Feature Article

US issues Travel Alert for

Americans in Europe

Intelligence sources say al-Qaeda plans to carry out attacks in the UK, France and Germany

The US government has warned its citizens

 in an official travel advisory to be vigilant travelling in Europe,

amid fears of an al-Qaeda commando-style attack.

The state department advised Americans to take care while in tourist areas.

The department did not specify a country, issuing the updated guidance for the whole of Europe.

Security sources have warned of an al-Qaeda plan to send teams of gunmen to crowded places to kill civilians.

They said cities in the UK, France and Germany were thought to be targets for the militants, in attacks analysts feared could be similar to the 2008 atrocities in Mumbai.

After intelligence details of the plot had been leaked to the US media last week, officials said that the plan had not been stopped but that an attack was not expected to be carried out imminently.

Past attacks

The state department alert said European governments had "taken action to guard against a terrorist attack", but that "terrorists may elect to use a variety of means and weapons and target both official and private interests".

Unfolding threat

16 Sep: France raises terror alert level to "reinforced red", one from top

22 Sep: FBI director Robert Mueller speaks of al-Qaeda threat against Europe

29 Sep: Security sources tell BBC of Mumbai-style plot to seize and kill hostages in Europe

1 Oct: US officials tell reporters Osama Bin Laden may be among planners of attack on Europe

UK travellers warned over Europe

"US citizens are reminded of the potential for terrorists to attack public transportation systems and other tourist infrastructure," the alert sad.

"Terrorists have targeted and attacked subway and rail systems, as well as aviation and maritime services."

Such an alert could have negative consequences for European tourism if travellers fear that there is a risk of terror attacks and cancel their journeys.

However, US citizens were not told to avoid travelling in Europe, and the advisory is less serious than a travel warning.

After the US alert was issued, the UK confirmed it had updated its guidance for travellers in Germany and France, warning of a "high threat" from terrorism.

And UK Home Secretary Theresa May said Britain would continue to work with its allies to combat militants.

"I would urge the public to report any suspicious activity to the police in support of the efforts of our security services to discover, track and disrupt terrorist activity," she said.

French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said the threat of a terrorist attack was real, but that the country was not raising its alert level - currently at its second-highest.

"We are analysing what they say. We are taking their comments into account. And we are naturally vigilant," Mr Hortefeux told AP Television News.

Drone attacks

After news of the possible plot first came to light, US anti-terrorism officials were reported to have said that they believed al-Qaeda leaders, including Osama Bin Laden, were involved.

“I won't let any terrorists try to keep me away from enjoying a European vacation” - Jake Novak

No arrests have been made, but European officials said several individuals were still under surveillance.

The suspects include British citizens of Pakistani origin and German citizens of Afghan origin.

Recent US drone raids in Pakistan reportedly targeted al-Qaeda militants linked to the plans.

US forces have carried out at least 25 drone strikes in the last month in Pakistan's tribal areas - the highest monthly total for the past six years, US media reported.

The US has been pushing Pakistan to increase their search for the militants, who are believed to be hiding in a mountainous border region in the country.

Feature Article

FBI: Gunman at Army post
accused of threatening to kill Obama

By the CNN Wire Staff

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Robert A. Quinones had done two tours in Iraq, his neighbor says
• The former soldier faces multiple charges after a hostage incident
• Charges say he expressed intentions to kill President Obama, former President Clinton
• A search of his residence yields many weapons, an affidavit states

RELATED TOPICS

• Assassination 
• Fort Stewart
• Barack Obama
• Bill Clinton

(CNN) -- A former soldier arrested after a hostage incident at a military base in Georgia faces multiple charges that include threatening to kill President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton, according to federal court documents filed Tuesday.

Robert Anthony Quinones, 29, of Hinesville, Georgia, was arrested Monday after the two-hour hostage situation at Winn Community Hospital on Fort Stewart, about 45 miles from Savannah, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Officials and a family member said he had demanded mental health care at the hospital.

Quinones is charged with assault of a federal officer and kidnapping in the incident, which ended with the gunman's surrender and no injuries.

After he was taken into custody and during interviews, Quinones "expressed his plans, preparation and intentions to kill President Obama and former President Clinton," according to an affidavit filed in federal cour. "Quinones detailed his studies of Secret Service protocols, sniper techniques and means of disguise and weapons concealment to implement his assassination plans."

A search of his residence resulted in the discovery of 11 long guns, four pistols, multiple rounds of ammunition and dozens of bayonets and knives, according to the affidavit.

Authorities also found books and manuals about FBI hostage rescue teams, Osama bin Laden, Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, the Russian Mafia and other topics, according to the affidavit signed by FBI and Secret Service agents.

Quinones, when asked if he would kill Obama or Clinton if given a chance, said, "Yes. On a scale of 1 to 10 about being serious, I am a 10," the affidavit said.

Quinones was discharged from the military in February and had a civilian job at Fort Stewart, said the FBI, which released no other information on his military record.

Quinones' mother, Janet Gladwell, told the Associated Press he was medically discharged from the Army months ago because he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.

A neighbor, Jerry Franklin, said he had known Quinones for several years. "He was a good kid," he said.

Franklin, 48, an Army retiree, said Quinones would talk with he and other veterans because they understood the stress brought on by combat. Quinones had served two tours in Iraq, said Franklin.

"All I know is he saw death," Franklin told CNN.

"Maybe they [the Army] should have helped him a little more," said Franklin, adding he was not blaming the military for the incident. Quinones might not have received sufficient individual treatment after returning from Iraq, Franklin said.

Quinones worked at one of Fort Stewart's post-exchange stores. the neighbor said, adding he didn't believe Quinones had been treated at Winn Army Community Hospital, scene of Monday's hostage situation.

The hostage incident started at about 4 a.m. Monday when the former Army serviceman entered the facility and demanded care, spokesman Kevin Larson said Monday.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Phillips, a senior Fort Stewart commander, told the Associated Press the former soldier told hostages he needed help for mental problems "connected, I'm quite certain, to his past service."

The gunman immediately took one hostage and went to the third floor, which houses the behavioral health unit, where he held two more people at gunpoint, including a nurse practitioner, Larson said. The nurse, an Army major, was able to calm the man and authorities started negotiations, Larson said. The gunman eventually surrendered and was taken into custody for questioning, he said.

Quinones was armed with an MP5 assault rifle, an AR-15 assault rifle, a 9 millimeter handgun and a .38-caliber pistol, according to the affidavit. It accuses the gunman of pointing a firearm at an Army negotiator.

Quinones' attorney, Karl Christian Zipperer, said late Tuesday afternoon he had just gotten the case and would have no comment. A phone number for Quinones in Hinesville was disconnected.

The suspect's initial appearance is scheduled for Wednesday before a U.S. magistrate judge in Savannah, the FBI said in a statement.

CNN's Phil Gast contributed to this report.

Choice America Network

Greetings from Choice America Network!!!

Feature Article

Microchip maker
'hid ties to cancer'

Company didn't tell public of studies

linking sub-skin device to rat tumors

WorldNetDaily.com

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. – The safety of implantable tracking chips in human beings is suddenly in focus with the revelation the devices could cause cancer, and that studies showing links to the disease were kept under wraps.

According to the Associated Press, despite the chips' approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, neither their maker nor federal regulators publicly mentioned a series of studies dating to the mid-1990s that found chip implants had "induced" malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.

"The transponders were the cause of the tumors," Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, told AP as he explained the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.

Implantable VeriChip, about the size of a grain of rice

The wire service says leading cancer specialists reviewed the research, and "while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people."

The chips are made by VeriChip Corp., a division of Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.

The company says some 2,000 have been implanted in humans worldwide, and VeriChip sees a target market of 45 million Americans looking to be medically monitored.

"We stand by our implantable products which have been approved by the FDA and/or other U.S. regulatory authorities," Scott Silverman, VeriChip Corp. chairman and chief executive officer, said in a written response to AP questions.

The company was "not aware of any studies that have resulted in malignant tumors in laboratory rats, mice and certainly not dogs or cats," but he added millions of domestic pets have been implanted with microchips, without reports of significant problems.

"In fact, for more than 15 years we have used our encapsulated glass transponders with FDA approved anti-migration caps and received no complaints regarding malignant tumors caused by our product."

While the FDA is also standing by its approval of the technology, federal officials declined repeated AP requests to specify what studies it reviewed before giving the green light.

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson.

Just two weeks after the chip's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post. Within five months, he became a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions, getting compensated in cash and stock options.

Thompson, a 2008 Republican presidential nominee, says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA's approval process of the RFID tag, reports AP.

I didn't even know VeriChip before I stepped down from the Department of Health and Human Services," he said.

As WND previously reported, Thompson pledged that he himself would get chipped with the device, but to date has never gone through with the procedure.

The studies between 1996 and 2006 revealed lab mice that had the chips implanted in them developed malignant tumors, most of which encased the implants.

The AP reports:

• A 1998 study in Ridgefield, Conn., of 177 mice reported cancer incidence to be slightly higher than 10 percent ? a result the researchers described as "surprising."
• A 2006 study in France detected tumors in 4.1 percent of 1,260 microchipped mice. This was one of six studies in which the scientists did not set out to find microchip-induced cancer but noticed the growths incidentally. They were testing compounds on behalf of chemical and pharmaceutical companies; but they ruled out the compounds as the tumors' cause. Because researchers only noted the most obvious tumors, the French study said, "These incidences may therefore slightly underestimate the true occurrence" of cancer.
• In 1997, a study in Germany found cancers in 1 percent of 4,279 chipped mice. The tumors "are clearly due to the implanted microchips," the authors wrote.

"There's no way in the world, having read this information, that I would have one of those chips implanted in my skin, or in one of my family members," Dr. Robert Benezra, head of the Cancer Biology Genetics Program at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, told AP.

"I mean, these are bad diseases. They are life-threatening. And given the preliminary animal data, it looks to me that there's definitely cause for concern."

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 CHOICE EDITORIAL

Feature Article

REPEAL THE 14th AMENDMENT

by Tom Hamilton

Choice America Network

It is time to repeal the 14th amendment. For those of you unaware what that is ....shame on you! Turn off the propaganda channels and educate yourself!

No matter what you hear in the media... The 14th amendment is at the heart of OUR illegal immigration problem that we face today.

Have you ever heard the term "ANCHOR BABY". Well, the 14th amendment to the constitution is at the root of the problem. The Anchor Baby phenomenon is simply an abuse of our 14th Amendment which originally was designed to ensure that black Americans still recovering from slavery, were given the same rights as every other American. I think we can all agree that that time is well in the rear view mirror of America....100 years in the rear view!

What the 14th amendment actually states, among other things, that all persons born in the United States are considered citizens and are subject to all the privileges and responsibilities that such citizenship entails. Why should children born in the US to undocumented immigrants be considered citizens simply by virtue of their birth?

Once the child is born on American soil, he or she instantly attains U.S. citizenship. Not only that, but the Illegal parents are allowed to stay and since they have no income the baby is eligible for welfare, WIC and food stamps. Guess who pays for that? You guessed it...you and me...the already overburdened taxpayer struggling just to make ends meet in this economy.

There are an estimated 350,000 of these Anchor Babies born in the U.S. every year....that's almost a thousand a day...the equivalent of 4 completely packed jumbo jets flying into the US every damn day. Forget just focusing on border security...this would be the quickest easiest and CHEAPEST fix to the problem. It is estimated that these ILLEGALS consume over $120 billion annually in government services...that's right...$120 with a B behind it. Unbelievable yes...even for a screwed up government that thinks that our tax money grows on trees!

Once they are a US citizen we pay...forever and ever....and not just for them but their ILLEGAL parents as well. I for one am damn tired of standing in a grocery store line behind someone who can not even speak English and pulls out their government food stamp credit card and buys groceries that I can't even afford for my, what many might consider, middle class family. When will this madness end and who will stop it if not us and if not now, when?

Call your Congressman and Senator NOW and DEMAND that they repeal the birthright citizenship protection provided for by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment immediately!

© 2010 Choice America Network a division of EvansMediaUSA

Feature Article

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings

By TIMOTHY EGAN

Timothy Egan on American politics and life, as seen from the West.

Having shed much of his dignity, core convictions and reputation for straight talk, Senator John McCain won his primary on Tuesday against the flat-earth wing of his party. Now McCain can go search for his lost character, which was last on display late in his 2008 campaign for president.

Remember the moment: a woman with matted hair and a shaky voice rose to express her doubts about Barack Obama. “I have read about him,” she said, “and he’s not — he’s an Arab.”

McCain was quick to knock down the lie. “No, ma’am,” he said, “he’s a decent family man, a citizen.”

That ill-informed woman — her head stuffed with fabrications that could be disproved by a pre-schooler — now makes up a representative third or more of the Republican party. It’s not just that 46 percent of Republicans believe the lie that Obama is a Muslim, or that 27 percent in the party doubt that the president of the United States is a citizen. But fully half of them believe falsely that the big bailout of banks and insurance companies under TARP was enacted by Obama, and not by President Bush.

Take a look at Tuesday night’s box score in the baseball game between New York and Toronto. The Yankees won, 11-5. Now look at the weather summary, showing a high of 71 for New York. The score and temperature are not subject to debate.

Yet a president’s birthday or whether he was even in the White House on the day TARP was passed are apparently open questions. A growing segment of the party poised to take control of Congress has bought into denial of the basic truths of Barack Obama’s life. What’s more, this astonishing level of willful ignorance has come about largely by design, and has been aided by a press afraid to call out the primary architects of the lies.

The Democrats may deserve to lose in November. They have been terrible at trying to explain who they stand for and the larger goal of their governance. But if they lose, it should be because their policies are unpopular or ill-conceived — not because millions of people believe a lie.

In the much-discussed Pew poll reporting the spike in ignorance, those who believe Obama to be Muslim say they got their information from the media. But no reputable news agency — that is, fact-based, one that corrects its errors quickly — has spread such inaccuracies.

So where is this “media?” Two sources, and they are — no surprise here — the usual suspects. The first, of course, is Rush Limbaugh, who claims the largest radio audience in the land among the microphone demagogues, and his word is Biblical among Republicans. A few quick examples of the Limbaugh method:

“Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday — not that we’ve seen any proof of that,” he said on Aug. 3. “They tell us Aug. 4 is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that.”

Of course, there is proof as clear as that baseball box score. Look here, www.factcheck.org, for starters, one of many places posting Obama’s Hawaiian birth certificate.

On the Muslim deception, Limbaugh has sprinkled lie dust all over the place. “Obama says he’s a Christian, but where’s the evidence?” he said on Aug. 19. He has repeatedly called the president “imam Obama,” and said, “I’m just throwing things out there, folks, because people are questioning his Christianity.”

You see how he works. He drops in suggestions, hints, notes that “people are questioning” things. The design is to make Obama un-American. Then he says it’s a tweak, a provocation. He says this as a preemptive way to keep the press from calling him out. And it works; long profiles of Limbaugh have largely gone easy on him.

Once Limbaugh has planted a lie, a prominent politician can pick it up, with little nuance. So, over the weekend, Kim Lehman, one of Iowa’s two Republican National Committee members, went public with doubts on Obama’s Christianity. Of course, she was not condemned by party leaders.

 It’s curious, also, that any felon, drug addict, or recovering hedonist can loudly proclaim a sudden embrace of Jesus and be welcomed without doubt by leaders of the religious right. But a thoughtful Christian like Obama is still distrusted.

“I am a devout Christian,” Obama told Christianity Today in 2008. “I believe in the redemptive death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.” That’s not enough, apparently, for Rev. Franklin Graham, the partisan son of the great evangelical leader, who said last week that Obama was “born a Muslim because of the religious seed passed on from his father.”

Actually, he was born from two non-practicing parents, and his Kenyan father was absent for all of his upbringing. Obama came to his Christianity like millions of people, through searching and questioning.

Finally, there is Fox News, whose parent company has given $1 million to Republican causes this year but still masquerades as a legitimate source of news. Their chat and opinion programs spread innuendo daily. The founder of Politifact, another nonpartisan referee to the daily rumble, said two of the site’s five most popular items on its Truth-o-meter are corrections of Glenn Beck.

Beck tosses off enough half-truths in a month to keep Politifact working overtime. Of late, he has gone after Michelle Obama, whose vacation in Spain was “just for her and approximately 40 of her friends.” Limbaugh had a similar line, saying the First Lady “is taking 40 of her best friends and leasing 60 rooms at a five-star hotel — paid for by you.”

The White House said Michelle Obama and her daughter Sasha were accompanied by just a few friends — and they paid their own costs. But, wink, wink, the damage is done. He’s Muslim and foreign. She’s living the luxe life on your dime. They don’t even have to mention race. The code words do it for them.

Climate-change denial is a special category all its own. Once on the fringe, dismissal of scientific consensus is now an article of faith among leading Republicans, again taking their cue from Limbaugh and Fox.

It would be nice to dismiss the stupid things that Americans believe as harmless, the price of having such a large, messy democracy. Plenty of hate-filled partisans swore that Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic and Franklin Roosevelt was a Jew. So what if one-in-five believe the sun revolves around the earth, or aren’t sure from which country the United States gained its independence?

But false belief in weapons of mass-destruction led the United States to a trillion-dollar war. And trust in rising home value as a truism as reliable as a sunrise was a major contributor to the catastrophic collapse of the economy. At its worst extreme, a culture of misinformation can produce something like Iran, which is run by a Holocaust denier.

It’s one thing to forget the past, with predictable consequences, as the favorite aphorism goes. But what about those who refuse to comprehend the present?

Note: In an earlier version of this piece, a statistic for the percentage of Republicans who believe the president is Muslim was given wrong; it has been corrected.

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