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Mexican business calls for action on killings

­by the El Reportero’s news services

Bruno FerrariBruno Ferrari

On Nov. 1 the president ­of the Mexican employers’ federation (Coparmex) declared that the gang violence in parts of Mexico had reached an “unbearable” level. Unprecedentedly, the government responded by admitting that Gerardo Gutiérrez Candiani, Coparmex’s president, had a point.

The economy and industrial development minister, Bruno Ferrari, admitted that the violence in some parts of the country was badly affecting small service-sector businesses, such as restaurants and bars. Ferrari said that the government would step up its programme of lending to help small businesses in places such as Ciudad Juárez. Hitherto, the government has accused businessmen who complain about the security situation of “talking down” Mexico.

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Labor Dept. grants Nicaragua $2 million in better work program

­by Angela Brosnan

On Oct. 6, Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solís, announced a $2 million grant to Nicaragua to implement a Better Work program. The Better Work program will begin January. It will create more available information to the public about global companies that operate in Nicaragua such as Gap Inc., Columbia Sportswear, and Target Corp.

The implementers of the program, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), will work with the country’s Ministry of Labor to monitor conditions in apparel factories.

They will make the records available to the public to promote transparency and assist suppliers in complying with labor standards. This will help protect worker’s rights. Company leaders and the Presidential Delegate for Investment in Nicaragua, General Álvaro Baltodano, attended a briefing at the Department of Labor with Solís, where all parties expressed optimism for the program.

The Heritage Foundation and Wall Street Journal rank Nicaragua 19th out of 29 South and Central American and Caribbean countries in terms of labor conditions. “Better Work is a highly successful strategy that was first developed in Cambodia ten years ago.” Solís said. “Its elements are worth replicating in other countries as a means of protecting workers’ rights while promoting development.” She mentioned the success of Better Work in Haiti, Cambodia and Jordan.

Though offered to several countries in the region including El Salvador, Nicaragua was the only country to accept the grant from the United States. Solís explained that the cooperation between companies, government and the public in the country made it possible for Nicaragua to accept the grant and the U.S. terms.

Solís mentioned her personal interest in Nicaragua’s prosperity, explaining it was the place of her mother’s birth and upbringing. Juana Sequeira raised Solís after she migrated to the United States in the 1950s and married Mexican-American factory worker Raúl Solís.

During the conference, Secretary Solís gave details of her trip last July to Nicaragua, and expressed her hope that the program will aid child-laborers both in the fields and in factories.

“With Better Work, factory workers will not have to toil long hours creating items they cannot afford. The people making the products will finally be able to buy them,” Solís explained. “This will give Nicaragua’s labor force an extra incentive.”

Baltodano expressed the hope of many that the program will halt migration to the United States of Nicaraguans seeking better labor conditions. He said the program would help with company credibility and consumer confidence issues. Solís called the program a “win-win” for both nations. Hispanic Link.

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Music Awards announced for Latino Musicians

by Antonio Mejías-Rentas

Pl´cido Domingo: (PHOTO BY NEWS SERVICES)Pl´cido Domingo­(PHOTO BY NEWS SERVICES)

Tenor of the Year: Days after being announced as the Latin Recording Academy’s top honoree in 2010, Plácido Domingo has solidified his commitment to just one of the two opera companies he directs in the U.S.

Domingo, 69, has extended his contract as general director of Los Angeles Opera through 2013, with an option to renew on a yearly basis after that. ­The Spanish tenor made the announcement just days before the Sept. 23 launch of the company’s 2010-11 season, with two productions in which he is artistically involved.

He sings the role of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda in the world premiere production of Il Postino, a Spanish-language opera by Mexican composer Daniel Catán commissioned by L.A. Opera Ð partially with funds provided by the nonprofit Hispanics for L.A. Opera. He also conducts several performances of The Marriage of Figaro; both productions continue through mid-October.

Shortly after the L.A. premieres, Domingo announced he is stepping down as director of the Washington National Opera when his contract expires next year. In a letter to the company’s board, Domingo raises the likelihood the financially troubled organization may consider merging with the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Earlier this month the Academy named Domingo as this year’s Person of the Year, an award that recognizes a musician’s charitable and professional work. He will be feted at a Nov. 10 gala dinner in Las Vegas, a day before the organization hands out its Latin Grammy awards. Several recording stars are expected to perform some of Domingo’s pop repertoire. The dinner will raise funds for a charity of Domingo’s choice and for the Academy’s music education programs.

EARLY CANDIDATES: Mexico has chosen two films by well-known directors which offer different takes on contemporary issues to represent it in the race for Hollywood’s Oscar and Spain’s Goya award.

The Mexican candidate for an Oscar nomination is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, a film that earned Spanish actor Javier Bardem a best actor award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. A co-production with Spain, the film is about a man who earns a meager living as a broker for Chinese and Africa immigrants in Barcelona. Biutiful, which opens widely in Mexico on Oct. 22, is the Oscar nominated director’s first film without screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.

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California to protect homeowners facing foreclosure

Compiled by Mark Carney

California has joined a multi-state coalition demanding that lenders attemp­ting to foreclose on properties comply fully with all appropriate state laws.

The group was formed after several lenders and loan servicers admitted that lower-level officials, had vouched for the accuracy and completeness of foreclosure documents without ever reviewing them. As a result of these dubious procedures, state investigators intend to examine the foreclosure verifi cation process, on both the state and the national level.

California regulators are now examining the affadavits and foreclosure documents of mortgage servicers in order to ascertain whether legal procedures were followed, and a state law has been passed which prohibits properties whose mortgage originated between Jan. 1, 2002, and Dec. 31, 2007, from being foreclosed on, unless the lender has offered to modify the loan.

Ally Financial, Wells Fargo, J.P.Morgan Chase, One West, and Bank of America are all being investigated by the Attorney General’s office of California.

Despite these state-led investigations, Bank of America, the nation’s largest bank, announced on Monday, Oct. 16 that it had begun foreclosure proceedings in 23 states, and that proceedings would soon follow in the other 27 states.

Green Party gubernatorial candidate arrested at debate

Laura Wells, the California Green Party’s candidate for governor, was arrested in San Rafael for trespassing at the state’s third gubernatorial debate. Having been excluded from participating in or even attending the debate, Wells, 62, showed up with a ticket, which, according to campus security, had not been issued to her. After being told to surrender the ticket or be arrested, Wells was placed under citizen’s arrest by campus security.

“The real crime is what’s happening to California. Republicans and Democrats will go to any length… to keep the truth from California voters,” Wells said in a statement. “There are solutions, like a state bank for California, and fair taxes, but voters aren’t being allowed to hear from independent candidates.” Although, in 2002, she received more than 400,000 votes as a candidate for state controller, Wells was not invited to take part in any of the gubernatorial debates.

Her court date, by a curious irony, is Nov. 2—Election Day.

U.S. labor organization to receive human rights award

The Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Awards, named after the two Chilean diplomats assassinated in 1976, in Washington DC, by agents of Gen. Pinochet, have been given to two Latin American groups and a U.S. labor group. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which received the award in the domestic category, was recognized for fi ghting to improve working conditions for day laborers throughout the country.

In accepting the award, Pablo Alvarado praised the workers’ fortitude, saying, “In the face of indignity, exploitation, humiliation, hatred and bigotry, stigma, fear, and in some places terror, like in Maricopa County, Arizona, there is courage, courage to peacefully resist, courage to defend and protect ourselves and, yes, even courage to love our detractors.”

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Advocates will pursue passage of DREAM

por Luis Carlos López Hispanic Link News Service

­WASHINGTON, D.C. — Immigration advocates aren’t giving up the fight. Despite their loss in the Senate Sept. 21, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed, “We are going to vote on the DREAM Act. It is only a question of when.”

As part of the multi-billion- dollar defense reauthorization bill that included an amendment to repeal “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.” The act died when all but two Senate members voted along rigid party lines.

The Development Relief and Education for Alien Minor Act, introduced on the hill in one form or another for nearly a decade, fell 56-43, four votes shy of the 60 needed to pass. Two Democrats, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas, joined the GOP opposition.

Following defeat on a procedural vote — whether to move the bill and the amendments forward for debate and consideration — Reid, of Nevada, and Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois pledged to help the “Dreamers” continue to fight for their cause.

Maintaining the act had some Republican support throughout most of its existence, Sen. Robert Menéndez (D-NJ) told Hispanic Link, “You never know what’s going to happen until they vote.”

Arizona’s GOP Senator John McCain called Reid’s scheme to attach the bills “a cynical ploy to try to galvanize and energize their base in the Hispanic vote. President Obama’s popularity has dropped dramatically with Hispanics,” he pointed out. He called the repeal of the ban on allowing gays to serve openly in the military in “direct contradiction” to the recommendations by the four military chiefs. As with the issue of immigration, McCain has flipped-flopped on DADT over the years.

A study by the Pentagon due Dec. 1 will determine whether the DADT repeal will have negative effects on military morale and readiness.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry called the GOP’s opposition “shirking our responsibility” to discuss an issue that is “long overdue.”

Obama promised to do “whatever it takes” to ­support the Congressional Hispanic Caucus efforts to pass the DREAM Act.

Despite the president’s efforts to revitalize La promesa de Obama — the president’s broken promise to deliver immigration reform his first year in office — there are those who remain skeptical over the sudden push for the bill.

Francisco Ayala, editor of La Prensa Libre which is read through northeastern Arkansas and southwestern Missouri, said Sept. 20, that he was skeptical of the DREAM Act’s success.

Before the vote, Ayala told Hispanic Link, “So long as this remains as an issue of justice and not economic benefit, the bill has little chance. Unfortunately, most politicians think only in terms money.”

Some 30 advocates met at the National Immigration Forum just blocks from the Senate chamber to offer words of encouragement.

Among those present was America’s Voice executive director Frank Sharry. He said he remained confident the change would ultimately come from the people’s voice.

“I’ve worked in Washington for 20 years and I’ve come to trust one thing,” Sharry told Hispanic Link, “the power of a social movement to make politicians do what they need to do.” Hispanic Link.

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Americans buying guns in preparation for civil unrest

por Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars.com

Americans are acquiring guns, silver and food stamps at record levels in reaction to the crumbling economy, trends indicative of a fearful public who are struggling financially and preparing for potential mass civil unrest in the aftermath of a total economic collapse.

FBI records and Google Trends research shows that firearms purchases are still at record highs, but that ammunition sales have leveled off, suggesting that a flood of first-time gun owners have rushed to protect themselves from the potential of higher crime and even civil unrest in the event of a widespread financial meltdown.

That tells us that there are more first-time [gun] buyers coming in to buy firearms and that speaks to your worries about security. They buy a few rounds [of ammunition] first time, but they don’t buy more,” ConvergEx Group Chief Market Strategist Nicholas Colas told CNBC.

Interest in silver coins is also surging, with Americans looking for more affordable ways to protect their increasingly devalued dollar savings with many unable to afford soar away gold prices.

Just two years ago, silver coin sales were on the magnitude of 1 million units a month, now it’s 3 million units a month,” said Colas. Used car prices have also tailed off, a refl ection of shaky confi dence in the much heralded “recovery” of the U.S. economy. Meanwhile, Google searches for how to get food stamps have also skyrocketed.

However, the steady increase in gun sales is just as much a reaction to the political climate as it is economic uncertainties.

As we reported back in November 2008 just before Obama took office, the perceived anti-gun agenda of a President backed by a Democrat-controlled House and Senate prompted a record surge in firearms purchases.

With Obama’s White House still full of antisecond amendment fi gures like Attorney General Eric Holder and Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, the American people are loathe to become lackadaisical about their right to keep and bear arms, particularly when active duty combat troops are being brought back from Afghanistan and Iraq to ­train how to run local city governments and boss communities.

Troops are also being trained to deal with “civil unrest” and “crowd control” in the event of a national emergency.

During the last such national emergency, Hurricane Katrina, gun owners were told that “no one will be able to be armed Ð we will take all the weapons,” and even residents in high and dry areas had their fi rearms confiscated by US troops, police and mercenaries.

Given the fact that every forecaster worth his salt is predicting mass civil disobedience in America once austerity measures that are causing riots in Europe fully come into force, including the Obama administration’s move to seize private 401(k) pensions, it’s hardly surprising that Americans continue to stockpile weapons and precious metals in preparation for anarchy, chaos, and potentially martial law.

 

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Nicaragua’s Ortega now unstoppable

by the El Reportero’s news services

Daniel OrtegaDaniel Ortega

On Oct. 13, all but one ­of the seven supreme court (CSJ) magistrates aligned with the opposition Partido Liberal Constitucionalista (PLC) agreed to return to work, after a two month absence. The judges’ return to work is a victory for President Daniel Ortega, confirming his control over the judiciary and ensuring his path to re-election in November 2011 general elections. It gives a semblance of legitimacy to two controversial legal moves to which seven judges (of a total 16) had been objecting.

Columbia and Ecuador unite against Farc

In the early hours of 19 Sept. 19, the Colombian armed forces led the largest military attack against the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc) so far this year, killing 22 members of the leftwing guerrilla group in an assault on its 48th Front.

The offensive against the Farc took place in the municipality of San Miguel, near the eponymous border town attacked by the Farc last Sept. 10, which sits on the banks of the San Miguel River, the natural border between Ecuador and Colombia. The operation demonstrates the renewed diplomatic and military cooperation between Colombia and neighbouring Ecuador.

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It’s true: Airport body scanners could give you cancer

Editor’s Note: Can the State mandate that you be scanned by harmful technology? No!

­by David Gutiérrez Natural News

A llustración showing the reach of the radioactive x-rays that utilize in the airports today that cause cancer.A llustración showing the reach of the radioactive x-rays that utilize in the airports today that cause cancer.

The new, full-body security scanners being introduced at airports pose a greater skin cancer risk than governments have previously acknowledged and are especially dangerous to children and pregnant women, a new study has found.

The devices, known officially as backscatter X-ray machines, were introduced after the “Christmas Day Bomber” successfully got an explosive device through conventional airport screening. They use up to eight seconds of Xrays over the entire body to create a three-dimensional, full-body image of anything that passengers might be carrying beneath their clothing. More than a hundred of the scanners have already been rolled out at 32 U.S. airports, and they are being introduced in other countries, as well.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to have 450 of the scanners deployed by the end of 2010. A new analysis of the radiation dose delivered by the machines, conducted by David Brenner and colleagues at Columbia University, found that because the beams concentrate X-rays on the body’s skin, the effective dose may be 20 times higher than previously estimated.

Because the skin is one of the body’s most radiation sensitive organs, the scanners significantly increase the risk that passengers will develop basal cell carcinoma, a kind of skin cancer. Children and the 5 percent of adult passengers with certain relatively common gene mutations are at significantly higher risk due to their reduced ability to repair DNA damage. If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future,” Brenner said.

Having A Supply Of Healthy Foods That Last Just Makes Sense (AD) Basal cell carcinoma normally occurs in the heads and necks of people between the ages of 50 and 70. For this reason, Brenner suggested that, at minimum, these areas of the body should not be scanned.

The individual risks associated with X-ray backscatter scanners are probably extremely small,” he said, “[but if] all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk. The population risk has the potential to be significant.”

Brenner was a member of the U.S. government government committee that originally set the safety guidelines for the devices, and was one of the members who endorsed their use. Brenner now says he never would have endorsed the scanners if he knew there were plans to use them on all passengers.

There really is no other technology around where we’re planning to X-ray such an enormous number of individuals,” he warned. “It’s really unprecedented in the radiation world.”

The British Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) responded to the study by reiterating its position that the scans are safe.

The device has been approved for use within the United Kingdom by the Department for Transport and has been subjected to risk assessments from the Health Protection Agency,” the CAA said. “To put the issue in perspective, the radiation received from the scanning process is the equivalent to two minutes radiation received on a Transatlantic fl ight. Under current regulations, up to 5,000 scans per person per year can be conducted safely.”

The new study is not the first to raise concerns over the devices, however. In February, the Interagency Committee on Radiation Safety issued an internal report to groups including the European Commission, International Atomic Energy Agency, Nuclear Energy Agency and the World Health Organization warning that pregnant women and children should never be exposed to the devices.

The issue raised by the report is that even though doses from the systems are very low, they feel there is still a need for countries to justify exposures,” said Michael Clark of the United Kingdom’s Health Protection Agency.

The ability of the devices to produce naked images of passengers has also produced challenges on privacy grounds.

 

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Latinos are working hard to strengthen economy

by Janet Murguía Hispanic Link News Service

The Labor Day holiday took on a somber tone in the midst of the dismal jobs crisis that has left many financially insecure, but bright spots remain. This Labor Day, the National Council of La Raza honored the millions of Latino workers who are doing their part to keep the country running, including the nearly three million Hispanics who have not given up searching for work as the recession drags on. August unemployment figures revealed that Latinos continue to endure above-average unemployment rates, at 12.0 percent, compared to 9.6 percent for all workers. Economic forecasts signal that our country may dip into yet another recession, or worse, a depression. With such ominous indicators abounding, it can be easy to lose hope. To help our country get back on the path to prosperity, thousands of Latino working families continue to seek opportunities at the local level through community-based organizations, including the nearly 300 membergroups in NCLR’s Affiliate Network.

NCLR has highlighted the contributions of the nation’s 22 million Latino workers. A new analysis shows that Latinos have made a niche for themselves in recession-proof industries, as high numbers are employed in areas that continue to grow despite current economic conditions. For example, they make up a quarter (24.4 percent) of administrative and support services employees, an industry that added 223,000 new workers between July 2009 and July 2010. Child day care employment, which is more than 15 percent Latino, grew by 14 percent during the past year. Visit http://www.nclr.org/index.php/publications/despite_jobs_crisis_latinos_working_hard_to_strengthen_americas_economy/ for the full analysis. Hispanics are projected to continue driving the growth of the U.S. labor force in the coming decades.

Through their workforce participation, Latinos have made major contributions to our nation’s economic wellbeing, and the road to recovery undoubtedly relies on their continued efforts.

Together with leaders from other civil rights, labor and student organizations, including the NAACP, the Service Employees International Union, and the AFLCIO, NCLR is leading One Nation Working Together, a national campaign to call for policies to create jobs and invest in a strong economic future. A major feature of the campaign is an historic rally scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 2. Visit one nationworkingtogether.org to learn more and join the movement.

­(Janet Murguía is president and CEO of NCLR (National Council of La Raza), the largest national Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.)

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The Agenda of the Illuminati – tenth part of the series

por Marvin J Ramirez

­Marvin  J. Ramírez­Marv­in­ R­­am­í­r­­ez­­­­­­

NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: Given the important ­and historical information contained in this 31-page article on the history of the secret and evil society, The Illuminati, El Reportero is honored to provide our readers with the opportunity to read such a document by Myron C. Fagan, which mainstream media has labeled it a conspiracy theory. To better understand this series, we suggest to also reading the previous article published in our editorials. This is the tenth part of a series.

The following is a transcript of a recording distributed in 1967 by Myron C. Fagan. He had hoped that if enough Americans had heard (or read) this summary, the Illuminati takeover agenda for America would have been aborted, just as Russia’s Alexander I had torpedoed the Illuminati’s plans for a One World, League of Nations at the Congress of Vienna from 1814-15. Fagan correctly describes those members of congress, the executive branch, and the judicial branch of that time as TRAITORS for their role in assisting to implement the downfall of America’s sovereignty. It’s understandable that most listeners of that period would have found it impossible to believe that the Kennedy’s, for instance, were (are) part of the Illuminati plot, but he did say that Jack had a spiritual rebirth and attempted to rescue the country from the Illuminati’s stranglehold by issuing US silver certificates, which apparently greatly contributed to the Illuminati’s decision to assassinate him (his son, John Jr., was also murdered because he had intended to expose his father’s killers after he gained public office).

— The headquarters of the great conspiracy in the late 1700’s was in Frankfurt, Germany where the House of Rothschild had been established by Mayar (or Mayer) Amschel who adopted the Rothschild name and linked together other international financiers who had literally sold their souls to the devil. After the Bavarian government’s exposure in 1786; the conspirators moved their headquarters to Switzerland then to London. Since World War II (after Jacob Schiff, the Rothschild’s boy in America died); the headquarters of the American branch has been in the Harold Pratt Building in New York City and the Rockefellers, originally proteges of Schiff, have taken over the manipulation of fi nances in America for the Illuminati.

In the final phases of the conspiracy; the oneworld government will consist of the king-dictator; the head of the United Nations, the CFR, and a few billionaires, economists, and scientists who have proved their devotion to the great conspiracy. All others are to be integrated into a vast conglomeration of mongrelized humanity; actually slaves.

Now let me show you how our federal government and the American people have been sucked into the one-world take over plot of the Illuminati great conspiracy and always bear in mind, that the United Nations was created to become the housing for that one-world, so-called, liberal conspiracy. The real foundations of the plot of the takeover of the United States were laid during the period of our Civil War.

Not that Weishaupt and the earlier masterminds had ever overlooked the new world, as I have previously indicated; Weishaupt had his agents planted over here as far back as the Revolutionary War, but George Washington was more than a match for them.

It was during the Civil War that the conspirators launched their first concrete efforts. We know that Judah Benjamin, chief advisor of Jefferson Davis, was a Rothschild agent. We also know that there were Rothschild agents planted in Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet who tried to sell him into a financial dealing with the House of Rothschild.

But old Abe saw through the scheme and bluntly rejected it thereby incurring the undying enmity of the Rothschilds; exactly as the Russian Czar did when he torpedoed their fi rst League of Nations at the Congress in Vienna. Investigation of the assassination of Lincoln revealed that the assassin John Wilkes Booth was a member of a secret conspiratorial group . Because there were a number of highly important government offi cials involved; the name of the group was never revealed and it became a mystery; exactly as the assassination of Jack Kennedy is still a mystery. But I am sure it will not remain a mystery for long.

Anyway; the ending of the Civil War destroyed temporarily all chances of the House of Rothschilds to get a clutch on our money system; such as they had acquired in Britain and other nations in Europe. I say temporarily because the Rothschilds and the masterminds of the conspiracy never quit so they had to start from scratch; but they lost no time in getting started. Shortly after the Civil War; a young immigrant, who called himself Jacob H. Schiff, arrived in New York. Jacob was a young man with a mission for the House of Rothschild. Jacob was the son of a Rabbi who was born in one of the Rothschild’s houses in Frankfurt, Germany.

I will not go deeply into his background. The important point was that Rothschild recognized in him not only a potential money wizard; but more important, he also saw the latent Machiavellian qualities in Jacob that could, as it did, make him an invaluable functionary in the great one-world conspiracy.

After a comparatively brief training period in the Rothschild’s London Bank; Jacob left for America with instructions to buy into a banking house which was to be the springboard to acquire control of the money system of the United States. Actually, Jacob came here to carry out four specifi c assignments.

1. The most important, was to acquire control of America’s money system.

2. Find desirable men, who for a price, would be willing to serve as stooges for the great conspiracy and promote them into high places in our federal government, our Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court, and all federal agencies.

3. Create minority group strife throughout the nations; particularly between the whites and blacks.

4. Create a movement to destroy religion in the United States; but Christianity to be the chief target.

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