Breaking Free In America

The January Jobs Are Statistical Artifacts

2012-02-07T07:57:00.000-06:00

The January Jobs Are Statistical Artifacts
February 7, 2012 by Paul Craig Roberts

In a prolonged downturn, seasonal adjustments and the birth/death model produce nonexistent employment.

Last Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in the first month of this year 243,000 jobs were created and the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 percent. This good news is a mirage. It is due to faulty seasonal adjustments and to the BLS birth/death model. In a prolonged downturn, seasonal adjustments and the birth/death model produce nonexistent employment.

The unadjusted data show a rise in the unemployment rate. The birth/death model, which estimates the net effect of jobs lost from business failures and jobs created by new start-ups, was designed for a normal growing economy, not for a prolonged downturn. Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that the BLS adds 48,000 new jobs per month to the payroll employment report based on the birth/death model even though the economy has not come out of the deep recession. In other words, over the course of a year, the birth/death model adds about 580,000 jobs to the reported jobs numbers. End-of-year benchmark revisions quietly take the nonexistent jobs out of the totals, but these revisions do not receive headlines and pass largely unnoticed.

The reported January jobs gains are contradicted by other official reports. For example, the January payroll jobs report shows 50,000 new jobs in manufacturing, but according to the recently released fourth quarter gross domestic product, 81 percent of the reported growth consisted of undesired inventory accumulation. Normally, companies produce for sales, not for inventories. Why would manufacturers be hiring people to produce goods for undesired inventories?

Most of the new reported January jobs are in services. The January jobs report has 24,500 new jobs in wholesale and retail trade and 13,100 new jobs in transportation and warehousing. However the data show that inflation-corrected real retail sales are down. Why does it take more people to sell fewer goods?

The other remaining sizable components of the January jobs number are: professional and technical services (30,000), administrative and waste services (36,700), health care and social assistance (29,700), and leisure and hospitality (44,000) of which the largest component is food services and drinking places (32,800).

The leisure, waitresses and bartender employment numbers seem high for January. Perhaps it was an excellent ski month in the United States. However, accommodation (hotels) does not support this conclusion, as accommodation lost 3,900 jobs.

The BLS reports 21,000 new jobs in construction. However, the housing report says that housing starts dropped more than forecast in December, falling 4.1 percent. Why does it take more construction workers to produce fewer houses? Building permits, a proxy for future construction, were little changed.

As the adjusted data produce phantom jobs and employment, the BLS should headline the raw unadjusted data. With so many discouraged workers unable to find jobs, dropping discouraged workers out of the measure of unemployment seriously understates the true magnitude of the unemployment problem. If Americans were aware of the double-digit unemployment rate, would they be as tolerant of Washington’s multitrillion-dollar wars? Would Obama be facing a tougher re-election campaign? Would Republicans be pushing to reduce the Federal budget deficit at the expense of the social safety net?

The phony data serve many interests, but not those of the American people.

Thanks to: Personal Liberty Digest
http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/government/the-january-jobs-are-statistical-artifacts/?eiid=

We at Breaking Free In America feel the reality of the above article is right in front of us all. Our eyes tell us all that nothing has changed and that we still have a problem. If anything, the problem continues to get worse for most of us.

Do You Agree?

2012-02-02T07:57:00.003-06:00

HE NAILS IT

He nails it alright, but who are we going to elect to replace these people? Who? Changing presidents is only one person. We need a whole new group! We need unity and organization! We need a new party of people who are not corrupt!

Our system is so complicated, so misunderstood, so unethical and it continues to pit one class of people against the other keeping us from putting together any real opportunity to unite the effort we need to bring any change at all. It's why Washington is broken. Just look at the Republican debates that have been going on. Then look at how nuts we are about a Super Bowl. That's what we are up against.

And this guy is just one of millions who feel exactly the same way!
Think this guy is upset?

Click here: Are You Kidding Me

The Next Few Years

2012-01-30T08:29:00.008-06:00

January 30, 2012 by Bob Livingston

The American people are under final siege.

Nobody knows how long the present fascist system, euphemistically called American democracy, will last. It is totally corrupt, and the breakdown of the rule of law is all but complete. Oh, yes, we still have the national symbols of liberty — but in name only. We have widespread corporate corruption as well as the corporate corruption of government and politics.

As with the collapse of all paper money systems in the last days of a fiat regime, everything is for sale with almost no exceptions.

The American people are under final siege, but precious few are aware. Most people are obsessed with their materialism and sports craze. It’s many times bigger than it was in Rome. Everything is money and money is everything. The United States has more political prisoners than the any nation in the world. What is left of the “American system” is rot shrouded in failed morality on synthetic life support.

More Americans need broader perspective beyond their daily obsessions and petty mindset. The screws are being tightened, and the force majeure (inevitability) of revolution is coming into focus.

Will government and its politicians awaken in time for reform with economic sobriety? The answer is categorically no! Nobody will give up power. Federal judges rule by edict. Thomas Jefferson correctly identified that the downfall of the United States will come from the judiciary — the one branch that has no accountability. The No. 2 cornerstone of national wealth is the rule of law. Paper money destroys the rule of law.

Few Americans are aware that the judiciary of the United States is accountable to no one. Thomas Jefferson was correct when he said the most ruthless, dishonest and dangerous segment in our government is the unaccountable judiciary.

Everything lies in their hands, from property values to the national wealth itself. When the rule of law becomes the self-interest of the state, nobody is safe. Your future is destroyed and your savings and assets are not secure.

When a Federal judge does not have any checks and balances to regulate his behavior, the very purpose of the rule of law is defeated.

Gold is the true indicator of the confidence in government. When confidence in the government declines, gold skyrockets.

One thing is certain: Historically, governments have rarely paid their debts. In the final collapse, government will attack the private sector and the people rather than admit that government itself caused the decline and fall of America, if not all of Western civilization.

The shock potential of the people is still dormant. Government propaganda and the public education system have numbed the senses of the crowd. It is not unlike a drug addiction.

The professional and managerial class is just as deceived as the street crowd. They don’t have a clue. They, too, are obsessed with Saturday’s game and their own little worlds. The big picture is anathema to them. They have no inquiring minds about the downward trend of the system or monetary realism. They could not care less except to pooh-pooh any voices of alarm.

It will end in the shadows, and it will end badly. The elite who plan and rule our lives will see to it. If their systems fail, they will take away the party. This is certain.

So-called American politicians are traitors to the people they supposedly represent. With few exceptions, the Supreme Court has so ruled that corporate financial “contributions” (payoffs) are now legally unlimited. Few have objected.

No Federal politician has brought forth a bill to take away their special privilege system of huge guaranteed-for-life retirements or the grandiose healthcare system they enjoy which is outside of and separate from Social Security and Medicare assigned to the people.

Then we learn that Congress has installed for itself no-risk investing based on inside information. This is a criminal offense for the public. Most politicians would not talk to 60 Minutes about the practice, while others were hostile, especially Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). They are world-class hypocrites!

The following is quoted from Martin Spring, On Target Oct. 11:

Explosive Potential in the Loss of Trust

Angry middle classes and the poor are going to “engineer a social or political revolution against the wealthy,” predicts Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the school of public policy at the National University of Singapore.

The rich either forgot or ignored “the implicit bargain” or “social contract” that they were allowed to get richer providing everyone benefited. Leading the way were the bankers who developed “financial weapons of mass destruction” of no economic value, yet “almost destroyed the world.”

“Yet, after being rescued by taxpayer money, then repaying nominal debt to governments — but not the debt for the social and economic destruction they caused” — the bankers reverted to paying themselves fat bonuses.

Mahbubani says: “Bankers and governments have lost the trust of the man on the street. Demonstrations on Wall Street and in cities around the world provide early tremors of powerful earthquakes to come.”

In the U.S., for example, it is only a matter of time before a charismatic activist emerges “to give political potency to the more reasonable demands of the Tea Party.”

He does not say so, but the inference is that the hard Right is more likely to emerge as a force that challenges the discredited ruling elites (and their politicians) than the usual suspects on the Left who have already had their chance to reshape their societies, with disappointing results.

One reason for the breakdown in public trust is that few people believe official inflation figures any more. They just don’t ring true when we see the prices we’re asked to pay at the supermarket, or the escalation in our bills for education, medical care, local taxes, or whatever.

One reason is that the bureaucrats deliberately ignore many costs such as those for food and energy, on the grounds that they are “temporary.” Oh yeah… A subtle yet more important reason is that the statisticians adjust the raw data to incorporate the extra value you get when buying new products. You may have to pay more, but think of how much better off you are, dummy…

In America, ShadowStats keeps a track of the difference between official inflation, and what’s really happened to prices without “calculation modifications.” The difference is amazing. Since the early 1980s inflation in the US has averaged 3.87 percent a year officially — but without all those modifications, it has averaged 11.45 percent No wonder ordinary folks are angry, and getting more so.

Such corruption will end badly because it is self-destruction of its perpetrators. This is a natural law with predictable consequences.

Things will happen. All governments are destroying their currencies by either massive overnight devaluation or the constant printing of money. In countries where currencies go down faster, those governments put on draconian controls and step up the suppression of citizens.

The rule of law has been supplanted by the rule by political edict.

All economies are political economies, that is, they are controlled by government. We can monitor government by their official denials. A denial means an imminent reversal. Watch and listen!

There will never again be rule of law with or alongside a fiat paper currency. It will all last until the shock potential is triggered and revolution becomes spontaneous. The slate will be wiped clean of debt and fiat money. This economic winter will have run its course.

The good news is that economic spring is coming with new and powerful impetus and growth grounded on a new monetary system with the restoration of the rule of law. I will meet you there! But first, we have to go through the fire!

In the economic winter, with huge world debt and collapsing currencies, we invested in gold, silver, and gold and silver equities.

In economic spring we will invest in big board blue chip New York stocks and real estate.

Bob Livingston

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/the-next-few-years/?eiid=

Demands that Census Bureau Cease Requiring .....

2012-01-26T17:05:00.000-06:00

Source and Courtesy of The Rutherford Institute

On The Front Lines

Rutherford Institute Demands that Census Bureau Cease Requiring Americans to Respond to Lengthy, Highly Invasive American Community Surveys

January 26, 2012

WASHINGTON, DC — In a letter to Commerce Secretary John Bryson, John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, points out that the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, may be acting unconstitutionally by mandating that, under penalty of law, Americans complete and send back the highly intrusive and expansive American Community Survey (ACS). Whitehead has asked that the Commerce Dept. either explain how the questions on the ACS relate to information the Census Bureau is authorized to collect or else cease administering the ACS altogether. In recent years, the Institute has received a growing number of requests for help from individuals across the nation who have voiced objections both to the intimate and invasive nature of the questions on the ACS—which range from fertility and marital history to the cost of utilities and one’s ability to dress/bathe—and the harassing manner in which census workers have carried out their duties.

The Rutherford Institute’s letter to Secretary Bryson is available here.

“The right to be left alone has been characterized as ‘the right most valued by civilized men.’ By compelling responses to invasive, personal questions that go far beyond the type of census mandated by the United States Constitution, the federal government is intruding significantly into the ‘zone of privacy’ the United States Supreme Court has recognized as being protected by the Bill of Rights,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “Indeed, the American Community Survey contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire, concerning matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person’s job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits.”

Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years, the American Community Survey (ACS) is sent to about 3 million homes per year at a reported cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. Moreover, while the traditional census is limited to ascertaining the number of persons living in each dwelling, their ages and ethnicities, the ownership of the dwelling, and telephone numbers, the ACS is overtly expansive, asking questions relating to respondents’ bathing habits, home utility costs, fertility, marital history, work commute, mortgage, and health insurance, among others.

The Census Bureau has stated that responding to the ACS is mandatory and that federal law imposes fines for failure to provide complete responses. However, Whitehead has determined that the ACS may be in violation of federal law in terms of its content, penalties imposed for noncompliance and the harassing behavior of Census Bureau employees. Consequently, Institute attorneys have asked that the Census Bureau immediately cease distribution of the ACS until it has been substantially revised to include only questions on subjects covered by the census itself. Additionally, in light of the many disturbing reports of Census Bureau employees peeking into ACS recipients’ windows, refusing to leave upon request, entering closed gates and backyards, and even blocking driveways, Whitehead has asked that all Census Bureau employees be instructed to cease any behavior toward ACS recipients perceived as stalking or harassing. In the past year alone, the Institute received complaints from 72 individuals who voiced objections both to the contents of the ACS and the harassing manner in which census workers have carried out their duties.

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/on_the_front_lines/rutherford_institute_demands_that_census_bureau_cease_requiring_americans_t

U.S. v. Jones: The Battle for the Fourth Amendment Continues

2012-01-23T17:35:00.004-06:00

Source and Courtesy of The Rutherford Institute

Jan 23,2012
By John W. Whitehead

In a unanimous 9-0 ruling in United States v. Jones, the U.S. Supreme Court has declared that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. But what does this ruling, hailed as a victory by privacy advocates, really mean for the future of privacy and the Fourth Amendment?

While the Court rightly recognized that the government’s physical attachment of a GPS device to Antoine Jones’ vehicle for the purpose of tracking Jones’ movements constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, a careful reading of the Court’s opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, shows that the battle over our privacy rights is far from over.

Given that the operable word throughout the ruling is “physical,” the ruling does not go far enough. The Court should have clearly delineated the boundaries of permissible surveillance within the context of rapidly evolving technologies and reestablishing the vitality of the Fourth Amendment. Instead, the justices relied on an “18th-century guarantee against un-reasonable searches, which we believe must provide at a minimum the degree of protection it afforded when it was adopted.”

As Justice Samuel Alito recognizes in his concurring judgment, physical intrusion is now unnecessary to many forms of invasive surveillance. The government’s arsenal of surveillance technologies now includes a multitude of devices which enable it to comprehensively monitor an individual’s private life without necessarily introducing the type of physical intrusion into his person or property covered by the ruling. Thus, by failing to address the privacy ramifications of these new technologies, the Court has done little to curb the ’s ceaseless, suspicionless surveillance of innocent Americans.

In the spirit of the Court’s ruling in US v. Jones, the following surveillance technologies, now available to law enforcement, would not require government officials to engage in a physical trespass of one’s property in order to engage in a search:

Drones—pilotless, remote-controlled aircraft that have been used extensively in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan—are being used increasingly domestically by law enforcement. Law enforcement officials promise to use drones to locate missing children and hunt illegal marijuana plants, but under many states’ proposed rules, they could also be used to track citizens and closely monitor individuals based on the mere suspicions of law enforcement officers. The precision with which drones can detect intimate activity is remarkable. For instance, a drone can tell whether a hiker eight miles away is carrying a backpack.

Surveillance cameras are an ever-growing presence in American cities. A member of the surveillance camera industry states that, “pretty soon, security cameras will be like smoke detectors: They’ll be everywhere.” The cameras, installed on office buildings, banks, stores, and private establishments, open the door to suspicionless monitoring of innocent individuals that chill the exercise of First Amendment rights. For example, the New York Police Department has adopted the practice of videotaping individuals engaged in lawful public demonstrations. The government also uses traffic cameras as a form of visual surveillance to track individuals as they move about a city. In some areas, a network of traffic cameras provides a comprehensive view of the streets. In 2009, Chicago had 1500 cameras set up throughout the city and actively used them to track persons of interest.

Smart dust devices are tiny wireless microelectromechanical sensors (MEMS) that can detect light and movement. These “motes” could eventually be as tiny as a grain of sand, but will still be capable of gathering massive amounts of data, running computations and communicating that information using two-way band radio between motes as far as 1,000 feet away. The goal for researchers is to reduce these chips from their current size of 5 mm to a size of 1 mm per side. In the near future law enforcement officials will be able to use these tiny devices to maintain covert surveillance operations on unsuspecting citizens.

RFIDs, Radio Frequency Identifications, have the ability to contain or transmit information wirelessly using radio waves. These devices can be as small as a grain of rice and can be attached to virtually anything, from a piece of clothing to a vehicle. If manufacturers and other distributors of clothing, personal electronics, and other items begin to tag their products with RFID, any law enforcement officer armed with an RFID reader could covertly search an individual without his or her knowledge.

Cell phones, increasingly, contain tracking chips which enable cellular providers to collect data on and identify the location of the user. The collected geodata is stored on the device, anonymized with a random identification number, and transmitted over an encrypted Wi-Fi network to the cell phone provider. It is reasonable to expect that government will eventually attempt to tap the troves of information maintained by these cellphone providers.

Collection of Wi-Fi Data: Recently, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology invented for a mere $600 an aerial drone that can spy on even private Wi-Fi networks. The drone the professor created was a mere eighteen inches long. Such a device could be used to detect financial information, personal correspondence, and any other data transmitted over the wireless network. Coupled with the visual component of the aerial drones, these drones will be capable of detecting almost all intimate or personal activity.

Facial-recognition software is another tool in police forces’ surveillance arsenal in which police take a photograph of a person’s face, then compare the biometrics to other photographs in a database. Such a system can easily be placed onto the back of a smart phone and only weighs 12.5 ounces. Facial-recognition software is currently being used in conjunction with public surveillance cameras at airports and major public events to spot suspected terrorists or criminals. Cities such as Tampa have attempted to use this technology on busy sidewalks and in public places.

Iris scanners have quickly moved from the realm of science fiction into everyday public use by governments and private businesses. Iris recognition is rarely impeded by contact lenses or eyeglasses, and can work with blind individuals as well. The scanners, which have been used by some American police departments, can scan up to 50 people a minute without requiring the individuals to stop and stand in front of the scanners. The introduction of sophisticated iris scanners in a number of public locations, including train stations, shopping centers, medical centers, and banks in Leon, Mexico, is merely a foreshadowing of what is coming to the U.S. The information gathered from the scanners is sent to a central database that can be used to track any individual’s movement throughout the city.

As this list shows, the current state of technology enables government agents to monitor unsuspecting citizens in virtually any situation. One of the hallmarks of citizenship in a free society is the expectation that one’s personal affairs and physical person are inviolable so long as one conforms his or her conduct to the law. Otherwise, we are all suspects in a police state. Any meaningful conception of liberty encompasses freedom from constant and covert government surveillance—whether or not that intrusion is physical or tangible and whether it occurs in public or private. Thus, unchecked technological surveillance is objectionable simply because government has no legitimate authority to covertly monitor the totality of a citizen’s daily activities. The root of the problem is not that government is doing something inherently harmful, but rather that government is doing something it has no lawful basis to be doing.

Unfortunately, by failing to establish a Fourth Amendment framework that includes protection against pervasive electronic spying methods that are physically unintrusive and monitor a person’s activities in public, the Court has ensured that the core values within the Fourth Amendment will continue to be fundamentally undermined. New technologies which enable the radical expansion of police surveillance operations require correspondingly robust legal frameworks in order to maintain the scope of freedom from authoritarian oversight envisioned by the Framers.

Obviously, the new era of technology, one that was completely unimaginable to the men who drafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, requires an updated legal code to enshrine the right to privacy. The courts, first of all, must interpret the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure as a check against GPS technology as well as future technologies which threaten privacy. Second, as Justice Alito recognized, “the best solution to privacy concerns may be legislative. A legislative body is well situated to gauge changing public attitudes, to draw detailed lines, and to balance privacy and public safety in a comprehensive way.” I would take that one step further and propose that Congress enact a technological Bill of Rights to protect us from the long arm of the surveillance state. This would provide needed guidance to law enforcement agencies, quell litigation, protect civil liberties including cherished First Amendment rights, and ensure the viability of the Fourth Amendment even at the dawn of a new age of surveillance technology.

WC: 1478

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/us_v_jones_the_battle_for_the_fourth_amendment_continues

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them; ........

2012-01-17T11:11:00.014-06:00

Courtesy of Shane Connor and www.ki4u.com

January 17, 2010 - Tuesday

Last Updated: January 1st, 2010

"A prudent man foresees the difficulties ahead and prepares for them;
the simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." - Proverbs 22:3

Over the past decade a few visitors have suggested I not include the biblical reference, quoted above, in my prep web sites. What they don't understand, though, is that the greatest threat to our national security is, and always has been at its base root, immorality. You see, immoral and selfish people are not very prudent and forward looking and are thus left vulnerable to what they might otherwise be enlightened to avoid and/or prepare their families for.

History has proven countless times that a growing immorality among any population, in any nation, lowers their appreciation of, and thus vigilance to maintain, their freedoms. As a nation of people selfishly moves away from a principled focus on the 'greater good', in pursuit of personal and individual selfish aims, they are setting themselves up to eventually reap a bitter harvest, both from outside and from within. They are blind to see the difficulties ahead that they have unleashed, and even less so that they should then now prepare for.

If we as a nation stay on our current course, 9/11 will be seen as nothing compared to what is to follow!

Some blamed our foreign policy, some blamed our internal security, some even blamed God, for 9/11, but regardless, few understand and correctly see the root cause as our decades of overall national moral decline and abandonment of principles that has left us vulnerable. The specific mechanics that led up to 9/11 are not as important as first grasping the fact that we'd of been doing things very differently all along and on all fronts if all our actions had been based upon more moral motives. Most severe threats today would not even exist if they'd of been dealt with morally and promptly in the past without compromise. And, these new threats now looming don't have a chance of being fully defused until we begin to.

The moral compass of a nation, those principles that guides it's actions both internally and externally outside its borders, via its government and wider society, can be no better than what the population at large demands of it. Until the moral health of the population is recognized as the key to all freedoms, there's inevitably more destruction to come on our current downward spiral.

However, a moral and principled people will demand principled leadership in all facets of its culture and government and their nation will then be spared much and be prepared to readily survive the rest. Take any immoral personal action and you see the cause-effect destruction to both the person committing it and those around them. Multiply that tens of millions of times over by a nation's peoples and even the best constitution ever conceived, backed by great wealth and military might, won't be enough to retain its freedoms both from assaults internally and externally, directly self-inflicted or not.

Think this is all too simplistic a cause & effect proposal? Then take any particular grave social ill or internal threat to our freedoms today, or any potential external threat, and ask yourself; "Would this problem likely have been less severe today if our general population and leaders had been more moral and principled yesterday in always diligently seeking first the selfless greater good for all?" Clearly, most every national security threat, internally and externally, and every social ill imaginable, would today be less severe IF the population had been more morally attuned themselves as they would then also have been insisting on more moral and principled leaders at the helm of our nation.

There comes a tipping point where there are just not enough truly good moral and principled people still in positions of leadership and influence in government, religion, business and the media, because there were not enough truly good moral people amongst the general population demanding them, that a nation will inevitably decline and be open to ever greater destruction.

Can there be any doubt that as a population generally succumbs to immorality that it is also moving towards ever greater destruction and loss of freedom? Which way have we been moving over the last half century with our destruction of the family via huge increases in divorce, premarital sex, abortion, pornography, etc.? That they are culturally blessed with legality is no where near as bad as the fact that there are so many more today that have no personal restraint in eagerly embracing them. And, what of the increase in apathy, drug use, suicide, fatherless children, child abuse, widespread corruption in business and government, crime, poverty, discrimination, loss of civil liberties, and all the rest? How can this be here in the richest country the world has ever known? Perhaps, simply because it's also becoming one of the most morally depraved and unprincipled, as well!

The misery we are reaping today is from what we've sown yesterday, and it will not only continue, but increase until we begin to sow today for a different harvest tomorrow. It's never initially up to the government and cultural leaders, but rather the responsibility always lies first with each of us to demand better of ourselves, our families, and finally, collectively, from all of our leaders.

What bothered me most about the Clinton White House sex scandals was not what he did, but rather the numbed down 'tolerance' of our general population. How far we've come, a generation ago he'd of promptly resigned in shame because he would have known the people would demand no less. Our collective lack of outrage today, instead, shamefully said much more about all of us than it ever did of him.

The greatest blessing, or curse, is contained in the history proven dictum that most peoples eventually end up with the kind of government, security, society, culture, and freedoms they rightfully and justfully deserve! That is why the greatest threat to our national security is, and always has been at its base root, the growing immorality and loss of principles amongst the general public.

"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -Benjamin Franklin

"We ask why these things have come upon us, and the old people answer, Men have forgotten God." -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Gulag Archipelago

If we fail to turn away from our current selfish and apathetic course and fail to fan the flames of a nation-wide grass roots revival eagerly embracing the highest moral standards and principles, and then demanding the same of all our leaders... we're doomed!

Many have already seen/read the following, but it's well worth repeating here...

On National TV Billy Graham's daughter was being interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" regarding 9-11-01... And Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.

She said "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman that He is, I believe that He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand that He leave us alone?" In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. Let's see, I think it started when Madeline Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body was found recently) complained she didn't want any prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then, someone said you better not read the Bible in school... the Bible that says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said, OK. Then, Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide) And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we said OK.

Then, someone said teachers and principals better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued (There's a big difference between disciplining and touching, beating, smacking humiliating, kicking, etc.) And we said, OK.

Then someone said, let's let our daughters have abortions if they want, and they won't even have to tell their parents. And we said, OK. Then some wise school board member said, since boys will be boys and they're going to do it anyway, let's give our sons all the condoms they want, so they can have all the fun they desire, and we won't have to tell their parents they got them at school. And we said, OK.

Then some of our top elected officials said it doesn't matter what we do in private as long as we do our jobs. And agreeing with them, we said it doesn't matter to me what anyone, including the President, does in private as long as I have a job and the economy is good. And then someone said let's print magazines with pictures of nude women and call it wholesome, down-to-earth appreciation for the beauty of the female body. And we said, OK.

And then someone else took that appreciation a step further and published pictures of nude children and then stepped further still by making them available on the internet. And we said OK, they're entitled to their speech. And then the entertainment industry said, let's make TV shows and movies that promote profanity, violence, and illicit sex. And let's record music that encourages rape, drugs, murder, suicide, and satanic themes. And we said it's just entertainment, it has no adverse effect, and nobody takes it seriously anyway, so go right ahead.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves. Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with "we reap what we sow."

"Dear God, Why didn't you save the little girl killed in her classroom?
Sincerely, Concerned Student

... and the reply...

"Dear Concerned Student, I am not allowed in schools".
Sincerely, God.

You might also enjoy this interesting prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate. It seems prayer still upsets some people.

When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard:

"Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values.

We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and call it Pluralism.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem.

We have abused power and called it politics.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of __expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Amen!"

The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest..

In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively.

The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa and Korea.

Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program, "The Rest of the Story," and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired.

With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called "one nation under God."

As I later realized the stark contrast that on September 10th, 2001 it was illegal in American classrooms to pray, but that on September 11th you could hardly find any classroom anywhere in America that was not, only then did I began to grasp how a truly good God could ever permit evil, pain, and suffering... so that a 'greater good' might come of it, our turning back towards God and His protective embrace.

I hope and pray we've begun turning around, but am afraid we'd all better get much more committed, and quickly, for the sakes of all our children!

Feel free to e-mail me with any questions or comments you might have...
Shane Connor (owner KI4U, Inc.)

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT NUCLEAR DESTRUCTION!

WHAT TO DO IF A NUCLEAR DISASTER IS IMMINENT!

Obama to business: Bring jobs home

2012-01-11T21:17:00.013-06:00

Source and Courtesy of CNN Money.com

By Annalyn Censky@CNNMoney January 11, 2012: 3:50 PM ET

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden hosted a roundtable discussion on 'Insourcing American Jobs' at the White House on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- President Obama is meeting with executives from 14 companies Wednesday to encourage them to bring jobs back to the United States.

The so-called "Insourcing American Jobs" forum at the White House includes leaders from Ford (F, Fortune 500), DuPont (DD, Fortune 500), Intel (INTC, Fortune 500), Otis Elevators and Rolls Royce, among others.

Obama battles job crisis

Before Obama even took office, America had lost 4.4 million jobs. Track his progress since then.

"I'm calling on those businesses that haven't brought jobs back to take this opportunity to get the American people back to work," Obama said in prepared remarks. "That's how we'll rebuild an economy where hard work pays off and responsibility is rewarded -- and a nation where those values live on."

The remarks come as the latest Labor Department data point to the manufacturing sector as a bright spot in the recovery, adding 334,000 jobs over the last two years.

Obama wants that trend to continue and, on Wednesday, he pledged to announce new tax proposals in the next few weeks. The White House said the new proposals would reward companies that choose to invest or bring back jobs to the United States, and eliminate tax advantages for companies moving jobs overseas.

Generally speaking, the current U.S. corporate tax rate stands at 35% -- the highest in the industrialized world. But companies don't have to pay that rate on profits made outside of the United States -- so many decide to shelter profits elsewhere.

U.S. companies currently hold more than $1 trillion in profits abroad, a point that has gotten a lot of attention in the last year as both Republicans and Democrats in Congress put forth repatriation tax proposals. They tend to argue that bringing that money home would create more jobs, although that theory has not been proven.

Following the insourcing forum on Wednesday, Obama recognized Ford for committing to bring back about 2,000 jobs to U.S. factories by 2015 and shifting some of its production from Japan, Mexico and China to states such as Michigan, Ohio and Missouri.

He also recognized Master Lock, the Milwaukee-based padlock manufacturer and subsidiary of Fortune Brands Home & Security (FBHS), for bringing 100 jobs back to Wisconsin, after outsourcing them to China.

Made in USA: Overseas jobs come home

To be sure, these companies aren't bringing all their jobs back to America though. Master Lock still operates a large factory in Nogales, Mexico, where it relocated much of its production after the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in the 1990s.

Plus, rapid economic growth in places other than the United States remains an incentive for businesses to hire abroad. In a recent report by the Corporate Executive Board, nearly two-thirds of companies surveyed said they are ramping up their growth targets in emerging markets.

By 2020, roughly 85% of companies surveyed said they expect the majority of their revenue to come from emerging economies.

Ford, for example, is aggressively trying to grow its presence in China, to build vehicles for the growing middle class in Asia.

First Published: January 11, 2012: 12:21 PM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/11/news/economy/obama_jobs_insourcing/index.htm?section=money_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fmoney_topstories+%28Top+Stories%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Who do we Blame?

2012-01-11T09:13:00.002-06:00

Yes, who do we blame for this mess we are in and when you hear those who are hoping to run for president talk, don't you wonder why they think they are any different. They have already been in position to at least tell us what needed to change, but they didn't speak up. They are all part of the problem. Why on earth would any of us vote for any of them? We need new blood. We need to clean house and we need to do it now. If the Republicans want to beat Obama, they need to find someone who has not been part of the problem and they need to do it real soon. What we are seeing is a circus that just keeps getting further and further off track.

Ron Paul may be different, but he seems to just stand there and watch the others make fools of themselves. Maybe that is his plan.

Watch out for the new enternet poles! Who is paying them to come up with a list of who we are susposed to vote for. Can't we make a decision on our own!

http://front.moveon.org/two-people-who-can-tell-you-all-you-need-to-know-about-mitt-romney/

Why voters need to hear GOP candidate Buddy Roemer

2012-01-06T00:00:00.001-06:00

Source and Courtesy of
- August Forecast & Review

Posted By Patrick Wood On January 5, 2012 @ 2:47 pm In Buddy Roemer,Presidential Race

by Patrick Wood
Buddy Roemer ^[2] is the stealth GOP candidate for president, and it’s likely that you have never heard of him, much less his campaign platform.

Unfortunately, he is currently more media-transparent than Ron Paul was in 2011.

What makes Buddy Roemer different and why should you care?

First and foremost, Roemer is the only candidate who correctly connects the dots between lost American jobs and disastrous “free trade” policies that have dismantled virtually all protective trade tariffs over the years.

Secondly and closely related, he is the only candidate who correctly connects the dots between corrupt campaign finance practices and bad economic policies that brought us the above problem in the first place.

As such, Roemer will only take donations up to $100 per person. No PAC, Super PAC, bank or corporate money is accepted. He refuses to be bought-in-advance by anyone who expects favors in return.

Where are the other GOP candidates on these issues? Nowhere. Every other candidate is thoroughly free trade-oriented, including Ron Paul.

I have written about failed free trade policies and the undermining of American prosperity for over 30 years. Almost all of these policies were introduced by a small group of self-interested global elitists in business, banking, government and academia. I can testify with some authority that these policies are at the very root of the current global economic and financial crisis, as well as our own.

Tens of thousands of companies have gone to China, India, Mexico and elsewhere to exploit cheap labor. As a result, millions of good-paying American jobs have been permanently lost. What, did you really think this all happened by accident?

Why are millions of Americans out of work? Look no further.
Why is the American middle class losing its shirt? This is it.
Why are people and government drowning in debt? Yep, same issue.

It should be perfectly clear to anyone who studies these issues that the only road to economic, financial and employment recovery is to reverse course on trade policies designed to plunder America and kick the corrupted political financier/lobbyists out of Washington politics. Do this and we would instantly put our nation back on the road to recovery!

Mr. Politician, this means… don’t take their money and they won’t own you. It means… leveling the playing field by slapping tariffs on imported goods, especially from countries who are sucking the economic life out of us. Again, Roemer is the only candidate who gets it.

If these issues are not addressed now, there is no saving America. Period. Except for Buddy Roemer, all the other candidates are just wasting their time and ours, shining the brass railings on the passenger deck while our ship is still hemorrhaging below the water line.

Listen to Roemer for yourself at his official campaign website ^[2]. It won’t cost you more than $100 if you like him, because that’s the maximum he will accept from anyone. Lastly, why not ask your favorite candidate what they intend to do to fix America’s economic blight.
#############
Patrick Wood is editor and publisher of Findings & Forecasts and The August Forecast & Review

http://www.augustforecast.com/2012/01/05/why-voters-need-to-hear-gop-candidate-buddy-roemer/

Are We Ever Gonna To Get It?

2011-12-30T08:43:00.002-06:00

We will never see or hear any one person say everything perfectly. That's just the way it is here in America! No one person has all the answers because we are so intertwined in the complexities of politics. Straight forward common sense is NOT part of the definition of politics or politicians. My definition of politics would be that it is a science of getting people to do something they may not want to do and having them pay for it and not even knowing it.

The so called poles keep changing and I for one wonder why. Who makes up these poles? Who talks to who? I think the media makes up the poles. The media and all their pundents are doing their best at trying to suggest who we should support. Are We Ever Gonna Get It?

AlenD

Ron Paul Is The Only Presidential Candidate Who Gets It ?

By Chuck Baldwin
December 29, 2011

The recent passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
and the reaction--or better, lack of reaction--by the GOP’s
Presidential candidates is a perfect example of how it will not matter
to a Tinker’s Dam which Republican candidate wins the nomination,
unless that candidate is Congressman Ron Paul. This is what so many
people within the so-called Religious Right and establishment GOP just
do not understand: they do not understand the fact that America is in
the throes of a burgeoning police state. They have buried their heads
in the sand for so long that they wouldn’t know what tyranny looked
like if it came up and bit them on their blessed assurance! They have
totally drunk the propaganda Kool Aid that purports that the biggest
threat to our liberties comes from the Sand People. Our Founding
Fathers were a much wiser lot, of course. They understood perfectly
that the biggest threat to our liberties comes from Washington, D.C.,
not Baghdad, or Tehran, or any other foreign entity.

Listen to Daniel Webster: "There is no nation on earth powerful
enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at
all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people
to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and
negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear
that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants
and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they
may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of
their own undoing."

Yet, except for Ron Paul, not a single Republican Presidential
candidate has issued the slightest warning regarding the draconian
components of the NDAA that literally turns America’s homeland into
a war zone and, with the stroke of a pen, effectively eviscerates the
Bill of Rights. Why is that? Because, except for Ron Paul, none of
them get it. Bachman, Gingrich, Perry, Romney, Santorum. None of them!

To continue reading Chuck's column, click here:
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=4360

Happy Birthday Yeshua Jesus

2011-12-24T19:45:00.007-06:00

Happy Birthday Jesus The Christ !!!

And Thank You for Your Sacrifice to Save us, Your Lost Sheep !!!

Blame Bush, Blame Obama, But Don’t Look Behind The Curtain

2011-12-19T08:06:00.006-06:00

December 19, 2011 by Bob Livingston

Inflation steals the wealth of the saver.

Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson, Timothy Geithner, some (most) members of Congress and big banksters around the globe are breathing a sigh of relief today. A poll shows most Americans are now blaming President Barack Obama for killing the economy.

For three years, Obama and a complicit media have done a good job of blaming Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, for the dire state of the economy. After all, the meme goes, Bush spent money willy-nilly, cut taxes and got us into expensive wars. But Obama has spent more money and started more wars than Bush. So now there’s a new scapegoat.

The aforementioned group of elites and their string-pullers are quite happy with the news because, as long as Americans remain in their stupor, nothing will change. Americans will blame this President or that, but they will never go to the root of the problem for a solution. And it’s a problem that must be removed root and branch.

That’s why they’re working so hard to defeat Ron Paul. He knows where the problem lies, and he’s said he’s willing to remove it root and branch.

The problem is the Federal Reserve and its insidious inflationary policies. Not one person in a million understands this.

The Urgent Special Report
Washington Does NOT Want you To See

40 years ago, one man uncovered a secret so shocking it changed his life forever…

A shadow conspiracy whose goal was nothing less than the total enslavement of the entire nation. He found they’d been working toward that goal for many years… slowly stealing our wealth right out from under our nose. He discovered their deception because he’d unwittingly given them the tools they needed to pull off the incredible heist. And while he spent the rest of his life trying to warn us… most Americans refused to believe him.

Today, his frightening predictions are coming true. Free Report reveals the amazing story and what you must do to protect yourself from the imminent danger that could wipe out your life savings in the blink of an eye… Click Here to claim it now!

Some Americans call America a republic. After all, Benjamin Franklin responded to the question about the new government as he left the Constitutional Convention in 1787 by saying, “[It’s] A Republic, if you can keep it.” And Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution guarantees each State a Republican form of government.

But most people now call America a democracy. They are wrong, but not for the reasons you may think. They are wrong because America is fascism under the feel-good misnomer of democracy. It is simply Nazism with a pretty face.

The rule of law is gone. Our lawmakers make laws for us to live under while exempting themselves. They game the system. Many enter the Congress as paupers and leave rich. The rich get richer. How that happened was hidden for years by the corporate media.

Now, everyone knows what we have said for years: The President and Congress are owned lock, stock and barrel by Wall Street and the big corporations. They play for pay. And they stack the deck against the American people.

We know they (legally, though immorally) trade in the market on insider information. You and I would go to jail for this. Members of Congress apologize, feign contrition and say they will pass laws so they won’t do it again. But there is no recompense, no repentance. The fox is guarding the henhouse.

But the light is shining on them now. The Internet has allowed the free flow of information to make this possible. No more can the corporate media hide the malfeasance of governance from us. So they are working on laws to kill the Internet, too.

Unfortunately, many people see but they still do not comprehend. Goldman Sachs rules the world, but most people are clueless.

Paulson, Robert Rubin, Jon Corzine, Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, European Central Bank Governor Mario Draghi and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti are just a few Goldman alums.

Where they go, money-printing follows. Congress bailed out Goldman Sachs and their bankster buddies to the tune of $700 billion in TARP. Now we know Bernanke also handed out trillions of dollars more to banks in the United States and abroad without so much as a “by your leave.”

The Federal Reserve is a criminal enterprise. Congress is an accessory and a criminal enterprise in its own right.

Is there a Presidential candidate saying this? One only.

Money-printing is a gangrenous rot on society. Fiat money steals wealth like gangrene steals life. It spreads throughout the system slowly, but surely.

It allows the government to play Santa Claus and spread wealth around to its criminal partners and create a growing dependent class of takers. It gives more and people take more until the system inevitably collapses. See Greece, Italy and Portugal for examples.

Meanwhile, the gang of thieves in government finds new ways to spend. It matters not which Party controls the purse strings. Then, government cries about the spending and tells the people they must sacrifice for the good of society. They imply that massive debt is the people’s fault, and that the producers must produce more so government has more to take from them and spread around to their buddies and the “less fortunate” — a group that their policies helped to create and enable. The War on Poverty has been underway for almost 50 years. Is the end near? No, there is more poverty than ever.

Federal debt is a world-class delusion. There can be no debt when fiat money can be printed ad nauseam and to infinity. Ask yourself: If you had the power to print money as needed, would you have debt? Certainly not, no matter how much you wanted to buy. And neither does the Federal government.

The deluded fall into that trap every time. Right now, the debate in Congress is about how a payroll tax cut will be paid for. It’s doublespeak, and the populace falls for it again.

Class warfare is ginned up over such nonsense as this. This creates the diversion the criminals need to continue their enterprise.

The government propaganda machine corporate media continue to say there is no inflation. Most people who are products of the government non-education system don’t even know what inflation is, but they accept that there is none. They see prices rise, and the corporate media and criminals in government tell them prices are going up because all corporations are greedy monsters.

But inflation is not the same thing as rising prices. Rising prices are symptomatic of inflation. Inflation is money-printing. It’s an increase in the supply of money. It’s a reduction in the value of those strips of paper that you carry in your wallet.

Inflation steals the wealth of the saver. It punishes those who are doing what the old-timers told us we should be doing: saving our money, paying as we go and staying out of debt. No matter where you hide your money, inflation steals it from you.

But the banksters benefit in many ways: They get to spend it first, before the economy is flooded with new, less valuable dollars; they use it to prop up the market, so they can play both sides against the middle; and they lend it to borrowers who can’t pay it pay it back and then steal the borrowers’ collateral. The Federal Reserve — which is neither Federal nor holds reserves — benefits because it lends to banks at rates below 1 percent and pays 2 percent or more to borrow it back. But it’s not anything of substance. It’s just digits on a computer screen.

Americans continue to seek a culprit, but they are looking in all the wrong places. They blame the pretty face and the daily orator.

Meanwhile, behind the curtain, the coffers of the banksters are filled to overflowing. And they say: “Give us more.”

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/blame-bush-blame-obama-but-dont-look-behind-the-curtain/?eiid=

When the people have money to spend, they create the jobs!

2011-12-13T10:03:00.007-06:00

Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That Rich People Create The Jobs

Henry Blodget
Dec. 12, 2011, 10:38 AM

America's real job-creators...who can't afford to create any jobs.

In the war of rhetoric that has developed in Washington as both sides blame each other for our economic mess, one argument has been repeated so often that many people now regard it as fact:

Rich people create jobs.

Specifically, entrepreneurs and investors, when incented by low taxes, build companies and create millions of jobs.

And these entrepreneurs and investors, therefore, the argument goes, can solve our nation's huge unemployment problem — if only we cut taxes and regulations so they can be incented to build more companies and create more jobs.

In other words, by even considering raising taxes on "the 1%," we are considering destroying the very mechanism that makes our economy the strongest and biggest in the world: The incentive for entrepreneurs nd investors to build companies in the hope of getting rich and, in the process, creating millions of jobs.

Now, there have long been many problems with this argument starting with

1.Taxes on rich people (capital gains and income) are, relative to history, low, so raising them would only begin to bring them back in line with prior prosperous periods, and

2.Dozens of rich entrepreneurs have already gone on record confirming that a modest hike in capital gains and income taxes would not have the slightest impact on their desire to create companies and jobs, given that tax rates are historically low.

So this argument, which many people regard as fact, is already flawed.

But now a super-rich and super-successful American has explained the most important reason the theory is absurd, while calling for higher taxes on himself and people like him.

THE TRUTH ABOUT TAX RATES:

The most important reason the theory that "rich people create the jobs" is absurd, argues Nick Hanauer, the founder of online advertising company aQuantive, which Microsoft bought for $6.4 billion, is that rich people do not create jobs, even if they found and build companies that eventually employ thousands of people.

What creates the jobs, Hanauer astutely observes, is a healthy economic ecosystem surrounding the company, which starts with the company's customers.

The company's customers buy the company's products, which, in turn, creates the need for the employees to produce, sell, and service those products. If those customers go broke, the demand for the company's products will collapse. And the jobs will disappear, regardless of what the entrepreneur does.

Now, of course entrepreneurs are an important part of the company-creation process. And so are investors, who risk capital in the hope of earning returns. But, ultimately, whether a new company continues growing and creates self-sustaining jobs is a function of customers' ability and willingness to pay for the company's products, not the entrepreneur or the investor capital. Suggesting that "rich entrepreneurs and investors" create the jobs, therefore, Hanauer observes, is like suggesting that squirrels create evolution.

(Or, to put it even more simply, it's like saying that a seed creates a tree. The seed does not create the tree. The seed starts the tree. But what creates the tree is the combination of the DNA in the seed and the soil, sunshine, water, atmosphere, nutrients, and other factors that nuture it. Plant the seed in an inhospitable environment, and it won't create anything. It will die.)

So, then, if what creates the jobs in our economy is, in part, "customers," who are these customers? And what can government policy do to make sure these customers have more money to spend to create demand and, thus, jobs?

The customers of most companies, Hanauer points out, are ultimately the gigantic middle class — the hundreds of millions of Americans who currently take home a much smaller share of the national income than they did 30 years ago, before tax policy aimed at helping rich people get richer created an extreme of income and wealth inequality not seen since the 1920s.

She'd like to create jobs. But she can't afford to anymore. Click to see how extreme inequality has gotten.

The middle class has been pummeled, in part, by tax policies that reward "the 1%" at the expense of everyone else.

(It has also been pummeled by globalization and technology improvements, which are largely outside of any one country's control.)

But, wait, aren't the huge pots of gold taken home by "the 1%" supposed to "trickle down" to the middle class and thus benefit everyone? Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

Yes, that's the way it's supposed to work.

Unfortunately, that's not the way it actually works.

And Hanauer explains why.

Hanauer takes home more than $10 million a year of income. On this income, he says, he pays an 11% tax rate. (Presumably, most of the income is dividends and long-term capital gains, which carry a tax rate of 15%. And then he probably has some tax shelters that knock the rate down the rest of the way).

With the more than $9 million a year Hanauer keeps, he buys lots of stuff. But, importantly, he doesn't buy as much stuff as would be bought if that $9 million were instead earned by 9,000 Americans each taking home an extra $1,000 a year.

Why not?

Because, despite Hanauer's impressive lifestyle — his family owns a plane — most of the $9+ million just goes straight into the bank (where it either sits and earns interest or gets invested in companies that ultimately need strong demand to sell products and create jobs). For a specific example, Hanauer points out that his family owns 3 cars, not the 3,000 that might be bought if his $9+ million were taken home by a few thousand families.

If that $9+ million had gone to 9,000 families instead of Hanauer, it would almost certainly have been pumped right back into the economy via consumption (i.e., demand). And, in so doing, it would have created more jobs.

Hanauer estimates that, if most American families were taking home the same share of the national income that they were taking home 30 years ago, every family would have another $10,000 of disposable income to spend.

That, Hanauer points out, would have a huge impact on demand — and, thereby job creation.

It's time we stopped mouthing the fiction that "rich people create the jobs."

Rich people don't create the jobs.

Our economy creates jobs.

We're all in this together. And until we return to more reasonable tax policies that help the 99% instead of just the 1%, our economy is going to go nowhere.

From: http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-do-not-create-jobs-2011-12
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/rich-people-do-not-create-jobs-2011-12#ixzz1gQlqvRHu

HOW DID THE "FED" BECOME A CANCER ....

2011-12-11T18:23:00.000-06:00

HOW DID THE "FED" BECOME THE CANCEROUS PARASITE ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THAT IT IS?____________________________________________________________________
After previous attempts to push the Federal Reserve Act through Congress, a group of bankers funded and staffed Woodrow Wilson's campaign for President. He had committed to sign this act.

In 1913, a Senator, Nelson Aldrich, maternal grandfather to the Rockefellers, pushed the Federal Reserve Act through Congress just before Christmas when much of Congress was on vacation .

When elected, Wilson passed the FED.
Later, Wilson remorsefully replied (referring to the FED), "I have unwittingly ruined my country"

The ownership of the 12 Central banks, a previously well kept secret, has been revealed:

1. Rothschild Bank of London

2. Warburg Bank of Hamburg

3. Rothschild Bank of Berlin

4. Lehman Brothers of New York (Now defunct, but still owners?)

5. Lazard Brothers of Paris

6. Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York

7. Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy

8. Goldman, Sachs of New York

9. Warburg Bank of Amsterdam

10. Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

US proposes unmanned border crossing with Mexico

2011-12-11T16:33:00.000-06:00

Courtesy of MSNBC.com
and The Associated Press

The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.

This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.

By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.

The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.

"People that want to be engaged in illegal activities along the border, ones that are engaged in those activities now, they're still going to do it," said William Wellman, Big Bend National Park's superintendent. "But you'd have to be a real idiot to pick the only place with security in 300 miles of the border to try to sneak across."

The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre national park.

Customs and Border Protection, which would run the port of entry, says the proposal is a safe way to allow access to the town's residents, who currently must travel 240 road miles to the nearest legal entry point. It also would allow park visitors to visit the town.

If the crossing is approved, Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park's 23 law enforcement rangers.

"I think it's actually going to end up making security better," CBP spokesman William Brooks said.

"Once you've crossed you're still not anywhere. You've got a long ways to go and we've got agents who are in the area. We have agents who patrol. We have checkpoints on the paved roads leading away from the park."

A public comment period runs through Dec. 27 on the estimated $2.3 million project, which has support at the highest levels of government from both countries.

But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.

"We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings," McCaul said in an email. "There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter."

While CBP will run the port of entry, the National Park Service is the driver behind the project, which it hopes will help conservation efforts on both sides of the border. Even as the National Park Service has increased cooperation with its Mexican counterpart, joint conservation has been limited by the inability of personnel to cross the border without making a circuitous 16-hour drive, Wellman said.

So the National Park Service is building the contact station just above the Rio Grande. It will house CBP kiosks where crossers will scan in their documents and talk to a customs officer in Presidio, the nearest port of entry, or another remote location. Park service employees will staff the station, offering information about the park and guiding people through the process.

Similar ports of entry are already in operation on remote parts of the border with Canada.

"We think we can do this without doing any damage to national security and possibly enhance security along the border by having better intelligence, better communication with people in Mexico," Wellman said.

The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.

For years, U.S. tourists added an international dimension to their park visit by wading or ferrying in a rowboat across the shallow Rio Grande to the town. There they bought handicrafts and tacos, providing much-needed cash in the isolated community.

But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.

Gary Martin, who manages the Rio Grande Village store at a nearby park campground, recalls many Mexican residents crossing the river to pick up groceries and other necessities.

"We're their supply," Martin said. "They don't have any electricity over there. So they would come here and buy frozen chicken, cake mixes and things that they couldn't get over there."

Martin tried to stock food items Boquillas del Carmen residents wanted, such as eggs and big sacks of beans.

"After the border closed, well, I got rid of most of my food and went back to gifts because I wasn't making any money," Martin said. He estimated about 40 percent of the store's revenue came from Boquillas residents.

Few have risked crossing to the store since. "If they get caught over here they get shipped off," he said. "They get deported all the way to Ojinaga and then they've got to find their way home. It's not really worth it."

Still, most days some Boquillas del Carmen residents wade across the river a short distance downstream of the old crossing and scramble up to a paved overlook perched high above the river.

On boulders near the parking spots they lay out painted walking sticks, scorpions and roadrunners crafted from copper wire and colorful beads. Each craftsman's work occupies a different rock and operates on the honor system with the hope tourists will drop four or five dollars in their jar.

"Sometimes we don't sell anything," said Boquillas del Carmen resident Guillermo Gonzalez Diaz. "Sometimes we sell one." And other times authorities confiscate everything.

Gonzalez, a 34-year-old father of three, described his town as "very sad, very hard" and said there was no work. Without access to the Rio Grande Village store, residents depend on a bus that runs once a week to Melchor Muzquiz, a larger town about 150 miles away, for supplies.

A small military presence protects the town from the drug-related violence that has engulfed other Mexican border towns. Now with news of the port of entry, residents are already making plans for restaurants and shops, he said.

"When it closed nobody crossed and everything went downhill. People began to leave," he said. "Now people are going to return."

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/11/9370965-us-proposes-unmanned-border-crossing-with-mexico?threadId=3293669&commentId=60650078#c60650078

Hope and Change!

2011-12-05T09:39:00.002-06:00

This information was in an e mail I received today. Is it the truth? Thats a good question! One thing for sure, it shows that people are at least thinking. If the 99% could just get their act together, Hope and Change would mean something. The Occupy Wall Street Protesters have reason. They like so many of us have lost their trust in those who have been elected to position of guidance and leadership to protect the way of life our founding fathers visioned. Now, it's up to us to find a way to act as one. If we can do that, our vote will not be wasted. In fact if you vote for anyone already in office, you will waste your vote!

Barack Obama's 32 Month Report Card

by Rich Carroll

Mr. Hope and Change wants to create a nation humbled; humiliated, casting-aside capitalism and individual freedoms for one where “we the people” are government controlled. This would be a system that genuflects mediocrity, steals personal aspiration and opportunity, and punishes those who strive to succeed.

A gallon of regular gasoline the day Obama was inaugurated was $1.79 on average in the U.S. Today that price is $3.59, a 100.6% increase. The number of food stamp recipients has risen since Obama took office from 31,983,716 to 43,200,878, a 35.1% jump. Long term unemployment soared 146.2% during the same 32 month period from 2,600,000 to 6,400,000. Staggering “hope and change” isn't it?

American citizens living in poverty have risen 9.5% from 39,800,000 to 43,600,000, and the number of unemployed has jumped almost 25% from 11,616,000 to 14,485,000 as of August 31, 2011. The number of unemployed blacks has risen from 12.6% at the end of George Bush's term to 15.8% today, a 25.4% increase, and finally, our national debt is up 34.4% from 10.627 trillion to 14,278 trillion *

Keep these figures in mind as we recount the number of “firsts” for this presidency:

First President to refuse to show a valid birth certificate.

First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

First President to preside over a cut to the credit rating of the United States .

First President to violate the War Powers Act.

First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico .

First President to defy a Federal Judges court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.

First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

First President to spend a trillion dollars on shovel-ready jobs and later admit there was no such thing as shovel-ready jobs.

First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. , including those with criminal convictions.

First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

First President to terminate Americas ability to put a man in space.

First President to encourage racial discrimination and intimidation at polling places.

First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly speak-out on the reasons for their rate increases.

First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which state they are allowed to locate a factory.

First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN)

First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

First President to appoint 45 Czars to replace elected officials in his office.

First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office.

First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

First President to coddle American enemies while alienating Americas allies.

First President to publicly bow to Americas enemies while refusing to salute the U.S. Flag.

First President to go on multiple global apology tours.

First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends, paid for by the taxpayer.

First President to refuse to wear the U.S. Flag lapel pin.

First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000.00 a year at taxpayer expense.

First President to repeat “the Holy Qur'an tells us,” and openly admit “the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.”

Remember that 32 months of Obama White House we the people have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our nation's entire history, as the Obama's plan their next extravagant vacation to the Indonesian Island nation of Bali .

Hope and change anyone?

*Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Wall Street Journal, Bureau of Labor Statistics , US Dept. of Labor, Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller, Federal Reserve , US Treasury, Heritage Foundation.

Brainwashed!

2011-11-28T08:45:00.001-06:00

Yes folks, we are being Brainwashed with the idea the economy is back. Black Friday was the best ever! Best ever for who? Best ever for the use of the credit card? Best ever for the debit card? Best ever for the news and media folks?

Look around folks! It's not over.

If "we the people" or The Occupy Wallstreet Protesters want to make a statement, then stop spending, period. That will get their attention!

AllenD

Along Mexican border, US ranchers say they live in fear

2011-11-25T19:25:00.003-06:00

Source and Courtesy of MSNBC.com

Despite government assurances that they're safe, they say the level of violence is rising

FALFURRIAS, Texas — While walking along a dirt road bordering his property, a South Texas farmer complained about living in fear of Mexican traffickers smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants across his land. He would later ask his visitor not to reveal his identity, for his safety and that of his family.

"I'm a citizen of the United States. This is supposedly sovereign soil, but right now it's anybody's who happens to be crossing here," he said. "I'm a little nervous being here right now. Definitely don’t come down here after dark."

The farmer said a federal law enforcement agent told him to buy a bulletproof vest to use while working in his fields. Whenever he goes out to survey his agricultural operations, he always tells his office where he is headed, and he has purchased a high-powered rifle.

"One of the basic points of the federal government is to protect the people of this nation to secure the border, and they're not doing that," he complained.

The Obama administration and many local officials have said the U.S.-Mexican border is safer than ever and that reports of violence on the American side are wildly exaggerated. But the farmer scoffed at that argument. "I walk this soil every day and have since I was old enough to come out on my own," he said. "In this part of Texas, it is worse than it's ever been."

Moving families to safer ground

A report recently released by the Texas commissioner of agriculture said cross-border violence was escalating. "Fear and anxiety levels among Texas farmers and ranchers have grown enormously during the past two years," the report said, adding that some “have even abandoned their livelihoods to move their families to safer ground."

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who served as the U.S. drug czar during the Clinton administration and as an NBC News military analyst, is a co-author of the report. During a recent interview, McCaffrey said that while major cities along the Texas border are "pretty safe," the rural areas between towns are "largely unprotected, and across those areas the (Mexican) cartels are conducting massive movements of illegal drugs and other criminal activity."

Law enforcement agents say they are seeing more aggressive efforts by Mexican traffickers operating in the Rio Grande Valley. In South Texas alone, the traffickers smuggle hundreds of tons of drugs a year into the United States by floating them on rafts across the Rio Grande, then transporting them by car, truck or on foot — often across private land — into the United States.

The smuggling “clearly has intimidated U.S. citizen who don't believe they're safe on their own land in their own country," McCaffrey said.

Several Texas congressmen and sheriffs have condemned the report, saying its conclusions are overstated and politically driven. But McCaffrey claims the officials not facing facts.

"I think there is an element of denial," McCaffrey said. "Inside the beltway the senior law enforcement, I think, have fallen in line and said, no, that's right, the U.S. border is the safest place in America, which is errant nonsense."

Mark Potter / NBC News

Mike Vickers, a veterinarian and rancher, leads a group of Texas landowners concerned about Mexican drug and immigrant smugglers crossing their private property.

Ranchers protecting themselves

Veterinarian and rancher Mike Vickers heads the Texas Border Volunteers, a group of about 300 landowners and supporters who work closely with law enforcement officials to track drug and immigrant smugglers entering the U.S. from Mexico and crossing private land. His primary concern, he said, is the safety of farmers and ranchers who have been confronted by armed traffickers.

"A lot of them have been threatened not to call the Border Patrol or law enforcement if they see smuggling going on their property, otherwise they'll be killed or their family members may be killed," he said.

During a tour of his land and that of a neighbor, Vickers pointed out numerous hiking trails worn by smugglers and illegal immigrants from around the world. He also showed where many parts of the wire fence had been cut and pulled back. "This is not done by wildlife," he said. "This is done by smugglers and more than likely drug smugglers that have heavy backpacks full of drugs so they can drag the backpack underneath and not have to throw it over the fence."

In order to prove their claims that thousands of smugglers and illegal immigrants are crossing private American land, the Texas Border Volunteers have erected hidden cameras and share the images with state and federal agents. Describing one of the pictures, Vickers said, "This individual's got at least 80, maybe 100 pounds on his back. This is probably marijuana with a canvas covering." Another black and white photograph showed a man hoisting a smaller load. "You know he's carrying at least 40 pounds of drugs in that backpack. We suspect cocaine."

Vickers said that since 2004, about 500 people, mostly illegal immigrants, have perished while on smuggling trips through private property in Brooks County, Texas, alone, where his ranch is located.

A war zone?

Todd Staples, the Texas agriculture commissioner and a candidate for lieutenant governor, argued that many leaders in Washington, D.C., continue to ignore the violence along the border. In a recent article he wrote, "A Webb County rancher checking his cattle is shot at and barely escapes with his life; the suspects are linked to drug cartels. Workers in a Hidalgo County sugarcane field are told by cartel members to stop harvesting the crop 'or else," because the sugarcane provides coverage for cartel coyotes smuggling drugs."

Mark Potter / NBC News

This fence on private land apparently was trampled by smugglers trying to get around a Border Patrol checkpoint in South Texas.

Vickers said he knows ranchers who have moved their families into nearby cities for their protection and have taken other safety measures. "Everyone is packing a weapon and carrying a cell phone with them. and they're crazy if they don't," he said. "This is happening on American soil; this is a war zone here, there's no question about it."

The use of the phrase "war zone" to describe the U.S. side of the border is controversial. The report to the agriculture commissioner states, "Living and conducting business in a Texas border county is tantamount to living in a war zone in which civil authorities, law enforcement agencies as well as citizens are under attack around the clock."

Democratic congressmen and some local officials say that conclusion is unfair. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino was recently quoted by the Houston Chronicle as saying, "The border is not in chaos.” And the newspaper quoted Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a Democrat representing El Paso, as calling the claims "political rhetoric" meant to embarrass the Obama administration.

Among ranchers, farmers and law enforcement agents working at the ground level, however, there is considerable agreement that large-scale drug smuggling from Mexico into the United States has been increasing in recent years and that the traffickers are becoming more aggressive. For the farmer too afraid to be identified publicly, it creates a painful dilemma.

"I can't pick up and move this farm; we're tied to the land," he said. "This is the front door to our country. Help us stop it here."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45440385/ns/nightly_news/#

Brace for Impact

2011-11-23T01:02:00.006-06:00

Larry M.

I have done my Duty trying to Warn my Friends and Family on the coming Economic Collapse. Because the Rockefeller CFR and TC have planned and executed the Exportation of 80% of the US Manufacturing Sector it is IMPOSSIBLE for an Economic Recovery at this time. Even as we speak the Various Industries in the US Manufacturing Sector are still Removing US Jobs and taking them to Communist China and several other Offshore locations. Locations where Slave Labor are the Norm. Locations where Child Labor is the Norm. Locations where the pay is Below One US Dollar an hour. This means that Millions More US Citizen Laborers are becoming Unemployed and things are still getting worse and even Desperate.

It took 30 years of the US Manufacturing Sector being Exported for Profit that the Biggest Garage Sale in US History has taken the USA and Her people down. And it will take Decades, if ever, to Replace what Big Business Wall Street Banks and Corporations stole from the US Middle Class or Working Class. The US of A has been Economically Raped and Gutted upon the Globalist Altar of Sacrifice by the New World Order People on Wall Street and in Washington DC.

We The People are Screwed for sure.

Like the Airlines always say in a Bad situation ......... "Brace for Impact" Economic Impact that is. It is going to be a BAD CRASH in the next year or possibly sooner.

Constitutionally Principled

2011-11-21T07:58:00.001-06:00

This is worth a careful read. Dr. Wheeler is known as the Father of the Reagan Doctrine.

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler

Friday, 14 October 2011

I've been asked by friends of a particular candidate to provide him with a private briefing on the most critical foreign policy issues America faces. What follows is not the usual HFR but a condensed summary of that briefing, which contains much of my Map of the Future talk at Rendezvous XI last weekend.

Russia. Putin is an ersatz macho-man, all hat and no karovi. Russia's navy is made of rust. Russia's ill-trained army of drunkards couldn't conquer Romania. Russian male life expectancy is lower than that of Bangladesh. Russia is a mafiacracy with a doomed economy dependent on oil & gas exports that fracking in Europe & the US will make uncompetitive. Do svidanya.

China. No wives, no water, no banks - and a hyper-dangerous military. Much of China is uninhabited - deserts, mountains, and wastelands. Habitable China is about the size of the US east of the Mississippi, with over a billion people squeezed into it. Northern China is turning into a waterless dust bowl. Scores of millions of Chinese men will never get married due to the Chicom's idiotic one-child policy and resultant mass female infanticide.

100 million bachelors are explosively dangerous. Chinese state banks are insolvent after going on a post-2008 loan binge with debt and credit in China now (according to the IMF) above 200% of GDP. A sharp economic contraction (increasingly likely) plus all those angry unmarried men equals war, the history-honored scapegoat diversion of tyrants.

The obvious Chicom choice for war would be Taiwan. But the Formosa Strait is 100 miles wide and China has no amphibious capacity. Taiwan is on the northern rim of the South China Sea, rapidly becoming one of the most jeopardous flash points in the world. Bordered by Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, and China, over 50% by value of the world's shipping traverses it - and China claims all of it, the entire South China Sea, as its own territorial waters.

This cannot stand. China must be publicly informed by the next president that the South China Sea is international waters, period, there will be no discussion or negotiation. What is to be negotiated is the cooperative exploitation of what resources, such as oil, it may contain. No amount of Chicom bullying and saber-rattling will do any good. Every other country on the sea will join the US in this - and so will India and Japan.

Further, the Chicoms need to grasp that any aggression of theirs in the South China Sea will be naval only, and thus does nothing to occupy all their angry young bachelors. They need to go some place, a place with lots of water and lots of room for them, a place where the women prefer them to the local men who are drunks and beat up their wives, ideally a place once belonging to China but stolen by a foreign aggressor - so to get it back would give them a mission. Maybe even a wife.

There is such a place. It's called Siberia - specifically what China called its Maritime Provinces and Russia, after it seized them in 1860, calls the Russian Far East.

It's only a matter of time, at most a decade or two, before Beijing converts most all of eastern Siberia into Chinese Siberia. There is simply no way a dying Russia can hold on to it. Might as well divert the Chicoms toward it and away from Taiwan and the South China Sea.

North Korea. The Norks have no nukes. The half-kiloton yield in their tests means they failed to make weapons-grade plutonium. So they are no threat to us. They are a threat to South Korea with 11,000 artillery tubes aimed at the 17 million people of Greater Seoul. There is no need for American soldiers to be hostages to this. South Korea is a rich country with a powerful military capable of taking care of itself. We do not need to be there any longer.

India. The world's largest democracy is prickly, but the only country in Asia capable of standing up to China. The Chicoms are building naval bases in India's Indian Ocean neighbors such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Burma, which they call their "String of Pearls" around India's neck. India is countering with a growing alliance with China's ancient neighbor enemy, Vietnam.

The next president should build on President Bush's initiative for military and economic ties between the US and India. That could include a joint India-US naval base in Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam on the South China Sea. The Vietnamese would welcome us. Among nations, there are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.

The Great Game of the 19th century was between the Russian and British Empires colliding in Asia. The 21st century players of this game are China and India. It's in our interests to be on India's side.

Pakistan/Afghanistan. Both are make-believe countries with no legitimate rationale for sovereignty. The key problem in both is Pakistan's "government within a government" spy agency, the ISI - Inter-Services Intelligence. It is radical hate-America jihadi Islamist. It created and is in the heroin business with the Taliban. The first necessary condition towards any solution in this region is its dismantlement.

The other key problem is our State Department's anaphylactic allergy to regime and border changes. The best solution for Afghanistan would be for it to cease to exist as presently constituted. Actually, the same for Pakistan.

The Baluchis of southern Afghanistan and southwest Pakistan want their own Baluchistan (they have a marvelous harbor and the biggest gold deposits in the world according to BHP Biliton). They'd be joined by the Baluchis of southeast Iran and most likely by the Sindhis of adjoining Sind in southern Pakistan with the big city of Karachi.

The Tajiks of northern Afghanistan do not want their lives run by Pushtuns. They'd much rather secede and join Tajikistan - which wants our help to stabilize and protect it from Russia. The Pushtuns straddle the Af-Pak border. They dream of being united in a separate Pushtunistan. Pakistan's ruling group, the Punjabis, would retain the Punjab.

But basically, as with the Koreas, this no longer should be our problem to solve. Af-Pak should be India's problem to solve - Pak nukes, after all, are aimed at India, not us. There is no real nation to build in Afghanistan, and our troops have no purpose dying for it. Terrorist threats are the business of the CIA and spec-ops teams, not the Marines or Army.

Again, we need to ally with India and assist them in what is their problem, not ours, to solve.

Iran. This week we learned that Iran's government planned an act of war against us in our own capital. It is hard to overestimate the number of problems in the world that would be solved with this government gone. And that's the solution: regime change. Apply a straightforward Reagan Doctrine strategy to overthrow Iran's mullah regime by sponsoring - with money and weapons - insurrections throughout the country.

Of Iran's 78 million, over 20 million are ethnic Azeri - almost three times the number of Azeris in Azerbaijan next door, whom they would love to join in a Greater Azerbaijan. There are at least eight million Kurds, who would fight tooth and nail against their Tehran oppressors if we gave them support. There are three million Ahwazi Arabs who populate Iran's oil patch, Kuhzestan, across the border from southern Iraq.

And of course there are the Persians themselves, some 33 million, whose mass street protests have been so brutally suppressed (and which the current president did not lift a finger or say a word to support).

A president determined to effect regime change in Iran would succeed quickly. The world's main state sponsor of Islamic terrorism would be no more. Iraq would be free to flourish, Syria would be quickly liberated, the threat to the Saudi and Gulf oil fields would be removed, and of course, Iran's nuclear program would be destroyed in the process (Israeli spec-ops would see to that).

It's a long list of positives and few if any negatives. All it needs is a president with the courage of Ronald Reagan.

Israel. The pre-1967 demarcations our current president demands Israel return to were not borders - they were cease-fire lines where Israel was able to stop the Arab invasions after declaring its independence in 1948. The Six-Day War recaptured Israel's legitimate territory, and that territory, including Golan and Judea-Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") should remain so.

The Palestinians need to be told to STFU, that they no longer will be coddled and treated like spoiled children. They will recognize the state of Israel as legitimate and Jewish, or they can move to the Sinai, where Egypt will give them a Palestinian State since the Egyptians love Palestinians so much (the dirty secret is that the rest of the Arab world despises Palestinians and calls them rafida, Arabic for the N-word). Arabs and Euroweenies who object can shove their Nazi Anti-Semitism up their noses.

That's the way a pro-American pro-Israel president would deal with Israel and the Arabs. Then there's Turkey.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (air-doh-wan) is an Islamist megalomaniac fantasizing about recreating the Ottoman Caliphate. He is constantly threatening Israel, pretending his high school navy is a match for Israel's NFL navy. Yet he has gutted the Turkish officer corps and filled it with incompetent stooges.

Erdogan needs a US president to explain to him that any duke-out between Turkey and Israel will result in his total humiliation, causing his overthrow and Turkey's expulsion from NATO.

Islam. In addition to the above re: Israel and Iran, the next president should make a clear and public distinction between Islam the religion and Islamism the political ideology masquerading as a religion. That Islamism will no longer be accorded the respect due an actual religion but treated with the contempt due any fascist ideology such as Communism or Nazism.

The next president should draw a distinct line between all variants of Islamism, such as Wahhabis, Deobandis, Khomeini Shias, and other forms of Jihadi and Sharia Islam, with peaceful and tolerant forms of Islam such as practiced by Sufis and Ismailis. It is with the latter that the future of Islam lies.

And for any Moslem in the US who agitates for Sharia law, he is welcome to do so - in a country that practices it, not in America. As for Islamic terrorism, its practitioners should receive a drone strike -a policy of the current president that should be continued.

The current president has, however, utterly failed to champion the rights and religious freedom of Christians in the Moslem world. A truly American foreign policy would do so.

Europe. It's Old Europe, now known as the Eurozone, serving as an object lesson of the scam of the welfare state versus New Europe, the liberated former colonies of the Soviet Union who learned the hard way the evils of socialism and the virtues of capitalism.

A new president would focus attention on the Baltics, Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Croatia, and Slovenia. And he would politely educate the lands of Old Europe on welfare state socialism as a religion of envy. Ireland is already figuring this out and is recovering thereby.

Mexico. As Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty significantly helped bring freedom to Soviet Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the next president could institute a Radio Free Mexico (including satellite television and web sites) teaching free market and small business economics to Mexicans.

Mexico is the land of crony corrupt corporate fascist capitalism. As a result, most Mexicans live in medieval poverty while the richest man in the world is a Mexican - Carlos Slim - whose wealth was gained with state-protected monopolies. A true free market economy would enable Mexicans to become prosperous in their own country.

The only real solution to the US illegal alien problem is for those aliens to want to stay in or go back to their own country where they are free to prosper.

In the meantime, the next president can use the National Guard, seriously armed, to secure our borders. And if drone strikes are so good at killing terrorists, they should be equally good at killing leaders of the Mexican drug cartels.

America and the World. The next president's foreign policy should be based on the opposite of the current president.

The current president is embarrassed to be an American. The next president should be bursting with pride to be an American. The current president has a compulsion to apologize for America, a compulsion to appease those who envy America and her historically unparalleled success. The next president should feel America has nothing what-so-ever to apologize for, and could not care less about those who envy her.

The next president, as opposed to the current one, should have no qualms in laughing at the lunacy of Warmism, the theory of human CO2 production causing global doom. Warmism is the Fascist Left's replacement for Marxism as a rationale for their seizure of power over our lives.

CO2 is a trace greenhouse gas (95% of the world's atmospheric greenhouse gases is water vapor), and our human production is a trace of that. One tenth of one percent of greenhouse gases are made by man. Humans do not cause global warming, period.

Explaining and rejecting this removes the obstacles to the world's most game-changing technology today - hydraulic fracturing or fracking of shale gas and shale oil deposits. Once the political shackles on this technology are removed, America will not only be fully energy independent, but a major energy exporter to the world. The crony capitalist scam of "renewable energy" will be dead -no more Solyndras, wind farm boondoggles, and ethanol subsidies.

Oh, Russia's energy stranglehold on Europe will disappear and Israel will be an energy exporter. Exposing the Fascist Left's hoax of Warmism and fully utilizing fracking technology will enable America and much of the world to live in an era of cheap and abundant energy - providing the material foundation for an ever-growing widespread prosperity.

Lastly, the next president needs to explain that America really does need to be the world's policeman. As America apologizes and retreats from the world, the wolves emerge from the forest, from China to Iran. Only America can keep the world's wolves at bay.

We do not need to nation-build. We do not need our soldiers in Afghanistan. We do not need our soldiers in South Korea. We do not need our soldiers in Europe - Russian tanks (however many can still run) are not going to charge through the Fulda Gap. Once we effect regime change in Iran, we will not need our soldiers in Iraq.

We do need a strong, well-equipped and trained military, an army, an air force, and coast guard. But what we need most of all is an immensely strong navy, along with special forces - Marines, Rangers, SEALs, Delta, et al. Without that, the world's wolf packs run wild and unchecked.

The American Economy and Foreign Policy. A strong America obviously requires a strong and flourishing economy. This can only be achieved by getting the government out of the way of it.

This cannot be done by a smooth-talking sophist who believes in Warmism (thus renewable energy crony capitalist scams), and whose health care program served as the model for the abomination of Obamacare.

This cannot be done by a Johnny One Note who can only talk about his tax reform plan that will take years to implement (if ever), and thus will do absolutely nothing to immediately revive the economy and create massive job growth.

This cannot be done by anyone pretending his business experience can be applied to running a government. Governments and their bureaucracies are the opposite of a for-profit business and cannot be run on business principles alone. Governments, the federal government in particular, can only be run on Constitutional principles, which means eliminating all federal activities, programs, agencies, and departments not enumeratedly authorized by the Constitution. (Not all at once but in an orderly manner - Rome wasn't torn down in a day.)

This can be done only by someone with successful executive government experience who is committed to those Constitutional restrictions, most particularly those embodied in the 10th Amendment.

I wish that person well in the debate next Tuesday and in the months of campaigning to come. The 2012 GOP nomination campaign will be a test of endurance. It will not and mathematically cannot be won quickly.

30 states hold their GOP primaries before April, which are by new RNC rules proportional. A candidate who wins a majority or plurality of votes in these primaries only gets his proportion of the delegates - it's not winner-take-all. 55% of the votes, say, gets you 55% of the delegates, no more.

Further, because they are in violation of RNC rules for insisting on ridiculously early primaries, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Michigan will be penalized with a loss of half of their delegates. Iowa is a non-binding caucus so it's just a PR show.

The race will not be won until deep into April - and thus will be won by the best funded, best organized, and most determined never-give-up persistent candidate. For America's sake, let that candidate be also the most "Constitutionally Principled".

The United States of America is in the Down Hill Process of Economic and Political Collapse.

2011-11-20T17:06:00.005-06:00

Hello Friends

We are living in Extremely Difficult Times and it is getting worse Every Day and Every Month.

Our Blessed Nation of The United States of America is in the Down Hill Process of Economic and Political Collapse.

Wall Street Greed in cahoots with Washington DC Politicians is Rampant and WE The Citizens of the USA are taking the Hit. The middle Class is soon to be No More thanks to Betrayal by the Super Rich upon the Middle Class and Poor.

Top Politicians are in the IRON Grip of the Rockefeller/Rothschild's Central Bankers and have TOTAL Control over even the Cabinet of The President of The United States. How long has this been going on ? Answer .... For Several Decades from Both of our Two Main Political Party's. It has all been a Joke and the Joke is on us ......... The Sheeple. We have chosen to Wear Blinders and now the USA is a WRECK and getting worse every day and every Month of Every Year.

NOW for the Reason I am Writing this.

It is Time to GET Prepared for Very Difficult Times.

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Europe’s Disaster Is Headed Our Way

2011-11-12T13:03:00.004-06:00

Source and Courtesy of The Daily Beast

Nov 13, 2011 12:00 AM EST

Can America withstand the death spiral of debt?

As an author who has just published a book on the crisis of Western civilization, I couldn’t really have asked for more: simultaneous crises in Athens and Rome, the cradles of the West’s law, languages, politics, and philosophy.

Yet most Americans are baffled by the ongoing economic pandemonium in the European Union. For them, places like Greece and Italy are primarily tourist destinations they’ll visit at most once. The finer points of Mediterranean politics leave them cold, except insofar as they’re funny. After all, who could resist the opera-buffa character of Silvio “Bunga-Bunga” Berlusconi?

But only a few weirdos really feel their pulses quicken when they hear news like: the new Greek prime minister is a former central banker called Papademos! Ever tried to explain to a New Yorker the finer points of Slovakian coalition politics? I have. He almost needed an adrenaline shot to come out of the coma.

So why should Americans care about any of this? The first reason is that, with American consumers still in the doldrums of deleveraging, the United States badly needs buoyant exports if its economy is to grow at anything other than a miserably low rate. And despite all the hype about trade with the Chinese, U.S. exports to the European Union are nearly three times larger than to China.

Until March, it seemed as if exports to Europe were on an upward trajectory. But the eurozone crisis has stopped that. Governments that ran up excessive debts have seen their borrowing costs explode. Unable to devalue their currencies, they’ve been forced to adopt austerity measures—cutting spending or hiking taxes—in a vain effort to reduce their deficits. The result has been Depression economics: shrinking economies and unemployment rates approaching 20 percent.

As a result, according to the new president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, a “double dip” recession in Europe is now all but inevitable. And that’s lousy news for U.S. exporters targeting the EU market.

But there’s more. Europe’s problem is not just that governments are overborrowed. There are an unknown number of European banks that are effectively insolvent if their holdings of government bonds are “marked to market”—in other words, valued at their current rock-bottom market prices. In our interconnected financial world, it would be very odd indeed if no U.S. institutions were affected by this. Just as European institutions once loaded up on assets backed with subprime U.S. mortgages, so most big U.S. banks have at least some exposure to eurozone bonds or banks. One institution—MF Global, run by former Goldman Sachs CEO Jon Corzine—just blew up because of its highly levered euro bets. Others are biting their fingernails because it is suddenly far from clear that the credit default swaps they have bought as insurance against, say, a Greek default are worth the paper they are written on.

But the third reason Americans should care about Europe is more important even than the risk of a renewed financial crisis. It is the danger that what is happening in Europe today could ultimately happen here. Just a few months ago, almost nobody was worried about Italy’s vast debt, which amounts to 121 percent of GDP. Then suddenly panic set in, and Italy’s borrowing costs exploded from 3.5 percent to 7.5 percent.

Today the U.S. gross federal debt stands at around 100 percent of GDP. Four years ago it was 62 percent. By 2016 the International Monetary Fund forecasts it will be 115 percent. Economists who should know better insist that this is not a problem because, unlike Italy, the United States can print its own money at will. All that means is that the U.S. reserves the right to inflate or depreciate away its debt. If I were a foreign investor—and half the debt in public hands is held by foreigners—I would not find that terribly reassuring. At some point I might demand some compensation for that risk in the form of ... higher rates.

Athens, Rome, Washington ... The shortest route from imperial capital to tourist destination is precisely this death spiral of debt.

Niall Ferguson is a professor of history at Harvard University and a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. He is also a senior research fellow at Jesus College, Oxford University, and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Latest book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, will be published in November.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/12/europe-s-financial-crisis-is-headed-to-america.html

Trilateral Commission influence in the Eurozone

2011-11-11T15:23:00.002-06:00

Source and Courtesy of

by Patrick Wood
Nov. 11, 2011

Speaking of his Trilateral Commission’s influence in the original creation of the European Union, David Rockefeller wrote in 1998,

“Back in the early Seventies, the hope for a more united EUROPE was already full-blown – thanks in many ways to the individual energies previously spent by so many of the Trilateral Commission’s earliest members.” [Capitals in original] (Rockefeller, David; In the Beginning; The Trilateral Commission at 25, 1998, p.11)

Some argued that “that was then and this is now,” and that the Commission’s influence had waned with the passing of the older generation.

Nonsense. It was Trilateral Commissioner Vallery d’Estaing who authored the EU’s Constitution in 2002 – 2003 when he was President of the Convention on the Future of Europe.

On November 10, 2011, Robert Wenzel, Editor & Publisher of the Economic Policy Journal, wrote the following short report:

And the Big Time Banksters Come Marching In

“Here’s what you need to know about the current crisis in the Eurozone. The big time banksters are getting direct hands on control:

“Mario Drgahi has become president of the European Central Bank as of November 1. He was vice chairman and managing director of Goldman Sachs International and a member of the firm-wide management committee. He was the Italian Executive Director at the World Bank. He has been a Fellow of the Institute of Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

“Lucas Papademos takes over today as Prime Minister of Greece. He was an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He was a visiting professor of public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. And, he was previously a vice president of the European Central Bank. He has been a member of the Trilateral Commission since 1998.

“Indications are that Mario Monti will succeed Silvio Berlusconi as prime minister of Italy, within in days. Monti completed graduate studies at Yale University, where he studied under James Tobin (see the Tobin Tax). He is a member of the European Commission. He is European Chairman of the Trilateral Commission and and member of the Bilderberg Group.

“If you get the sense that the elitist banksters are going to take this financial crisis and push it in whatever direction they want, you are probably very right.”

As you can see, little has changed since 1973, and the same Trilateral Commission membership keeps popping up in the most hallowed positions of power and influence. The Commission’s defense is that it was simply coincidental for their members to be picked for various high-level positions because of their superior talents and abilities. This is not hearsay: I have had this spoken directly to me by members of the Commission.

Considering that the membership hovers around 300 – 350 at any given time, it is statistically impossible that they could have been randomly picked at such a high frequency over such a long period of time. In the U.S. alone since 1973, Commission members held

8 out of 10 U.S. Trade Representative appointments
6 our of 8 World Bank presidencies
6 out of 7 President/Vice President elections

Could any sane person think that they Trilaterals just stumbled into all of these positions? Of course not.

The historical evidence declares that the Trilateral Commission hijacked the global political system for the exact purposes it stated in 1973. That is, to “foster a New International Economic Order.”

Just who rules the world economy?

When Antony Sutton and myself studied the Trilateral Commission in 1978, one analytical technique we used was a derivative of sociology called “network topology.” We assembled names of directors, executives and major shareholders of companies associated with the Trilaterals and then diagrammed them to show overlaps and other non-obvious associations. Our results were stunning. We found a tight interlocking network that was far stronger than a bunch of independent companies. In graphical form, the network was clearly visible. (See Trilaterals Over Washington, Volume I)

Recently, three researchers in Switzerland (S. Vitali, J.B. Glattfelder, and S. Battiston) have released a similar and modern study called “The network of global corporate control.” In the abstract they state,

“We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.”

This is an understatement. In Table S1 buried in the appendix, they list the “top 50 control-holders,” where shareholders are ranked according to their level of network control. These are the companies who comprise the inner-core of global control.

Of the 50 companies, 45 are banks, insurance or other financial institutions. From the U.S. we see the usual: State Street, JP Morgan Chase, B of A, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others.

In short, this core of banks/financials are the real rulers of the world economy. There is no speculation here: This is hard and compelling evidence.
This is also the exact same conclusion that Sutton and I reached in 1978 with more rudimentary, non-computerized analysis.

The report concludes,

“This is the first time a ranking of economic actors by global control is presented. Notice that many actors belong to the financial sector (NACE codes starting with 65,66,67) and many of the names are well-known global players. The interest of this ranking is not that it exposes unsuspected powerful players. Instead, it shows that many of the top actors belong to the core. This means that they do not carry out their business in isolation but, on the contrary, they are tied together in an extremely entangled web of control. This finding is extremely important since there was no prior economic theory or empirical evidence regarding whether and how top players are connected. Finally, it should be noted that governments and natural persons are only featured further down in the list.” [emphasis added]

Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission with David Rockefeller in 1973, summed up the “network” in his 1970 Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era:

“The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state.” [emphasis added]

Unfortunately, this is the reality of the matter. With international banks at the center and various multinational companies in the periphery, the network continues to dominate and control the course of world events. The citizens of the respective countries are little more than objects to be taxed and manipulated.

In Europe, the financial demise of Italy and Greece threatens to melt down the European region, if not the entire global economy. That Trilateral bankers Papademos and Monti, respectively, would take the helm as Prime Minister of their own nation-state should be likened to be a receivership move designed to protect the assets of the banks (the “Network”) they represent. If nothing else, it certainly shows that the Trilateral hegemony over Europe is alive and well.

Until this hegemony is somehow dissolved, the game of national political elections (In the U.S. or Europe) is largely an exercise in futility. Electors are simply deceived when they fail to recognize and address the real power behind the political/economic system.

http://www.augustforecast.com/2011/11/11/trilateral-commission-influence-in-the-eurozone/

In the past 100 years, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value.

2011-11-07T07:34:00.006-06:00

November 7, 2011 by Bob Livingston

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.” — Thomas Jefferson

According to my very unscientific analysis, only about 5 percent of the conscious American adult population (those who bother to follow issues at a minimum level and vote in national elections) truly understand inflation and how the Federal Reserve’s policies are stealing your wealth every day. Sadly, that percentage becomes frighteningly lower when combined with the rest of the American sheeple.

Remember that out of a voting age population of about 218 million people, only about 129.4 million cast votes in the 2008 Presidential election. The rest couldn’t trouble themselves enough to lay aside their bag of chips and can of Coke, turn off the idiot box, get off the couch and trudge down to the polling place to push a button on a machine or fill in a blank on a voting card.

I and many others write often of inflation’s devastating effects. Yet the hue and cry for the elimination of the Federal Reserve, the tarring and feathering of Ben Bernanke (and Alan Greenspan), the return to sound money and the elimination of fiat currency are seldom seen outside of Austrian economic blogs or heard outside of Ron Paul rallies.

Oh, yes, Rick Perry once called Bernanke “treasonous.” But he backed off because he couldn’t really explain what he was talking about. And Newt Gingrich has called for an audit of the Fed, but that didn’t resonate with his followers so it’s gone the way of his criticism of “conservative social engineering” and belief in man-caused global warming in Newt’s lexicon. Now Newt’s simply angling to be Herman Cain’s running mate.

Of the politicians on the national stage, only Congressman Ron Paul has consistently preached about the evils of the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies, the dangers of inflation and the need to truly rein in government spending. Yet, if you believe the national polls, Paul is garnering only about 10 percent support from so-called conservatives.

Americans sought “Hope and Change” in 2008. Fed up with eight years of President George W. Bush’s ill-advised wars and profligate spending, they elected a Marxist who offered the vague promise that he would “fundamentally transform America.” His statement to Joe the Plumber that “we need to spread the wealth around” was either ignored, dismissed or embraced by about 60 percent of the voters.

Americans wanted change, but they didn’t get a change in direction. They got acceleration. All President Barack Obama has done is double down on George W. Bush’s policies and push us closer to European-style socialism — which is failing rapidly in Europe — and move us ever closer toward complete totalitarianism. The only difference is the rhetoric over where the wealth should come from and which special interest should get the most of it.

But this is not just about Bush and Obama. Federal spending increases year after year and Federal power grows year after year regardless of whether the President has a “D” or an “R” after his name and regardless of which party controls Congress.

America is a police state, a military state, a welfare state. It’s all made possible by the Federal Reserve and increased Federalism.

The Federal Reserve was conceived in a secret meeting at a wealthy retreat on a barrier island called Jekyll Island, Ga., in 1910. The principals involved were: Senator Nelson Aldrich, the father-in-law of John D. Rockefeller Jr., representing Rockefeller interests and the Standard Oil crowd; Paul Warburg, a German banker representing MM Warburg of Hamburg, European banking interests (including the Rothschilds) and Kuhn Loeb in the U.S.; Henry P. Davison, partner in J.P. Morgan and chairman of Bankers Trust Company (a consortium of New York’s biggest banks); Benjamin Strong, vice president of Bankers Trust; Frank Vanderlip, chairman of National City Bank; and Charles D. Norton, president of the First National Bank.[i] Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Abraham Piatt Andrew is also reported to have attended. [ii]

Their work later evolved into the bill — the Federal Reserve Act — that formed the Federal Reserve and that was rammed through the House and Senate in 1913. The House version passed by a 287-85 margin, and most Congressmen didn’t even know what the bill was about. No amendments were allowed, and members were only given the opportunity to vote for or against. The bill was named for Representative Carter Glass of Virginia (a director of the United Loan and Trust and the Virginia Trust Company).[iii]

After passing the House, the bill went to the Senate where it took exactly four and half hours to debate and pass in the Senate by a 43-25 margin. Named the Owen Bill after Senator Robert Latham Owen of Oklahoma — a major stockholder of the First National Bank of Muskogee — the Republicans did not even see the conference report, which is normally read to the floor, and some Senators said they had no knowledge of the contents of the bill. President Woodrow Wilson signed the bill the same day it was passed.[iv]

And guess who was appointed to head the New York Federal Reserve? None other than Benjamin Strong, J.P. Morgan minion, former vice president of Bankers Trust and one of the original conspirators that met on Jekyll Island to draft the bill that would create the Federal Reserve.[v] Likewise, the Washington Federal Reserve was headed by two Morgan men, two Rockefeller minions, two men of undetermined affiliations: a prominent Alabama banker and an economist with vague family connections to Morgan family interests.[vi]

What did this law do? It established a private bank that controlled U.S. monetary policy. Although named Federal Reserve, the bank is not a part of the Federal government. It is a private for-profit entity. It holds no reserves, but lends “money” to other banks — both in the United States and abroad — and the Federal government. The loans must be paid back with interest. But the money the Fed lends is not real money. It’s simply a kited check.

It has the authority to arbitrarily set interest rates and lend money to whomever it wishes, and it has no real accountability to Congress or the President.

The Fed has a monopoly of the issue of all bank notes. National and State banks can issue only deposits, and the deposits are redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes. All banks are forced to become members of the Federal Reserve System. The Fed is the lender of last resort, and that power allows it to inflate in order to bail out banks.[vii]

How does inflating steal your wealth? I have written before that even if you stored your dollars 40 miles deep, the money creators can steal the purchasing power of your paper money.

It is as simple a concept as supply and demand. With more money chasing fewer goods, more and more money is required to make a purchase. If you put your money in a certificate of deposit in the bank paying 1 percent interest, but inflation is running at 3.9 percent (the official tally from Washington), then your bank savings are losing money. It is like pouring water into milk. The more water you pour, the less milk is left.

Everyone is hurt, particularly those on a fixed income. The more money that is spewed out, the more worthless each one of those paper dollars is. In the past 100 years, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value. Put another way; it now costs $1 to buy what once cost 5 cents.

This is no secret to the elites, although it is rare they will tell the truth. In 1967, long before he became Fed chairman and began dissembling, in a moment of candor Alan Greenspan wrote:

As the supply of money increases relative to the supply of tangible assets in the economy, prices must eventually rise. In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.

Now spread this message to your friends and family.

And consider this: The next election will be a referendum on the economy. Only one Presidential candidate has demonstrated an understanding of what has brought the U.S. economy to this point. Only one candidate predicted the bursting of the housing bubble long before it came. Only one candidate has been consistent for 30 years. It’s Ron Paul, and a vote for anyone else is a vote against your own pocketbook.

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/government/educating-the-95-percent/?eiid=&rmid=2011_11_07_PLA_[P11470930]&rrid=238428701

The Democrats and Republicans Make Chumps out of ALL of us !!!

2011-11-03T13:04:00.010-05:00

By Larry M.

Things are Bad for sure. I just heard a News story say that it will be YEARS before the Unemployment levels will Improve significantly.

We have had Wall Street Export our Nations Manufacturing Sector for at least 30 years and if the USA changed direction today it would take years or Decades to Replace our Dead Manufacturing Sector. In the mean time we as a Wall Street Betrayed People are going to Suffer because of the Greed of Wall Street and their Bought Off DC Politicians with Army's of Wall Street Lobbyists.

The Tea Party wants to take the Entire Nation to the Far Right. And the Occupy Movement wants to take the Nation to the Far Left. We don't need the Extreme form of Capitalism of the last 30 years and we do Not need to Swing the Pendulum to the Far Left under Marxism/Communism either. We just need for the Globalist Central Bankers from Wall Street and London and other European Central Bankers to get OUT of US Politics.

The DAMNED Rockefeller/Rothschild's Central Banker could care less which we pursue as long as they can Continue to Saturate the White House with Cabinet Members that are also Members of the Rockefeller CFR and TC. It is through the CFR and TC that the Central Bankers Control our Nations TOP Politicians, our Two Main Political Party's and many Prominent Media News Anchors from nearly ALL of the NEWs Networks in the USA.

We cannot blame the Republicans for our Mess and we cannot blame the Democrats for our mess. We MUST Blame the Central Bankers and BOTH our Two Main Political Party's and REPLACE Both Main Party's with NEW Political Party's. Parties that put a BAN into their Party Platform of any and ALL Globalist Agenda People. It is in this way that we can take our Nation Back. If we allow ourselves to be Tilted to the Far Left and Far Right then the Rockefellers and Rothschild's will CONTINUE to Laugh at us for being Chumps for being Loyal to Two Party's that have Betrayed All of us.

http://www.constitutionparty.com/

Occupy America and Friendly Fascism: Life in the Corporate Police State

2011-11-01T20:37:00.000-05:00

Source and Courtesy of The Rutherford Institute

By John W. Whitehead
10/31/2011

"Law is no longer what it was intended to be - a set of rules equally binding everyone to ensure that outcome inequalities are at least legitimate - and instead has become the opposite: a tool used by the politically and financially powerful to entrench their own power and control the society. That's how and why the law now destroys equality and protects the powerful.

What we see with the protests demonstrates exactly how that works. The police force—the instrument of law enforcement—is being used to protect powerful criminals who have suffered no consequences for their crimes. It is simultaneously used to coerce and punish the powerless: those who are protesting and who have done nothing wrong, yet are subjected to an array of punishment ranging from arrest to pepper spray and other forms of abuse.

That's what the two-tiered justice system is: elites are immunized for egregious crimes while ordinary Americans are subjected to merciless punishment for trivial transgressions."—Glenn Greenwald, author of With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

While the Occupy protests are an encouraging sign that Americans are not completely oblivious to the creeping despotism that is overtaking the nation, time alone will tell whether the Occupy Wall Street movement and its companion protests throughout the country amount to anything more than an expression of discontent on the part of the 99% with the so-called 1%. What has been made clear, however, by the naked aggression of the corporate-state against these protesters is that the 1% is protected by its own security force—the police—funded ironically enough by the very 99% against whom they are waging war with pepper spray, rubber bullets, tear gas and other instruments of compliance.

For example, in a September 2011 incident, the New York police responded to Occupy Wall Street protestors by throwing people to the ground and using pepper spray on nonviolent protesters trapped behind a barricade. One protestor, Kelly Brannon, described the scene, "They put up orange nets and tried to kettle us and we started running and they started tackling random people and handcuffing them. They were herding us like cattle." Another protestor was arrested because he had been chanting "let them go" as people were handcuffed. According to news reports, journalist Luke Rudowski was rammed in the stomach with a club and thrown to the ground, despite repeatedly making it clear that he was with the media, while two Fox News reporters were hit with pepper spray and at least one police club. The NYPD have since become savvier. Rather than using brute force to discourage the protests, they have resorted to freezing out the protesters by confiscating their electric generators and the fuel that runs them.

Police in Oakland used tear gas canisters, rubber bullets, sound cannons and flash bang grenades to disperse the Occupy Oakland protest. An Iraq War veteran, 24-year-old Scott Olsen, who was taking part in the protest, was struck in the head with a police projectile. His skull was fractured and he was listed in critical condition due to his brain swelling. When protestors came to his aid, they were driven back by a flash bang grenade.

Police in Atlanta rounded up more than 50 protesters who had been camped out in a city park as part of Occupy Atlanta, while police in Philadelphia arrested 15 individuals engaged in a sit-in in protest of police brutality as part of Occupy Philadelphia. San Diego Police arrested 44 protesters at Occupy San Diego, confiscating all personal belongings and all supplies and food that had been donated.

These police tactics bring to mind something journalist Daniel Kurtzman asked years ago. "When the government...begins to stamp out the freedom of dissent that is the hallmark of a democratic society," he wrote, "can there be any turning back?" Indeed, these attempts by police to stifle the various Occupy protests serve only to reinforce what Bertram Gross warned against in his 1980 book, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America:

Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution. More broadly, consequences include widespread intervention in international politics through economic manipulation, covert action, or military invasion. On a world scale, all of this is producing a heating up of the cold war and enlarged stock piles of nuclear and non-nuclear death machines.

Although the message of the Occupy protests is somewhat muddled at times, they do underscore the fact that the state of the nation has not improved in the 30 years since Gross penned those words. In fact, it has grown worse, from economic concerns to threats to our civil liberties, an increasing military presence in our daily lives, and the rise of a police state enhanced by a surveillance complex that invades virtually every aspect of our lives.

Gross, a presidential adviser who had a role in the expansion of government during the New Deal era, warned that the rise of friendly fascism would be a subtle progression. As Gross noted, "Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties, or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of creeping fascism... In America, it would be super modern and multi-ethnic—as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards, and apple pie. It will be fascism with a smile. As a warning against its cosmetic façade, subtle manipulation, and velvet gloves, I call it friendly fascism. What scares me most is its subtle appeal."

Indeed, added Gross, "the subversion of constitutional democracy is more likely to occur not through violent and sudden usurpation but rather through the gradual and silent encroachments that would accustom the American people to the destruction of their freedoms." The elite will use "triplespeak" to keep the public in line, feeding the people myth and jargon to divert them from the truth. The apathy and naivety, or possibly the cynicism and hopelessness, of the American citizen would contribute to his own oppression.

At a time when most Americans are feeling the pain of an economy continuing to plummet, the Occupy movement's motto has a universal appeal:

We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.

However, what the Occupy movement's "We are the 99%" motto fails to recognize is that the problems we face have to do with much more than economic inequality between the haves and the have nots. Similarly, the Tea Party, which started off with similar zeal, failed to recognize that the problem was not merely Big Government but, rather, the merger of Big Government with Big Business. Inflation, unemployment, job insecurity, career anxieties and conditional benefactions are all, as Gross points out, forms of terror deliberately perpetrated upon a populace in order to control them. Thus, until we can gain some consensus about the true culprits behind our problems, any movement to change the status quo is destined to fail or be co-opted by political forces.

Lest we forget, most police states have come about through the democratic process, and their leaders come into power citing platitudes of religion, morality and order, asking the citizenry to put blind faith in the government. As Gross reminds us, "Big Business—Big Government partnerships, backed up by other elements, were the central facts behind the power structures of old fascism in the days of Mussolini, Hitler, and the Japanese empire builders." Our present crisis is no exception. In fact, William L. Shirer, author of the monumental The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, once predicted that America may be the first country in which fascism comes to power through democratic elections.

"As I look at America today," Gross remarked in 1980, "I am not afraid to say that I am afraid." More than 30 years later, I fear that we have even more reason to be afraid.

http://www.rutherford.org/articles_db/commentary.asp?record_id=738

Site reveals the human slavery behind your stuff

2011-10-31T00:15:00.002-05:00

By Suzanne Kantra, Techlicious.com

I have 66 slaves working for me. Or at least that’s what Slavery Footprint estimates based on my lifestyle and the size of my family.

For a quick snapshot, you answer 11 pages of questions, including your age, the number of children you have, whether you rent or own a home, what’s in your medicine cabinet, what you eat, the clothing you own, how much jewelry you own and what electronics you have. If you have time, you can fine tune your results by reporting specific number of items. Like how many computers, leather shoes or stuffed animals you have.

Survey questions are graphically based.

For me, the main contributors were my electronics — not a big surprise there, as slavery has a large footprint in mining of raw materials — and my children’s stuffed animals. Now I have a better idea of my impact on human trafficking, and I learned some interesting facts about forced labor while filling out the survey. For instance, did you know that “bonded labor is used in Southeast Asia’s shrimping industry, which supplies more shrimp to the U.S. than any other country?”

The website — which was created by Call + Response, a non-profit dedicated to ending slavery, in collaboration with the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons — estimates the number of slaves by taking a look at more than 450 products, and breaking them down from the sourcing of raw materials through the manufacturing. And the data is taken from legitimate sources such as the Department of Labor’s List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor 2010, International Labor Organization’s Committee of Experts Reports and Transparency International‘s Corruption Index 2010. Check the site’s Methodology page for a complete explanation and list of sources.

http://digitallife.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/28/8524719-site-reveals-the-human-slavery-behind-your-stuff

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs

2011-10-30T22:15:00.002-05:00

October 30, 2011

By MONA SIMPSON

I grew up as an only child, with a single mother. Because we were poor and because I knew my father had emigrated from Syria, I imagined he looked like Omar Sharif. I hoped he would be rich and kind and would come into our lives (and our not yet furnished apartment) and help us. Later, after I’d met my father, I tried to believe he’d changed his number and left no forwarding address because he was an idealistic revolutionary, plotting a new world for the Arab people.

Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.

By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.

When I met Steve, he was a guy my age in jeans, Arab- or Jewish-looking and handsomer than Omar Sharif.

We took a long walk — something, it happened, that we both liked to do. I don’t remember much of what we said that first day, only that he felt like someone I’d pick to be a friend. He explained that he worked in computers.

I didn’t know much about computers. I still worked on a manual Olivetti typewriter.

I told Steve I’d recently considered my first purchase of a computer: something called the Cromemco.

Steve told me it was a good thing I’d waited. He said he was making something that was going to be insanely beautiful.

I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.

Steve worked at what he loved. He worked really hard. Every day.

That’s incredibly simple, but true.

He was the opposite of absent-minded.

He was never embarrassed about working hard, even if the results were failures. If someone as smart as Steve wasn’t ashamed to admit trying, maybe I didn’t have to be.

When he got kicked out of Apple, things were painful. He told me about a dinner at which 500 Silicon Valley leaders met the then-sitting president. Steve hadn’t been invited.

He was hurt but he still went to work at Next. Every single day.

Novelty was not Steve’s highest value. Beauty was.

For an innovator, Steve was remarkably loyal. If he loved a shirt, he’d order 10 or 100 of them. In the Palo Alto house, there are probably enough black cotton turtlenecks for everyone in this church.

He didn’t favor trends or gimmicks. He liked people his own age.

His philosophy of aesthetics reminds me of a quote that went something like this: “Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”

Steve always aspired to make beautiful later.

He was willing to be misunderstood.

Uninvited to the ball, he drove the third or fourth iteration of his same black sports car to Next, where he and his team were quietly inventing the platform on which Tim Berners-Lee would write the program for the World Wide Web.

Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods. He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.

Whenever he saw a man he thought a woman might find dashing, he called out, “Hey are you single? Do you wanna come to dinner with my sister?”

I remember when he phoned the day he met Laurene. “There’s this beautiful woman and she’s really smart and she has this dog and I’m going to marry her.”

When Reed was born, he began gushing and never stopped. He was a physical dad, with each of his children. He fretted over Lisa’s boyfriends and Erin’s travel and skirt lengths and Eve’s safety around the horses she adored.

None of us who attended Reed’s graduation party will ever forget the scene of Reed and Steve slow dancing.

His abiding love for Laurene sustained him. He believed that love happened all the time, everywhere. In that most important way, Steve was never ironic, never cynical, never pessimistic. I try to learn from that, still.

Steve had been successful at a young age, and he felt that had isolated him. Most of the choices he made from the time I knew him were designed to dissolve the walls around him. A middle-class boy from Los Altos, he fell in love with a middle-class girl from New Jersey. It was important to both of them to raise Lisa, Reed, Erin and Eve as grounded, normal children. Their house didn’t intimidate with art or polish; in fact, for many of the first years I knew Steve and Lo together, dinner was served on the grass, and sometimes consisted of just one vegetable. Lots of that one vegetable. But one. Broccoli. In season. Simply prepared. With just the right, recently snipped, herb.

Even as a young millionaire, Steve always picked me up at the airport. He’d be standing there in his jeans.

When a family member called him at work, his secretary Linetta answered, “Your dad’s in a meeting. Would you like me to interrupt him?”

When Reed insisted on dressing up as a witch every Halloween, Steve, Laurene, Erin and Eve all went wiccan.

They once embarked on a kitchen remodel; it took years. They cooked on a hotplate in the garage. The Pixar building, under construction during the same period, finished in half the time. And that was it for the Palo Alto house. The bathrooms stayed old. But — and this was a crucial distinction — it had been a great house to start with; Steve saw to that.

This is not to say that he didn’t enjoy his success: he enjoyed his success a lot, just minus a few zeros. He told me how much he loved going to the Palo Alto bike store and gleefully realizing he could afford to buy the best bike there.

And he did.

Steve was humble. Steve liked to keep learning.

Once, he told me if he’d grown up differently, he might have become a mathematician. He spoke reverently about colleges and loved walking around the Stanford campus. In the last year of his life, he studied a book of paintings by Mark Rothko, an artist he hadn’t known about before, thinking of what could inspire people on the walls of a future Apple campus.

Steve cultivated whimsy. What other C.E.O. knows the history of English and Chinese tea roses and has a favorite David Austin rose?

He had surprises tucked in all his pockets. I’ll venture that Laurene will discover treats — songs he loved, a poem he cut out and put in a drawer — even after 20 years of an exceptionally close marriage. I spoke to him every other day or so, but when I opened The New York Times and saw a feature on the company’s patents, I was still surprised and delighted to see a sketch for a perfect staircase.

With his four children, with his wife, with all of us, Steve had a lot of fun.

He treasured happiness.

Then, Steve became ill and we watched his life compress into a smaller circle. Once, he’d loved walking through Paris. He’d discovered a small handmade soba shop in Kyoto. He downhill skied gracefully. He cross-country skied clumsily. No more.

Eventually, even ordinary pleasures, like a good peach, no longer appealed to him.

Yet, what amazed me, and what I learned from his illness, was how much was still left after so much had been taken away.

I remember my brother learning to walk again, with a chair. After his liver transplant, once a day he would get up on legs that seemed too thin to bear him, arms pitched to the chair back. He’d push that chair down the Memphis hospital corridor towards the nursing station and then he’d sit down on the chair, rest, turn around and walk back again. He counted his steps and, each day, pressed a little farther.

Laurene got down on her knees and looked into his eyes.

“You can do this, Steve,” she said. His eyes widened. His lips pressed into each other.

He tried. He always, always tried, and always with love at the core of that effort. He was an intensely emotional man.

I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself. He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.

Even ill, his taste, his discrimination and his judgment held. He went through 67 nurses before finding kindred spirits and then he completely trusted the three who stayed with him to the end. Tracy. Arturo. Elham.

One time when Steve had contracted a tenacious pneumonia his doctor forbid everything — even ice. We were in a standard I.C.U. unit. Steve, who generally disliked cutting in line or dropping his own name, confessed that this once, he’d like to be treated a little specially.

I told him: Steve, this is special treatment.

He leaned over to me, and said: “I want it to be a little more special.”

Intubated, when he couldn’t talk, he asked for a notepad. He sketched devices to hold an iPad in a hospital bed. He designed new fluid monitors and x-ray equipment. He redrew that not-quite-special-enough hospital unit. And every time his wife walked into the room, I watched his smile remake itself on his face.

For the really big, big things, you have to trust me, he wrote on his sketchpad. He looked up. You have to.

By that, he meant that we should disobey the doctors and give him a piece of ice.

None of us knows for certain how long we’ll be here. On Steve’s better days, even in the last year, he embarked upon projects and elicited promises from his friends at Apple to finish them. Some boat builders in the Netherlands have a gorgeous stainless steel hull ready to be covered with the finishing wood. His three daughters remain unmarried, his two youngest still girls, and he’d wanted to walk them down the aisle as he’d walked me the day of my wedding.

We all — in the end — die in medias res. In the middle of a story. Of many stories.

I suppose it’s not quite accurate to call the death of someone who lived with cancer for years unexpected, but Steve’s death was unexpected for us.

What I learned from my brother’s death was that character is essential: What he was, was how he died.

Tuesday morning, he called me to ask me to hurry up to Palo Alto. His tone was affectionate, dear, loving, but like someone whose luggage was already strapped onto the vehicle, who was already on the beginning of his journey, even as he was sorry, truly deeply sorry, to be leaving us.

He started his farewell and I stopped him. I said, “Wait. I’m coming. I’m in a taxi to the airport. I’ll be there.”

“I’m telling you now because I’m afraid you won’t make it on time, honey.”

When I arrived, he and his Laurene were joking together like partners who’d lived and worked together every day of their lives. He looked into his children’s eyes as if he couldn’t unlock his gaze.

Until about 2 in the afternoon, his wife could rouse him, to talk to his friends from Apple.

Then, after awhile, it was clear that he would no longer wake to us.

His breathing changed. It became severe, deliberate, purposeful. I could feel him counting his steps again, pushing farther than before.

This is what I learned: he was working at this, too. Death didn’t happen to Steve, he achieved it.

He told me, when he was saying goodbye and telling me he was sorry, so sorry we wouldn’t be able to be old together as we’d always planned, that he was going to a better place.

Dr. Fischer gave him a 50/50 chance of making it through the night.

He made it through the night, Laurene next to him on the bed sometimes jerked up when there was a longer pause between his breaths. She and I looked at each other, then he would heave a deep breath and begin again.

This had to be done. Even now, he had a stern, still handsome profile, the profile of an absolutist, a romantic. His breath indicated an arduous journey, some steep path, altitude.

He seemed to be climbing.

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

Steve’s final words, hours earlier, were monosyllables, repeated three times.

Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them.

Steve’s final words were:

OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.

Mona Simpson is a novelist and a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. She delivered this eulogy for her brother, Steve Jobs, on Oct. 16 at his memorial service at the Memorial Church of Stanford University.

It's time to get Money Out of Politics

2011-10-27T16:00:00.018-05:00

Bailouts. War. Unemployment. Our government is bought, and we’re angry. Now, we’re turning our anger into positive action. By signing this petition, you are joining our campaign to get money out of politics. Our politicians won’t do this. But we will. We will become an unrelenting, massive organized wave advocating a Constitutional amendment to get money out of politics.

We are using our ability to influence media outlets as a platform to force this issue to the center of the 2012 elections. We are using The Dylan Ratigan Show to build this digital wave, so join us. As the petition grows, the wave grows. Email, Facebook, Tweet — GET MONEY OUT.

From our former Washington Lobbyist, Jimmy Williams, here is a DRAFT of our Constitutional Amendment for public debate this fall:

"No person, corporation or business entity of any type, domestic or foreign, shall be allowed to contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office or to contribute money on behalf of or opposed to any type of campaign for Federal office. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, campaign contributions to candidates for Federal office shall not constitute speech of any kind as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution or any amendment to the U. S. Constitution. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

Here is Lawrence Lessig's DRAFT of the amendment. As always we would like your comments for debate.

"No non-citizen shall contribute money, directly or indirectly, to any candidate for Federal office. United States citizens shall be free to contribute no more than the equivalent of $100 to any federal candidate during any election cycle. Notwithstanding the limits construed to be part of the First Amendment, Congress shall have the power to limit, but not ban, independent political expenditures, so long as such limits are content and viewpoint neutral. Congress shall set forth a federal holiday for the purposes of voting for candidates for Federal office."

To double your impact, send GetMoneyOut.com to one other person.

Click Link Below to Sign Petition.

http://www.getmoneyout.com/

Crony Capitalism or Corporatism are the same as Fascism‏

2011-10-26T12:44:00.014-05:00

By Larry M.

Unfortunately most of the Occupy Wall Street movement people do not realize that it is the same people that gave Birth to the Rockefeller CFR, the TC, and also the FED Banking System. It is also these same Organizations that have been and Are Responsible for the last 30 years of 45,000 Factories Closings and Many Many Millions of Jobs that have been taken to our Enemy's in Communist China and other places for the Express Purpose of seeking out Slave Labor Pools.

Unfortunately it is these same Private Organizations of the CFR and TC that make up over 90% of Every US Presidential Cabinet in every President from Carter through Obama in BOTH Main Political Partys.

There is Direct Linkage between the Rockefeller CFR and TC and Washington DC and this Linkage needs to be Broken and made Illegal. For Wall Street to so thoroughly and Totally Control our National Political System through an Army of over 30,000 Corporate Lobbyist's is Totally Immoral and Corrupt not to mention Un-American.

This Linkage must be made Illegal and Broken to Restore the United States of America.

When you hear that our Nation has become Controlled by Crony Capitalism and Corporatism ........ this is putting a Candy Coating on the Old Term of (Fascism) like the Early 20th Century where Corporations and Government were in Bed Together and that led to World War II.

Oddly enough it was Also Wall Street and the London Stock Exchange that also Funded the Russian Communist Revolution with that funding having been acquired by Trotsky in about 1917.

With Russian Communist's and European Fascist's sharing Europe it was like putting two cats in a bag and shaking it up. War was Inevitable and happened as planned by Greedy People on Wall Street and in the London Stock Exchange.

Why Occupy Wall Street will fail

2011-10-21T02:16:00.010-05:00

Source and Courtesy of

Portfolio Insights by Brett Arends

Oct. 21, 2011, 12:01 a.m. EDT

Commentary: Five reasons why the protests won’t change a thing

By Brett Arends MarketWatch

BOSTON (MarketWatch) — The public has every reason to be angry at what’s going on in this country, and every reason to protest. But will the Occupy Wall Street movement succeed in changing anything? Don’t count on it.

Here are five reasons I think these protests are doomed to fail.

1. They are in the wrong place.
Why are they down in Lower Manhattan? Do they think that’s where the power — and the money — really is? Folks: When people talk about “Wall Street,” it’s just a figure of speech.

Why investors won't occupy Wall Street

Your money manager is too terrified to occupy Wall Street — with your money, MarketWatch's Brett Arends says. Photo: Getty Images.

Even in the days of J.P. Morgan Sr., the real action didn’t take place in the company offices at 60 Wall St. It took place in the old man’s library. Uptown.

These days the real movers and shakers aren’t anywhere near Zuccotti Park. They’re out in places like Greenwich, Conn., home of the hedge-fund honchos.

I called the town offices there to see if they’d had any protests.

“Oh, no,” said the polite young man who answered the phone, his tone somewhat surprised. “There’s been nothing like that here.”

It’s hopeless.

If these people were on the ball, they’d at least be moving down south to “Occupy Palm Beach” for the winter.

2. They don’t have an agenda.

And they can’t have one. Talk about a herd of cats. Occupy Boston is a camp of about 100 tents, and on a brief walk through I noticed posters, placards and stickers for 9/11 “truthers,” anarcho-communists, “Jewish Labor,” “stop the marijuana laws,” “stop the U.S. war against Islam” and so on. Some quasi-Buddhists had set up a “sacred space,” and were burning incense. Elsewhere, a sign denounced a new school project out in the suburbs.

Tough to rope all this into a 10-point plan. Or a 100-point plan. Sorry, but it’s reminding me of the days watching the old University Left crowd — right down to the weird sweaters and vegan cooking.

In Boston, one man sat on a deck chair with a sign that simply declared, “Financial markets always make bubbles and crashes.” What’s that, the Hyman Minsky Front? For all I know, he was an investment manager on a lunch break. Famed Boston investor Jeremy Grantham, who’s been making the same point about bubbles and crashes for years, has his offices about 100 yards away.
You want to group these people into an agenda? How?

3. The weather’s turning.

It’s been unseasonably warm and dry out there till recently. Now the rain’s arriving. Wait until the temperature drops and the frosts move in.

According to Weather.com, the average lows drop to 42 degrees for the month of November and 32 in December. Good luck with that. How’s that tent working out?

These protesters made a couple of big blunders.

The first is that they started protesting over the summer, leaving themselves just a couple of months till the weather turns. They should have started in the spring.

They’ve been lucky so far, but it won’t last. Read more on MarketWatch’s Occupy Wall Street blog.

The second is that they made it an outside camping event. I still don’t understand it. You can hold a protest march at any time. People can show up, protest and then go home for a hot meal, a shower and a good night’s sleep in their own bed. Net result: Lots of people can take part. But how many people can — or want to — camp out in downtown Manhattan for three months?

Voices from the Occupy protests

Wall Street Journal reporters in New York, Chicago and Washington, asked a variety of protesters for their views on the Occupy movement.

Especially after Halloween.

When the cold and rain really come in force, a lot of these people are going home. Then the opponents of Occupy Wall Street will declare victory.

4. Money talks.

Actually, these days money shouts, and it will drown out whatever anyone else says. The 2010 Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling has opened the floodgates to unlimited spending on elections by anybody, anytime — including, of course, any corporation.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, there are now 156 super political action committees that have taken advantage of the ruling. Political operative Mark McKinnon told me last week that he expects them to raise about $1 billion, mostly anonymously. McKinnon, who helped run the Bush-Cheney campaigns of 2000 and 2004, called the amount of corporate spending today “absolutely pornographic.”

And no industry spends like Wall Street. The finance sector is the biggest source of campaign contributions, year after year. Politicians suck up to the banks for the same reason Willie Sutton once robbed them: That’s where the money is.

In 2008 bankers gave half a billion dollars to political campaigns — up from $350 billion in 2004.

And they are so outraged even by the toothless Dodd-Frank regulations that they have shifted the majority of their contributions to the Republicans. If they can’t stand Dodd-Frank, what’s the chance they would tolerate real reform?

We’re still a year away from the next elections, and they’ve already handed over $97 million in (disclosed) political contributions. That includes $5 million so far to Mitt Romney and $2.5 million to Barack Obama. How tough do you think politicians are likely to be on Wall Street?

No matter how much anger these protesters channel, the golden rule will prevail: Those that have the gold will make the rules.

5. We’ll forget about it.

Sure, people are paying attention to Occupy Wall Street now. But just wait till something interesting happens on the Kardashians. Or there’s a bust-up on America’s Top Pastry Chef. Or some child pretends to get trapped on a balloon.

OWS will go as stale as last month’s bread. Look! Over there! Monkeys running amok in Ohio!

Many optimists believe the new media world of the Internet and Facebook and Twitter puts more power in the hands of “the people.” I think instead we’ve sleep-walked into a nightmare world of mass attention-deficit disorder and easy distraction.

Nicholas Carr, in his 2010 book The Shallows, shows in alarming detail how the Web is rewiring our brains towards superficiality.

The information age? The democracy of media? In the age of the Internet, and “infinite media,” I see a world that is increasingly mean-spirited, anti-logical, and misinformed. (Or, to put it more bluntly: Mean, stupid and wrong).

And it’s left an open road for propagandists.

I got one of those mass circulated emails recently telling me how Lee Iacocca, the former Chrysler boss, had a “new book out” slamming Obama. It contained all sorts of brutal quotes.

The only problem? Iacocca’s book came out in 2007. His quotes were about President George W. Bush. Someone had simply doctored all the quotes and blasted out an email, that quickly went all round the Web.

For each recipient who caught the lie, a hundred won’t. Was it an amateur propagandist who sent out this email, or a professional? We’ll never know.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, there are now about 280,000 public relations managers and specialists in America. The number of reporters: Just 45,000: That’s six flacks per reporter. Good luck with that.

In six months’ time, or maybe just six weeks, everyone will have forgotten about OWS.

Do I see no positive news for these protesters? I hate to be entirely negative, so I am happy to offer some good news as well.

If you really think the banks have a free hand to make money at the expense of the rest of us, you can just go out and buy their stocks right now and make a fortune.

After all, they’ve collapsed. Bank of America’s stock (NYSE:BAC) has been halved since the start of the year. At $6.40, the shares are trading at a third of book value (according to FactSet Research), about where they were at the absolute lows in March 2009. (Bank of America just reported $6.2 billion net income in the third quarter, returns on average equity of 22% and Tier One capital — a measure of balance-sheet strength — up to a decent 11.5%. Make of it what you will.)

Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) has lost a third of its value this year.

Even the Vampire Squid itself has covered its stockholders in red ink. Shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE:GS) have lost a third of their value this year. The stock is trading below book value.

Contrarians, ho! According to the most recent surveys, big institutional money managers are massively underweight bank stocks. They won’t touch them with a 10-foot pole. They’re terrified. This is often a contrarian buying indicator. Not always, but often.

If you really do think these guys have the government in their pocket, it should be a one-way bet.

Brett Arends is a senior columnist for MarketWatch and a personal-finance columnist for the Wall Street Journal.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-occupy-wall-street-will-fail-2011-10-19?siteid=YAHOOB

Warren Buffet's brilliant answer‏ to the Deficit Problem

2011-10-20T12:57:00.000-05:00

Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the
best quotes about the debt ceiling:

"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just
pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more
than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible
for re-election/

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds)
took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple!
The people demanded it. That was in 1971 - before computers, e-mail,
cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took one (1) year
or less to become the law of the land - all because of public pressure.

Warren Buffet is asking each addressee to forward this email to
a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask
each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will
have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed
around.

_*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*_

1. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman/woman collects a salary while in office and receives no
pay when they're out of office.

2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social
Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the
Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into
the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the
American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.
Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and
participates in the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the
American people.

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen/women are void
effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this
contract with Congressmen/women.

Congressmen/women made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in
Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their
term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will
only take three days for most people (in the U.S.) to receive
the message. Don't you think it's time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!

If you agree with the above, pass this Information on.

Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers

2011-10-20T11:42:00.008-05:00

Courtesy of The DailyShow.com

After Reading this: Please Click on the Video Link at the Bottom of this Article.

Ellen Schultz joined the Wall Street Journal in 1990, covering medical insurance and benefits and personal finance issues. She became a news editor in 2001 and was part of the Journal team that won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for a report about corporate coverups related to executive compensation. The following year she shared the New York Press Club's Award for Business Reporting with her Journal college Theo Francis, for their coverage of the American pension crisis. In 2005 the pair received the 2005 George Polk Award for Economics Reporting for an investigative series about employers profiting from retiree health plans.

Schultz has also been recognized with the IEEE-USA's Award for Distinguished Literary Contributions, the Sidney Hillman Foundation Award, the New York Press Club's Gold Typewriter Award and six Front Page Awards from the Newswomen's Club of New York. In 2011 she combined her years of research and reporting on health and finance into a book

“Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers.”

A native of San Francisco, Schultz is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and New York University.
Video:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-17-2011/ellen-schultz

Professor Terry J. Lovell Tells it like it is on Illegal Immigration.

2011-10-19T20:25:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of You Tube and Patriot Network TV.

If you are a Concerned Citizen of The United States of America and concerned about the Out of Control Illegal Immigration Problem ..... then Please do yourself a Favor and View the Video Link Below.

Second ....... Please Pass this Linked Information on.

Thank You and God Bless You and the USA !!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/tsH8xvjTAlo

1st Mexican truck to enter US interior within days

2011-10-19T19:56:00.002-05:00

Source and Courtesy of Yahoo News and the AP

By JULIE WATSON - Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The first Mexican carrier is set to roll into the U.S. interior within days, but the Teamsters union and two California congressmen haven't given up on stopping the cross-border trucking program that had been stalled for years by safety concerns and political wrangling.

U.S. Reps. Duncan Hunter and Bob Filner joined Teamsters President James Hoffa at the border on Wednesday to take a bipartisan stand against the pilot project that will allow approved Mexican trucks to come deep into the United States. The first Mexican truck will enter Texas on Friday.

The lawmakers and Hoffa were surrounded by more than 75 union members from at least five states who attended the news conference near a major international truck crossing in San Diego. Hunter is a San Diego-area Republican, while Filner is a Democrat whose district includes California's border with Mexico.

Allowing Mexican trucking companies to deliver the goods rather than transfer them to U.S. haulers at the border will put American jobs and highway safety at risk, they said.

"We're literally taking good jobs here in America and passing them over the line to Mexico," Hunter told the crowd, many holding signs reading "NAFTA kills" and "Stop the war on workers."

Washington on Friday approved the first Mexican trucking company, Transportes Olympic, nearly two decades after the hotly contested provision of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement set off lawsuits and a costly trade dispute between the neighboring countries.

Transportes Olympic employees were busy Wednesday finishing the preparations for its historic, maiden trip.

The long-haul truck will cross the border Friday at Laredo, Texas, and head about 450 miles north to Garland, Texas, to deliver industrial equipment, said Guillermo Perez, the transport manager at the firm in the industrial Monterrey suburb of Apodaca, about two hours south of Laredo.

He dismissed claims that Mexican trucking companies and their drivers do not meet U.S. safety standards. He said his company has a strict, random drug testing policy for its 61 drivers and it has bought more than a dozen trucks in the past two years.

U.S. inspectors will check the trucks Thursday, and will also have a database on truckers who have been approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Perez said.

"It's a really controlled program. There's no way to avoid the law," he said. "We are really prepared for this. It's not weird for me that some (U.S. trucking) companies are willing to shut it down because now they have to compete with us."

Perez declined to reveal how much his drivers earn.

The company was also approved under the 2009 pilot program before President Barack Obama's administration cancelled it. Mexico retaliated by placing tariffs on 99 agricultural products worth more than $2 billion annually.

Mexico cut the tariffs in half this summer after Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderon approved an inspection and monitoring program for the companies that had been approved in 2009. The Mexican government has vowed to lift the rest once the truck heads out of the border zone Friday.

"We're really excited," Perez said. "Now we can provide door-to-door service so it's about a 15 percent savings for companies."

Opponents say the fight isn't over.

Hunter has co-authored a bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., that would require the pilot program to be ceased in three years and Congress to vote on the issue again. Filner said Wednesday that opponents may have to "escalate" demonstrations to get the Obama administration to realize it made a mistake.

"We hope we can stop this before we have a disaster," Filner said.

Criminal activity has been a problem for years even within the U.S. government's strictest trusted carrier programs. Drug trafficking organizations have smuggled tons of drugs inside trucks driven by approved truckers coming from inspected and certified facilities inside Mexico.

Todd Spencer, the executive vice president of the Independent Drivers Association, which represents small independent trucking businesses, said 100,000 trucking jobs will be lost. Proponents say it will spur economic growth by saving companies millions by sending the goods door-to-door.

"We certainly hoped that it cannot be stopped," said James Clark, director of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mexico Business Center. "The U.S. has been in violation of the NAFTA agreement ever since the beginning of the trucking issue. Mexican trucks have every right to come into the U.S. under NAFTA as long as the trucks are fully inspected to U.S. standards and the drivers speak English."

They say especially strict safeguards have been implemented: The U.S. government has bought electronic monitoring devices to be installed in the program's Mexican trucks that will track the routes drivers take, how long they drive and how long they rest.

Mexican trucking companies had to fill out an application, pay a fee and then submit the names of participating drivers so they can undergo national security and criminal background checks by the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Inspectors will revise the trucks for safety violations, verify the drivers' qualifications and administer oral English-proficiency exams.

Three U.S. trucking companies have been given the green light under the program to drive into Mexico, according to the Mexican government. But Hoffa said American truckers don't want to drive into Mexico because of the country's violent crime problem.

"This is not the time for this," he said.

About 70 percent of goods from the $4 billion trade between the two nations are transported by land, according to the Mexican government.

http://news.yahoo.com/1st-mexican-truck-enter-us-interior-within-days-184747565.html

EVERYTHING RUNS THROUGH MONEY!

2011-10-18T07:09:00.004-05:00

At least right now it does. That statement has been around a very long time, but you know, we could change that if we wanted too.
Have we had enough yet?
Do we want too?
Do you want too?
Sooner or later, you will!

Be sure to see where they are now.

Here's a quick look into the three former Fannie Mae executives who brought down Wall Street.

Franklin Raines was a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregularities in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal noted, " Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper, issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that "mistakes were made" and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years." Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion.

Raines left with a "golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear.http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, "The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls, misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner." These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.

Net windfall . . . $190 million!

Tim Howard - Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard "was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would ensure a "stable pattern of earnings" at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, "Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,"

On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses. Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.

Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!

Jim Johnson - A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO. A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006 report on mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million." Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae.

Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

FRANKLIN RAINES? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as his Chief Economic Advisor.

TIM HOWARD? Howard is a Chief Economic Advisor to Obama under Franklin Raines.

JIM JOHNSON? Johnson was hired as a Senior Obama Finance Advisor and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee.

Just what is Godly Salvation ???????

2011-10-17T15:11:00.002-05:00

By Larry M.

Since the Beginning of Time ......... No Human Person has EVER been Spiritually and Soulishly Saved by Adherence to or Compliance to a Moral Code or Compliance to Laws written in Stone ! E V E R ! ! !

The Difference between Christianity and EVERY other Religion in the World is this.

In Christianity a person is Saved by Acceptance of What God has done for US and not what We do for God !!!!!!

In every other Existence of ALL other Religions on the Planet there is the Assumption and Belief that Man is Capable of Being the Source of Righteousness and God is not that Source.

Our Species is Totally Corrupt and Evil in the World is a Direct result of Man deciding what is Moral and what is not. And to further make matters worse, ...... with Man the Goal Posts are Constantly being Moved and Moral Codes are being Constantly Changed !!!

Mankind is NOT Capable of being a Constant Moral Code unto himself or herself and is instead a Bloody Creature that Prefers to Refuse to Accept that Mankind is a Fallen Creature that cannot do Right but only do Corrupt things for Corrupt Thinking and that Corrupt Thinking starts in the Corrupt Heart of the Human Species !!!

It is for the Reasons above that Only God Himself is Capable of being the Source of Good and Only the Man and Woman that can Tap into True Righteousness of God's Righteousness and that Righteousness is in Jesus Christ the Sacrifice and Redeemer of ALL who put their Trust in this One True Self Sacrificing God who Love us Way before we ever caught a Glimpse of what and Who God Really is !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soooooo ..... Lets not try to take Credit for Our Salvation that God Offers to Each and All who Believe in Jesus The Christ !!!

Let us not try to take Credit for our Own Salvation through adherence to a Moral Code or even to the Laws of God written in Stone.

It is the Law of Love and Honesty written in the Hearts of men by God by God Himself that His Signature is in Effect !!! IF God does Not put his Signature on our Hearts then Admission to Eternal Life is NOT Possible.

Not of our selves lest Any Man or Woman should Boast !!!!!!!

So the Next Time that you Foolishly think that you could possibly Attain Eternal Salvation through anything that you can do or think ......... We ALL had better think Again !!!!!!!

We don't want to think in Error that we are OK when in Reality we are ALL Totally Dependent on God for HIS Salvation. And that Salvation is ONLY in Jesus the Christ ........ Jesus The Christ from God Himself !!!!!!!

Detroit contracts expose auto workers' simmering anger

2011-10-17T06:09:00.000-05:00

Source and Courtesy of Reuters

By Meghana Keshavan and Bernie Woodall

WAYNE, Michigan (Reuters) - A bright red Ford Focus sits illuminated on a platform just outside the automaker's Wayne, Michigan, assembly plant, a proud symbol of the company's success in reinventing itself under Alan Mulally.

The plant, which is just a 15-minute drive down Michigan Avenue from Ford Motor Co headquarters, has become an emblem of the automaker's turnaround under Mulally, who became CEO in September 2006.

So when workers at the Wayne plant voted to reject a proposed four-year contract negotiated by the United Auto Workers union, it registered as a jarring slap to the CEO's vision for a unified company he calls "One Ford."

"I think they've finally pushed us to the point that we have to do something," said Kevin Branham, 49, a metal finisher at the plant. "This vote, it's a matter of people speaking out."

The surprisingly fierce debate over proposed, four-year contracts at Ford and its smaller rival Chrysler Group LLC over the past week has exposed a rift between lower-paid, entry-level workers and veterans and anger over CEO pay in a weak economy.

The argument over wages and benefits for 67,000 unionized auto workers comes just two years after the Obama administration intervened to save General Motors and Chrysler from liquidation. But the gratitude that many Detroit workers felt just after the bailout has given way to a frustrated sense that blue-collar workers have not shared equally in the industry's comeback.

"There is a lot of anger at Ford right now, and also a lot of anger at the union," said Brandon Gustafson, a 40-year-old assembly line worker at a Ford plant in Minnesota slated for closure just before Christmas.

With the national unemployment rate stuck near 9 percent and the risk of a renewed economic downturn, UAW officials led by President Bob King have said the proposed contract is the best they can get.

Last month, General Motors workers ratified their own four-year deal by a two-to-one margin. The debate over parallel deals at Ford, the strongest of the Detroit automakers, and Chrysler -- the weakest -- has turned bitter.

In social media postings, such as Facebook, as well as in union halls, UAW officials have pressed the case that rejecting the Ford contract would risk a strike where workers would take home only $200 a week.

By contrast, the proposed Ford contract would give workers $16,000 in bonuses over four years, including $6,000 at ratification.

But many veteran Ford production workers are unhappy with the lack of a base wage increase from their near $28 in hourly pay. That wage has not been lifted in eight years. Mulally's compensation, including a package worth $26.5 million for 2010, has also been a flashpoint, workers say.

NEARING THE END GAME

"We know Ford is profitable," said Scott Houldieson, secretary-treasurer of UAW Local 551, which represents Ford's Chicago assembly plant that makes the Explorer SUV and the Taurus sedan. "We know they are paying their executives handsomely. We know that a decent wage for us would not hurt Ford's bottom line."

Another sore point: many Ford workers had hoped the contract would resolve an outstanding grievances over pay to salaried workers that was not given to hourly workers. As it stands, that issue is with an arbitrator who is not expected to decide until mid-November.

Wall Street analysts have said the contract at GM and the proposed deal with Ford would cap costs and link blue-collar worker pay more directly with performance. But there is a risk for investors that the kinds of deals negotiated in recent months will not hold up in 2015 when workers at GM and Chrysler will have won back the right to strike.

UAW leaders expect the four-year contract at Ford to win ratification and by Sunday the "yes" vote had hit 57 percent of votes cast after union officials stepped up their lobbying efforts.

Ratification seemed assured after UAW Local 600, the largest Ford union that includes workers at the historic Rouge complex in Dearborn, voted 62 percent in favor of the contract.

The final tally is expected by Wednesday.

"As the vote enters the end game, many Ford workers are asking: 'What's the alternative?' A majority appear to be saying this is a good contract in bad times," said Harley Shaiken, a labor expert at the University of California, Berkeley who is close to the UAW.

Even so, the vote has exposed an undercurrent of frustration at both Ford and Chrysler after four years of concessions intended to keep both companies operating.

That has been especially true at the Wayne plant, where Ford invested $550 million to retool at the peak of the auto industry's crisis in 2009.

The bet at the time was that a once wildly profitable hub for full-size SUVs could be made over to produce the small Focus and a battery-powered, electric variant.

Ron Andrus, 56, a Wayne worker, said many at his plant were on edge over the prospect of a strike. "It's all scary as to what's going to happen," he said.

Some union officials have suggested the worker anger would be better directed to the national economic debate. The UAW has endorsed the Occupy Wall Street protest and helped stage an "Occupy Detroit" rally.

"The Ford workers are angry for the same reasons a lot of the people are here," said Jaron Garza, a General Motors UAW-represented worker as he stood in a downtown Detroit park with more than a thousand others in support of the Occupy Wall Street protesters.

"A lot of the bigger companies, banks and what not, have been taking, and the middle class has been bearing the brunt of the recession and the aftershocks that we are still feeling now," Garza said. "People are angry, and they think they got something coming."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/17/us-ford-uaw-anger-idUSTRE79G0OR20111017?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=76

A Modern Day Voice in the Wilderness Speaks Out !!!

2011-10-16T23:02:00.004-05:00

Dylan Ratigan ........ YOU My Friend are a Voice in the Wilderness and Our Blessed USA is in it's Death Throws and is in Desperate Need of a Moral Correctness and in this Moral Correctness.......... Our (Nation) of the United States of America can go on Living and if our Nation does not come Clean and if the Corrupter's are not Purged from the US Government then our Blessed USA will Die Economically, Politically and even Militarily. We at Breaking Free in America humbly ask the Citizens of the USA to Click on and View the Linked Video below.

Dylan Ratigan ..... Breaking Free In America Salutes You !!! The Poor and Middle Class which have been the Engine of Prosperity for over 150 Years are in DANGER of Extinction under the Corrupt Stomping FEET of Wall Street and it's Agenda Setters of the Rockefeller CFR and the TC Think Tanks that Occupy even the Cabinet of EVERY US President from Carter to Obama. For 100 years now the Rockefeller's and Rothschild's have Bought OFF the Government of The United States of America with Army's of Lobbyist's from Wall Street.

Truly ....... God Bless The United States of America !!!!!

Click Link Below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCRnkamitVk&feature=player_embedded

We Can Make a Difference, but........

2011-10-10T10:15:00.002-05:00

We at Breaking Free In America feel sure, We The People, can make a difference, but we need to be together in organization and unity. It's not impossible, but not likely if we don't all work together to bring all the little groups together.

Right now "Occupy Wall Street" is showing the anger many feel. The Tea Party has shown their frustration too. Then there are the groups that blog and heaven only knows just how many bloggers there are showing their frustration.

Then we have The Republican Party who has tried to infiltrate The Tea Party seeing the growing numbers. We at Breaking Free In America know the pain as well, having worked for some of the biggest manufacturing companies that have over the years tried to blame their own family of workers for all their financial problems. We even wonder when they will blame their own customers, because in a way they already have by moving their operations over seas, dumping their benefit obligations on the different government programs which We The People pay for with the taxes we pay.

I just read this morning that deficit reduction negotiations are not going well. In my opinion they never will as our government wants it to fail. Bankruptcy is the easy way out and that's where we are headed. They want our economy to fail, period.

We must organize and unify the people. We have the numbers if we can bring the people together. If any of our visitors have a better idea, please comment. Send your friends to our blog. We are willing to link the people to the best chance to get the job done, but we need to get started now!

Mexican drug gangs competing for 'cartel cred'

2011-10-08T03:19:00.001-05:00

Source and Courtesy of
AP Associated Press & Yahoo News

By OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ

MEXICO CITY — Masked gunmen dump the bodies of 35 slaying victims during rush hour as terrified motorists watch and tweet friends to avoid the avenue in a Gulf coast city. A couple of weeks later, 32 more corpses are found nearby in three houses.

A woman's decapitated body is left at a border city's monument to Columbus, the head atop a computer keyboard with a sign saying she was killed for blogging about drug traffickers.

The severed heads of five men are dumped outside an elementary school in Acapulco, and two more near a military base in Mexico City days later.

That was just in the last three weeks.

The brutal public killings that began about five years ago have worsened as Mexican drug cartels try to one-up each other in their quest to scare off rivals, authorities and would-be informers — and still stun Mexicans increasingly numbed to the gory spectacles.

"These gangs have to keep escalating because they want the shock value but the shock value wears off," said Clark McCauley, a psychology professor at Bryn Mawr College or do something more horrific." in Pennsylvania and an expert on terrorism. "Now, to get a headline you have to get more heads, or more bodies

Latin American drug lords have long turned to grisly killings and torture tactics. At the height of its powers in the 1990s, the Juarez cartel used to cut off the fingers of snitches and shove them down their throats, a practice that other cartels soon followed.

The current show of savagery began in April 2006 when two police officers were decapitated; their heads dripping blood were left in the resort city of Acapulco, where four alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel had been killed in a shootout with police. Along with the heads was a sign that warned, "So that you learn to respect."

The Zetas are a gang of drug smugglers and hit men led by deserters from an elite Mexican army
unit, who for many years were assassins for the Gulf cartel.

Five months later, the La Familia cartel rolled five human heads purportedly belonging to Zetas across a dance floor in the western state of Michoacan. An attached note said La Familia "doesn't kill for money, doesn't kill women, doesn't kill innocents, just those who should die," an apparent retaliation warning for the particularly violent group.

Since then, drug traffickers have plunged into even more gruesome tactics. They have tied victims to overpasses and shot them to death during rush hour as sickened motorists watched. Some have decapitated people alive and then posted videos of it on the internet.

"In terms of the cruelty, it's the Zetanisation of the country because the Zetas were the first to introduce these ghastly tactics into Mexico," said George W. Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary Virginia, who has written several books about the rapidly expanding drug cartel. The Zetas are the game-changers. in Williamsburg,

Officials blame a group calling itself the "Zeta Killers" for dumping 35 bodies on a busy boulevard in the Gulf coast city of Veracruz on Sept. 20. They say the group also killed 32 people whose bodies were found at three houses in the area on Thursday.

On Monday, police in Mexico City found two severed heads on a street near a major military base accompanied by a note referring to the "Mano con Ojos," or "Hand with Eyes," drug gang. Motorists called the police after spotting one of the heads on the hood of an SUV.
"
If you want to have cartel cred," said Grayson, "you have to show you can carry off any act at any time and go as far as your enemy."

Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna has said Mexican drug traffickers copied the terror tactic from the al-Qaida in Iraq after it posted videos on the internet of the decapitations of Americans. He said the cartels are using al-Qaida's methods to pressure the government to halt its crackdown against drug traffickers, which has fractured many of the gangs.

Authorities have also said that in 2005, the Zetas began enlisting "Kaibiles," former members of an elite Guatemalan counterinsurgency unit, to train newly recruited foot soldiers. The Kaibiles were known for massacres during the Guatemalan civil war that ended in the mid-1990s.

Very few of the killings result in arrests or convictions, so the only deterrent is revenge by another cartel.

In the five years since the beheading of the two Acapulco police officers, decapitations have become almost weekly occurrences and a prime terror tactic.

The practice dates back at least 2,000 years, said Dr. Michelle Bonogofsky, an bioarchaeologist who edited two books on the significance of of the human head in different cultures, from skull collection to decapitations.

"One of the worst things you can do to the body, in some instances, is to desecrate or dismember it and historically, this has been used by kings and various other groups to establish control," Bonogofsky said. "This could be tied to the religious belief that you need your body intact to be resurrected."

Residents in some cities caught in the bloody turf battles are already adapting to living with violence, said Dr. Oscar Galicia, a psychology professor who specializes in violent behavior at Iberoamerican University in Mexico City.

In the northern city of Monterrey, where the Zetas are fighting the Gulf drug cartel, many people don't go out at night in certain neighborhoods, they avoid night clubs and bars and have added extra locks to their doors at home.

"What people are doing in Monterrey is adapting," he said.
More worrisome is that the prolonged violence is creating a sense of helplessness among Mexicans, who are becoming increasingly numb to what's happening, Galicia said.

"Now if it's not 20 bodies, it doesn't get our attention and that's terrible and really dangerous for our society because we're becoming as desensitized as the criminals," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/mexican-drug-gangs-competing-cartel-cred-155817563.html

Do we care?

2011-10-06T19:32:00.003-05:00

Yet another video to watch. It should make you think. It should make you want to get involved. It should, but will it?

http://www.morningstartv.com/oak-initiative/marxism-america

People Getting Involved!

2011-10-02T19:42:00.001-05:00

moveon-help@list.moveon.org

Dear MoveOn member,

Over the last two weeks, an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country.

In Seattle, San Francisco, Ohio, and Boston (where 3,000 people rallied),1 grassroots groups have shut down banks and held sit-ins to demand that giant banks pay their fair share of taxes, end the foreclosure crisis, and create jobs.

In financial centers like Chicago and Atlanta, hundreds of people have set up encampments in front of major financial institutions for round-the-clock demonstrations.

Outside Los Angeles, community members have been running a 24-hour vigil around the home of Rose Gudiel, who faces eviction after getting foreclosed on for being two weeks late on a mortgage payment after her younger brother was murdered.2

But the biggest protests are on Wall Street itself. "Occupy Wall Street," which began with a brave group of young people, has swelled to thousands of students, unemployed folks, union members, and others who have persevered through intense police harassment and mass arrests to sustain a rolling 24-hour-a-day protest against the bankers who've wrecked our economy and undermined our democracy.3

On Wednesday, MoveOn members will join labor and community groups in New York City for a huge march down to the protest site—the biggest yet.

And because we can't all be in New York, we're going to stage a massive "Virtual March on Wall Street" online with our friends at Rebuild the Dream. Together, we'll add hundreds of thousands of voices of solidarity from the American Dream Movement for the protests across the country and show just how widespread outrage at the Wall Street banks really is.

Click here to sign up to join the Virtual March on Wall Street this Wednesday

The protests on Wall Street have been running for two weeks straight and are only getting bigger every day. The signs, placards, and chants focus on standing up for what the protesters are calling "the 99%" of us who are suffering while Wall Street bankers grow richer by the day.

In a telling moment last week, a group of bankers even went so far as to mock the protests while sipping champagne from balconies overlooking thousands of people marching down Wall Street.4

But adding mockery to the callous disregard for our country that we've seen from the big banks isn't slowing down the Occupy Wall Street movement one bit. The protests on Wall Street are set to grow even more this week and solidarity actions are already planned in dozens more cities.

You can see what's planned in your area by visiting the solidarity site Occupy Together: http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264645&id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=3

And you can sign up to add your voice to the national "Virtual March on Wall Street" online here: http://www.civic.moveon.org/joinvirtualwallstreet/?id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.
–Justin, Robin, Peter, Elena, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "BofA's Boston Building Draws Protesters; 21 Arrests Are Made," bloomberg.com, September 30, 2011

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264642&id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=5

2. "La Puente Family Fights Eviction from Foreclosed Home," KTLA.com, September 29, 2011

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264643&id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=6

3. "Anti-Wall Street Protestors Vow to Keep Up Fight," Reuters, October 2, 2011

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264644&id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=7

4. "Occupy Wall Street Protestors Meet Champagne Sippers," abcnews.com, September 30, 2011

http://www.moveon.org/r?r=264649&id=31654-17274344-2mdn5nx&t=8

Are We Involved?

2011-09-27T08:15:00.000-05:00

I look back over the years of my life and think about what some of us would call history. Some say, “history repeats itself.” That is only true if we let it.

Are we involved? Is that a loaded question or does it depend on what or how we are involved? In my opinion, elected officials have wanted us out of the way for years. They didn’t want us involved so that they could do their work without us being in the way. They destroyed our involvement a long time ago.

The year or years are not as important as is what was done. Forced bussing to segregate our schools was big. The whole country was against bussing school age children all over our cities just to balance color and yet the legal branch of our federal government did it anyway.

Then came Viet Nam. We all wondered why we were there, but we were. Protest after protest, card burning and even some leaving the country to avoid the draft, but still we went to Viet Nam.

In my opinion, those two issues destroyed our involvement. The people stopped caring because what we cared for didn’t matter to those in power. With “the people” out of the way, they could do anything they wanted and they did and we are paying for it dearly.

Our schools, our economy, the so called middle class, the value of labor and l the list goes on and on. Many are saying Washington is broken and it is. The break is a by product of what they have done over the years and we have continued to elect or reelect those who were part of the problem rather than someone from the outside.

Why not elect a “regular” guy? Someone who would be willing to tell it like it is.

Why are our schools in a mess? Why do both parents have to work two jobs? What makes everyone think college is the answer. Is it because someone thinks it takes a college degree just to be tomorrows customers of the products that will be available?

A successful business was said to be 10% management and 90% labor. If that is true with a company, isn’t it true with an economy? We can’t all be at the top and yet many feel they need that college degree to be able to achieve some degree of financial success in today’s economy.

In years past, we had jobs that would support a living, a family and the community we lived in? What was wrong with that? Why did we give those jobs away?

Labor is worth something. I remember my dad telling me, “you can go to college or you can go to work. If you go to college, you will use your brain and if you go to work, you’ll use your back. Either way, the pay is about the same.” That was once true, but not anymore and when it was true, we had a much better economy, much better schools, much better family life.

Thank about it!
AllenD

Class Warfare?

2011-09-19T08:17:00.007-05:00

Don't you just love all the bickering going on in Washington over our debt? And now many from The Republican Party have come together on the idea of imposing a new tax levy on the rich calling it "class warfare". I wonder what they call what we have right now?

Don't we all enjoy the benefits we get from paying taxes. What is wrong with everyone paying their fair share, but then again maybe that has always been the problem, because our tax codes are so complicated and so misunderstood, no one feels they are paying a fair share; while we are sinking in a sea of debt .

While wanting to increase the taxes on the rich, our president continues to leave out talking about all the programs our taxes pay for, many of which are also complicated and misunderstood programs. If you read my last posting which is now below this posting, you know what I mean!

This article made this statement: U.S. millionaires increased by 8 percent in 2010. They forgot to tell us how many U.S. citizens went into poverty during the same period. I can tell you this, that the number is much more than 8 percent.

"Class Warfare", you bet!

Republicans Denounce Obama’s ‘Buffett Tax’ Plan as Political 'Class Warfare'

Sunday, 18 Sep 2011 09:50 AM
By Newsmax Wires

http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Obama-Buffett-Graham-Ryan/2011/09/18/id/411379?s=al&promo_code=D12A-1

Forward Article South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham denounced President Barack Obama's proposal to impose a new levy, which some are calling a “Buffett Tax,” on those earning more than $1 million a year as a “political act” that is nothing short of “class warfare.”

Graham said on CNN’s “State of the Union” today that he supports parts of Obama’s jobs bill, including a plan to cut the payroll tax and some of the proposed infrastructure spending.

But he assailed the president's plan to propose a new levy on U.S. taxpayers who make more than $1 million as a means to help trim the nation’s debt, adopting a suggestion from billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

On Monday Obama will call for new deficit cuts of $3.0 trillion but also warn Republicans that he will veto any bill that trims healthcare for the elderly without hiking taxes on the rich.

Obama will lay out a series of proposals that include a broad overhaul of the tax code designed to raise $1.5 trillion dollars, mostly by letting previous tax cuts for the wealthy expire and by closing corporate loopholes.

Officials said the plan would ensure America's long term fiscal future at a time of deep economic gloom, and permit continued investment in education, new generation energy and job creation.

Specifically, Obama will lay out a plan for tax revenue raises and spending cuts which he will suggest a congressional supercommittee charged with coming up with up to $1.5 trillion dollars in spending cuts should adopt.

Other Republicans echoed Graham’s disdain for the millionaire tax idea. Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said such a proposal would limit growth and hurt corporate investment in an already stagnating economy.

"It adds further instability to our system, more uncertainty and it punishes job creation and those people who create jobs," Ryan said today on “Fox News Sunday.” "Class warfare may make for good politics but it makes for rotten economics."

McConnell said Congress debated the issue last year, when Obama and Republicans hatched a compromise that extended the reduced tax rates, approved during the administration of George W. Bush, for high-earners for two years.

"It's a bad thing to do in the middle of an economic downturn," McConnell said on NBC's “Meet the Press.” "There is bipartisan opposition to what the president is recommending already."

As far as Obama’s $447 billion jobs proposal, the president has demanded quick action in Congress, but even Democrats acknowledge that’s not likely. On CNN’s “State of the Union today,” Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Democrat in the Senate, said it’s “most likely” the Senate will start debate on the jobs bill next month.

Regarding increasing taxes on the wealthy, which Obama himself tabs as the "Buffett Rule," will be part of the recommendations the president will make Monday to a special congressional supercommittee charged with finding ways to trim $1.5 trillion from the nation’s long-term deficit, according to a White House official, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record.

However, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said in a tweet Saturday that the tax would act as "a kind of AMT" (alternative minimum tax) aimed at ensuring millionaires pay at least as much tax as middle-class families.

Obama will lay out his recommendations in White House Rose Garden remarks at 10:30 a.m. Monday, when he is expected to urge steps to raise tax revenue as well as cuts in spending.

Two former government economists said during CNN interviews Sunday they would like to see a broader approach than just increasing taxes on the rich.

The economists, Alice Rivlin, who directed the White House Office of Management and Budget under President Bill Clinton, and Douglas J. Holtz-Eakin, who led the Congressional Budget Office during George W. Bush’s presidency, said Obama’s “Buffett Tax” proposal would add another complicated layer to a tax code that needs basic reform reform.

The congressional supercommittee has a chance to “reform entitlements and reform the tax code and put us on a sustainable deficit track,” Rivlin said.

Congress is at liberty to ignore Obama’s suggestions, and Republicans, who control the House, have said that they will not agree to tax hikes. Republicans argue that raising taxes on higher-income individuals would hurt small businesses and stifle investment.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio didn’t immediately respond to a Bloomberg News request for comment on the new plan, which The New York Times first reported on Saturday.

But during a speech Thursday to the Economic Club of Washington, the Ohio Republican said the 12-member panel should focus solely on cuts to federal spending and overhauling Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to reach the $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts. He rejected tax increases.

“Tax increases, I think, are off the table, and I don’t think they’re a viable option for the joint committee,” Boehner said.

The president hasn’t settled on the new minimum tax rate for top earners, which is designed to make sure the wealthiest taxpayers aren’t paying a lower effective tax rate than middle-income earners, the unidentified White House official said. Obama has already proposed limiting some tax deductions for those in the highest income brackets, taxing carried interest as regular income and ending breaks for gas and oil companies to pay for the $447 billion jobs package.

The bipartisan supercommittee has a Nov. 23 deadline to reach agreement on a plan. On taxes, the group is likely to consider setting targets for major changes to be considered over the next year, before income-tax cuts first enacted under President George W. Bush are set to expire at the end of 2012.

With the nation’s jobless rate at 9.1 percent, the economy is a top issue for both parties in next year’s elections for president and Congress. Obama is confronting skepticism from voters about his policies as public opinion polls show his approval ratings are dropping.

A majority of Americans don’t believe his jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted Sept. 9-12 shows. The poll found 62 percent disapprove of his handling of the economy. The president’s overall job-approval rating was 45 percent, the lowest since he was inaugurated in January 2009.

Gross domestic product climbed at a 1 percent annual rate in the second quarter, down from a 1.3 percent prior estimate, according to revised Commerce Department figures released last month. Combined with the 0.4 percent annual rate of growth in the first three months of the year, the past two quarters were the weakest of the recovery that began in mid 2009.

Buffett has served as an informal adviser to the president since Obama’s 2008 election campaign and conferred with the president before his Sept. 8 address to Congress. Buffett plans to hold a Sept. 30 fundraiser in New York City for Obama’s re- election bid.

Obama has cited Buffett to counter critics of his policy proposals, particularly on taxes.

During his bus tour last month through rural areas of Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, Obama quoted from a New York Times opinion article in which Buffett wrote that the nation’s richest individuals have been “coddled long enough by a billionaire- friendly Congress.” Buffett argued for raising taxes for the “mega rich” in the U.S.

In the article, the 80-year-old chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said his federal tax bill last year, or the income tax he paid and payroll taxes paid by him and on his behalf, was $6,938,744.

“That sounds like a lot of money,” Buffett wrote. “But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income — and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.”

Capital gains from most assets held for longer than a year are taxed at a top rate of 15 percent, while wage income is taxed at a top rate of 35 percent. The difference between those two accounts for Buffett’s lower rate.

About 8.4 million U.S. households had assets of $1 million or more, excluding primary residences, according to a March report by Spectrem Group, a Chicago-based consulting firm. It also showed that the number of U.S. millionaires increased by 8 percent in 2010.

Is It That Hard To Find Places To Cut Waste?

2011-09-16T09:44:00.005-05:00

Article provided at: http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/among_the_tax-takers.html
Posted by AllenD

At a time we seem to be faced with an impass in Congress as to how to reduce our debt, it sickens me when I read something like this article below while hearing "we need to do away with Social Security or MediCare". I think our leaders have lost site of a couple of reasons why we have Social Security and MediCare. First off, SS is a way to get people that would not save anything to do so. Is this a "government forced program", well maybe, but it has worked and it helps support those who would not do so on their own and by it being a federal program rather than a state run plan, it's portable, should we move from one state to another. Why would anyone try doing away with such a program? If this is what the Republican Party stands for, while not bringing to light stuff like you will read about below, we had better watch out!

Breaking Free In America

July 25, 2011
Among the Tax-takers
By Earl Wright

I worked for the IRS and survived. I learned about taxpayers, but the really interesting part of it was learning about tax-takers.

We all have this vague notion of people who don't pay taxes but receive money from Uncle Sam in what euphemistically is called a tax refund. That's what I had, a vague notion, until I was forced to close my business in 2010. I took a seasonal job with the Internal Revenue Service to get some household cash flow going. We "Timmy Geithner warriors" were appalled by what we learned.

We generally knew that 47 percent of our population pays no income taxes whatsoever. However, we didn't know, and I suspect that very few of you know, how much of your tax money is actually given to non-taxpayers -- in a lump sum, to do with as they please. Over lunch we joked that half the tattoo parlors in America would go under without Uncle Sam's largesse. Only later I learned that was closer to the truth than a joke.

Like most anti-poverty programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit when enacted in 1975 was supposed to be temporary. It was visualized as a tool to lift the working poor out of poverty. It was quickly made permanent and has been modified numerous times over the ensuing 36 years. In 2004, 20 million families received $36 billion. The flower children assume that was $36 billion spent on food, shelter, and health care. We who live in the real world know it was spent on big-screen television sets, 22-inch chrome wheels, and colorful tattoos.

It was widely noted last week that those living below the poverty level in the U.S. tend to own cars, TVs, computers, cells phones, enjoy air-conditioning, and own video game consoles. The free money these folks receive from you and me is not counted for poverty level calculations.

In addition, the feds estimate that between 22 and 30 percent of taxpayers claiming EITC do not actually qualify so we spend an additional $8 billion to $10 billion trying to straighten that out.

I can't talk specifics about my time at the IRS, but here are some generalities. Those claiming EITC also qualify for other so-called refundable credits (how can something be refundable when nothing is paid in the first place?). The typical 1040 would show an income of between $12,000 to $18,000 for the year. It was usually accompanied by one W-2 with the income earned almost always by a female. With other refundable credits listed, a "refund" would be claimed of between $6,000 and $9,000.

And these people believe that is their money; they have a right to it. I fielded a telephone query from a woman who didn't even say hello, but blurted, "I haven't got my taxes." For an instant I thought she meant that she didn't have enough money to pay her taxes, but I quickly realized she was talking about her "refund." We newbies learned that those who pay taxes have a general fear of calling the IRS and tend to be nice on the telephone, while those who don't pay any taxes believe they are entitled and are not always pleasant to deal with. We also learned these aren't the brightest people on the planet with many signing their refund over to a tax-preparer and then claiming they didn't know they had done that. (The "instant refund" scam perpetrated by many storefront tax-preparers is a whole other story.)

I mentioned the tattoo joke above. It turned out to be the truth in the only anecdotal story I heard during my stint at the IRS. A golfing buddy said his girlfriend's daughter claims EITC among other things and received a U.S. government check for $6,000. She used the money to take her toddler daughter and the child's ne'er-do-well father to the Monterey Bay Aquarium -- a couple hundred bucks -- and spent the remainder for a giant tattoo on her back. I'm so glad I could help.

President Obama has asked us to embrace "shared sacrifice" to help break the stalemate over the debt impasse while lecturing, "We might as well do it now -- pull off the Band-Aid, eat our peas." Well Mr. President, are you including the above-mentioned 47 percent in your shared sacrifice scenario? Should they pull off the Band-Aid while drinking their $5 energy drink in front of their 60-inch flat-screen TV? I know I would feel much more like brothers fighting the good fight if their hands weren't in my pockets.

Earl Wright was employed as a customer service representative in the Accounts Management branch of the Internal Revenue Service's Fresno, CA Service Center from Jan. 24, 2011 until he was furloughed June 3, 2011. He says it was like returning to the 7th grade.

The NWO. The EVIL Future we don't want or need !!!!!!

2011-09-05T21:09:00.007-05:00

By Larry M.

The New World Order almost Arrived to Africa. You know .......... the Ten Regions that will eventually be Regional Governments that will Answer to the New World Order of One World Government.

1. The the Euro.

2. The North American Union or NAU.

3. And what could have been the African Union or Economically Merged African Common Currency and Government.

Well the Fall of a dozen or so North African and Asian Islamic Governments or the Islamic Spring was the Monkey Wrench in the works.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-gadhafis-demise-may-presage-end-of-the-euro-2011-09-05?siteid=YAHOOB

The NWO People that are really a cluster of Behind the scenes Central Bankers who have been pushing for a New World Order of One World Government for a Century or more now. Both Wall Street Investment Banks, The London Investment Banks and various other Central Bankers around the World are Crying the Blues as a Result of the Global Economic Crash, the Euro Monetary Crisis as well as the US Economic Crisis has ground the NWO Organizations plans to a Temporary Halt.

These NWO Economic and Political gurus will not give up ........... but the Crashed Global Economy has given the NWO Bankers a setback that may well last for several more years.

Back in 1913 the NWO People on Wall Street Rammed Through the FEDeral Reserve Act that gave the US another Central Bank after Jefferson and Jackson put a Stop to the Central Bankers of their time.

It was these same Wall Street and London Stock Exchange Banks that gave Birth to Russian Communism by Funding it in 1917 as they Obviously wanted to Ride the Communist Revolution to a Victorious Creation of the New World Order of that day but those plans Failed too. When President Jackson Ended the US Central Bank in the 1830's it took the Global Central Bankers until 1913 to start up another one even though a Central Bank was Prohibited in the US Constitution. Well we know how well that worked out as the Great Depression hit the US and the Globe just a few short years after the 1913 (Private) FED Banker Creation. Wow, they did things up right there didn't they.

Even current FED Chairman Ben Bernanke has stated that it was the FED that Caused the Great Depression of the 1930's.

Well the (Private) FEDERAL Reserve Bank is at it again by trying to get the USA out of trouble by Printing our Billions and Trillions of US Dollars with Nothing behind it to give these Newly Printed US Dollars any real Value. This Endless Printing of Worthless QE Dollars is sure to Crash the USA and the Globe Again. Then through Endless Army's of Lobbying the Banks can Bribe the Politicians of the Globe to Bail Out Banks and make Worthless the Values of what little the Middle Class and Poor have Accumulated over a lifetime of Hard World of the Middle Class.

There is No Way this can end Pretty. There is No Way for this Endless of Printing of US Dollars can give all of the Citizens of the USA a Soft Landing without Destroying the Value of a Lifetime of Modest Accumulation of Home Values and the Devaluing of Everything in our Homes and Lives. I think there must be a Plan to Destroy Each and Every Pension Fund on the Planet and they after the Currencies become Worthless they Issue New Currencies with Value while leaving the Pension Funds Crashed with Worthless US Dollars from before the Crash.

If a Crashed US Economy with Countless Worthless Billions of US Dollars in Countless Pension Funds end up in the Trash Heap then a New Currency will most probably be Issued but our Old Pension will still be keyed to the Old Worthless US Dollar and have No Value whatsoever. You can bet that if the Pension Funds were to be somehow Keyed to a Newly Circulated US Dollar then you can also bet that the FED will Swap Old US Dollars with New US Dollars at a Huge Loss of Buying Power.

It was Nixon that took the USA OFF of the Gold Standard and put us on a Dollar that was Valued by the Production Capability of the Nation as a whole. NOW ........ after 40 more years of being OFF of the Gold Standard we now have only a Fraction of our Manufacturing Ability because Wall Street Private Think Tanks have pursued an Agenda of Exporting our Factories from the USA to Communist China, India, Mexico, Brazil, and even Vietnam.

So you see we have all been Duped by the Wall Street Investment Banks and the Private (FED) Bank. First they take the USA OFF of the Gold Standard and put us on a Standard of the GDP or Gloss Domestic Product Standard. This is only good if you (Produce). But for the last 30 years Wall Street has used the CFR and TC to help Organize the Shut Down of US Manufacturing and Ship it all over to Communist China and other Foreign Places on the planet. Places that pay so Low that for all practical Purposes it is Slave Labor. You know ........... 50 Cents an hour. This has all been done to Maximize Profits by Gutting the US Manufacturing Industries which I Very Much Believe has been and is TREASON. Why TREASON ??? Because these Evil People on Wall Street have nearly Destroyed the Manufacturing Capability and this makes it nearly Impossible for us to make Military Hardware for any and all Foreign Wars that the USA will be Forced to be Involved in and with our Manufacturing Shut Down and Bulldozed .......... we American Citizens and Middle Class are Screwed.

I say the USA should Slam the DOOR Shut to any further Manufacturing Job Exportation. The US has Lost over 80% of our Manufacturing Capability due to Manufacturing Job Exportation. If We as a Nation get any weaker we shall go DOWN Like the Roman Empire and shall not bounce back up but stay Economically Destroyed in the Wall Street Pit that Wall Street has Created for our Great Blessed Nation. And this has all been done to make the Investment Bankers and the Central Bankers Richer and the rest of us on the Way to a Very Poor Future !!!!!!!!!!!!

If we as a Nation do not do something Soon ............ we are Doomed and in all of the Chaos these Evil Central Banker People who Funded the Russian Communist Revolution will probably fund another Communist Revolution here in the Good Old USA. We do NOT want that but if American Citizens get Scared Enough and Hungry Enough they may well Embrace anyone with Promises Promises.

There we go again ! Back to the Future between Hitler and Stalin !!!! What a Mess ! And there are Evil People out there who don't care and really do Want another Bloody Revolution and they do have their EVIL Reasons and Maximizes Profits and Power is Behind it all !!!!!

http://www.constitutionparty.com/

http://breakingfreeinamerica.blogspot.com/

The Silent Killer!

2011-09-01T07:33:00.008-05:00

Below is a link to a video worth watching. I say worth watching because I feel the speaker has nailed our biggest problem, our silence and interest in things that realy don't matter.

I ask that you all take the time to watch this video.

AllenD

http://livestre.am/Pfu4

What If He Is Right?

2011-08-28T11:05:00.011-05:00

       I, in error posted an old article that may have been altered thru several e mail forwards and so forth. The article was written by Historian David Kaiser and was worth a read in it's original form, however the author never intended to compare our President to Hittler.
       At a time when so many Americans are unsure of their feelings about our direction , it's so easy to be critical of the leadership regardless of which party you may have supported along the way. Those of us at Breaking Free In America are no different. We try to understand, we ask questions, we talk to others, we listen to friends and family all of which are struggling to understand the question that never gets an answer. That question is one word, WHY?
       I will continue to write articles and letters that express my feelings and those of my friends. I know we cannot speak for everyone, but we can help create unity when the people realize that there are others who feel the same way.
       Below is another article by Historian David Kaiser. Again his work is worth a read. A link to his blog is also included following his article.
       After you read the article below, you may be able to understand the reason We The People are so divided and confused. I think many Americans believe we are driven by "special interest" groups who convence our leaders that their ideas are the best way forward. After all, that's their job! One who makes decisions needs to remember that there are two sides to every story!

Take some interest in the future, it is where you will be spending the rest of your life.

Thank You for visiting Breaking Free In America
AllenD

The Two-party system
By David Kaiser

[Those of who who have found this page because you received a forged email, attributed to me, comparing President Obama to Hitler, should know right away that it is a forgery that does not reflect my views. I ask you however to read this entire post.]

With the exception of relatively short periods such as the 1820s, the late 1850s, and 1912, the United States has essentially had a two-party system. In the 1820s the Federalists disappeared and what drama remained took place within the Democratic Party, until in the early 1830s the Whigs formed in opposition to Andrew Jackson. About twenty years later the collapse of the Whigs, followed by a split among the Democrats in 1860, created a very confused situation that allowed Abraham Lincoln to win a sweeping electoral majority with only a little more than 40% of the popular vote, but the war turned the Republicans into the majority party at least in the North (and for a while, during Reconstruction, in some of the South as well.) In 1912 Theodore Roosevelt's attempt to return to the White House split the Republicans and Woodrow Wilson, like Lincoln, won a huge electoral majority with a popular minority. (Wilson failed again to win a popular majority in 1916, although he had a bare plurality.) Third parties won about five southern states in 1948 and in 1968 because of the civil rights movement, once again depriving the victor of a popular majority. Ross Perot played the same role in 1992 and 1996, although he won only a few electoral votes.

The two-party system has fulfilled the essential function of modern democracy: to allow the public, or that part of it whose votes cannot be counted on by either the Republicans and Democrats, to change our leadership when things go badly. William Henry Harrison, the first Whig president, defeated Martin Van Buren in 1840 because of an economic panic. Grover Cleveland came into office by a very narrow margin in 1884 because of disgust with Republican corruption. Franklin Roosevelt came in by a landslide in 1932 because of the Depression, and Dwight D. Eisenhower did the same in 1952 thanks to frustration with the seemingly endless Korean War. The civil rights movement and the Vietnam War destroyed the New Deal coalition in the mid-1960s and Richard Nixon barely made it into the White House in 1968 as a result. Watergate and the Nixon pardon brought in Jimmy Carter in 1976, but more economic problems and setbacks abroad turned him out four years later. Recession brought Bill Clinton in to power in 1992. The case of George W. Bush in 2000 was very different: the country showed no overwhelming disgust with the Democratic Party, and the best available evidence suggests that he was not really elected at all.

Most of these transfers of power, however, made relatively little difference to the country, because they took place in eras of broad consensus about the role of government. Harrison and hid immediate successor John Tyler made no attempt to bring back the Bank of the United States. Grover Cleveland's only policy difference with the Republicans involved the extent of the tariff. Franklin Roosevelt, of course, was a truly revolutionary President, but after he left the scene the Republicans did not try to undo his revolution. Indeed, Eisenhower not only left the major achievements of the New Deal alone, but also defended and continued Truman's highly controversial foreign policies. Richard Nixon made no attempt to undo the great society and even brought the EPA into being simply because he did not want to take on a Democratic Congress on that particular issue. Ronald Reagan's major contribution was to change a progressive tax system into a regressive one. Meanwhile, however, a new generation, the Boomers, was growing up without much respect for anything their elders had done.

We are now in a new crisis era, and we face a potential catastrophe because only one party--the Democrats--seems remotely capable of governing at all. That is not to say that the Democrats are doing at all well. Barack Obama's response to the economic crisis he inherited fell short in critical respects. The stimulus was not nearly large enough, nor sufficiently focused on jobs. His Justice Department and SEC decided to let the big banks and mortgage companies escape their responsibilities for the crisis unscathed. He did not take the opportunity to let the Bush tax cuts expire. After last year's elections he adopted the catastrophic idea that cutting the deficit was more important than creating jobs, and he refused to give up the fantasy that the Republicans might cooperate with him to restore the country's confidence. As a result, his approval now hovers around 40% and his re-election is anything but assured.

The country survived that kind of situation after 1932, 1952, 1968, and 1992; but should the Republicans regain the Senate and the White House next year we will truly be entering uncharted territory. Today's Republicans reject not only the American achievements of the last century, but also some of the foundations of modern western civilization. As Rick Perry explained to a New Hampshire voter last week, he believes both creationism and evolution should be part of school curriculums. (Perry actually said that Texas requires this, which is not the case.) The Washington Post reports today that while over 70% of Democrats believe in global warming, less than 40% of Republicans do. Perry, it turns out, is a genuine acolyte of Glenn Beck, who wants to undo the Progressive Era as well as the New Deal, and repeal both the 16th and 17th Amendments, ending the federal income tax and returning the election of Senators to state legislatures. All the Republican candidates, including Mitt Romney, have violently repudiated traditional American ideas of the separation of church and state. They are all committed to a fantasy world of low taxes, no government regulation, a free market for health care, and the end, more or less, of workers' rights. And we could find them in control of the government in January 2013.

How has this happened? The shift of the Republican center of gravity to the South, starting in 1968, is perhaps the biggest factor. The traditional southern distrust of government in general and the federal government in particular gave way to something new during the New Deal, but the civil rights movement restored it among white southerners. Meanwhile, the explosion of personal freedom that also began in the 1960s deeply unsettled many heartland Americans, some of whom turned to fundamentalist religion in response. Much of today's Republicanism is reactionary in the literal sense. If one listens to Rush Limbaugh for a while, the impression becomes inescapable that many Republicans reject global warming, stimulus programs, and evolution because Democrats and urban liberals believe in them. That is why the Republican Party now rejects so much of the western rational tradition--which those of us who live on the coasts or in the upper Midwest have been taking for granted for a long time.

And let there be no doubt: there is an element of racism in present-day Republicanism as well. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma is known as a realtively sensible Republican--a doctor, as it happens, who has refused to sign Grover Norquist's no-tax-increase pledge. Yet here is what he said last week when a constituent asked him whether, in fact (as Rush limbaugh says almost every day) President Obama's policies were designed to destroy America:

“No, I don’t... He’s a very bright man. But think about his life. And think about what he was exposed to and what he saw in America. He’s only relating what his experience in life was...

“His intent isn’t to destroy. It’s to create dependency because it worked so well for him. I don’t say that critically. Look at people for what they are. Don’t assume ulterior motives. I don’t think he doesn’t love our country. I think he does.

“As an African American male, coming through the progress of everything he experienced, he got tremendous benefit through a lot of these programs. So he believes in them. I just don’t believe they work overall and in the long run they don’t help our country. But he doesn’t know that because his life experience is something different. So it’s very important not to get mad at the man. And I understand, his philosophy — there’s nothing wrong with his philosophy other than it’s goofy and wrong [laughter] — but that doesn’t make him a bad person.”

(You can actually here exactly what he said here. Barack Obama in fact graduated from law school with many thousands of dollars of student loan debt, money that was only paid off after the success of his autobiography. But Coburn must surely be speaking for millions of white Americans who refuse to believe that Obama could have honestly gotten where he is.

The Democratic Party remains a traditional American political party, with a broad spectrum of opinion and a tendency to give in to its moderate wing. The Republican party does not. Its most enthusiastic constituents, its media outlets, and nearly all its candidates are from its most radical wing. And that wing is entirely out of touch with reality.

This week about 3500 people looked at this web page. At least a thousand of you were conservatives drawn here by the fraudulent email, attributed to me, comparing President Obama to Hitler. That email has now been circulating for two and a half years, even though I and several media outlets immediately pointed out that it was a forgery. It regularly reappears on the same conservative web sites, such as freerepublic.com , and if anything it seems less likely recently that anyone on those sites will come forward to note that the forgery has been debunked again and again. To my fellow Americans who reached here because of that email I ask you to think about where you, and your country, are going. I believe you have lost your bearings and given up your judgment. Should you get what you want--should the Republican Party take over in 18 months--you will find yourselves and your children much worse off than you can possibly imagine.

posted by David Kaiser at 8:51 AM
http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/

Rick Perry tied to Agenda 21, globalist policies

2011-08-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

Source and Courtesy of
The August Forcast and Review

Posted By Patrick Wood On August 16, 2011 @ 7:24 am In North American Union,Rick Perry |

By Terri Hall

Rick Perry may be good at invoking states rights and property rights, while disavowing ‘foreign creditors,’ ^[2] but his actions as Texas’ longest serving governor tell a different story. Public private partnerships (or P3s) are part and parcel of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. Two of the purposes of Agenda 21 are to abolish private property and restrict mobility and P3s act as the vehicle to do it. Perry made P3s a centerpiece of his transportation policy since he stepped in as governor.

It started with the Trans Texas Corridor ^[3], known at the federal level as high priority corridors, corridors of the future, or the NAFTA superhighways. Just in Texas, it was to be a 4,000 mile multi-modal network of toll roads, rail lines, power transmission lines, pipelines, telecommunications lines and more. It was going to be financed, operated, and controlled by a foreign company granted massive swaths of land 1,200 feet (4 football fields) wide taken forcibly through eminent domain.

Called the biggest land grab in Texas history, it was going to gobble up 580,000 acres of private Texas land (the first corridor alone was to displace 1 million Texans) and hand it over to well-connected global players using P3s, who would gain exclusive rights to determine the route and what hotels, restaurants, and gas stations were along the corridor in a government-sanctioned monopoly for a half century. It was the worst case of eminent domain for private gain ever conceived.

Property rights shredded

The Trans Texas Corridor, and P3s in general, represent an imminent threat to private property rights. While lawmakers repealed the Trans Texas Corridor from state statute only months ago due to the public backlash, the re-named corridor (‘Innovative Connectivity Plan ^[4]’) and its threat to property rights lives on through P3s. ^[5] Two such projects underway by a Spanish developer, Cintra, will charge Texans 75 cents per mile in tolls (nearly $13 a day while Perry claims he hasn’t raised taxes or indebted Texans to foreign creditors) to access lanes on two public interstates — I-635 and I-820. A third project being developed by the same company for two segments on SH 130 is, perhaps, the only leg of the Trans Texas Corridor TTC-35 project that will ever be built.

While Perry distracted Texans and tea partiers with ‘emergency’ resolutions on state sovereignty during the 82nd legislature, P3s spread from transportation projects to virtually every other type of public infrastructure in a bill, SB 1048 ^[6], passed by the Texas legislature which he signed into law June 17. Now all public infrastructure, including public buildings, schools, nursing homes, ports, mass transit, etc. can be auctioned-off to private interests in long-term sweetheart deals with taxpayer subsidies and profit guarantees using P3s.

P3s give a private corporation the power to tax the public, whether through charging tolls or other so-called ‘user fees,’ to access their own public infrastructure, and, perhaps more insidious, allowing well-connected private entities to profit from concessions on land taken through eminent domain.

Why shouldn’t the original landowner be able to profit from developing his/her land instead of having the government take it in the name of a “public use” and give it to another developer, one with government connections? Perry’s administration of P3s is like his administration of his Emerging Technology Fund that’s been highly criticized ^[7] for steering taxpayer money to Perry’s campaign donors — a case in point, Dan Shelley. ^[8]

Shelley worked for Cintra, who had its sites set on developing the Trans Texas Corridor. Shelley lands a job as Perry’s aide, steers the $7 billion corridor P3 to his former employer Cintra, then goes back to work for Cintra. That’s how Perry does business — pay to play.

Texas “Open for Business”

While Perry is staking his campaign on Texas being the top net jobs creator, Perry’s version of Texas being “Open for Business” isn’t about low taxes and less regulation as much as it is about doing business with foreign companies, including selling off Texas’ sovereign land and public assets to foreign creditors, an issue which Perry’s first television ad ^[9]uses to take aim at President Obama.

Aside from the P3s, Texas has 20 active deals ^[10] going with the Chinese and has 32 foreign trade zones ^[11] (FTZs), a vehicle to ease the flow of foreign goods into the United States that are chalk full of tax breaks for importers. Perry’s office promoted these FTZs in a document entitled Foreign Trade Zones: Texas Wide Open for Business ^[12] and even dedicates a web site for Texas FTZs, www.TexasWideOpenForBusiness.com ^[13].

A recent Washington Post article ^[14] documents Perry’s work to get Chinese government-owned telecommunications company Huawei, to base its U.S. operations in Texas, a company that the U.S. government has deemed a threat to national security noting that “three times since 2008, a U.S. government security panel has blocked Huawei from acquiring or partnering with U.S. companies because of concerns that secrets could be leaked to China’s government or military.”

Perry’s coziness with the Chinese ^[15] and foreign investors exposes a huge weakness in his right flank — illegal immigration and open borders. The Trans Texas Corridor has been linked to the global plan to economically integrate North America, with the eventual goal of a common security perimeter modeled after the European Union. Perry ushered in in-state tuition for illegals and has long been an obstacle to immigration reform or any Arizona-style immigration law.

Perry’s record paints a much different picture than what candidate Perry would have us believe — that he’s a states rights, Constitutionally limited government conservative that’s responsible for the “Texas miracle.” In reality, he’s more like an Agenda 21 globalist willing to sell America to the highest bidder.

#####

Terri Hall is a homeschool mother of eight children and the Founder of Texans Uniting for Reform and Freedom or TURF. TURF is a non-partisan, grassroots, all-volunteer group defending citizens’ concerns with Agenda 21, toll road policy, public private partnerships, and eminent domain abuses. TURF promotes non-toll transportation solutions.

http://www.augustforecast.com/2011/08/16/rick-perry-tied-to-agenda-21-globalist-policies/#

Could Washington Speak The Truth Like This?

2011-08-17T07:31:00.000-05:00

The Depression: Past And Future

August 17, 2011 by John Myers

The greenback that was once revered around the world is now an asset that depreciates almost daily.

America’s recovery has run out of steam. Job growth is nonexistent. Stock indexes cling to highs set earlier this year. Barack Obama’s moneyfest has failed to right America’s listing ship. Yet no one from the Potomac to Wall Street has noticed the obvious — that the U.S. is facing a deflationary collapse worse than anything that has happened in 80 years.

I remember the Crash of 1987, Black Monday, Oct. 19. The only thing I had going for my family was that I held enough gold to somewhat offset the huge losses in my portfolio.

But I was lucky. The ensuing recovery meant that I never understood the hardship my parents and grandparents endured during the Great Depression. I worry that may change.

Bedtime Stories That Give Me Nightmares

Upon learning of the great stock market crash that swept away fortunes, my grandfather said to my dad, “Good riddance.”

The family homestead on Alberta’s prairies seemed a world away from the vexations on Wall Street in the autumn of 1929. My grandfather could not anticipate that the sweeping loss of wealth and confidence would impact his life.

When the stock market crashed, the price of wheat gyrated and began a long decline from $2.50 a bushel to a low of 25 cents a bushel in 1934.

But it wasn’t just the collapse in grain prices that almost bankrupted my family; it was the disappearance of confidence that cut a wide swath over all businesses.

My dad told the story of my grandmother. She had bought about 5,000 bushels of wheat. When the margin ran out, the brokerage firm Tull and Arden Ltd. of Calgary, Alberta, called and wanted more cash. These margin calls happened more than once. My grandparents decided to put up enough cash to hold them over. They sent Tull and Arden $5,000 above the margin.

Many brokerage firms were going out of business. My grandparents asked around and were assured that Tull and Arden would not fail.

My dad told me of the morning his mother came out of their farmhouse to say that the radio had just reported that Tull and Arden was bankrupt. The $5,000 in additional margin money evaporated; my grandparents’ lifetime of savings.

There was talk that Tull and Arden would make good on their clients’ losses. That did not happen. My grandparents never saw a nickel out of the $5,000 they had sent to support their contracts. It was gone along with the original $3,000 they had invested. That equals $100,000 in today’s money. (You can run the numbers yourself here.)

Because the family homestead wasn’t mortgaged, my grandparents were able to hang on — but just barely. Many of their neighbors were not so lucky. As confidence dwindled, so did credit. The economies of the world corkscrewed downward, and my family faced hard times over the next decade.

The Dollar’s Quarter Century Of Decline

We are staring into the face of an economic depression. Bankers are again nervous that other banks might turn off the tap. And the banking crisis of 2008 still plagues the global economy.

Already, banks have once again begun hoarding capital. And the modern economy cannot function when credit is not available. Since most companies and households don’t take out big new loans every day, it takes time for this truth to be realized. But when this happens, panic will ensue.

Washington and the Federal Reserve are doing their utmost to turn back the deflationary tide. The Fed has already injected more than $1 trillion into the economy in a desperate attempt to resuscitate the business cycle. I believe if the President had his way, he would pump trillions of dollars more into American banks, automakers and any and all corporations that might help him get re-elected. What Obama and the Federal Reserve are unable or unwilling to understand is that all this money is killing the one great thing America still had going for it: the U.S. dollar. The greenback that was once revered around the world is now an asset that depreciates almost daily.

The endgame of this accidental or purposeful mismanagement of the American economy could be a 1929-style crash of dollar instruments and devastating deflation.

Obama Will Kill The Dollar, Too

I anticipate that the greenback will lose another 30 percent of its worth against major currencies in the next two years.

As my former publisher at Agora, Bill Bonner, wrote earlier this month:

Every empire ends up broke… and defeated. And the fate of every country that has tried to run a pure paper money system… with currency not backed by gold… has been a disaster. It didn’t matter what anyone thought or did. Once you head down that road, it seems that you have to go all the way. There are a lot of byways and side-roads you can take. But you always seem to end up in the same place.

The correction in bullion prices earlier this year has run its course. Political posturing by the President and Congress and their failure to deal with the fundamental economic and debt problems facing the nation are leading us toward bankruptcy. I believe this ongoing crisis will push gold to $2,000 per ounce by Christmas.

Some have accused me of being a gold bug. Not true. I am a survivor bug. I will take no joy in seeing gold at $2,000 per ounce or even $3,000 per ounce. Such prices will mean hardship for the people I love and for the country I love, the United States of America.

Yours in good times and bad,

http://www.personalliberty.com/conservative-politics/government/the-depression-past-and-future/?eiid=&rmid=2011_08_17_PLA_[P11880597]&rrid=238428701

Beware!

2011-08-15T13:02:00.008-05:00

We Don’t Need Another George W. Bush

By Chuck Baldwin

August 11, 2011

Archived column:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=3847

Last Saturday, Texas Governor Rick Perry unofficially launched his 2012 Presidential candidacy in Houston (in my opinion). Speculation is he will officially announce his intentions this weekend in South Carolina. If he does declare his candidacy, many election-watchers say Perry will become the GOP frontrunner, due to an extremely weak field of declared candidates. If Perry does declare his candidacy, everyone
will know that the Houston event was staged for the purpose
launching his Presidential bid, rhetoric to the contrary not withstanding.

If Perry declares his candidacy (and I’m confident he will), people should also realize that the Houston event was a precursor to the type of campaign that Perry will use throughout the Republican primary season. As a fellow Texan, it was not lost on Rick Perry how George W. Bush obtained the Republican nomination--and eventually the White House. In short, Rick Perry is going to use the G.W. Bush model to win a Presidential election.

Think about it: G.W. Bush won the White House after an extremely unpopular liberal Democrat had been President. Barack Obama’s popularity is even lower than Bill Clinton’s was--and Clinton was only the second President in US history to ever be impeached! Bush’s campaign boss, Karl Rove, brilliantly painted G.W. Bush as being a wholesome “born again Christian,” which played very well with a Christian electorate that was tired of being embarrassed by a lying, philandering reprobate living in the White House.

In 2012, the American electorate, especially the Christian
electorate, is totally fed up with an incumbent President whom
everyone knows to be extremely sympathetic to Muslim and Marxist ideologies. Plus, a sizeable percentage of the American people truly suspect that Obama was NOT born in the United States and is, therefore, not even qualified to be President. This is the stage upon which Rick Perry appears. It is a stage very similar to the one George W. Bush stepped onto in 2000. And just as Bush played the “born again Christian” card to the max in the 2000 Presidential campaign, so Rick Perry appears to be ready to do in 2012. That is what the Houston event was all about last Saturday.

Billed as “A Day of Prayer and Fasting,” the event solidified
Perry’s preferred status among evangelical Christians. With the help of the American Family Association (which reportedly contributed up to a million dollars to the event), James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, and Cornerstone Church’s (San Antonio) Pastor John Hagee, Perry is all but assured of cornering the “born again” vote, just as G.W. Bush did in 2000.

One would like to think that America’s Christians learned something from the two GWB administrations, but it doesn’t appear that they have. I think it is safe to say that Dobson, Hagee, et al, would endorse ANYONE nominated by the Republican Party. They have already proven that, have they not? James Dobson went so far as to humiliate himself by endorsing big government John McCain in the 2008 general elections, even after vowing publicly that he would “NEVER” support McCain. During the primaries, however, the Republican candidate who can “talk the Bible” the best can expect the support of these clueless evangelical leaders. And this time around, it appears that Rick Perry is that man. You can rest assured if Perry doesn’t win the nomination, Dobson and Hagee will be right there for whoever does.

For the record, I invite anyone out there who still labors under the delusion that George W. Bush presided over some kind of “born again” Christian administration to check out the vast amounts of information I have compiled on my web site that exposes Bush as being just another big government elitist, who did as much (or more) to strip America of its God-given liberties as any other President in history. See the record at:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?page_id=38

Furthermore, even cursory research will uncover the fact that the
Bush and Clinton families have long collaborated together in criminal activity on a massive scale--activity that, in all likelihood, continues to this very day. (I still say, don’t be surprised if Obama dumps Joe Biden as his Vice President and puts Hillary Clinton on the ticket before next year’s elections.)

Of course, G.W. Bush was never held accountable by evangelical
Christian voters for his unconstitutional conduct. All they cared
about was Bush’s Christian rhetoric. And it does appear that is all
they care about today. As a result, Rick Perry will prove to be a
formidable candidate in the GOP primaries.

I have said over and over again that I would rather vote for an
unbeliever who would preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, than vote for a believer who would NOT preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States! The pious rhetoric of political candidates means nothing!

If I hire a plumber to fix a drainage problem at my house, I am not interested so much in where he goes to church, or whether he teaches Sunday School, or what denomination he claims. I am hiring him to fix my plumbing! We sign a contract, he and I. I promise to pay him “X” amount of dollars, and he promises that when he’s finished, my toilets will flush. Christian or not, I expect him to honor the terms of his contract.

Ladies and gentlemen, when we elect a civil magistrate (at any
level), we are entering into a contract with the one we elected. We
gave them our support, which allowed them to obtain public office, and they promise (before Almighty God) to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. They do not promise to be “good Christians.” They do not promise to be “good Republicans.” They do not promise to be “good conservatives.”

They take an oath before God (they sign a contract with the American people) to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. And it is our job as citizens to hold our civil magistrates to their oath! In fact, if any elected office holder were a TRUE Christian, he or she would take their oath even more seriously, would they not?

Instead of being excited about a candidate claiming to be a
Christian, or claiming to pray and read his or her Bible, we need to get excited about a candidate who is serious about preserving the liberties of the American people, and who makes a commitment to protect and preserve the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and US Constitution!

Before we talk about Rick Perry’s commitment to prayer and fasting, let’s find out if Rick Perry believes that there must be a
Declaration of War before America begins invading, bombing, and occupying foreign countries. Let’s find out if he believes he has the authority as President to use US military forces against American citizens. Let’s find out if he believes he has the authority to give billions and trillions of dollars away to foreign countries. Let’s find out if he plans to commit US military forces to the whims of the United Nations Security Council. Let’s find out if he supports the Military Commissions Act. Let’s find out if he supports the Patriot Act. Let’s find out if he believes the US government has the authority to use super-computers and advanced technology to continue to turn the United States into a giant surveillance-society. Let’s find out how serious he is about closing that southern border: speaking of which, what did Rick Perry do as governor of the border State of Texas to stop illegal immigration? And while we are on the subject of Border States, what did Rick Perry do to stop the NAFTA superhighway? Before we get excited about Rick Perry being a “good Christian,” let’s find out if he supports the Council of Governors, or the North American Union, or the Continuity of Government, or Agenda 21.

Let’s find out if Perry will launch a Justice Department investigation into the ATF’s (under Barack Obama and Eric Holder) clandestine operation of providing firearms to Mexican drug gangs. We could go on and on with these kinds of questions.

The sad truth is, our illustrious evangelical leaders on the right
are just as culpable in the dismantling and deterioration of the
American republic as are those on the political or religious left!
Both sides are willing to give their favored politicos a pass on
constitutional governance. And ladies and gentlemen, that is why it hasn’t mattered to a tinker’s dam whether a Democrat or
Republican, “liberal” or “conservative” is in the White House!
And that’s why it won’t matter in 2012.

Besides, if James Dobson and John Hagee were truly interested in protecting and preserving the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and US Constitution, they would be promoting the candidacy of Ron Paul. But, unfortunately, they wouldn’t do it in 2008, and they won’t do it in 2012. They lack both the courage and the sagacity.

We don’t need another George W. Bush in the White House. For that matter, we don’t need another Jimmy Carter in the White House. What we need is a President (governor, mayor, sheriff, etc.) who will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States!

Chuck Baldwin

NOTE TO THE READER:

Chuck Baldwin is a syndicated columnist, radio broadcaster, author, and

pastor dedicated to preserving the historic principles upon which America

was founded. He was the 2008 Presidential candidate for the Constitution

Party. He and his wife, Connie, have 3 children and 8 grandchildren.

Chuck Baldwin's commentaries are copyrighted and may be republished,

reposted, or emailed providing the person or organization doing so does not

charge for subscriptions or advertising and that the column is copied

intact and that full credit is given and that Chuck's web site address is

included.

Editors or Publishers of publications charging for subscriptions or

advertising who want to run these columns must contact Chuck Baldwin for

permission. Radio or television Talk Show Hosts interested in scheduling an

interview with Chuck should contact sec@chuckbaldwinlive.com

Readers may also respond to this column via snail mail. The postal address

is P.O. Box 10, Kila, MT 59920. When responding, please include your name,

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Please visit Chuck's web site at http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/

Who’s Really In Control?

2011-08-09T09:49:00.001-05:00

By AllenD

A new point in history where government is no longer in charge may have been reached. I say may have been reached because it does look like we are being controlled by those who have the money and our debt. Is this what many have feared, a loss of control by our own government?

It seems that everyone is glued to what Wall Street is doing, our debt ceiling and the rating we are given by those who lend us money. It does appear our government is under their control!

Back in 2008 when so many things pointed towards recession, the blame was on debt. We were all blamed for having too much debt and no matter how hard you may have worked to balance your check book, you were still affected by the big picture. All we heard that we must get our debt under control and yet the only thing we did was spend more and more trying to stimulate job growth and bailout troubled companies which only grew the debt.

The price of the company bailouts was the reduction of job pay and benefits as many companies that made stuff took to foreign land where they could make their stuff paying even less wages than here in America. The tax breaks we give to the rich so they can generate jobs have only helped generate jobs overseas. As development went overseas, our unemployment rates went up.

We at Breaking Free in America have tried several times to show just how much the loss of manufacturing has hurt our American economy. Many of the large manufacturing companies that used to be based in America have been free for years to move their assembly facilities anywhere they wanted while also being free to being their stuff back to America to sell, saving them the higher wages they would have to pay workers here and the taxes they would have to pay as well.

That freedom of commerce comes with an additional cost to us in the form of securing the freedom of trade that you and I pay for. Free trade is only free as long as someone keeps the markets free and that is why our military is all over the world. We are the worlds police department.

Yes, we all wonder why we send our young men and women off to fight to what. These so called wars against terror do nothing more than help secure free trade for the big rich companies that we give tax breaks too so they will create jobs where they can find the cheapest labor.

I am saddened to feel this way, but I do. I feel this way because when I look around, I see a large chunk of our economy gone and it saddens me that no one talks about it, especially those in our government. The free trade policies they have agreed to have destroyed as much as half our economy and at the expense of even more who are out there trying to police the worlds trade.

As I have said before, we do not trade at all. We buy the stuff and our money goes away, never to come back. That’s what we police! Fair trade of equal amounts of currency is a must if we are ever going to recover from the control money has on our country.

When the people have money, they generate jobs. That’s a fact!

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country

2011-08-03T11:16:00.001-05:00

Source and Courtesy of

Bernie Sanders

US Senator from Vermont

Dear Mr. President,

This is a pivotal moment in the history of our country. Decisions are being made about the national budget that will impact the lives of virtually every American for decades to come. As we address the issue of deficit reduction we must not ignore the painful economic reality of today - which is that the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations are doing phenomenally well while the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing. In fact, the United States today has, by far, the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.

Everyone understands that over the long-term we have got to reduce the deficit - a deficit that was caused mainly by Wall Street greed, tax breaks for the rich, two wars, and a prescription drug program written by the drug and insurance companies. It is absolutely imperative, however, that as we go forward with deficit reduction we completely reject the Republican approach that demands savage cuts in desperately-needed programs for working families, the elderly, the sick, our children and the poor, while not asking the wealthiest among us to contribute one penny.

Mr. President, please listen to the overwhelming majority of the American people who believe that deficit reduction must be about shared sacrifice. The wealthiest Americans and the most profitable corporations in this country must pay their fair share. At least 50 percent of any deficit reduction package must come from revenue raised by ending tax breaks for the wealthy and eliminating tax loopholes that benefit large, profitable corporations and Wall Street financial institutions. A sensible deficit reduction package must also include significant cuts to unnecessary and wasteful Pentagon spending.

Please do not yield to outrageous Republican demands that would greatly increase suffering for the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society. Now is the time to stand with the tens of millions of Americans who are struggling to survive economically, not with the millionaires and billionaires who have never had it so good.

Respectfully,

Sen. Bernie Sanders;
and Co-signers

http://sanders.senate.gov/petition/?uid=c1fd7f9b-abd8-4e7a-a370-1867881259d8

SELFISH BEHAVIOR

2011-07-29T07:34:00.002-05:00

By AllenD

We at Breaking Free In America have written many articles and posted others that we feel, you our readers, will find interesting. We also know that we are not alone in our sadness and disappointment towards those who we have elected to govern our country, our cities, our states and the many affairs that fall under our laws and legal system.

Those of us who have lived a number of years and can still reflect on the past know that our direction appears to be much different today than what our founding fathers envisioned. History of the days during the establishment of what we have enjoyed during our life time shows the sacrifice, wisdom and unselfish thinking of those who worked so hard to give us a chance to live a life of freedom no other country ever possessed. Our founders gave us the “model” for all human life to adore and to achieve for themselves if they had the opportunity to see what Americans had and felt it truly was a better way forward.

Even today, with activists and so called rebels in many parts of the world trying to become more like Americans, we can since their struggle. Our struggle to keep and maintain that “model” has been ongoing. History suggests that sooner or later people who strive for power and money will try to “push the envelope” and make changes that favor their lives. In some cases we are taught to expand our horizon looking for new and better ways to improve our way of life and in other ways, the desire for more can become destructive to the delicate balance that makes our way of life so wonderful for the total population.

Our government in America is sometimes called many different things. Some say we are a democracy, some say we are a republic, some say we are headed for socialism and the list goes on and on. Many of us just don’t understand the terms or definitions or all those words. We hear right, left, liberals, social progressives and conservative while never hearing descriptive easy to understand words like normal, honest, moral, trustworthy or having integrity. Has our dictionary changed or is it that some just want to promote their own selfish behavior?

Selfish Behavior lacks basic fundamental action and feeling. Making decisions based on ones own self interest appears to be very basic to today’s decisions made by our elected government. It’s been said many times that when someone new is elected to a government position, they have every intention of making a difference, changing the way decisions are made and helping their people solve the problems, but then they find out how it all works in Washington. Their intentions soon fail as they too become a part of the existing Selfish Behavior powered by what many call “special interest”.

The truth is, We The People are the special interest. When the people have balance in their lives, everyone including business, is better off. How hard is it to see what is happening all over The United States. Some might say the middle class is being wiped out. I always wonder who is the middle class? How do we define the middle class? Is it the money they make? Is it the job they have? Is it the education level they achieved? Is it the thing they do to earn a living? Is it the number of children they have? Was it the labor unions that created a middle class?

All I know is that all of the above questions can be applied to the fact that every city, town and state in America is falling short on funds, taxes collected from the people and it continues to get worse and worse every day, every month and every year all the while our government tells us it’s getting better and if you are like me, I wonder, better for who? All I see is decay and rot. Our roads are falling apart, buildings are empty, home construction has come to a halt, foreclosures, schools lack the funds to even stay open all the while many state governments are putting pressure on Right To Work Laws so they can start cutting the pay scale for teachers, bus drivers and eliminate studies someone feels are no longer necessary. The fact is that once you take wages and benefits from labor or away from people, those same people will only add to the list of those who pay less tax, who buy fewer products, who cannot go out for a movie, a ball game or dinner. The decision to take away will only fuel the problem more and destroy confidence that’s needed to fuel our vary existence.

For years, I felt America was like a complex machine. We put a little oil here, a little grease there and things pretty much kept rolling along. The oil and grease came in the form of incentives to help motivate people to become different parts of the machine. I never really thought about what the machine made or did other than being the nucleus for everything we did. It created balance in our economy and gave hope to those who wanted to start and develop a business. The size of the machine grew because of the economic balance we all had based on our wages, employment benefits and social programs paid for by those who worked.

We gave everyone the opportunity to learn, an education if you will! I always felt that the opportunity to an education was the only thing we should give anyone. With that education, you could become part of the machine. You could live, work, survive, raise a family, save or spend your earnings, buy a home, build a home, take a trip, enjoy a ball game or movie or start a business.

Our schools used to teach us how to survive, how to blend in, how to earn a living and to open your mind to creativity and wonder. Today, it’s all about sports and entertainment. Gladiators and movie stars will not maintain the machine!

I usually try to explain my point thru the description of an example. The example here is the auto industry, our dependence on oil and the lack of plans to become more efficient.

The auto industry has for years produced cars, trucks and SUV’s that support words like power or performance. Our government has always succumbed to their pressure to forget about fuel mileage standards. Yes, at one time we had “fleet mileage standards”, but that did not include trucks and SUV’s, just cars of all sizes. The manufacturer could give hefty discounts on small cars in order to sell a few of them while many went ahead and bought an SUV or a pick up truck.

Today, our president is trying to tell us that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. “Mr. President, we need to reduce our dependence on oil period, no matter where it comes from.” Our government should fund a grant to some independent group of engineers, perhaps retired auto engineers, with the idea of taking a new truck or SUV and produce a realistic 35 or 40 miles per gallon. Once this goal is achieved, our government could then set the standards for all car makers to meet. If we can do it, so can you! The incentive to do this is already in place. It’s called competition! You either do it or someone else will! Just today, July 29, 2011, I heard that President Obama has set a new standard for the auto makers to meet by 2025. Maybe he knows something we don’t, but I do wonder where the new standard of 55 miles per gallon came from.

Our president tells us that we have to be more innovative. Mr. President, where have you been? America has been the most innovative country that ever existed. We have given our ideas to every country around the world while you along with Congress have established trade policies that make it impossible for your own countrymen to compete in a free trade market. Our minunum wage standard alone keeps us from being able to make anything in a competitive global market. There is nothing that we could create, design or develop that cannot be made somewhere else cheaper. So I ask you Mr. President our Congressmen and our Senators, why are you doing this to us because you have destroyed over half the machine.

I think they all know what they are doing. I don’t think they are that stupid! These people are “Selfish” and “Special Interest’ minded. They want to stay in control and they do it by giving the rich special tax breaks and the poor things they never earned. The other third is the so called middle class who pays for everything while never having enough power or say to overcome the other two thirds.

We at Breaking Free In America have suggested that the only way we are ever going to see a way “back to the future” is to organize or unite with a common interest. That common interest needs to be based on what our founding fathers wanted and tried so hard to establish and protect with documents like the Constitution and Bill of Rights, both of which were established with integrity and unselfish behavior and both of which seem to always be under attack because someone is always trying to change the meaning of a word.

Some might quote the bible while I would simply say, treat others as you would want to be treated. Wouldn’t that be nice if everyone lived by The Golden Rule!

Is Social Security an Entitlement?

2011-07-26T07:47:00.006-05:00

Entitlements my ass, I paid cash for my Social Security Insurance! Just because they borrowed my money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout! Congressional benefits like free health care, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days: now that's welfare; and they have the nerve to call my Social Security retirement entitlements!

Someone please tell me what the Hell is wrong with all the people that run this country!

We're broke and can't help our Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.?

In recent months we have provided aid to Haiti , Chile, Pakistan...home to bin Laden...literally BILLIONS of DOLLARS!

Our retired seniors living on a fixed incomes receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government gives Hundreds of Billions to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare entitlements even though most of us have been paying for them all our working lives. And now, when its time for us to collect, the Government is running out of money. Why did the Government borrow from our Social Security in the first place?

We have many adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.

AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without needed medication, mentally ill going without treatment, etc.

Imagine if our Government gave us the same support they give the people who hate us.

Sad, isn't it?

Below are picture copies of an origional 8 page Social Security pamphlet handed out to workers who were going to pay into the program by means of pay roll deductions. This pamphlet is dated January 1, 1937

The "intent" of this program was clear and was meant for those who paid in period. The nerve of either party making decisions to use these funds for anything other than the intended purpose is against any reasonable thinking. It really makes no difference who got the ball rolling because the other party has had numerous opportunities to reverse any unlawful use of these funds.

This is yet another reason why we at Breaking Free in America continue to say that the time has come for both parties to go. They both have had their chances to do the right thing, to make corrections, to make improvements for the betterment of all, to set the example and to expose those who want nothing more than to better themselves.

For years, I like most everyone else, felt that the two party system was good for checks and balances, but here lately, it's just nothing more than a single special interest group with no desire to make things better for the whole of the country.

Sooner or later we will all surcome to their failure if we don't act as we should, act as one, act like our founders not only did but wanted us to do.

Comments:

Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President, I heard you say you will not guarantee SS checks if the debt ceiling isn't raised. Why is it the scare always has to do with SS, Medicare, & our Soldiers pay? Why not stop your pay, your staff, or Congress and the Senate to save more money for our country? Why use Seniors, Soldiers, & our Needy as examples? Take the money from those who take no risks and reap the benefits!! Instead of threatening to withhold Social Security, VA and disability payments of people who really need the money.... Lets hold the paychecks of all house & senate members, then see how fast they resolve the debt ceiling crisis !!!!!

If you agree repost this & keep it going across the whole USA .

Thank You

Foreigners fill US colleges

2011-07-20T06:25:00.003-05:00

Foreigners fill colleges In the recent wake of American "failures" in tennis and golf, a column was published in The Indy Star that called into question the work ethic of American athletes. I might suggest there is another explanation.

American universities are considered an arena for the development of professional athletes. In the past, this was very successful. But if we look at the picture today, it is easy to see how this has changed, and not for the betterment of the American athlete. In the universities' quest for success, they have forsaken American high school athletes in favor of the "quick fix" of foreign-born students.

The proof is easily found on the universities' websites. IU's tennis teams (men and women) have 69 percent foreign members. Purdue tennis (men and women) has 71 percent foreigners. Purdue golf has 61 percent foreign born, including the women's roster which not only "boasts" 6-of-7 students being from out of the country, but has to include a pronunciation guide in its media guide.

Though Ohio State and Illinois have better numbers, there are still up to 25 percent to 33 percent foreign student-athletes on their rosters, also.

Of course, all of these athletic scholarships are paid for by the hard-working fan base of the individual universities. The ones who suffer are the high school athletes who might have otherwise earned a scholarship to their state university had that university not been so caught up in its own self-aggrandizement.

If American universities cannot support our own citizens in these sporting endeavors, then we will continue to flounder in our attempts to be successful on the world stage.

Terry R Brown, MD
Jasper

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110717/SPORTS/107170325/Sports-letters?odyssey=mod newswelltextSportss

A very well written letter to The Sports Letters section of The Indianapolis Star. A letter I am very surprised they printed because it points out how We The People or We The Tax Payers fund our state universities, have no say in how those funds are used while having to pay again to send our own children while the rest of the world gets to enjoy free scholarships. Something the article does not address is the fact that many colleges now either have their own TV networks or contrats with other cable channels that are only available to watch if we pay for a cable package. In other words we fund the program and then we have to pay again to watch. How stupid are we?

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