government permission will be granted for hiring temporary foreign workers.”

Eliminating agencies

They also called for the elimination and consolidation of a number of federal agencies, some of which, like the Department of Homeland Security, they say, have exceeded their authority.

“The DHS with functions for national security and FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) for emergencies have both grown far beyond the intentions of reasonable and responsible leadership control, budgeting, manpower, equipment and facilities,” they say.

“Deceptive political intentions for the potential use of facilities, weapons, massive purchases of ammunition plus military-type vehicles and railroad cars are greatly objectionable to American citizens and an insult to the economic deficit of the nation,” they said.

DHS jobs could be given to the Department of Defense and the Interior Department, they claim. And FEMA would be recast as the National Emergency Agency with a reduction in manpower and merged into the Interior Department to be deployed during national emergencies.

“All weapons, munitions and military-type vehicles will be transferred to the DOD immediately,” they add.

They’d get rid of the Department of Energy and, no surprise, repeal Obamacare.

“It is critically important for American citizens to know and understand that the United States of America cannot recover from the unsustainable manmade national debt crises unless satisfactory employment is archived for a majority of U.S. citizens and that requires the existing income tax and Federal Reserve Systems to be abolished, then changed to a greatly reduced method of funding the federal government,” they said.

With the elimination of the income tax, businesses and corporations would return to the U.S., making manufacturing more competitive worldwide, with jobs emerging “in great numbers” and resulting in a booming economy.

Destructing ‘before our very eyes’

Vallely says the nation he long defended is self-destructing “before our very eyes,” because of “our inept and incompetent leadership in Washington.”

“The battle is on,” he added, “and we shall not retreat.”

Vallely, who has also served as a Fox News military analyst, claimed the Obama administration and leadership of Congress have been leading the nation down a road of “progressive socialism.”

The retired general said the U.S. faces a battle that is unknown to generations of Americans, and that the fate of the nation is “now in our hands” to enforce the Constitution and “severely limit the federal government and its out-of-control spending.”

Vallely added that “politics as usual will not be effective or sufficient enough to turn the country around.”

“We are in a war for America,” adding that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Dr. Ben Carson, the noted brain surgeon and author of “America the Beautiful” and other bestselling books have made similar observations.

“A civil uprising is still not out of the question as ‘pain’ grips the country more each day,” Vallely said, adding that there is time to change the country in a peaceful way.

‘This means raising your voice now’

“This means raising your voice now to your neighbors, family, co-workers and friends,” he said. “Be the captains of your souls. I pray for another George Washington to appear within the year and lead us.”

One of the issues that alarms Vallely is the high number of senior officers in the U.S. military who have been fired under the Obama administration, a toll estimated at one officer per week. Indeed, Vallely has been very outspoken on what he calls a “purge” of the U.S. military by the Obama administration – with a stunning nine generals and flag officers relieved of duty this year alone.

WND has been reporting on the surge of firings, suspensions and dismissals, for which Vallely has assigned a good portion of the blame to Obama’s close adviser, Valerie Jarrett. Rampant “political correctness” due to her influence, Vallely tells WND, is now permeating the military and negatively affecting everyone from top generals to the ranks of the enlisted.

According to Vallely, Obama is “intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing the U.S. as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged.”

Vallely equated the current treatment of U.S. senior military officers watching over what is said and done among mid-level officers and enlisted ranks to that of the “political commissars from the Communist era.”

He also told WND that the White House won’t investigate its own officials, but finds it easy to fire military commanders “who have given their lives for their country.”

‘Bought into Obama’s ideology’

“Obama will not purge a civilian or political appointee because they have bought into Obama’s ideology,” Vallely said. “The White House protects their own. That’s why they stalled on the investigation into Fast and Furious, Benghazi and Obamacare. … Anyone in the ranks who speaks out is being purged.”

He’s far from alone in his concerns about the military purge, as J.D. Gordon, a retired Navy commander and a former Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, says the Obama administration is rushing to unload senior officers whom he believes have become “political pawns” dismissed for questionable reasons.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Patrick Brady, a recipient of the U.S. military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor, similarly said that Obama needs to apply the same standards to his political appointees as he does to the military.

“Just when you thought the leadership of this government could not get any worse, it does,” Brady said. “Never in history has an administration spawned another scandal to cover the current one.”

This was a reference to the recent firing of a number of generals to mask “Obama’s serial scandals, all prefaced by lies – Fast and Furious, Benghazi, NSA, IRS,” among others, said Brady, former president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society.

Retired Army Lt. Gen. William G. “Jerry” Boykin, who was a founding member of Delta Force and later deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence under President George W. Bush, tells WND it is worrying that four-star generals are being retired at the rate that has occurred under Obama.

“Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause,” Boykin said. “I believe there is a purging of the military. The problem is worse than we have ever seen.”

Abortion: The Killing of EuropeAborted babies accounted for more than a quarter of all deaths in England and Wales in 2013, official figures reveal.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 506,790 recorded deaths in England and Wales in 2013 – the most recent year for which figures are available. These, however, do not include abortions.

Separate figures, also compiled by the ONS, reveal that a total of 185,331 abortions took place in England and Wales in the same year.

Adding the total number of unborn babies who died as a result of abortion in 2013 to the total number of recorded deaths in England and Wales brings the overall death total to 692,121. This means that 26.78 per cent of the deaths were caused by abortion.

The figure has remained relatively stable for the past few years, with abortions accounting for 27.76 per cent of deaths in 2010, 28.17 per cent in 2011 and 27.05 per cent in 2012.

Peter D. Williams, Executive Officer of Right to Life, told Breitbart London: “That unborn children comprise – when included – over a quarter of all mortalities in the UK illustrates the stark disregard, disrespect, and lack of empathy for human life, and especially the most vulnerable human beings, that legalised abortion has introduced so insidiously into our culture.

“Not only has our society normalised a profoundly uncaring attitude towards babies in the womb when they are deemed to be inconvenient or imperfect, but it fails to adequately support women in unplanned pregnancy to have their children.

“These facts should provoke greater public debate about the reality of abortion, moves to improve help for pregnant women and their babies, and hopefully a better awareness of the inherent dignity, and inviolable right to life, of every member of the human family.”

There have been growing calls in recent years to alter Britain’s abortion laws, with backbench MPs attempting to clarify the law earlier this year explicitly outlawing the abortion of a child on the basis of gender alone.

MPs called for the change after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute doctors offering terminations on the grounds of gender, ruling that charging them would “not be in the public interest”.

Although the bid failed, following a successful lobbying campaign by pro-abortion campaigners, it was still supported by over 200 MPs.

Last month, Breitbart London reported that new health minister Ben Gummer had been criticised by abortion activists for holding pro-life views. Gummer said in a Guardian interview in 2008 that he was “personally and principally opposed to abortion,” although he would not support the practice being outlawed.

He told the Independent last month: “Change to abortion law has always been a matter for Parliament, not for the Government.

“It is accepted Parliamentary practice that proposals for changes in the law on abortion come from backbench members, not ministers, and that decisions are made on the basis of free votes, as with all matters of conscience.”

Obamatrade: The Fascism of Planet Earth

by Matthew Boyle5 Jun 2015Washington, DC7142

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

80%

, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest, has written a scathing new letter to President Barack Obama pressuring him to explain why Obamatrade has been so secretive.

“On May 6th of this year, I sent you a letter (enclosed) regarding your request for Congress to grant you fast-track executive authority,” Session wrote to Obama on Friday in a letter provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release. “Under fast-track, Congress transfers its authority to the executive and agrees to give up several of its most basic powers.

“These concessions include: the power to write legislation, the power to amend legislation, the power to fully consider legislation on the floor, the power to keep debate open until Senate cloture is invoked, and the constitutional requirement that treaties receive a two-thirds vote.

“The latter is especially important since, having been to the closed room to review the secret text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, it is clear it more closely resembles a treaty than a trade deal.

“In other words, through fast-track, Congress would be pre-clearing a political and economic union before a word of that arrangement has been made available to a single private citizen.”

The letter hones in on the new global governance, as Sessions calls it, that would be created by the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)—which would almost certainly be approved by Congress should the House of Representatives vote in favor of Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) to fast track TPP and other trade deals. TPA, which passed the Senate a couple weeks ago, would ensure—barring some unforeseen development—the congressional approval of TPP, and collectively the two have become known as Obamatrade.

“The letter, which received no reply, asked several fundamental questions Congress ought to have answered before even considering whether to grant the executive such broad new powers,” Sessions wrote to Obama on Friday referencing his previous letter. “Among those, I asked that you make public the section of the TPP that creates a new transnational governance structure known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership Commission. The details of this new governance commission are extremely broad and have the earmarks of a nascent European Union, with many similarities.

“Reviewing the secret text, plus the secret guidance document that accompanies it, reveals that this new transnational commission – chartered with a ‘Living Agreement’ clause – would have the authority to amend the agreement after its adoption, to add new members, and to issue regulations impacting labor, immigration, environmental, and commercial policy.

“Under this new commission, the Sultan of Brunei would have an equal vote to that of the United States.”

President Obama has ignored and rejected bipartisan calls for transparency on Obamatrade, and refuses to release to the public the text of TPP that TPA would fast-track. In fact, currently, only members of Congress—and certain cleared staffers with high enough security clearances, and those staffers can only go with a member—are allowed to go into a secret room in the U.S. Capitol to go read the text of Obamatrade’s TPP component.

“The implications of this new Pacific Union are extraordinary and ought to be discussed in full, in public, before Congress even contemplates fast-tracking its creation and pre-surrendering its power to apply the constitutional two-thirds treaty vote,” Sessions wrote to Obama. “In effect, to adopt fast-track is to agree to remove the constitutional protections against the creation of global governance structures before those structures are even made public.

“I would therefore ask that you provide to me the legal and constitutional basis for keeping this information from the public and explain why I cannot share the details of what I have read with the American people. Congress should not even consider fast-tracking the transfer of sovereign power to a transnational structure before the details of that new structure are made fully available for public review.”

Just this week, it was revealed that several members of House Speaker

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH)40%

’s leadership team have been whipping votes for Obamatrrade but haven’t read the TPP text—and Boehner himself appears not to have as well, since his staff continues refusing to answer whether he did. House Rules Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)

65%

and Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA)

76%

are pushing Obamatrade, but haven’t gone to the room to read the TPP deal text.

In addition, it was also discovered that

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)81%

and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

49%

—two presidential candidates on the Republican side—didn’t go to the secret room to read the TPP text before voting for TPA to fast track the Obamatrade process. That means Rubio, the only serious presidential candidate of that pair, voted on a significant piece of legislation that affects trade policy on the scale that Obamacare affects healthcare, or his “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill affects America’s sovereignty and immigration policies, without reading it.

Obama himself also revealed this week that China has been trying to add itself into the deal, and he and his administration officials have been in talks with the currency manipulator to try to make that happen.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)96%

, who’s also running for president, read the TPP text after writing a Wall Street Journal op-ed with House Ways and Means Committee chairman Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)

60%

—but before voting for Obamatrade.Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

93%

is clearly in the best position of his fellow 2016 GOP presidential candidates in the Senate, as not only did he vote against TPP after going to the secret room to read the text, he’s become one of the loudest voices against the largely secretive process and has pushed for Obama to publicly release the deal text.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush joins Rubio and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who helped negotiate the deal during her time in Obama’s State Department—as supportive of Obamatrade, as does former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Most of the rest of the 2016 field, however, is opposed, as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Carly Fiorina, Dr. Ben Carson, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and real estate mogul Donald Trump, among others, are opposed.

On the Democrat side, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont both oppose Clinton’s support for Obamatrade.

After the Senate passed the deal a couple weeks ago, the House could vote as early as next week–but GOP leadership is having extraordinary difficulty finding the votes necessary to pass this with surging bipartisan opposition to Obamatrade.

Release the 9/11 28 Pages

Press Conference to Declassify the 28 Pages of 9/11 Joint Inquiry Report

Former Sen. Bob Graham, Rep. Walter Jones, Rep. Stephen Lynch, 9/11 Families representatives Terry Strada, Sylvia Carver, and Abraham Scott

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

REP. WALTER JONES: If I could get your attention, I would like to tell you that we are very grateful that you would attend this press conference today. We've got the gentleman that has been leading this battle for twelve years, Senator Bob Graham, will be speaking as well.

Let me tell you the order of the talk today: I'll make brief comments after I welcome you, which I'm doing now. Then I will introduce Stephen Lynch from Massachusetts, who joined me last year in a House Resolution that we put in, to call on the White House to declassify these 28 pages. He and I dropped the same resolution yesterday, but we don't have a bill number yet, because so many bills were introduced. [The number of the resolution is H. Res. 14 — ed.]

Then we have from the families, who have suffered so much pain, Terry Strada, Sylvia Carver, and Abraham Scott. And then after they speak, we will then take questions from the press. At that time, please identify who you are and who you are with.

First, my brief comments will be that just like the tragedy in France today, no nation can defend itself unless the nation knows the truth, and especially when there's been an attack like 9/11. [The satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo was attacked by three gunmen who killed 12 people and wounded 5 in Paris—ed.] The families and their pain is something none of us can experience,

unless we're one of the 9/11 families. So with that, I want to introduce Stephen Lynch, and then will come back and introduce Sen. Bob Graham, and then the family members will speak, and then you'll have your chance to ask questions.

Stephen Lynch and I bonded as friends long before this issue of the 28 pages. I am a conservative Republican from North Carolina; he is more —

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH: Moderate.

JONES: Moderate, from Massachusetts, and a Democrat. And we became friends just because I think God intended that we would be friends, quite frankly. So with that, again, Stephen and Thomas Massie, who cannot be with us today, is also on this House Resolution calling on the Administration to declassify the 28 pages. So I will let Stephen speak now, and then I will come back and introduce Sen. Bob Graham.

Stephen, come ahead and tell the people why we need to declassify the 28 pages.

REP. LYNCH: Thank you very much, Walter, for that very generous and kind introduction. First of all, I want to thank the 9/11 families for being with us this morning. They are really the reason we are here. And we're introducing our measure, resolution, from last year, to require the declassification of the 28-page section of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into intelligence activities before and after the terrorist attacks of September of 2001. Congressman Jones and I jointly introduced this resolution back in December of 2013, and we are pleased to do so again.

I'd like to begin by thanking my colleague Walter Jones for his leadership on this issue. He has been relentless, which I think is what it's going to take to get these pages declassified. And he's really provided, I think, a dignified and well-thought-out approach for the reasons behind our request. I'd also like to acknowledge Sen. Bob Graham, again, who was a catalyst for this effort, and really, I think, before anyone, recognized the rightness of disclosing these 28 pages when the Joint Report first came out, and making these public.

There are three basic reasons for our request here: First is that transparency is a good aspect of democracy and that, as Walter indicated, having an informed public, from the beginning of our government has always been a major priority and an asset of democracy; and we believe that transparency in this case will not only be the right thing to do, but secondly, it will provide justice for a lot of the families—for all of the families who are affected directly. We all suffered a deep and personal, profound loss, but these families, who will speak later on at this conference, will speak to the true pain that they feel each and every day. And they are deserving of the truth, just as the American people are. And thirdly, I think, after reading the 28 pages — and the pages speak for themselves — I think that members of the Congress and American citizens everywhere, will be better informed, in terms of our national security posture and the threats that are out there, I think they will be better informed, more thoughtful, more comprehensive, and we will understand more fully, the nature of the threat that's out there. And I think that, again, is one more reason to make sure that these reports are made public.

So, with that, I just want to say, again, we are deeply grateful that Senator Graham was able to join us today. He has provided much impetus for this investigation here, it's kept us going. As I said before, he was the first one to recognize the wrongfulness in terms of concealing this from the American public.

And, it's one important point I want to emphasize, is that we frequently see reports—I'm in the process of reading a 6,700-page report on the CIA enhanced interrogation process—and it is typical to see a redaction where a couple lines or a name, name of a country, name of a CIA agent might be deleted for the purpose of protecting that individual. But in this case, this report, this Joint Report, 28 pages were excised, a whole section of it! That's extraordinary. And it points to the need for disclosing that information, in order to make sure that that report is fully understood. I think Walter and I, and the Senator, agree that this is very important information to have out there, and that we jointly feel, as well as Representative Massie, that this presents no risks to sources, or individuals in terms of disclosing this, for our intelligence apparatus; we feel, on the other hand, this will make us stronger, make our country stronger, and better prepared and better informed, if we disclose this information, as we rightly should.

So with that, I'm going to turn this back over to Walter Jones, so that he can introduce the esteemed Senator. Thank you.

REP. JONES: I want to, after I make my comments about Senator Graham, I'd like for Terry Strada to come first, Sylvia Carver to come second, and then Abraham Scott, third. And then if you would stand here, or if you need to sit, sit, so that when we get to the questions—.

I want to remind you, that after this report came out it was the Bush Administration that determined that these 28 pages should be classified; and as Stephen said, we've read the report, and there's nothing about national security. I'm going to let Senator Graham speak in detail about his concern about why this has not been released, then remind you that Sen. Bob Graham spent 18 years in the Senate: He's a man that has the nation's respect, for the type of person that he is. He and Senator [richard] Shelby released the Joint Inquiry Report into 9/11 in December of 2002. Again, the report goes to the White House for final review, the White House, at that time under George Bush, decided that the 28 pages should be classified.

The families have suffered long enough. The American people have been denied the truth long enough. It is time for the truth to come out. As Stephen said, I want to thank Sen. Bob Graham. He has a daughter who was sworn in to the United States House of Representatives yesterday, and congratulations on that Senator. With that, a man who has driven this issue, since 2002, I'm not even going to begin to tell you what he has done! From court action, to other types of action, because he knows that the truth will set America free!

So with that, I introduce the esteemed, Senator from Florida, Bob Graham. Thank you. [applause]

SEN. BOB GRAHAM: Walter, thank you very much.

Thank you, very much. And I, too, want to thank Walter and Steve—Congressmen Jones and Lynch—for their leadership in bringing this matter to the attention of the Congress. I want to thank the family members, who have been without question the most influential force in all of the changes that have occurred as a result of 9/11, and will be the most significant force in terms of convincing the President that it is time to give the American people the truth.

Needless to say, my remarks that I will espouse this morning, are considerably different than they would have been, but for events in Paris this morning, which in my judgment bring this matter into its proper focus.

But first a little background: After 9/11, it was clear that the Congress was going to be called upon to conduct some form of an inquiry as to what happened. The decision by the leadership, was to combine the Intelligence Committees of the House and the Senate into a single body; for the first time in the history of the Congress that that had occurred, for purposes of carrying out this Inquiry. The Inquiry took the year of 2002. It included hundreds of witnesses, tens of thousands of pages of documentation, leading up to an over-800-page report which was submitted in December of 2002. Some six months later, the declassified version emerged, and we were shocked to see that an important chapter in the report had not been redacted, that is, as Congressman Lynch and Congressman Jones said, a word or a phrase here or there, but an entire chapter.

Since that chapter continues to be classified, none of us can talk about it in public, but I think it's fair to say that it is a central chapter, in terms of understanding, who was the support network that allowed 9/11 to occur. When we saw that this chapter had been eliminated, there was an immediate outcry. Sen. Dick Shelby, Republican from Alabama, who had been the chair and was at that time was the vice-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and I, issued a statement to the effect that we were intimately familiar with that chapter, we considered it to have no adverse effect on national security, that it was important to the overall understanding of 9/11 and it should be released.

We have subsequently been joined in that by others who were involved, including the chairman of the House Committee, Porter Goss, who wishes that he could have been here today to participate, as well, and subsequently, the citizen 9/11 Commission's two co-chairs, Lee Hamilton and Tom Kean, have also advocated that these 28 pages be released.

Shortly after the declassification process ended, a letter was prepared, signed by almost half of the membership of the United States Senate, bipartisan, including, Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and Senator [hillary] Clinton of New York, all calling upon President Bush to release the 28 pages.

What have been the consequences of this refusal to release the pages? And let me say, while the 28 pages are maybe the most important and the most prominent, they are by no means the only example of where information that is important to understanding the full extent of 9/11 have also been withheld from the American people. So the comments I'm going to make are specifically about the 28 pages, but more generally about a pattern of cover-up, that for 12 years, has kept the

American people from a full understanding, of the most horrific attack against the United States in its history.

The consequences, in my judgment are three:

One, is a denial of the truth. A core question in 9/11 is, did these 19 people act alone, or did they have a network of support which facilitated their ability to carry out a very complex plot. No one who has looked closely at the facts, including the individuals that I just named, has come to a conclusion other than that it is highly improbable that the 19 people could have acted alone. Yet, the official position of the United States government has been that they did act alone, and that there is no necessity for further inquiry into the question of whether there was a support network.

We're now in the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, and we've had a national history classroom over the past few years, as incidents that were consistent with a date in the current era coincided with a date during that war. One of the pieces of information that we have learned, at least I have learned, is that President Lincoln had a policy throughout the war, that every message that came into the government, specifically into the State Department, was a matter of public record, on a daily basis. His feeling was that if the support of the American people was going to be maintained, in a war which was increasingly bloody, many loss of lives and loss of treasure, that it took the confidence of the American people, that their government was conducting itself in an appropriate manner, and that the key to that confidence was disclosure.

I wish we applied the Lincolnesque standard to what happened in 9/11.

The second issue, is the issue of justice. Some 3,000 members of the families who were lost on 9/11 have been trying for years to get justice through our system for the losses that they have suffered. The position of the United States government has been to protect Saudi Arabia, at virtually every step of the judicial process. When the United States government was called upon to take a position, it has been a position adverse to the interests of the United States citizens seeking justice, and protective of the government which, in my judgment, was the most responsible for that network of support.

Again, an example from the Civil War: The British had signed a neutrality agreement with the United States that they would not be involved in the Civil War. It was found out, subsequently, that in fact, their shipyards had been building military vessels for the Confederacy. After the war ended, the United States didn't forget; it did not walk away from the negative effects of Britain's perfidy. Rather, it pursued it, and finally, secured a recognition of what the British had done, and some compensation for the consequences of their actions. What a difference between the way this country saw itself as a prideful defender of justice for its citizens, and what we are experiencing today.

The third consequence is the issue of national security, and frequently those who have defended nondisclosure, have said, this cannot be made available to the American people, because it would be adverse to our national security. It will affect methods and sources of information, or other information that is inappropriate to be made publicly known. As the two Congressmen have just said, they both read the report — not 12 years ago, as I participated in writing the report — but

they have read it recently, and have both come to the same conclusion that we did, a dozen years ago, that there is no threat to national security in disclosure.

I'm going to make the case today, that there's a threat to national security by non-disclosure, and we saw another chapter of that, today, in Paris.

Here are some facts:

The Saudis know what they did. They are not persons who are unaware of the consequences of their government's actions. Second, the Saudis know that we know what they did! Somebody in the Federal government has read these 28 pages, someone in the Federal government has read all the other documents that have been covered up so far. And the Saudis know that.

What would you think the Saudis' position would be, if they knew what they had done, they knew that the United States knew what they had done, and they also observed that the United States had taken a position of either passivity, or actual hostility to letting those facts be known? What would the Saudi government do in that circumstance, which is precisely where they have been, for more than a decade?

Well, one, they have continued, maybe accelerated their support for one of the most extreme forms of Islam, Wahhabism, throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. And second, they have supported their religious fervor, with financial and other forms of support, of the institutions which were going to carry out those extreme forms of Islam. Those institutions have included mosques, madrassas, and military. Al-Qaeda was a creature of Saudi Arabia; the regional groups such as al-Shabaab have been largely creatures of Saudi Arabia; and now, ISIS is the latest creature!

Yes, I hope and I trust that the United States will crush ISIS, but if we think that is the definition of victory, we are being very naive! ISIS is a consequence, not a cause—it is a consequence of the spread of extremism, largely by Saudi Arabia, and if it is crushed, there will be another institution established, financed, supported, to carry on the cause.

So the consequences of our passivity to Saudi Arabia, have been that we have tolerated this succession of institutions, violent, extreme, extremely hurtful to the region of the Middle East, and a threat to the world, as we saw this morning in Paris.

So I conclude by saying, this is a very important issue. It may seem stale to some, but it is as current as the headlines that we will read today. It is an issue that goes to the core of the United States' contract with its people, that the people would give the government the credibility and support to govern; the government would give the people the information upon which they can make good judgments, as to the appropriateness of governmental action. It's as fundamental as justice to our people, who have suffered so, by this evil union of extremism and a very powerful nation-state. And it is the security of the people of the United States of America.

So, I again thank the Congressmen for their leadership. I hope that they will soon be joined by a rising tide of other members of Congress who recognize the importance of this issue. And then,

finally, that the President of the United States will declare that he is going to adopt the Lincolnesque standard of full disclosure, and rely on the intelligence and judgment and patriotism of the American people to decide what the appropriate course of action should be.

Thank you. [applause]

TERRY STRADA: Hello, everyone. My name is Terry Strada. I am the national co-chair of the 9/11 Families and Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism. I stand here today, united with members of the U.S. Congress and my fellow 9/11 family members and survivors, seeking truth, accountability, and justice for all those that we lost and loved.

We all know al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden attacked us on 9/11, but that is only half the truth. We believe the other half lies in the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Inquiry.

9/11 was an attack of unquantifiable loss, death, and destruction. Over 13 years ago, I never could have imagined my life, the lives of my three children, and the lives of my late husband Tom's family, could be destroyed and torn apart by terrorists. I could not fathom that our country could be attacked by radical Islamists who have pledged, repeatedly, and remorselessly, to perpetuate heinous war crimes against innocent men, women, and children on American soil.

Incredibly, this is the world we live in. And private citizens, and Congress, must take action against those who are responsible for aiding and abetting the 19 hijackers that murdered nearly 3,000 innocent people on American soil, no matter who they may be, no matter what government they are, or no matter what country they come from.

Terrorism is pure evil, and so are its planners, ideologies, and their bankrollers. Money is the lifeblood of terrorism, and we must implore our government officials, the State Department, the Department of Justice, and our President, to get tough on terrorism financing. To hold accountable those who funded 9/11 and continue to fund al-Qaeda, ISIS, and countless other terrorist organizations, that remain dedicated to plotting future terrorist attacks against our nation.

When former President George W. Bush classified the 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry, he effectively protected the people who gave financial and logistical aid to at least some of the 19 hijackers, while they were here in this country. He effectively denied the 9/11 victims and survivors, and the American people, the truth about who was behind the worst attack on American soil. By hiding the truth about who financed 9/11, the guilty parties have gone unpunished, free to continue financing terrorist organizations, and, as a consequence, we have witnessed the creation of branches of al-Qaeda, like ISIS, grow at an alarming rate.

It has long been reported the subjects of the redacted 28 pages point the finger at Saudi Arabia, who have given billions of dollars to promote Wahhabi Islam, the very ideology that spawned those terrorist organizations and define the jihadists' agendas. Tragically, when those countries have become imperilled by the very monsters they help to create, they have turned to the United States to protect them, as is the case now with ISIS. We are once again engaged in conflicts

against an amoral enemy, because we did nothing to prevent the funding of these organizations 13 years ago.

This cycle must stop. We must recognize and expose that our true enemy includes the backroom bankrollers, who repeatedly enable the frontline terrorists, who kill themselves, and never act again. We must declassify the 28 pages, expose the bankrolling enablers, and take action against them, or we will continue to face future waves of willing, frontline terrorists.

Since my husband was murdered, all I have ever wanted is justice. The thousands of victims' families and survivors I represent, also want justice for the murder of their loved ones, and the pain and suffering inflicted on us. When the Twin Towers imploded, our loved ones were literally torn to pieces, and flung from river to river, on the streets and on the rooftops of Lower Manhattan. Just as was done at the Pentagon and in the tragic, yet heroic crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. They were returned to us in pieces spanning years, or, for families like mine, they never came home to a final resting place at all.

We want the truth, and to hold accountable those who supported the 19 hijackers and enabled al-Qaeda.

I'm going to repeat myself here. We want justice. We want accountability. We want the truth.

To achieve the truth, we must declassify the redacted 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry Report.

As you've heard here today, there is no threat to national security to release these 28 pages. So, therefore, there is no reason to keep them classified.

To achieve justice and accountability, we must pass the Justice Against the Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). This is a bill that passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee without objection on Sept. 11, 2014, and voted out of the Senate in December with unanimous consent. This legislation will clarify existing law, and enable the victims of terrorism to exercise their right to hold accountable those guilty of giving financial aid and logistical support to terrorists who carry out heinous acts of murder, death, and destruction here on American soil, and help us achieve the justice we deserve.

Where is the outrage? I want to know; that Saudi Arabia, a country, our supposed ally, not only bankrolled al-Qaeda, and the worst terrorist attack on American soil, but was also instrumental in implementing an intricate web of operatives in numerous places around the world, including right here in our own country, to carry out a complex plan of bringing the 19 hijackers here to America. To name a few places: Sarasota, Florida; San Diego, California; Herndon, Virginia; Paterson, New Jersey.

Where is the outrage, that they continue to fund terrorist organizations like ISIS, which is killing, raping, and beheading innocent people at a rapacious rate, while at the same time recruiting from here in the West for more new members? And where is the indignation, that 9/11 victims' families and survivors have been denied the right to hold accountable in a United States court room, the people responsible for the incineration of nearly 3,000 people?

We need the 114th Congress to direct President Obama to release, declassify, the redacted 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry, and we also need the 114th Congress to act swiftly, and pass JASTA into law. Our national security depends on this.

Thank you. [applause]

SYLVIA CARVER: Good morning. My name is Sylvia Carver. I'm here to speak on behalf of my sister Sharon Ann Carver, who was murdered at the Pentagon on 9/ll, as well as the other family members. My statement will be brief.

I want to make a personal request to the President of the United States to please, please, declassify the 28 pages. The families have the right to know the full story. They have a right to seek justice for their loved ones. They have a right to closure, and we cannot have that closure without the full answer, the full story. The full 28 pages must be released, so my family can have closure as well as all the other 9/11 families.

Thank you very much.

ABRAHAM SCOTT: Good morning. My name is Abraham Scott. I'm a retired Army officer. I lost my wife, Janice Marie Scott, in the Pentagon, along with the Carver sister. They were in an office—there were over 40 members of that organization that were killed that day—and I stand before you in full support of the initiative of declassifying of the 28 pages, as well as passing JASTA. And thank you, and God bless.

REP. JONES: Let me make one quick comment, and then we're going to take questions. You can ask anyone. I wanted the families who have suffered so badly, who just spoke, to be on one side, so you can see them, and take the picture. Any of you from the press, make sure you get this picture of pain. That's all I ask you to do.

This resolution that we have put in to call on the President, to do what is right for the American people and the 9/11 families. Senator Graham being here is just absolutely, just absolutely what we need to get the Senate to join us with a companion resolution, in the Senate, and to hold a news conference, and let's put the pressure on the President. I do not know why, after I read these 28 pages, why there's anyone who is reluctant to release the 28 pages. Steven Lynch and I—and I have a copy of this letter if you want it before you leave today—wrote the President in April, asking him to declassify the information. He's told the families on two separate occasions, I will declassify the 28 pages. That's been in the press!

We wrote him a letter in April, asking him to please declassify the information. Today, we have not received a response. We have called the White House numerous times. They've been responsive to this point: "We're working on a response. We've got to let different agencies look at the response."

It is time that the Senate joined the House, and joined the wishes of the American people, and the wishes of the 9/11 families.

If you'd like to ask questions, please just say who you are, and which person you'd like to come up, and we'll be glad to answer your questions.

I'll go here; who'd you like to ask?

JEFF STEINBERG: Senator Graham. Jeff Steinberg, Executive Intelligence Review.

Senator, you mentioned that beyond the 28 pages, there are other materials that have been withheld. I know that there's a situation right now before a Federal court in Florida, and I wonder if you'd say something about that, because I think it's indicative of the idea that this was not something localized to only the issues raised in the 28 pages, involving San Diego, but this is a whole other dimension that really is suggestive of the magnitude of what needs to be told to the American people.

SEN. GRAHAM: Let me just briefly tell the story of Sarasota.

It was not until almost 10 years after 9/11 that we became aware that there was a prominent Saudi family, one member of whom had been an advisor to the Royal family, living in Sarasota. There were also three of the hijackers had done their flight training, at a small school near Sarasota. And during the period that those three were living there, they had extensive contacts with that Saudi family.

Less than two weeks before 9/11, under what law enforcement described as "urgent conditions," the Saudi family left Sarasota, and returned to Saudi Arabia, raising the question, did someone tip them off that there was an event about to occur, and it would be better that they not be in the United States?

Through a press group in Florida, we've been trying to get released the FBI investigation that occurred, which probed the role of the family, and the hijackers.

The FBI initially said, they could not respond to our Freedom of Information request because there was nothing to respond with. There were no documents relative to the investigative.

Fortunately, there was a strong Federal judge, who would not accept that as truth. And he and the plaintiffs pursued, and today, 80,000 pages have been turned over by the FBI to that Federal judge, in the face of their original statement that there was no information, and that judge has, for the past several months, been reviewing the 80,000 pages, in order to make a judgment as to which of those warrant continued classification, and which can be released to the public.

I cite that as an example of the fact that this is not a narrow issue of withholding information at one place, in one time. This is a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11, by all of the agencies of the Federal government, which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11.

Q: Fox News, Washington. I realize the importance of releasing these in terms of giving the families closure, and the more principled fact that the 28 page be released so that the American

public will know, but I sense that your persistence about this suggests that maybe there's more. Do you think that it would impact foreign policy, or changes in national security at all, what's in the details of these 28 pages?

REP. JONES: I will respond. My answer would be "no." I do not understand how you can have a strong foreign policy when you are trying to hide the truth from the American people. How can your policymakers make foreign policy? That, to me, Joe, is just not fair. Because as Senator Graham has said, through the history of America, going back to his point of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War, that America's strength is the truth. And No, I do not think this would have any negative effect, I mean, to our foreign policy at all! I think it would strengthen our ability to have a sound foreign policy, that would be good for the American people.

I don't know if anyone — Stephen, or Senator Graham wants to speak to that.

Yes, sir.

Q: Patrick Terpstra with the Cox Media Group. I guess for Senator Graham: Since we have not seen the 28 pages and I know you can't give us all that's in there, of course because it's classified, but can you give us as much information as precisely as you can, as to exactly what it says about the Saudi involves in 9/11?

SEN. GRAHAM: The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11 and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier. The two congressmen have read the report much more recently than I and if they have any further comments...

REP. LYNCH: I think we would be tiptoeing up to the line of — there's a reason this is classified. I think the proper role for the government would be to have the President declassify the report. Let it speak for itself. I'll just leave it at that.

Q: Just one quick followup. When you speak of Saudi Arabia, Senator, are you talking about the government of Saudi Arabia, or are you talking about private actors in Saudi Arabia?

SEN. GRAHAM: Given the nature of the Kingdom, I'm speaking of the Kingdom. In fact, in the litigation that these good people have been involved with, when any institution, whether it's a financial institution, a charitable or religious institution is raised as a possible coconspirator in 9/11, the Kingdom throws the blanket of sovereign immunity over every entity. So it is a society in which it is difficult to make the kinds of distinctions between public, private, religious, that we would in the United States.

Q: Steven Nelson from U.S. News. A question to the sitting Congressmen. You have the ability to ability to release these pages with immunity. Have you considered doing that? Might you be able to do that some time in the near future, if the President doesn't declassify?

REP. JONES: Walter Jones from North Carolina; I'll speak first. When you have a President, Democrat or Republican, who has the authority to release the declassified information, or to determine that it should be the declassified — what we're trying to do is to put pressure on the

White House. We're trying to say that the House of Representatives, I don't think it will happen within the House of Representatives, no, no. This is too — the President has the authority to declassify this information and I think that what we're trying to do, we hope, with this news conference today, that there will be a Senator, who will say, "by God, it's time. Let's declassify the information," and put in the same type of resolution that Stephen Lynch and Thomas Massie and I put in on the House side, yesterday.

REP. LYNCH: I don't think I can add to that, other than, you know, one of the other hats I wear is, I'm the ranking Democrat on the National Security Subcommittee on Oversight; and the proper way for this to become public information is for the President to declassify it. And that's the way our government should work.

It's interesting that we are not hearing strong arguments from the White House as to the reasons that they refuse to declassify. It's silence, inertia. So, I just think we need to keep on pushing. We've got 50-some odd new Members of Congress that just came in; we'll educate them, we will try to make government work the way it's supposed to work. And I agree with the Senator and the Congressman, that this'll make us stronger, this will definitely make us stronger.

The release of the report will influence our national security policy and to some degree our foreign policy as well.

REP. JONES: The lady from... you had a question.

Q: Eleanor Clift, Daily Beast, for Senator Graham. Have you had any interest from any Senators and are you actively trying to pursue cooperation on this? And secondly, many of the reports say that the pages aren't being released because of embarrassment. Embarrassment by whom? Of whom? If you could shed some light on that.

SEN. GRAHAM: Well, it has been my experience over the ten years that I was on the Intelligence Committee, and chair in 2001 and 2002, that much of what passes for classification for national security reasons is really classified because it would disclose incompetence. And since the people who are classifying are also often the subject of the materials, they have an institutional interest in avoiding exposure of their incompetence. So I believe that it is important that all of the information about foreign involvement in 9/11 be disclosed.

In answer to your first question. No, in fact, Congressman Jones and Lynch and I have been huddling on this over the past couple of days, and I will be making contacts with Members of the Senate to encourage them to introduce companion legislation.

REP. JONES: Okay, let me take — these will be the last four questions. Start with this young man, then I'll come to you in that corner and that'll be it for the day.

Q: William Hicks from the Daily News Service. This for the two representatives. Is there any organized pushback in Congress about this resolution? I know it failed to move forward last year?

REP. JONES: The problem is, and I understand this: Most members in Congress, we have great respect for each other, forget the party affiliations, we trust each other; but when you're asking someone to sign on a resolution that they have not read, it's pretty tough, really. The names that we had last year, every one but two had read the pages. The two that did not read the pages, said that they trust us enough, and that was all — everyone, not just Stephen, and Thomas, and myself — that they would go ahead and go on the resolution, with the hopes of reading.

Now, let me explain: It's not the easiest thing to read. It's not like going to the Library of Congress. You have to write a letter to the chairman of the House Intell Committee, and make a request that you be given permission, to go to a classified room and to sit there; you take no notes, you just sit there with somebody watching you read. So it's not the easiest thing to read the 28 pages, you've got to really want to push for it, and you're going to demand that you get the right to read it.

But we think if Senator Graham and the families can get some other Senators to really put the pressure on, and you have members that will say, well, the issue is the kind that I would do this just for the families if nothing else; because the resolution is just very simple, it just says, "Mr. President, please do your job. You have the authority to do it."

REP. LYNCH: Yeah, I agree with everything that Walter said. I would say, that, you know, this is 28 pages. Now, I think a lot of folks voted on the health care bill without reading it, but [laughter] that was 2400 pages, so they probably had a good excuse on that one!

But, I'm at a point where, I'm getting a little frustrated, and it is a cumbersome process: You've got to go, you've got to write the letter, you've got to get permission, you've got to sit down; you do have maybe a couple of Intelligence Committee staffers on the other side of the table, watching you while you read.

From my own experience, after I read the 28 pages, I told the two people that were observing me, I said, "I'm going to file legislation on this," I told them, "you can go back to your bosses and tell 'em that after I read the 28 pages, I said, I'm going to file legislation to make this public." So, I just wanted to be completely honest with them.

And I think that's the response most Members will have, if they sit down and read this report. So we'll keep pushing on it. But I'm going to try a different tack this time: I'm going to work the floor and just have Members take my word for it, "You need to sign this. We need to get this disclosed to the American people," rather than asking them, you know — "you can read it after it's made public, you know." Kind of like the health care bill [laughter]...

But I think we're beyond the point where we've been patient enough with folks, and we need a big push in the House, and then, with the Senator's help a big push in the Senate as well.

REP. JONES: We have three more, and that'll be it, we're going to have to cut it off. You can meet with anyone when it's over, and that will be it. Go ahead, with the tan coat on first.

Q: You know, our standard for the truth is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, or else you are lying. Not to release the whole truth is to perpetuate a lie and a lie about the greatest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. And like any lie, this one grows like a cancer, and the consequences of what happens from not revealing this, perpetuate themselves with things like ISIS, and as was mentioned today the terrorist attack in France.

But also, we're in a situation of economic warfare, and we see the Kingdom participating in a major way to lower the price of oil which may harm some of our enemies, but it maybe harm us and may take down our financial system.

It is urgent that this be released so that we have a public hearing of exactly the consequences of what these people are up to, because those consequences grow every day and threaten this nation more every day.

And I just want to end by saying this: That we really owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Congress people here, and to the families, because they are the patriots of this Republic that have stood for the truth, not only then, but now and in our future, that threaten us directly. [applause]

REP. JONES: Thank you very much.

Q: Les Jameson with hr428.org. We're working to help the cause to generate as much energy as possible to get the congressmen to read the 28 pages, because after hearing your reactions and how it transformed your understanding of 9/11, then that alone I think will be a huge accomplishment to move forward. And we soon heard that Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida attempted to get access and was denied.

Could you speak to that please and say what you would suggest as a reaction from the public?

REP. LYNCH: I know some of us have responsibilities that require top secret clearance and that might be a situation — I know he was member, and then he was not a member, and then he got re-elected. It may be just a non-continuity of his status, but I think he can repair that. I think he'll have an opportunity to read it at some point. His classification may not have been reestablished when he went in there to read. I've seen that amongst some staffers. I think each congressional office, including their staffers have two people I think that are entitled to top secret clearance, but they've got to go through that whole process. So that may be the situation with Mr. Grayson.

Q: Karl Golovin, jfkvigil.com. I'm a retired U.S. Customs agent and in the Fall of 2001, myself and many other agents were assigned to Fresh Kills landfill, where the rubble of World Trade Center 7 was brought, and we were tasked with sifting through WTC7, the 47-story third tower that collapsed that day, and combing out computer components that other agencies didn't want left in the landfill. And I can just testify from my perspective as an investigator that those three towers were not brought down solely by two airplanes and their jet fuel. That there is abundant evidence of controlled demolition of those three towers.

My question is whether these 28 pages will point at all towards that reality and the potential of true false-flag terrorism in this event.

REP. JONES: Senator, why don't you answer that? I've got an answer, too.

SEN. GRAHAM: My answer is no.

REP. JONES: That's it. The 28 pages does not deal with that issue at all.

John and you will be the last.

Q: Jack Larson, iamthefaceoftruth.com. My question is, I've heard before that there is multiple foreign governments that could be actually implicated in the pages? Is it just totally Saudi Arabia, or is there other active governments that could be involved?

REP. LYNCH: I personally think that the report speaks for itself. And there's one thing that needs to be said here: Once these 28 pages are released, the press will do their job. We've got some smart folks out there on the part of the press. They will investigate this and I think there will be a collective debate and discussion about the implications of these 28 pages, and your question and others will be answered. And that's the whole process here. We'll do a deep dive on this collectively, with the full focus of transparency that it deserves. And I think there will be — you know, I'll learn from the debate. Even though I've read the 28 pages, I'm sure there'll other sets of eyes that will look at that same 28 pages and come up with things that I did not immediate recognize.

So I think all of this is an important understanding process and that transparency from all of these different angles will really enlighten our understanding of this whole terrible and tragic event.

REP. JONES: Terry, do y'all want to say anything before we close?

STRADA: No, I think we're fine. No, actually, there's also another organization, 28pages.org that the American people can access and go on there and learn how to reach out to their Congress people, and their Senators and make their phone calls, and move this movement along. That's another very important element.

REP. JONES: I want to thank Senator Graham and the families for being here today; my dear friend and good friend Stephen Lynch. Thank you, the press, because the only way we're going to get this done, quite frankly, is your help. You've got to help us continue to beat the drum! We're going to do everything within the House and Senate that we can do with our friends, many of them here today. But when it really comes down to it, it's your interest that will help us get this done.

Thank you so much for being here, today. Thank you. [applause]

Thursday, January 8, 2015