The autopsy report for the 17-year-old showed traces of THC, which is found in marijuana, in the teenager’s blood and urine.

Martin was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest fired from ‘intermediate range’, according to earlier reports.

An autopsy report reviewed by NBC News claims the Florida teenager, whose alleged killer, self-appointed neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman, is on trial for his murder, also had broken skin on his left ring ringer below the knuckle.

The report, prepared by the medical examiner in Volusia County, follows a separate medical report on Zimmerman which found he had a pair of black eyes, a nose fracture and two cuts to the back of his head a day after the fatal February 26 shooting.

The medical report issued by Zimmerman’s doctor at Altamonte Family Practice revealed on Tuesday bolster the 28-year-old’s claims that he was being punched and pummeled by the unarmed teen when he opened fire in a gated community in Sanford, Florida.

Zimmerman, who is charged with murder in the killing, claims he acted in self-defense and only shot Trayvon when the teen saw the pistol he was carrying and reached for it. It was then, Zimmerman said, he drew the gun himself and pulled the trigger.

On Tuesday, ABC News obtained a medical report from Zimmerman’s family, who examined the neighborhood watch volunteer the day after the shooting. Zimmerman wanted to be checked out so he could be cleared to return to work.

KFTV in Orland also reported on Tuesday that Trayvon had broken skin on his knuckles when his body underwent an autopsy.

The new report contradicts a previous claim by Richard Kurtz, the funeral director who handled the teen’s remains, there was no damage on his knuckles.

Zimmerman’s doctor found a ‘closed fracture’ in Zimmerman’s nose, meaning his nose was broken but the skin had not ruptured to expose the nasal bones. He also discovered two cuts on the back of his head, one was one-inch long and the other was a quarter-inch.

Zimmerman also had two black eyes and bruises on his upper lip and cheek. He also complained of lower back pain, according to the doctor’s notes, ABC News reports

The injuries are consistent with Zimmerman’s account of his encounter with Trayvon. He told police the high school junior approached him and suck-punched him in the face, knocking him to the ground.

Trayvon then climbed on top of Zimmerman and bashed his head into the sidewalk several times.

Zimmerman, 28, told his doctor he was troubled by what happened the night before, saying he experienced ‘occasional nausea when thinking about the violence.’

The doctor said it was ‘imperative’ that Zimmerman go to a psychologist he had been seeing to be examined. It’s unknown what Zimmerman had sought counseling for in the past.

Before the shooting, Zimmerman had been prescribed Adderall, a common psycho-stimulant used treat ADHD, and Temazepam, a sleeping medication.

Both drugs cause agitation and mood swings as side effects, though they occur in fewer than 10 percent of patients.

Zimmerman claims he followed Trayvon, who was wearing a hoody, when he saw him walking through the gated community when Zimmerman lives.

Trayvon, who was staying at his father’s girlfriend’s condo, was returning home after buying at snack.

Zimmerman followed the teen in his car and called 911. He then got out of his car, despite the emergency dispatcher saying he didn’t need to continue pursuit.

Zimmerman claims that’s when Trayvon approached him and threatened him. He told police the teen started the fight by punching in him the face.

A national uproar resulted in protests across the country after police declined to arrest Zimmerman. Protestors and Trayvon’s parents say he was targeted for being black and the Zimmerman went free because he is not black.

Zimmerman was later charged with murder by a special prosecutor who was appointed by Florida Gov Rick Scott.

Zimmerman is currently free after posting $150,000 bail. He is currently in hiding after receiving ‘thousands’ of death threats.

On Tuesday, prosecutors 67 CDs with evidence over to defense lawyers.

They also released a list of 78 possible witnesses who could be called during the trial.

Included in the list are 50 law enforcement officers, including 28 members of the Sanford Police Department.

There are also 28 civilians on the list. Among them are Zimmerman’s friends and family members.

However, the names of 22 witnesses — mostly neighbors who happened to see or hear part of the confrontation — had their names redacted from the public list, in an effort to shield them from the international attention that case has received.

Original Article

The numbers of unauthorized immigrants smuggled across this porous border dumbfound the imagination. To date, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended 158,782 illegals in 2001. By the Border Patrol’s own admission, it catches one alien in five, and admits that around 800,000 have slipped across the U.S. line this year. The local ranchers, who have been watching the border for several generations, strongly disagree. They contend the agency only nets one in 10, and estimate that in 2001 over 1.5 million unlawful immigrants have crossed into America in what the Border Patrol calls the Tucson Sector.

Many border ranch-owners are validly apprehensive of speaking about their desperate situations because of likely retribution by narco-militarists (drug runners) and coyotes(smugglers of humans). Unsolved murders and arsons are alarmingly ordinary in Cochise County, so pure fear keeps locals from speaking on the record.

The foot traffic is so heavy that the backcountry has the ambience of a garbage dump and smells like an outdoor privy. In places, the land is littered a foot deep with bottles, cans, soiled disposable diapers, sanitary napkins, panties, clothes, backpacks, human feces, used toilet paper, pharmacy bottles and syringes (the drug runners inject stimulants to keep their energy up).

U.S. Border Patrol agents are doing the best they can, considering their sparse numbers and the impossible terrain they patrol in four-wheel-drive vehicles, quad-runners and on foot. Agents of the Border Patrol have their other fears besides being ambushed by rock-chucking illegals and confrontations with assault-rifle-armed narcos: They are not allowed to speak about what they cope with each day.

As one agent who spoke anonymously said, “Look, I can tell you a lot of stories, but I have to remain unnamed or I will be blackballed and might lose my job.” Then, worriedly, he added, “I have a family depending on me.”

Another agent, of supervisory rank, stated, “The smuggling traffic of Mexicans has really slowed. We are experiencing a tremendous increase in OTMs” – border lingo for “other than Mexicans.” When queried about the ethnic make up of the OTMs, he answered, “Central and South Americans, Orientals and Middle-Easterners.” Middle-Easterners? “Yeah, it varies, but about one in every 10 that we catch, is from a country like Yemen or Egypt.”

Border Patrol spokesperson Rene Noriega stated that the number of other-than-Mexican detentions has grown by 42 percent. Most of the non-Mexican migrants are from El Salvador and other parts of Central America, she said, but added that agents have picked up people from all over the world, including the former Soviet Union, Asia and the Middle East.

Arabs have been reported crossing the Arizona border for an unknown period. Border rancher George Morgan encounters thousands of illegals crossing his ranch on a well-used trail. He relates a holiday event: “It was Thanksgiving 1998, and I stepped outside my house and there were over a hundred ‘crossers’ in my yard. Damnedest bunch of illegals I ever saw. All of them were wearing black pants, white shirts and string ties. Maybe they were hoping to blend in,” he chuckled. “They took off, I called the Border Patrol, and a while later, an agent, Dan Green, let me know that they had caught them. He said that they were all Iranians.”

According to Border Patrol spokesperson Rob Daniels, “Ten Egyptians were arrested recently near Douglas, Arizona. Each had paid $7,000 to be brought from Guatemala into Mexico and then across the border.”

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, hours after the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, an anonymous caller led Mexican immigration agents to 41 undocumented Iraqis waiting to cross into the United States.

The Associated Press reported that Mexican immigration police detained 13 citizens of Yemen on Sept. 24, 2001, who were reportedly waiting to cross the border into Arizona. The Yemenis were arrested Sunday in Agua Prieta, across the border from Douglas. Luis Teran Balaguer, assistant head of immigration in the northern state of Sonora, said, “The evidence indicates that they have nothing to do with terrorist activities.”

The Agua Prieta, Mexico newspaper, El Ciarin, clearly did not agree with Balaguer’s assessment. The editor, Jose Noriega Durazo, claimed in a front-page El Ciarin headline, “ESTUVIERON AQUI TERRORISTAS ARABES!” (The Arab terrorists were here!) El Ciarin quoted Agua Prieta police officials as identifying the 13 Yemenis as terrorists. Reportedly, the Mexican immigration police returned the Yemenis to a federal detention center near Mexico City, but new information would indicate that they were “released” and returned to Agua Prieta.

Carlos X. Carrillo, assistant chief U. S. Border Patrol, Tucson Sector, told WorldNetDaily in a telephone interview Monday that nine Yemenis were reportedly holed up in a hotel in the border town of Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, across the border from Douglas, Ariz.

“We have passed this tip to the FBI,” said Carrillo.

When pressed for more information, he said he could not confirm the number of OTMs or Middle-Easterners apprehended while crossing the American/Mexican border. “We are under OP/SEC and cannot divulge this,” the chief said. (OP/SEC is a counter-intelligence acronym for operations security.)

A Border Patrol field patrol agent, who spoke anonymously, confirmed the presence of the nine Yemenis. The agent said, “They can’t get a coyote to transport them and they are offering $30,000 per person with no takers.”

On Oct. 12, a Mexican national, associated with the hotel in Agua Prieta, abandoned it and moved to Arizona — to hide out. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told WND: “There were 13 Arabs there when I left. They were paying the coyotes 30 to 50,000 bucks, apiece, to transport them safely into the U.S. I became so frightened I left. They are genuinely bad hombres.” Since Carrillo had reported only nine Arabs at the hotel, it is unclear if the missing five Yemenis made it into the U.S. as reported.

Potential terrorists, stealing across the border, had been predicted well in advance of the World Trade Center disaster. In a May 1, 2000, Report to Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, the General Accounting Office reported, “Alien smuggling is a significant and growing problem. Some are smuggled as part of a criminal or terrorist enterprise that can pose a serious threat to U.S. national security.”

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., in an Oct. 9 speech to the House of Representatives, stated, “It’s almost incredible to recognize, as part of the overall strategy this government is going to employ to deal with the issue of terrorism, that we would not concentrate heavily on securing our borders and try to do everything humanly possible to stop people, who have evil intent, from coming into the United States.”

Terrorists are well aware that the 4,000-mile border between the U.S. and Mexico is easy to cross, with its vast unmonitored stretches. Their crossing directly into Arizona is of special concern. Arizona appears to have been the home of a “sleeper cell” of Osama bin Laden’s worldwide terrorist organization, with a select group of operatives living quietly in bland apartment complexes and obtaining flight training, in preparation for the Sept. 11 attack. The organization’s known history in the state goes back nine years. Terror experts say the activities of at least three part-time Arizona residents fit the pattern of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Sealing the border is a daunting task. Perhaps the most valuable asset that the Border Patrol has is the aid of rural Cochise County citizens. Many have attempted to help, in accordance with Arizona law. Through that legal process, landowners may execute a citizen’s arrest for individuals or groups trespassing on their property. However, even that has been nullified. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, backed by the American and Mexican media, have characterized citizens who have legally detained aliens as “racist xenophobic vigilantes.”

Rural citizens here have met with savage recriminations for exerting their legal rights. Immigration advocacy groups howl in protest, as does the Mexican government. Their lawyers have demanded that the ranchers be prosecuted for false arrest, kidnapping, intimidation, criminal assault and violation of civil rights – anything lawyers can come up with to advance their clients’ interests. Illegal immigrants have now sued some Cochise County citizens in American courts.

Ben Anderson, a retired U.S. Army colonel who lives in Sierra Vista, Ariz., has made a detailed study of the border danger since the flood of illegals began through Cochise County in 1997.

“There is only one way to handle this,” the colonel says firmly. “In a world now filled with biowarfare agents, backpack nuclear devices and chemical weapons like Sarin gas, we must militarize the border. There is no other way to stop the flow.”

On Thursday afternoon, while diving into a controversial Super PAC proposal, Bashir invoked alleged racial issues associated with Romney’s Mormon faith — an odd action, considering that Romney wasn’t involved in the noted proposal (earlier in the day, the candidate also renounced proposed tactics that would tie Obama to Wright).

(Related: MSNBC‘s Bashir Uses Book of Mormon to Warn Romney of ’Eternal Damnation’ for Alleged Lies)

This afternoon, The Blaze reported about a proposal by the conservative Super PAC Ending Spending Action Fund that has now been scrapped to invoke Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a 2012 television campaign. While lambasting the document, which was first reported on by The New York Times, Bashir unleashed his angst to his guest Joan Walsh.

“Joan, do Republicans really want to start talking about religious influence on candidates? Do they really want to start talking about Mitt Romney, who’s part of a religious group that has been one of the most racially-segregated in the history of this country?,” Bashir asked. “Until the late 1970s, African Americans, people of color, couldn’t be ordained. Does he really want us to start talking about his grandfather, who had five wives or his great, great grandfather who had 12 wives and was a Mormon. Is that what they want to do?”

To begin, Bashir’s initial comments are referring to restrictions that once existed within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As The Blaze has previously reported, in 1978, the church issued an official declaration following prayer and meditation that overturned the priesthood restrictions that once disallowed African American men from participating. A portion of the written description of the revelation read:

Aware of the promises made by the prophets and presidents of the Church who have preceded us that at some time, in God’s eternal plan, all of our brethren who are worthy may receive the priesthood, and witnessing the faithfulness of those from whom the priesthood has been withheld, we have pleaded long and earnestly in behalf of these, our faithful brethren, spending many hours in the Upper Room of the Temple supplicating the Lord for divine guidance.

He has heard our prayers, and by revelation has confirmed that the long-promised day has come when every faithful, worthy man in the Church may receive the holy priesthood, with power to exercise its divine authority, and enjoy with his loved ones every blessing that flows therefrom, including the blessings of the temple. Accordingly, all worthy male members of the Church may be ordained to the priesthood without regard for race or color. Priesthood leaders are instructed to follow the policy of carefully interviewing all candidates for ordination to either the Aaronic or the Melchizedek Priesthood to insure that they meet the established standards for worthiness.

Relations between African Americans and the Mormon church have been evolving and improving since this statement was issued. In a June 2011 New York Times article, Harvard University religion student Max Perry Mueller (he’s writing a dissertation on African-Americans and the Mormon church) said that the church has “made a very sincere effort” to include blacks.

Earlier this year, two black members of the church released a four-part DVD series that explains misconceptions as well as the history behind these policies. Bashir, of course, made no mention of any of these elements.

As for the allegation that Mitt Romney’s grandfather had five wives, this is inaccurate. Back in 2007, The Associated press reported:

Romney’s great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney’s great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she “used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow” over her own husband’s multiple marriages.

Romney’s great-great grandfather, Parley Pratt, an apostle in the church, had 12 wives. In an 1852 sermon, Parley Pratt’s brother and fellow apostle, Orson Pratt, became the first church official to publicly proclaim and defend polygamy as a direct revelation from God.

Nowhere here is Romney’s grandfather mentioned, as it seems Bashir confused “grandfather” with “great-grandfather.” In the end, as The Blaze has highlighted, both Barack Obama and Romney have a family history of polygamy, but neither candidate supports the institution (nor do they have contemporary family members who engage in it).

Walsh responded to Bashir’s intense rhetoric by dismissing the proposed Super PAC plan as “hate porn.” Later in the segment, the host defended Obama against charges that he has promoted Black Liberation Theology.

“John, what seems most ridiculous about this particular playbook is that we’ve seen the president up close for the best part of four years,” he proclaimed. “Have you ever heard him promote Black Liberation Theology?”

As stock markets plummet globally, the crisis in Greece has become the main item for discussion for the world’s most powerful politicians at the May 19-20 G8 meeting at the US presidential retreat, Camp David.

See also:
Greece: Mass anger, left gains shows urgent need for united front

The cause of the alarm is the results of the May 6 elections. The traditional parties’ vote slumped.

Voters rejected the harsh austerity measures imposed by the “troika” of the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Union, in exchange for bailing out Greece’s creditors.

New elections will take place on June 17 as no party was able to form a government. The most successful of the anti-austerity parties, the left-wing coalition SYRIZA, who won the second largest vote (16.76%), made rejection of the austerity measures non-negotiable.

Opinion polls suggest that the vote for SYRIZA will be higher on June 17, possibly making it the largest party in parliament. The May 18 Guardian said it was “enjoying ratings of more than 25% in polls”.

The discussions at the G8 meeting like most of the worried speculation in the financial media will focus on whether Greece leaves the eurozone (the group of EU countries with the euro as their shared currency).

The is threatening to expel Greece from the eurozone if it refuses to continue implementing austerity a threat to underline the message that there is no possible alternative to the bailouts and austerity measures.

To the bankers and their mouthpieces in politics and the media, Greece’s “sovereign debt” (money owed by the government) makes these demands reasonable.

A May 18 Seattle Times editorial said: “Greece could default within the eurozone and have much of its debt written off.

But Greece is a living, breathing moral hazard. What message would it send to Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal — all undertaking difficult austerity programs if the European Union provided special treatment to its least trustworthy member?

It described the voter rejection of pro-austerity parties as evidence of “a political system apparently incapable of responsibility”.

A May 18 opinion piece in the Canadian National Post was cruder, describing the Greek population as “spoiled brats”.

It called the Greek people “deadbeats, willing to go to any lengths to get out from under their share of the burden” who had “enjoyed free rides for years” but “being asked to pay their share of the tab … are refusing to do so”.

However, Greece’s “sovereign debt crisis” is not the result of high public spending. It is a continuation of the 2008 meltdown of the Western banking system.

During the decades that finance capital fuelled (and obtained vast fortunes from) the speculative bubble economy, the mantras of neoliberal deregulation ensured that any suggestion of accountability from, or oversight of, the banks was dismissed as unacceptable interference in the economy.

When the bubble inevitably burst, governments doled out trillions of dollars to big banks on the grounds that solvent banks were an economic necessity. The finance industry’s debts became sovereign debt and austerity programs the means by which ordinary people would pay the bankers’ bills.

The myth that Greece and other southern European countries lack a work ethic falls down when facts are introduced.

OECD data for 2008 showed that Greeks worked, on average, 2120 hours a year, higher than any OECD country apart from South Korea. This is 356 hours more than the OECD average, 690 hours more than Germany and 467 hours more than Britain.

In 2005, the EU statistical agency Eurostat reported that the average age of retirement in Greece was 61.7, higher than Germany, France and Italy.

Since the first Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Greek government and the troika in May 2010, the Greek people have been paying heavily for the bankers’ recklessness.

They have suffered wholesale privatisation, huge cutbacks to public services and a 40% fall in wages and pensions in many cases.

Official unemployment is 22%, youth unemployment 51%, and 40% of the population now lives under the poverty line. The suicide rate rose by 40% last year.

The Greek people responded to the attacks with general strikes, mass demonstrations, occupations of public spaces and even, in the case of 77-year-old pensioner Dimitris Christoulas, public suicide.

In his suicide note, Christoulas said: “I can’t see another solution but a dignified end to my life before I start scavenging rubbish bins for food.

“I believe that young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the national traitors upside down in Syntagma Square, as the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945.”

In November, the troika imposed an unelected “technocratic” government supported by the two main parties, PASOK and New Democracy, as well as the racist far-right LAOS party.

This unelected government signed a second memorandum this year. This was soundly rejected at the May 6 elections.

If implemented, the minimum wage would be cut to €200 (A$260) a month and 150,000 public sector workers would be sacked. It is likely hundreds of thousands of homes would be seized due to an inability to pay mortgages.

In response, the Greek ruling class and media have been fuelling anti-immigrant racism. The chauvinist mythology of the international elites’ narrative of responsible German banks bailing out lazy Greeks has also fuelled xenophobia in Greece.

The anti-immigration LAOS party was punished for its role in the pro-austerity “technocratic” government and lost all its parliamentary seats in the May 6 vote. But 7% of the vote — and 21 seats went to Golden Dawn, a sinister neo-Nazi outfit with a record of violence against migrants and leftists.

However, SYRIZA is leader, Alexis Tsipras, told the May 18 Guardian that the conflict was “not between nations and peoples”.

“On the one side there are workers and a majority of people and on the other are global capitalists, bankers, profiteers on stock exchanges, the big funds.

“It’s a war between peoples and capitalism.”

With statesmanly coldness and vision, Hitler developed the necessities, means, and methods of political propaganda, and used them when political circumstances required. Stronger, however, than his propaganda, stronger than his speech and words, was the force of his personality. The great strength and confidence which flowed from him overcame individuals and masses, enchained them, made them followers, and mobilized them.

Dr. Goebbels went his own personal and creative way. He became the apostle of modern political propaganda. He proved that propaganda is a creative art. Propaganda became his life, his task, and his mission. With the fervor of a believer and martyr, he carried the banner of the propaganda idea, an idea that always advanced, that knew no limits, that won millions only to make those millions apostles of an idea who were then sent out into the entire world. He united the religious intolerance of a prophet with a superior intellect and the retiring nature of an artist. In every action and expression, he remained subject to the idea and obligation of his mission. They inspired him so perfectly that a critical journalist could rightly say that it made no difference what he said; the masses only wanted to hear him again and again, to be carried along and uplifted by his fervor and passion.

Mass meetings can do without the speaker being visible. The mass meetings of the National Socialists in which radio broadcasts to loudspeakers at overflow meetings were used have proven this. In its place, however, contact between the speaker and the masses must continually be established. Only when that is the case can the speaker sense in the faces of those to whom he speaks the initial apathy which is often characteristic of the masses, empathize with them, enable them to rise and become excited and enthused. This is where our governments since 1918 and our press have so seriously erred. They believed that they could preserve their system from stormy national attacks coming from the masses by cold radio speeches and long-winded newspaper articles.

Other nations have better appraised the psychology of the masses. Until the appearance of Hitler, the United States was undoubtedly the country with the best developed use of oratory. In spite of the varied influences from churches, schools, universities, etc., the American public had developed countless types of professional speakers or political orators, and all major political actions were successful because of their leadership. It is difficult for us to remember our propaganda of the days prior to and during the World War. In America, the flood of propaganda materials, brochures, air dropped leaflets, placards, and newspapers, such as which would be used here, was far surpassed by extensive public speaking. These speeches were quickly adopted to a given situation, depending upon American conditions and abilities.

Mass meetings of with fundamental political confrontations, which Hitler used in Germany, were not used in the America, give the complete unity of political propaganda in all braches of public life. It needed only to find a method of personal contact between the speaker and the masses. This was accomplished by a volunteer band of 75,000 four minute speakers. They volunteered throughout the entire country to speak in all public places — in theaters, movie houses, schools, universities, clubs, associations. They flooded America, day after day and night after night with their short, fanatical speeches. It was the Four Minute Men who finally got the ball rolling in 1916-1917 and brought American public opinion to the boiling point by persuading it that war with Germany was a necessary and honorable duty of America, fervently desired by the entire populace. The Four Minute Men, according to Schönemann, gave about 755,000 speeches in 5,000 communities. In comparison, the National Socialists alone held about 30,000 rallies of approximately two hours duration during the spring of 1932 to prepare for the Reich presidential election.

All the means of public opinion were denied to Hitler. His newspapers were banned, he was denied use of the radio, his brochures and leaflets were confiscated. He had no choice but to reach the masses directly through constantly growing mass rallies. More than actual excitement and direct contact had to be created, for there was no opportunity to use other means of public opinion to prepare for the meeting. Often, the mass meetings had to be built up from scratch, and that occurred in such an unprecedented and ingenious form that from the beginning the German mass meeting had a cultic character. The National Socialist movement made an early decision between evening talks at which discussion could take place and mass meetings at which discussion and hostile interruption were absolutely prohibited. The style of these mass meetings was grand and elevating. The National Socialists, for the first time in the history of any country, demanded an offering from the people, that is, a proper admission fee. Before Hitler’s wise management created this type of mass meeting, it was the practice (as it still is among other parties) to allocate and contribute sums of money for the preparation and execution of large rallies. The National Socialist movement, however, carried things to their conclusion. They not only used the proceeds from their mass rallies to meet all expenses, but also to finance their constantly expanding struggles. That, together with the large contribution of party supporters, explains the enormous financial means produced by the National Socialists for political purposes, the extent and source of which the opposition press so eagerly, extensively, and falsely fantasized about.

All propaganda is preparation for political action. Life is constantly moving, so a properly expanding propaganda that properly understands its task can never stand still, but must always hurry along. It always has to guide preparations for the necessities of the future so as to be able to use all of its means in the psychologically best way. But although it is occupied with advance preparations for artistic activities, it also faces daily demands to make decisions about things that have to be done tomorrow. This is not planning for far distant activities, but rather by the art of exciting action, the direct contact of wills that leads to actions or to spontaneous agreement.

It is an essential characteristic of propaganda that the preparatory work in the masses can from time to time be started by a single individual. The individual can influence schools, newspapers, and the radio; he can use them spiritually, guide them, and prepare.

If one wishes to get an action-ready crowd from a single prepared individual, one must overcome the barriers that lie before the individual. That is, one must establish contact with the masses in order to spark action. In the end, only the mass mind makes possible the unified actions of many people. When the mass mind awakes, the barriers and walls that separate individuals from one another must entirely fall, the mass must visibly and perceptibly appear. From this moment on, it is capable of acting. No newspaper, no microphone, no film is able to counterfeit these living facts or to cause them by deception. All of these helpful means of propaganda and mass influence are subordinated to the living facts on a fixed level — on the abstract, as with a newspaper, on the acoustical as in radio, on the optical as with a film. Take, for example, the sound film, in which the pretense of reality has achieved the highest degree of perfection. Still, the viewer sees the film as a film and maintains an inner reserve. No one flees the theater in panic when shooting occurs on the screen or when an actor shouts “fire, fire!” The same events in the midst of a mass meeting, whether caused by oneself or by political opponents, unleash panic, flight, and excitement. There is further an essential difference between that which we experience in plays, films, and radio and the actual event. The essential difference is this: all pretense remains pretense and unable to satisfy the intense urge which the masses have for personal experience.

This urge is perfectly expressed in the modern mass meeting. Here the mass feels like a living unity and force. No overview, no excellent radio coverage, no first-rate press or film reports can convey a true-to-life impression of such a meeting or serve the listener or hearer as a substitute. To the contrary, each such report serves only as propaganda for the actual experience itself. It is therefore clear that the mass meeting is generally the strongest form of propaganda that we possess. If we want to trace this phenomenon back to its human origins, we might perhaps say that in the unity of the crowd each individual receives an uplifted and elevated self-confidence as well as a feeling of power. We find all the strong elements of a people in a mass meeting, while the main weaknesses are kept out.

Aside from the number of participants and the conditions of the meeting, the most important aspects of a mass meeting (or of any other important form of mass expression) are those that signify strength — arms, uniforms, weapons of every form. The military parade, for example, owes its existence, its popularity among the crowds, and its necessity to soldiers in whom it creates self-confidence. The clearer the strength is to the masses, the more impressive and forceful is the effect on each individual. When uniformed troops in strict discipline appear before a gathering of the civil populace, the rallies have a powerful character and a boundless jubilation is released. At the splendid parade of 100,000 on Cologne on February 19, 1933, the population joyously greeted countless S.A. units. Their jubilation grew to hurricane force, throwing everything else into the shadows, when armed police marched by in uniform. Whoever has seen something like this will realize the extent of the unconditional admiration which the masses give to strength. He will understand what is meant by the idea that powerful propaganda is the strongest way to have an influence.

A movement or government which has to defend itself against everyone can never rely on the faulty principle of compromise that originated in the days of routine parliamentary politics. Rather, it must always be uncompromising in its propaganda. It is simply not true that he who opposes the government, the social order, or the prevailing worldview or religion may not provoke moderate elements or the government’s resources of power by tough attitudes or open demonstration. All the power one has, indeed even more than one actually has, should be displayed and demonstrated. A hundred speeches, five hundred newspaper articles, radio talks, films, and plays are unable to produce the same effect as a procession of gigantic masses of people taking place with discipline and active participation, or a demonstration in which the means of power and weapons of the state are expressed through its military, police, and political forces. All revolutionary governments since the last war — the Italian Fascists as well as the Russian Bolshevists — have, as their most valuable propaganda, brought the  masses supporting them into the streets and shown them one or another of the military means they controlled.

Timid souls certainly will not be suited for such actions, as anxiety is generally the worst counselor in propaganda and politics. They will perhaps grant that such demonstrations are useful and appropriate for internal politics, but that they seriously, very seriously, impede policy. However, one may say that the tone makes the music. Extreme chauvinism or an irresponsible grandiloquence will certainly have that result. But insecurity in domestic politics exposes one to foreign difficulties. Properly weighed and balanced, powerful propaganda will have the proper effect abroad. The principle of appearing weak so as not to provoke one’s opponents is a monstrous creation of irrational anxiety. Powerful propaganda, if it understood that it must be given the proper support, is the best guarantee of peace and security.

The achievement of such a goal requires a change from Bismarck court politics; mass movements provide the means in our century. Its method requires that all existing forces in the area of public opinion, provided they voluntarily submit, join to forcibly destroy and extinguish enemy dogmas and enemy opposition. Its goal is the elimination of all serious opposition in the masses; this, in order to produce a combat ready national mass will that can preserve the nation’s existence through powerful national politics. A nation which has bled to death, which has been enslaved and dismissed by half the world, and which has been shredded by civil strife cannot win back its right to life unless its leadership is resolved to ignore so-called liberal advances in public life, and to obey only the cold laws of history.

Liberalism is dead. If the nation is to live, liberal phrases must also die. Attempts to establish liberalism’s principle of universal freedom have endangered everyone’s life. Its dogmas about “public opinion” produced division and weakness in the national will. Even the greatest proponent of liberalism, John Stuart Mill, demanded of the government “the greatest possible centralization of information, and its dissemination from a central point.” Capitalistic liberalism itself scrapped the holiest principles of its prophets and apostles and used so-called “public” opinion solely for its own profit. But now the end has come.

The slogan of the freedom of public opinion must be buried without tears.

Public opinion does not spring up by itself, nor does it correspond to true public feeling. Otherwise public opinion would reflect decisions on important political affairs before anyone else, and would thus predict such things as election results. The liberals, however, saw only the interest that stood behind them, and thought along the same lines whenever something new came up from the masses.

In contrast, vague moods of the masses which strive for recognition but fail to achieve it, there is a public opinion for whomever can afford it. The buyer remains in the shadows. The liberal states are dominated by capitalistic interest groups. Knowingly or unknowingly, the intellectual leadership of the press, literature, etc., works for them.

The capitalistic interest groups will be thrown out so that they cannot endanger the whole in pursuit of their own interests. They will be replaced by men, who, with a national instinct and primitive politics, will again achieve victory. In place of the formation of opinion by private interests, the future will inevitably bring a great and unified will-storm of national political interests, not only for conditions of crisis, but for a lengthy historical period.

Public opinion can therefore be brought to a unity which it could never have in liberal states.

Public opinion is the unified and leading expression of the public will.

Within the masses are moods which are not public and which cannot simply be equated with public opinion. In the end, there is a gap between intellect and drives. One should not consider this to be dangerous in the way that blocking an outlet can be. The liberal mentality and propaganda have taught us to conceive of propaganda in this way in the interests of those behind them, the ruling interest groups. This illusion has been destroyed forever. The vague moods of the populace which are not expressed through intellectual, economic, or political emotions are not relevant or threatening to large-scale politics. Every strong instinct finds an intellectual expression; else its apparent strength rests on deception. If the intellectual elite becomes active in the service of the whole, politics probably has to pay a limited amount of attention to the existence of these inevitable, constantly changing dreamy moods, but it may choose its means, methods, and goals without respect to them.

It is clear that the use of the revised Bismarck method requires, under today’s circumstances, a strong element of compulsion and power which are indeed necessarily a part of these methods. One must add something important, however. Bismarck’s political system, based on Prussian militarism and official absolutism, believed it could check and restrain the dangerously rising power of the masses by prohibitions and compulsion. This is a serious error which was somehow incessantly repeated by all national German governments until our recent republican days.

Only the democratic states recognized the obvious, that the masses cannot be controlled simply by prohibition. The masses begin economically where financial independence stops. Personal responsibility and restraint end there as well. What we today call the masses develops not from just any group of people but from one characterized so strongly by instability, pliability, and explosiveness that the individual is no longer tangible. The principles and methods of violent suppression break down, as a result, when applied to this phenomenon. The entirely negative use of power will never achieve its goals, for it will be successfully opposed by the power structures of the masses — associations, organizations, and labor unions. The masses are more numerous than the police. Bismarck’s defeat by the Social Democrats is but one of many examples.

Propaganda and the use of differing degrees of power must therefore cooperate in exceptionally clever ways. They must use the organizations of the masses if they are to achieve definite success. A practical rule for the state is thus: One does not scatter those who are organized, rather one organizes them oneself.

All systems that have gained control of government through modern mass movements have done this. Although it may outwardly appear complicated, it has been brought about by the varied conditions of life, corresponding to a system of public organizations, cooperatives, and associations. While governmental propaganda strongly and consistently pursues its clear and vital goals and while the exercise of governmental power makes any active or passive attempt at obstruction impossible, the entire public organizational apparatus will be used to make possible an organized variety of vigorous individual interests alongside the unity of the mass propaganda line. But this variety no longer permits the individual, only sums of individuals. Thus from the human soup of liberalism a state will emerge an organism dominated by a single compelling idea. The cells will no longer be independent and opposed to one another, but will rather be linked together by a high, meaningful, living reality.

Since our Gothic Reich collapsed and German unity was lost in battles over intellectual and political beliefs, innumerable legends and fables have lived in our people and in the artistic creations of our greatest poets and philosophers that expressed the longing for the coming Reich and an idea of its basic structure. The Prussians of the Mediterranean, the Fascist Italians, have lived the great ideals of the German spirit for a decade — Kant’s obligation, the Prussian knowledge of government, Nietzsche’s joyful struggle, Fichte’s national development. Luckily, they have found the way to national will building faster than the shredded German people, and have perfected the methods of propaganda and the use of differing degrees of power in the development of a modern state. Fascism has a special ministry for national education. The party possesses a school of political propaganda and the practical will to power. The motto of the Fascists, “live dangerously,” is taken from Nietzsche. The corporative philosophy which the labor force organized for the state is not individualistic-Italian, but socialist-Gothic.

No one has the right to use the cheap slogan of an imitation of Fascism in Germany because the deeply German spirituality, originating from ideals, concepts and forms, is with us again today, placed at the service of our modern leadership. Mussolini is historically unique, an accident, perhaps. He is a powerful personality with deep spiritual roots going back to Nietzsche. His system is, therefore, German in its essential characteristics, developed from the creative spirit of German soil, and is returning to that soil today. Here, supported by technical, highly developed, struggle-loving, and disciplined people, it will reach a new and earthshaking level.

If one looks at the history of German nationalism, that was true for over a decade. This marvelous nation, the most intelligent, disciplined, and courageous in the world, has seen an almost unbroken selection of its worst qualities in its leadership. They understood neither the spirit of the world or of their own people. They spoke when they should have kept silent and were silent when there was a chance to speak. They had neither organized belief nor the courage to use power.

The former ruling class, which had given up without a fight in 1918 and groveled under the red boot, began to complain when fiery nationalism sprang from the depths and carried the masses along like an avalanche. Intellect without strength feels inferior, and that is dangerous. That man of the people [Hitler] was too powerful for their tastes. They laid traps and began talking of “brains.” Things, however, did not depend on “knowledge,” with which they had failed so miserably, but on ability. The nation needed his strength, not their “brains.”

Bismarck noted that he could not repress disturbing thought when considered the extent to which our ruling circle had lost political ability. He said that the first Chancellor who reached his position because of seniority would be Germany’s misfortune He was right. Mr. Bettman Hollweg was the top student from a model school in Schulporta. He reached the office Reich Chancellor in all the right ways, provided one ignores such things as fighting ability, propaganda, and strength. He ably led us to national despair.

This system of national weakness bred good soldiers without political instincts, and politicians without backbones. It fell apart attempting the impossible. Today, the “brain” with his academic record or the nonpolitical soldier who seeks political office proclaims his political judgment to the nation and to history.

Germany has always had the best soldiers in the world. It was an enemy general, not a German one, who said that the German soldier had always been worth three of the enemy. But a soldier without political instincts is a mercenary. The soldier must carry a sense of the political system in his blood. And although it is his duty to defend it to the limits of his ability, it is the duty of the politician to avoid the necessity of doing so. Hitler has properly said: “The duty of a statesman is not to heroically lead a nation to defeat, but to preserve its existence.” This requires politicians with a military, or more generally speaking, fighting spirit [Blut] who do not confuse politics with their official careers. The one as well as the other, soldier and politician, must be willing to go to the limits. There is no use of power which, in the face of necessity, should not be used to defend the whole.

For the first time since that lone wolf Bismarck, the German race has a man of political genius, who is above all a dogmatist of great ability. Hitler will live in German history.

Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, who was popularly called the Soldier-King, created the loyal Prussian civil service which became a model to the world. Likewise, Hitler took the active, restless, and strong-willed elements of our people, organized them into the National Socialist movement, stamped it with his personality, and added an unprecedented aggressiveness and a flexible political will. The creation of the Nazi Party will hold a place in history.

No one knows what the end of the German drama will be, but this much is certain. This noble nation, possessing the best cultured people in the world, cannot continue in the center of a ring of greedy and uncivilized nations if it is not in future decades to be torn apart by actual or spiritual (as was the case during the last war) civil strife. Some say that enemy propaganda won the World War. More accurately, divisions in the German national will lost it. Whoever struggles with himself, whose soul is torn by conflicting emotions, cannot capably direct his attentions outwards because all his energies are required for the internal struggle. It is no different for a great nation than for the individual. National power depends on a unity of the national will. There is no way for Germany’s fate to improve that does not begin with national union.

Fichte said in one of his speeches:

No nation that has sunk into a state of despondency can rescue itself by the usual and previously successful methods. If their application was useless when the nation was in possession of all its strength, of what use will they be when the greater part is missing….

Every German who still believes that he is a part of a nation, who thinks highly and honorably of it, who hopes and strives for it, who builds and supports it, should eliminate all uncertainty from his faith….

The goals of spiritual reconstruction cannot be stated more beautifully or more nobly, nor the use of all means better justified. Uncertainty of belief means diversity and doubt; it means the paralysis of hope, will, and action. It should be replaced by a certainty of the unity of political beliefs in order to give the nation certainty and unity of aspiration and action.

Since last year, the Florida Division of Elections had sought access to theimmigration database, which is maintained by the Department of Homeland Security, but the department said there were legal and technical difficulties in sharing the information.

On Thursday, the elections division asked the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, which oversees driver’s licenses and originally compiled the list of 182,000 names, to use its access to the federal database to update its records and cross-check the names.

The state was found to be using a flawed process to pinpoint noncitizens on the voter rolls by relying on an outdated driver’s license database. Some of the people on an initial list of 2,700 possible noncitizens sent to county election supervisors were either naturalized citizens or were born in the United States.

Election supervisors were asked to send letters to these voters, requiring them to provide proof of citizenship within 30 days, or their names would be dropped from the registration roll. In recent days, some of the supervisors had expressed concern over the validity of the state’s search.

The Division of Elections said it would pay the Department of Highway Safety’s costs for updating its driver’s license database and checking the voter names.

“Our goal is to make sure the process to remove ineligible voters from the voter rolls is as thorough and reliable as possible,” said Chris Cate, a spokesman for the Division of Elections. “We have actively pursued gaining access to D.H.S.’s database, but we have made little progress toward accessing their information directly.”

The state’s attempt to scrub registration rolls of illegal voters had come under fire because of the timing — less than seven months before a presidential election — and because the state itself could not guarantee the accuracy of its rolls. The move comes amid other efforts by Florida’s Republican-led Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott to tighten voter registration and reduce the number of early voting days, to combat potential voter fraud. Those measures, which were approved in 2011, have been challenged in court. Florida has more than 11 million registered voters.

The Division of Elections began the review of voters in April 2011 when it learned it had access to the driver’s license database and its citizenship information, Mr. Cate said. Since 2010, Floridians have been required to provide proof of citizenship or legal status when they apply for a driver’s license.

But problems arose because some people become citizens after receiving a license. The agency’s database does not reflect those kinds of changes until a person tries to renew a driver’s license.

The push to crack down on the way Floridians vote, and how they register to vote, is viewed by some as an effort to single out Democratic voters, many of them black and Hispanic. Florida has been accused in past elections of unfairly trying to remove from the rolls former felons who are eligible to vote.

The new scrub of registered voters is no different, said Howard Simon, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.

“It’s a purging process that is based on what the state already acknowledges to be inaccurate information,” Mr. Simon said. “It really raises questions as to whether or not this is yet another partisan effort to scrub the voting rolls. We know it’s inaccurate because people from as far away as Pensacola to Miami have come forward to say, ‘I am a U.S. citizen. I am eligible to vote.’ ”

Mr. Simon said that requiring citizens to fax documentation to election boards would place an unfair bureaucratic hurdle in their way and could wipe them off the registration rolls.

Florida is not the first state to take a close look at the registration of residents it suspects may be noncitizens. In Colorado this year, the secretary of state tried to investigate whether noncitizens had voted. New Mexico undertook a similar effort and found 104 noncitizen voters.

“No process is perfect,” said Lenny Curry, the chairman of the Republican Party in Florida. “That doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a process and you shouldn’t try to protect the system.”

The self-proclaimed member of the New Black Panthers Party (NBPP) who threatened to converge on Jennings with over 250 members in April 2010 is now behind bars, accused of using the Panthers’ name and image to bilk unsuspecting victims out of hundreds of dollars.

Joseph Lawrence visited Jennings two years ago after a local black man was fired by his employer for allegedly sexually harassing a coworker, a white female. Lawrence, who identified himself as the regional president of the U.S.-based black supremacist organization, also alleged that he was “verbally assaulted” by Jeff Davis Parish District Attorney Michael Cassidy and “blatantly ignored” by Jeff Davis Parish Sheriff Ricky Edwards when he tried to approach them about the matter.

Deutsche Welle reports that yesterday the German government approved draft legislation which would enable it to keep files on neo-Nazis. The database would include not just Germans, but also foreign neo-Nazis, i.e., also Czech people who actively collaborate with their German “tribes-people”. This might first and foremost include several members of the Workers’ Social Justice Party (Dělnická strana sociální spravedlnosti – DSSS) who are in close contact with German neo-Nazis and have violent tendencies. The bill will now be submitted to the lower chamber of the German parliament, the Bundestag.

Deutsche Welle cites Heinz Fromm, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the German counter-intelligence service, as saying there are 9 500 neo-Nazis with violent tendencies in Germany. “Those people would meet the criteria for inclusion in the database. Foreigners known in Germany for their extremist and violent tendencies could also be included,” Fromm said.

The government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel decided to create the database after it came to light that a group of nationalists living in the town of Zwickau had committed a series of murders of immigrants between 2000 and 2007. A similar register was established by the US government after the attacks of 11 September 2001. That database includes information about aggressive Islamists.