New York Considers Stealing Organs From U.S. Citizens "Government Out Of Control"

It is the height of authoritarian arrogance — the state of New York wants to take the organs of its citizens without permission.

New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has introduced a bill that would automatically enroll all New Yorkers as organ donors unless they specifically opt out of organ donation.

It is called “presumed consent,” doublespeak for theft. It should be called grave robbery.

Presumed consent is the same thing as a thief stealing your car and when you confront him he says, “Since you didn’t tell me I couldn’t steal your car, I presume you granted permission to steal it.”

Brodsky told Fox News he just wants to force all New Yorkers to make the decision. And if they don’t the state will presume consent and steal their organs. The disgusting part is Brodsky makes it sound like the state wants to make sure citizens retain control of their organs (see video above).

The message is crystal clear — the state owns the bodies of its subjects and they will be required to come crawling to officialdom in order to prevent the looting of their organs.

Public Employee Unions Work against American Public

Unions in this country got started because industry took advantage of workers. But these days, it seems to be the other way around. I am not talking about unions in the private sector. Private sector union workers should be free to get what they can. If private sector unions get too much (health care, pensions and pay), it is the fault of company management.

Public sector unions are a different story all together. Public sector unions do not operate in the real world where there is profit and loss. These unions work in a world of politics and taxes. This is a place where the unions’ needs line up against the people who pay them—the taxpayer. The unions think they are entitled to rich pensions and medical plans when they retire. If there is not enough money in a state or city budget, then they think taxes should be raised. For example, take the recent union protest over budget cuts in Illinois. A crowd of 15,000 union members were chanting, “Raise my taxes!” Yes that’s right, “Raise my taxes.” Check it out for yourself in the video below:

70% Of Arizona Voters Support Illegal Immgration Bill

Rasmussen- The Arizona legislature has now passed the toughest measure against illegal immigration in the country, authorizing local police to stop and check the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 70% of likely voters in Arizona approve of the legislation, while just 23% oppose it.

Opponents of the measure, including major national Hispanic groups, say it will lead to racial profiling, and 53% of voters in the state are concerned that efforts to identify and deport illegal immigrants also will end up violating the civil rights of some U.S. citizens. Forty-six percent (46%) don’t share that concern

Those figures include 23% who are very concerned and 18% who are not at all concerned.

Civil rights concerns were a bit higher last year. following a series of aggressive enforcement actions by the Maricopa County Sherriff.

Eighty-three percent (83%) of Arizona voters say a candidate's position on immigration is an important factor in how they will vote, including 51% who say it’s very important.

The measure is already having an impact on this year’s Senate and governor races in the state.

Senator John McCain, who is facing a serious Republican Primary challenge this year in part over his involvement in developing immigration reform legislation, on Monday endorsed the new state law. McCain now earns just 47% support to challenger J.D. Hayworth’s 42% in Arizona’s hotly contested GOP Senate Primary race.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Arizonans consistently have been critical of the U.S. government’s failure to secure the border with Mexico, and that anxiety has increased with growing drug violence along the border.

While many in Washington, D.C. view immigration reform as a way to legalize the 10 million or more illegal immigrants in the country, 73% of voters in Arizona now say gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of these undocumented workers.

In July of last year, 51% of Arizona voters said it is more important for Congress to pass immigration reform than health care reform.

That view is shared by voters nationwide and has been for several years.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Arizona Republicans and 69% of voters not affiliated with either major party in the state favor the new get-tough legislation. Democrats are more closely divided: 51% like the new law, but 43% oppose it.

Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats and 57% of unaffiliateds are concerned that the law may lead to possible civil rights violations against U.S. citizens. Fifty-four percent (54%) of Republicans are not very or not at all concerned about this.

Republican Governor Jan Brewer now has the bill on her desk, awaiting either her signature into law or her veto. State Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat who is running against Brewer for governor this year, has announced his opposition to the new law.

The top four GOP contenders for governor of Arizona, including Brewer, have all expanded their support since last month in match-ups with Goddard. The Democrat has lost ground and now trails in all four contests. One factor in the latest trends may have been Goddard’s refusal to join other states in suing the federal government over the new health care law. Brewer found a way to proceed despite Goddard’s refusal and got a big bounce in the polls.

The new law puts into state statute some of the policies that have long been practiced by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. But his aggressive enforcement of federal laws against illegal immigration have triggered a Justice Department probe and moves by the Obama administration to reduce his ability to enforce federal immigration laws.

When these moves against Arpaio were first reported in March 2009, 68% of Arizona voters said they had a favorable view of the sheriff. Voters also strongly favored his tactics including police raids on places where illegal immigrants gather to find work.

Chicago Crime Wave "Illinois To Declare Disarm Lawful Citizens Week"

Not really. The Speaker of the Illinois House wants a “Gun Control Week” declared. In addition, “Speaker of the House Mike Madigan may require that the House of Representatives remain in session until it passes Daley’s 2010 gun control package,” according to an email alert sent out by the Illinois State Rifle Association. Daley proposes the following raft of unconstitutional legislation:

HB180 – a scheme to run gun shops out of business by forcing shops to get licensed and comply with a slew of burdensome regulations.

HB5480 – would ban private firearm sales and force citizens to process private sales through licensed gun shops. (Yes, those are the same gun shops that will be run out of business by HB180 above)

HB5495 – would prohibit law-abiding citizens from purchasing more than one gun per month. Of course, criminals are exempt from this gun-rationing scheme.

HB5751 – would give you 90 days to surrender all your semiautomatic rifles, pistols and shotguns to the state police or face felony prison time.

HB5849 – would make it a felony to use a case other than one designed for a firearm to transport it and give the police greater power to confiscate your guns for “improper transportation” even if you have committed no other crime.

HB6123 – would make it a felony to sell a firearm to someone who looks like a gang member (ie: Black, Hispanic, shaved heads (all races), tattoos (all races), motorcyclists (all races), etc.)

As a former Chicago resident, I can tell you that just about the only people on the street with illegal guns are “gang-bangers,” that is to say drug dealers and their executioners. Home invaders and assorted criminal thugs come in second. Closing down gun shops and forcing law-abiding residents to turn in their rifles and shotguns will not ameliorate the situation — it will make it worse. Home invaders will become fearless if they know the population is completely disarmed.

I lived on the west-side of Chicago. Most of the people I knew owned guns to protect themselves. If Daley and his bureaucrats pass these laws, residents will become insta-felons. Daley is telling city residents they have no right to protect themselves and their families.

Now the state wants to put the National Guard on the streets. This is basically a public relations stunt (and intimidation of law-abiding citizens) and will do nothing to end drug dealing and its associated turf war violence.

Instead of decriminalizing drugs and allowing residents the right to protect themselves, Daley and the Illinois Senate will turn Chicago into a large prison camp (or larger than it already is) with National Guard soldiers making sure the inmates cannot protect themselves. Residents with firearms will be no different than the residents of Baghdad. Armed soldiers trained to kill and break things will be assisting the cops in breaking down doors and hauling citizens off to prison.

Left-Wing Loons Accuses Sen. Lindsay Graham Of Being Gay

News of ALIPAC’s request for Senator Lindsey Graham to come out of the closet, so his constituents will be on even footing with corrupt special interests in Washington regarding his secret lifestyle, is being reported nationally and William Gheen will appear on the Thom Hartmann and Lou Dobbs radio shows today.

William Gheen’s nine minute speech has gone viral on YouTube in the last 24 hours generating over 41,000 views, and has earned over 14 honors in YouTube’s News & Politics including 7th most discussed video, 11th most viewed, and 21st top rated video of the day.

“It appears that outing a sitting U.S. Senator has become quite a historic undertaking,” said William Gheen, who called for Graham to be honest about his sexual orientation in front of thousands of Tea Party supporters. “I stand by my decision to correct the information imbalance between the special interests in Washington and the American public. The national exposure this story is receiving will put Graham’s constituents on even footing with the political insiders in DC and SC who are already aware.”

William Gheen called on Senator Lindsey Graham to be honest with American voters about his homosexual lifestyle to assure that Graham’s desire to keep it a secret could no longer be potentially used by political insiders to manipulate Graham’s behavior. There are many precedents in American politics where affairs, corruption, addictions, and other situations that politicians wanted concealed were used to manipulate them with unfair advantage.

“When you have a U.S. Senator from such a conservative state like South Carolina working hand in hand with Obama and New York liberals like Senator Chuck Schumer to pass an Amnesty bill for illegal aliens, there is something very wrong,” said William Gheen. “After today’s national broadcasts, the American public will know what the DC insiders know and that was my goal.”

William Gheen has worked for multiple gay candidates before as a campaign consultant for the North Carolina Democratic Party in the 90’s. He is also experienced with political corruption issues in the Carolinas as a campaign consultant with over 44 campaigns of experience and five years as the President of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, which has been dealing with elite corruption issues designed to deprive Americans of Constitutional governance and national sovereignty.

The Media Crashing The Tea Parties "Slanted Coverage Video"

Over the past year since its inception, the media have worked hard to discredit and denigrate the tea party movement. News organizations employed various strategies, from dismissing the protests as astroturf, to using derogatory nicknames for participants, and finally labeling it as a violent extremist fringe. In their futile attempt to get something to stick, the media have become increasingly desperate and irresponsible in their coverage.

In the Media Research Center’s special report, ‘TV’s Tea Party Travesty,’ MRC Research Director Rich Noyes focused in on the slanted coverage of the tea parties by ABC, CBS, and NBC over the past year.

Arizonia States Immigration Reform: Common Sense Or Police State

Arizona’s new immigration bill will require police officers to perform identification checks whenever they believe there to be a probable cause, or reasonable suspicion, that the person in question may have entered into the state illegally, namely through the Mexican border.

Though the bill does not specifically single out Latinos, it is clear that they will be disproportionately targeted by the new laws. Now that Arizona has paved the way, will the anti-immigration movement reignite?

First Lady Michelle Obama in Mexico last week said that changes to the immigration system are necessary. Rather than focusing on border security, however, Mrs. Obama hinted that the system changes in question will deal with how to handle immigrant already in the United States.

“We’re seeing young children who are trying to cross the border just to reconnect with their parents, and their lives are in danger. They’re put in precarious situations. And a strong immigration reform policy would help alleviate some of those challenges.”

Washington’s immigration “reform” policies, like gun reform and health care reform, will attempt to spin the issue for the sake of the children, rather than addressing the root of the problem, which is securing our Southern border. Had the parents of these children not crossed US borders illegally in the first place, their children would not be forced to try and reconnect with them.

Thus, for the time being, while border control is not a serious enough issue for Washington to tackle, border states like Arizona are left with few choices, most of which revolve around dealing with the symptoms of illegal immigration, rather than the causes.

Had the Federal government done one of its few constitutionally defined duties of securing our border and protecting the citizenry, Arizona would not have to implement measures that resemble those of a police state. Individuals in, even those of Latino heritage, see the problems that illegal immigration brings with it, especially in Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona.

What harm is there to having your identification checked if you haven’t done anything wrong? If you happen to be in the State of Arizona, are pulled over, and don’t speak a lick of English, wouldn’t it be prudent for the officer to verify if you have not broken the law? Residents of every state must go through these types of checks, anytime they are stopped by police – a quick check to see if you have any warrants, or past violations that may require special attention. What the State of Arizona has said now, is that if you are suspected of being an illegal immigrant, for a variety of reasons, like the car you are driving doesn’t belong to you, you don’t have insurance, or you don’t speak english and happen to match a certain kind of ethnic profile, you are more likely to be in the State without permission than, say, a Caucasian female driving a mini-van.

The benefits of the new approach are clear.

But there is also a be-careful-what-you-wish-for danger.

There is a strong argument against the new measures, and that is, “how can the law can be enforced while preserving the civil rights of Americans of Hispanic descent?”

Today it is Hispanics that are profiled. Tomorrow, it might be you.

How long before the Federal government, seeing the merits of the argument for identification checks, requires, for the sake of civil rights and political correctness, that all citizens show their identification and have an ID check performed. Will American citizens readily accept an assault on their personal liberty, just as Hispanic American citizens or legal residents will be required to do in Arizona?

In a recent interview, Senator Joe Lieberman said that he is worried about domestic terrorism. If this is really true, then our first order of business should be to secure the United States from foreign enemies and those breaking the law to enter our country, as opposed to focusing our government’s limited resources on US citizens via More Surveillance on Planes, Trains, and Buses.

The new law in Arizona is a common sense approach to the problem of illegal immigration and tackles the issue head on. And, though it may open the door to more interference in our lives by way of a national identification card and traffic checkpoints, Arizona has been left with no other choice due to the failure of our Federal government to secure our borders from invasion, as it is obligated to do under Article IV of the United States Constitution.

There is a growing consensus that the most important strategy in the reform battle is the one dealing with outward facing security on our southern borders. There would be no illegal immigrant problems in Arizona or elsewhere if the border was not porous.

Isn’t it time that Washington finally takes a common sense approach?

Conservative Talk Show Host Predicts Agent Provocateur False Flag

Conservative Talk Show Host Michael Savage predicts in the near future that the Federal Government will create a false flag or agent provocateur within the Tea Party Movement.

African-American Rev. Calls Accusations The Tea Party Is Racist "Out-And-Out Lie"

If you listen to Chris Matthews and MSNBC, you’d think the Tea Party movement is strictly white and teaming with racists.

The corporate media pushes this fallacy because it is the only card they have to play and because racism is such a divisive issue. If the establishment can portray the Tea Party movement as racist, they believe they can shut it down and marginalize its message.

Rev. C.L. Bryant, from Shreveport, Louisiana — who is black American — put this vicious propaganda to rest last year, not that we can expect Matthews and crew — who are obsessed with race and playing the race card — to cite Bryant is an example that black Americans support and are members of the Tea Party movement.

“A Louisiana minister says he hopes more pastors join him in the Tea Party movement,” the Associated Press reports today.
The Rev. C.L. Bryant has been addressing Tea Party rallies around the country. On Thursday’s federal tax filing deadline, he spoke at rallies in Pittsburgh and Washington, DC.

Bryant, who is African-American, says allegations that Tea Party activists are racists and haters are “an out-and-out lie.”

But he says, “This country, I believe, was given to us divinely, and Americans are not the type of people by nature to be ruled over.”

Here is a video of Rev. Bryant’s speech on September 12, 2009:

A NEW "GAS TAX AND VAT TAX" COMING SOON

Get ready to pay even more for gas. If Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, Democrat Sen. John Kerry, Independent Sen. Joe Lieberman, and “moderate” Republicans get their way an additional 15 cents per gallon will be added to the gas tax.

Market analysts predict the price of oil will continue to rise for the rest of the month. “U.S. stockpiles of crude oil fell for the first time in 11 weeks in the week ending April 9, the Energy Department reported April 14,” Newsweek reports today.

Graham, Kerry, Lieberman and the Republicans are attempting to sell the gas tax increase to Congress as a climate bill compromise. “The Senate climate bill’s sponsors also appear to want the revenue raised from the tax to fund a variety of programs that would reduce industrial emissions, including helping manufacturers reduce energy use or boost wind and solar power installations by electric utilities,” Newsweek reports.

Earlier this week it was reported that wind turbines that are considered part of Obama’s “renewable-energy initiative” will be manufactured in China. The initiative is funded in part by Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

Congress is exploiting the widely debunked climate fraud to increases taxes on Americans.

In March, analysts predicted $3.00 per gallon gas prices in the weeks ahead. “Seasonal influences are strong this time of year and account for much of the expected increase that many analysts say will push gasoline to a nationwide average of at least $3 per gallon this spring,” the Associated Press reported on March 2.

“The higher prices come at a time when most Americans’ incomes are stagnant. Incomes edged up 0.1 percent in January, below analysts’ estimates, according to the Commerce Department,” AP added.

Additional financial burdens on the American public obviously do not concern Graham, Kerry, Lieberman and the Republicans. Congress is determined to push through punitive taxation schemes under the guise of phony climate change.

NBC NEWS RACE BAITING STUNT AT TEA PARTY EVENT FAILS

Liberals and Obamatrons, led by MSNBC’s attack dog Chris Matthews, like to claim people who support the Tea Party are racist. But if the Tea Party was indeed racist why would any self respecting black person join it? Do black people join the Ku Klux Klan and throwback white supremacists?


In fact, as the video above demonstrates, the Tea Party movement is open to all Americans regardless of race. On April 15, Kelly O’Donnell of NBC tried to get a black man at the D.C. Tea Party Tax Day protest to admit he was uncomfortable surrounded by mostly white people.

“These are my people,” the man responded. “They’re Americans.”

NBC and Ms. O’Donnell played the race card and it failed. Kelly O’Donnell and NBC are cognizant of race. But the man in the video is not. The Tea Party does not care about race.

Keep selling your divide and conquer snake oil, Chris Matthews. It really does not matter and it certainly does not work.

From first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, Matthews Hardball drew a scant 96,000 viewers. AM talk radio shows in medium-sized cities draw more listeners on an average day.

In fact, MSNBC’s news shows have consistently lost viewership over the last year, which is a good thing because it means that a very small number of people are actually buying into Matthews’ divisive race-baiting.

Obama Thugs Wants To Read Your E-mail Without A Warrant

Google and an alliance of privacy groups have come to Yahoo's aid by helping the Web portal fend off a broad request from the U.S. Department of Justice for e-mail messages, CNET has learned.

In a brief filed Tuesday afternoon, the coalition says a search warrant signed by a judge is necessary before the FBI or other police agencies can read the contents of Yahoo Mail messages--a position that puts those companies directly at odds with the Obama administration.

Yahoo has been quietly fighting prosecutors' requests in front of a federal judge in Colorado, with many documents filed under seal. Tuesday's brief from Google and the other groups aims to buttress Yahoo's position by saying users who store their e-mail in the cloud enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

"Society expects and relies on the privacy of e-mail messages just as it relies on the privacy of the telephone system," the friend-of-the-court brief says. "Indeed, the largest e-mail services are popular precisely because they offer users huge amounts of computer disk space in the Internet 'cloud' within which users can warehouse their e-mails for perpetual storage."

The coalition also includes the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, and TRUSTe.

For its part, the Justice Department has taken a legalistic approach: a 17-page brief it filed last month acknowledges that federal law requires search warrants for messages in "electronic storage" that are less than 181 days old. But, Assistant U.S. Attorney Pegeen Rhyne writes in a government brief, the Yahoo Mail messages don't meet that definition.

"Previously opened e-mail is not in 'electronic storage,'" Rhyne wrote in a motion filed last month. "This court should therefore require Yahoo to comply with the order and produce the specified communications in the targeted accounts." (The Justice Department's position is that what's known as a 2703(d) order--not as privacy-protective as the rules for search warrants--should let police read e-mail.)

On December 3, 2009, U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Yahoo to hand to prosecutors certain records including the contents of e-mail messages. Yahoo divulged some of the data but refused to turn over e-mail that had been previously viewed, accessed, or downloaded and was less than 181 days old.

A Yahoo representative declined to comment.

"This case is about protecting the privacy rights of all Internet users," a Google representative said in a statement provided to CNET on Tuesday. "E-mail stored in the cloud should have the same level of protection as the same information stored by a person at home."

That is, in fact, the broader goal of the groups filing Tuesday's brief. They're also behind the new Digital Due Process Coalition, which wants police to be able to obtain private communications (and the location of Americans' cell phones) only when armed with a search warrant.

Under a 1986 law written in the pre-Internet era, Internet users enjoy more privacy rights if they store data locally, a legal hiccup that these companies fear could slow the shift to cloud-based services unless it's changed.

The judge should "reject the government's attempted end-run around the Fourth Amendment and require it to obtain a search warrant based on probable cause before searching and seizing e-mails without prior notice to the account holder," the coalition brief filed Tuesday says. The Bill of Rights' Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and, in general, has been interpreted to mean warrantless searches are unreasonable.

The legal push in Colorado federal court, and a parallel legislative effort in Congress to update the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, is likely to put the coalition at odds with the Obama administration.

A few weeks ago, for instance, Justice Department prosecutors told a federal appeals court that Americans enjoy no reasonable expectation of privacy in their mobile device's location and that no search warrant should be required to access location logs.

The U.S. Attorney's office in Colorado did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Rebellion Of The States

President Obama, his weird circle of advisors (czars), and the ideologues within the Democrat Party led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry Reid only have a few months left to completely destroy the separation of powers between the States and the federal government.


A major battle is looming over the Tenth Amendment which declares that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Almost everywhere one looks today, the States are in rebellion to the overreaching of the federal government. The process involved is called nullification, a legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, i.e., invalidate, any federal law deemed unconstitutional. Since the Supreme Court moves at a glacial pace, the States through their legislatures have taken the lead in many cases.

Nullification is not secession as in the case of the Civil War, but there is a history of nullification that includes the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions against the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison both argued that the States are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution, arguing that the States could “interpose” themselves to protect their citizens from unconstitutional national laws.

Much of the discord in the nation today has its roots in the vital difference between a conservative attachment to traditional values and a liberal ideology that would impose a One World Government on our sovereign nation.

The great philosopher of American conservatism, Russell Kirk, wrote “True conservatism is the antithesis of ideology. It is the negation of ideology. For conservative is grounded in the past. Its principles are derived from the Constitution, experience, history, tradition, custom, and the wisdom of those who have gone before us—‘the best that has been thought and said.’ It does not purport to know the future. It is about preserving the true, the good, the beautiful. Conservatism views all ideologies with skepticism, and the more zealous and fanatic with hostility.”

A case in point is the way that State after State has lined up to oppose through the courts and by individual legal action the imposition of the president’s healthcare legislation, passed on strict party lines by the Democrat Party and only after the most vile revelations of bribery and backroom deals. It is a bill whose content Speaker Pelosi said Americans should supinely consider only after it was passed.

There has been a rapidly growing awareness and rejection of the assertion that the federal government can “own” General Motors or that the government should be in the business of buying and selling mortgages.

Pending financial reform legislation would permit the federal take over any company to install its own board of directors and thus control the economy. The failure to exercise existing regulation of the financial sector hardly calls for more regulation. It calls for stronger enforcement of existing laws.

The increasing awareness and rejection of the false “theory of global warming” is being rejected on the basis of the widely perceived cooling of the earth during this decade and the wild projections of warming 25, 50, a hundred or more years into the unknown future. More and more Americans now know it is based on feeble and deliberately false “computer models”.

That is why the Cap-and-Trade bill, a huge tax on energy use, awaiting action in the Senate, even if imposed in the same fashion as the healthcare bill, will be rejected by the States. There is no need to regulate carbon dioxide, a natural gas that has nothing to do with “warming”, but a rogue government agency, the Environmental Protection Agency, is set to assert this falsehood through massive regulation that will destroy the nation’s economic base.

With increasing pace, the States are demanding that the Second Amendment protecting the right to own and bear arms be respected and asserting their right to pass laws permitting gun ownership, including the right to carry concealed arms for self defense. States that have enacted such laws have seen a dramatic decrease in crime.

The assertion of unconstitutional federal powers lies at the heart of the State’s rejection of these efforts. Unfunded federal mandates are bankrupting the States and they want an end to them. The rapacious taking of State lands is crippling theirs and the nation’s ability to access our natural resources.

A growing spectrum of federal laws intruding upon the sovereignty of individual States is being challenged and this is a good thing. We should all take heart from these challenges as well as the spontaneous occurrence of the Tea Party movement that is a dramatic demonstration that the spirit of individual liberty and of States rights is alive and well in America.

A new generation of Americans is learning that the Constitution was designed to ensure a small and limited federal government and that the States, like the Union, are individual republics.

The battle has been joined

OBAMA GREEN JOBS ECONOMY: MADE IN CHINA

Chinese turbines powered by west Texas winds are sparking a debate over whether “Buy American” rules should be imposed on renewable-energy investments backed by the U.S. government.

A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., based in Shenyang, China, will supply turbines to a joint venture planning to build a $1.5 billion wind farm in Texas. The group, which includes two U.S. partners, says it may seek financial aid from the Obama administration because the project will create at least 1,000 American jobs.

Lawmakers led by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, say such assistance amounts to subsidizing green jobs outside the country. They want to slap made-in-America requirements on renewable-energy initiatives aided by the U.S., like those already faced by highway and water-treatment projects helped by President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan.

“Congress is feeling pressure to make sure they won’t be held accountable for green jobs going overseas,” said Kevin Book, a managing director for ClearView Energy Partners LLC, a Washington-based policy research firm.

Buy-American restrictions may be added to climate legislation that will be introduced in the Senate as early as next week, Book said.

Producers of renewable-energy equipment, led by General Electric Co., the biggest U.S. maker of wind turbines, say such restrictions would hurt their ability to compete in a global clean-energy market that relies on parts from many countries. Buy-American provisions may cause other nations to retaliate by curbing their use of U.S. products, shrinking domestic job creation tied to exports, GE says.

The wind industry will create 20,000 U.S. jobs in the next decade and would generate more if the U.S. adopted clear policies and incentives for clean energy, such as requiring the use of power generated from renewable sources, said Steve Bolze, head of GE’s power and water unit.

“What the U.S. needs, which Europe, China and other countries have, is stable, long-term policy,” Bolze said in an interview.

Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, the world’s No. 2 maker of wind turbines after Denmark-based Vestas Wind Systems A/S, is planning to invest 340 million euros ($462 million) in developing and expanding wind-turbine operations in the U.K., Germany, Norway and Sweden, creating a total of more than 2,000 jobs in those countries, Bolze said.

A-Power’s Turbines

“We need to be very, very careful about any kinds of protectionist measures” in clean energy, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in an April 8 interview.

The Texas project’s U.S. partners announced the 600- megawatt wind farm in a statement on Oct. 29. A-Power was “designated as the wind-turbine supplier for this high-profile project,” John Lin, the company’s chief operating officer, said in the statement.

The U.S. Renewable Energy Group, a Washington-based private- equity firm, and closely held Cielo Wind Power LP of Austin, Texas, are in the joint venture with Shenyang Power Group, a Chinese energy alliance that has A-Power as its biggest investor.

Schumer criticized the use of Chinese-made turbines at the time, and last month joined Democratic colleagues in introducing legislation that would make projects that are dependent on foreign manufacturing ineligible for stimulus aid.

“We can’t sit idly by while China races to the forefront of clean-energy projects at the expense of U.S. manufacturing, U.S. jobs and U.S. energy independence,” Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a cosponsor, said in a statement March 3. “And we certainly can’t shoot ourselves in the foot by helping to finance Chinese clean-energy production.”

Asia makes more than half the world’s wind and solar energy equipment and is widening its lead. China invested $34.5 billion in low-carbon energy technologies last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The U.S. spent $18.6 billion.

Partners in the Texas wind farm will fully fund the project and construct the plant using only American labor, according to Ed Cunningham, a managing partner with the U.S. Renewable Energy Group.

“We will then have the opportunity to apply for incentives,” Cunningham said in an e-mailed statement on March 22. “All incentives would be repaid within just a few years through the federal taxes generated by the wind farm, and this doesn’t include the value tied to the thousands of high-paying, stable American jobs.”

The Buy American debate is growing as companies move renewable-energy jobs away from the U.S.

London-based oil company BP Plc said on March 26 that it’s ending U.S. production of solar panels at a plant in Frederick, Maryland, cutting 320 jobs, as it shifts production to joint ventures in China and India.

Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar Inc., which received $16.3 million in federal funds to hire 200 people at an Ohio plant, plans to do 71 percent of its manufacturing hiring in Malaysia, based on a company presentation to analysts in December.

As of mid-March, at least $1.6 billion of $2.7 billion in U.S. stimulus grants for clean-energy projects went to companies based outside the U.S., according to Denise Heckbert, an analyst in Toronto with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Spain’s Iberdrola SA received $577 million and Germany’s E.ON AG is getting $324 million, she said.

U.S. Jobs

“It doesn’t look good on paper, but actually the funds are supporting a substantial number of U.S. jobs,” she said.

Jack Oswald, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based SynGest Inc., said he’s “shocked” about how much stimulus money the Energy Department has doled out to foreign businesses.

“It’s baffling,” said Oswald, whose closely held company says it will build the world’s first biomass-to-ammonia plant in Iowa. “They can’t find U.S. companies?”

Partners in the 36,000-acre Texas wind farm, which would power 180,000 homes, have emphasized that the “vast majority” of jobs would go to Americans.

“A minimum of 70 percent of each wind turbine, including the massive towers and blades, will be wholly manufactured in the United States and made of American steel,” the U.S. Renewable Energy Group said in a statement on its Web site.

Half of the parts used in GE wind turbines are made in the U.S., up from 20 percent a few years ago, according to Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy at GE’s financial services unit.

Energy Department

The Obama administration shares Schumer’s goal of ensuring that government aid creates U.S. jobs, said Matt Rogers, a senior adviser at the Energy Department.

“The good news is these programs have worked to create jobs and bring in a lot of foreign investment to the U.S.,” Rogers said in an interview. Two programs under the stimulus act aimed at promoting renewable energy have created or saved more than 20,000 U.S. jobs, according to the Energy Department.

Obama’s request to extend a manufacturing tax credit for renewable-power companies is aimed at ensuring the industry moves in the same direction as automakers, which “run at about 70 to 75 percent U.S. domestic content,” Rogers said.

Concern that most wind-power jobs will flow overseas is exaggerated because of the heavy equipment required, said Walter Hornaday, president of Cielo Wind Power.

“It doesn’t make sense to haul 400,000 pounds of equipment around on the open ocean,” Hornaday said.

Real Income Falls 3.2% During Obama's Term

Real personal income for Americans - excluding government payouts such as Social Security - has fallen by 3.2 percent since President Obama took office in January 2009, according to the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.

For comparison, real personal income during the first 15 months in office for President George W. Bush, who inherited a milder recession from his predecessor, dropped 0.4 percent. Income excluding government payouts increased 12.7 percent during Mr. Bush's eight years in office.

"This is hardly surprising," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist and former director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. "Under President Obama, only federal spending is going up; jobs, business startups, and incomes are all down. It is proof that the government can't spend its way to prosperity."

According to the bureau's statistics, per capita income dropped during 2009 in 47 states, with only modest gains in the other states, West Virginia, Maine and Maryland. But most of those increases were attributed to rising income from the government, such as Medicare and unemployment benefits.

Two of the most populous states in the country reported dramatic declines: Per capita income in California dropped 3.5 percent to $42,325; in New York, the drop was 3.8 percent to $46,957.

"The evidence from New York and California reinforces a basic lesson: Where government gets too large, prosperity suffers. Let's hope that the Congress learns this lesson before it is too late for the country as a whole," said Mr. Holtz-Eakin, who also served as chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama often derided Mr. Bush for what he said were dramatically falling incomes for workers.

"American families, since George Bush has been in office, have seen average family incomes go down $2,000," Mr. Obama said in a September 2008 speech on the economy in Green Bay, Wis.

The bureau, which doesn't compile statistics on "family" income, reported that per capita income rose during Mr. Bush's two terms, from $29,159 to $32,632 (using 2005 dollar values as a base). During Mr. Obama's 15 months in office, per capita income has dropped nearly 1 percent to $32,343.

Economists agree that Mr. Obama inherited a severe recession, although some dispute that it is the "worst since the Great Depression," as Mr. Obama often asserts. Still, the dropping numbers show that the $862 billion stimulus package has not turned the tide on dropping incomes.
"All in all I think the [bureau's] data are just another confirmation of what we all know - the recession has been just brutal, and while we may in the past couple of months have stopped the downward slide in jobs and incomes, we'll be digging out of a big hole for a long time," said Josh Bivens of the Economic Policy Institute.

Carol Moylan, chief of national income and wealth division at the Bureau of Economic Analysis, said comparing real personal incomes while excluding government payments is a good barometer. "A lot of people like that number," she said.

The White House did not respond to requests for comments on the numbers.

Personal income with government "transfers" - which include such federal money as Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare and food stamps - has grown during Mr. Obama's time in office, up 1.2 percent from January 2009 to February 2010. During that period, government unemployment insurance benefits rose from $88 billion to $143 billion.

Despite a near doubling in unemployment payouts, Mr. Obama in February announced a multitrillion-dollar spending plan that boosted the federal deficit to a record-breaking $1.56 trillion.

"While the market income of Americans has fallen since early 2008, government assistance has offset this somewhat through greater transfer spending such as unemployment benefits and new tax credits such as the 'making work pay credit,' albeit at the expense of higher deficits," said Gerald Prante, a senior economist at the Tax Foundation organization.

Mr. Obama, who just finished pushing a $1 trillion health care reform bill through Congress, is falling behind on his predictions. In a September speech, he said: "All in all, many middle-class families will see their incomes go up by about $3,000 because of the Recovery Act."

Other numbers show dramatic differences between the state of the economy in the opening months of Mr. Bush's first term versus that of Mr. Obama. While disposal income during Mr. Obama's term has risen $2.5 billion, extra cash for Americans rose $113 billion over Mr. Bush's first 15 months in office.

Meanwhile, the findings of a new survey of leading economists by the Associated Press found widespread pessimism over a quick recovery.

The finding included ominous news:

c The unemployment rate will stay high for the next two years and still be at 8.4 percent by the end of 2011.

c Home prices will remain almost flat for the next two years, even after dropping an average 32 percent nationwide since peaking in 2006.

c The economy will grow about 3 percent this year, less than usual during the early phase of a recovery, but few jobs will be added.

George Soros: It's Not Easy Being God

Obama’s boss, George Soros discovered his own narcissism at an early age. Robert Slater, in his unauthorized biography of Soros—Soros, The Life, Times & Trading Secrets of the World’s Greatest Investor:

“Yet, what is one to make of a child who believed he was God?”

Slater posits that such grandiose thoughts in childhood, if they were the “fleeting dreams of a small child” might be understandable if Soros had given any indication as an adult that he had outgrown his delusions.

“Yet, as an adult, he offered no sign, no dismissive gesture, no footnote signifying that he no longer clung to such wild convictions, but only the suggestion of how difficult it was for someone to believe himself a deity.” (Pg. 15).

In other words, Soros figured out early on that his messiah complex wasn’t going to be well received in the real world and he should try to tone it down a bit.

He’s having mixed results with that.

There are those who still cling doggedly to the fabrication that Soros is some kind of “philanthropist” despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The compassionate philanthropist has been pushing for human euthanasia for years.

The august altruist has long believed we made much too big of a fuss about 9/11, an event which he found inspiring: “Hijacking fully fueled airliners and using them as suicide bombs was an audacious idea, and its execution could not have been more spectacular.” (George Soros, “The Bubble Of American Supremacy,” The Atlantic Monthly, 12/03)

Poor George, like his current Jackal in Chief, has carried the burden of being a god throughout his life:

“A passage in his book The Alchemy of Finance, published in 1987, distinguishes Soros from all other financiers, ever. ‘I have always harboured an exaggerated view of my self-importance,’ he wrote. ‘To put it bluntly, I fancied myself as some kind of god or an economic reformer like Keynes, or, even better, like Einstein. My sense of reality was strong enough to make me realise that these expectations were excessive, and I kept them hidden as a guilty secret. This was a source of considerable unhappiness through much of my adult life. As I made my way in the world, reality came close enough to my fantasy to allow me to admit my secret, at least to myself. Needless to say, I feel much happier as a result.’”

In 2003, Soros figured out that he could force his repugnant ideas on America more efficiently by simply changing the government than by pressing the actual issues:

“‘I’ve come to the conclusion,’ Soros told Fortune, ‘that one can do a lot more about the issues I care about by changing the government than by pushing the issues.’ In short, he has become the world’s angriest billionaire.” (Mark Gimein, “George Soros Is Mad As Hell,” Fortune, 10/27/03)

In 2006 and 2008, Soros made substantial progress toward his goal of changing the United States government:

“Though Soros and his Shadow Party failed to bring about ‘regime change’ in 2004, the vast network of interrelated Shadow Party groups would prove to be key players in the 2006 midterm elections that saw Democrats seize control of Congress. Of particular significance was Democracy Alliance, a non-tax-exempt nonprofit entity registered in the District of Columbia, which Soros had founded in 2005, and whose long-term objective was to develop a funding clearinghouse for leftist groups.”



“In 2008, Soros’ Shadow Party was again a major force in the movement that not only expanded the Democratic Party’s congressional majorities, but also delivered the presidency to Barack Obama.”

George Soros has orchestrated plenty of regime changes. Don’t be fooled by the mythology that Soros was instrumental in opposing communism in Eastern Europe. Soros places himself on whichever side is most likely to net him the greatest power.

According to Slater, Soros is fascinated by chaos. “That’s how I make my money: understanding the revolutionary process in financial markets” (Slater, pg. 47).

If it’s chaos Soros is looking for, he’s got the right cipher in the White House. By Canada Free Press

53% Oppose FCC Regulation Of The Internet

Rasmussen-Just 27% of Americans now believe the Federal Communications Commission should regulate the Internet like it does television and radio. That marks a 22-point drop in support for federal regulation of the Internet since June 2008.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 53% of adults oppose FCC regulation of the Internet, with another 19% not sure whether it’s a good idea or not.

Among those who use the Internet every or nearly every day, opposition to FCC regulation rises to 63%.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of Republicans and 58% of those not affiliated with either major party oppose government regulation of the Internet, while Democrats are closely divided on the question.

A U.S. federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled against an FCC effort to impose so-called “net neutrality” rules on Internet providers which would force them to treat all Web traffic equally. But some Internet providers have been attempting to slow the traffic of major downloaders, arguing that they slow Internet service for other customers.

The court ruling, says The Washington Post, “could prompt the FCC or Congress to write new rules or laws to more concretely establish the agency as a regulator of Internet services.”

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

Thirty-four percent (34%) of Americans think Internet providers should be able to slow down the downloading of large amounts of material so other customers are not effected. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree and say the providers should not be able to slow down those large downloads. Twenty-eight percent (28%) are undecided.

Among those who download music or movies from the Internet several times a week, not surprisingly, 72% say Internet providers should not be able to slow large downloads.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of all adults now say they use the Internet every day or nearly every day, with another 11% who say they use it several times a week. Just 19% say they rarely or never go online, while another 11% describe their Internet usage as occasional.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of those who use the Internet every day or nearly every day say they rarely or never download music or films. Just seven percent (7%) of these regular Internet users say they download films or music at least once a week.

Opposition to government regulation of the Internet is highest among adults under 40. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of investors oppose such regulation, compared to 50% of non-investors.

Internet usage is highest among those ages 30 to 49.

IRS Buy Health Insurance Or Lose Tax Refund

Individuals who don’t purchase health insurance may lose their tax refunds according to IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman. After acknowledging the recently passed health-care bill limits the agency’s options for enforcing the individual mandate, Shulman told reporters that the most likely way to penalize individuals that don’t comply is by reducing or confiscating their tax refunds.

Speaking at the National Press Club on Monday, Shulman downplayed the IRS’s role in enforcing the recent overhaul of the health insurance industry by claiming the agency would not aggressively target individuals who don’t purchase coverage. He noted that the health-care bill expressly forbids the agency from freezing bank accounts, seizing assets or pursuing criminal charges, but when pressed said the IRS would most likely use tax refund offsets to penalize those that don’t comply with the mandate. The IRS uses refund offsets to collect from individuals that owe the federal government a delinquent debt.

“These are not the kinds of things we send agents out about,” Shulman said. “These are things where you get a letter from us. Congress was very careful to make sure there was nothing too punitive in this bill.”

Many reports have claimed that enforcement of the individual mandate will be non-existent, but Shulman’s answers indicate differently. According to BusinessWeek, starting in 2015 Americans who don’t purchase insurance will be subject to a fine of $325 and that sum increases to $695 in 2016. However, the commissioner seemed confident that in most cases individuals would either receive subsidies to purchase insurance or simply do so on their own in order to comply with the law.

“The vast majority of American people have a healthy respect for the law and want to be compliant with their tax obligations,” Shulman said, mentioning letters, collection notices and offsets as among the various ways the IRS will reach out to people without coverage.

During his speech Shulman said threats against the IRS have not risen despite media reports to the contrary. He disagreed that it has become more dangerous to work for the IRS following the February incident in which a disgruntled pilot flew his plane into the agency’s Austin, Texas office, killing one employee.

“There’s been a lot of stuff in the press around increased threats, which is actually inaccurate,” Shulman said. “What there has been is increased chatter on the Internet that has an anti-government sentiment.”

He also said it is too early to know what additional resources or how many employees the IRS will need to enforce compliance with the mandate and clarified his reasons for using a professional tax preparer.

“I wouldn’t read into anything about me doing it now,” Shulman said. “I’m just a busy guy and have had good service for the past 15 years.”

Obama Civilian Army As Way To Shed Student Loan Debt

CNN has some advice for any former students now saddled with excess debt – carry out a decade of social work or join the ranks of the government’s civilian service corps.

CNN business news correspondent Stephanie Elam put on the hard sell for government service to viewers of Newsroom.

“This is really about helping those people out, getting them ready as far as the choice for best course of study for the financial future,” Elam told viewers.

“So you may consider the possibility of enlisting in public service. Demand is really high right now for government jobs …and any remaining debt on federal student loans will be forgiven after you work full-time in public service for ten years.” Elam continued.

“But to get this benefit, you need to take out your loan from a federal lender as opposed to a private one like Sallie Mae,” she continued, apparently auditioning for the role of Obama’s public service czar.

CNN’s national public service broadcast continued as Elam then touted AmeriCorps and the Peace Corp service:

“They’re not going to forgive your loan, but if you do have service that you provide to AmeriCorps, you will enjoy loan forbearance, and what that really means is you won’t be have to make any payments while you’re serving, and AmeriCorps volunteers are also eligible for an education reward for $5,350,” the anchor said.

Elam then added “…four full years of Peace Corps service will equal a 70 percent cancellation of an existing Perkins loan.”

Essentially, if you join up with the government’s civilian service army, you get some of your indentured debt stripped away. However, if you choose to work in the private sector, where real jobs and wealth are created, you get no cushty kick backs and the debt remains. What a way to stimulate the ailing economy.

We have previously highlighted the eagerness that the Obama Administration has displayed in pushing for a comprehensive system of national service.

Last year, in an effort to enhance the role of public service, Democrats introduced The ACTION Act, aimed at increasing awards for AmeriCorps volunteers and reestablishing the Corporation’s connection with federal agencies.

The message is clear – serve the federal government and you will be rewarded, serve the U.S. economy and you will not.

U.S. Debt Seen Heading For Crisis Level

Health care may have been the last big bang of the Obama presidency.

With ferocious speed, the financial crisis, recession and efforts to combat the recession have swung the U.S. debt from worrisome to ruinous, promising to handcuff the administration.

Lost amid last month's passage of the new health care law, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report showing that within this decade, President Obama's own budget sends the U.S. government to a potential tipping point where the debt reaches 90 percent of gross domestic product.

Economists Carmen Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard University have recently shown that a 90 percent debt-to-GDP ratio usually touches off a crisis.

This year, the debt will reach 63 percent of GDP, a ratio that has ignited crises in smaller wealthy nations. Fiscal crises gripped Canada, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Ireland when their debts were below where the United States is shortly headed.

Japan's debt is much higher, but most of it is held domestically, and Japan's economy has been weak for 20 years. "I really don't think we want to be like Japan," said UC Berkeley economist Alan Auerbach.

One advantage the United States has - and it is a big one - is that it issues the world's reserve currency and so can print dollars to service its debt.

The Obama budget will add $10 trillion to the national debt in the next decade and will not stabilize the deficit, the CBO found. Deficits are expected to dip as the recovery takes hold, but never below $724 billion a year. Interest costs alone will consume $5.6 trillion this decade. A balanced budget has been widely ruled out as unattainable.

"The real problem is not just current deficits but where we're heading," Auerbach said. "We're on a trajectory where the deficit's going to go down a little and then go up again. And we have no solution for that."

Deficits won't reverse
No one is advocating big tax increases or spending cuts before a recovery takes hold. The problem is that deficits will not reverse even after a full recovery.

Credit rating agency Moody's warned last month of a possible downgrade in U.S. Treasury debt. This year, Social Security is crossing a long-feared milestone at which it is paying more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes. Study after study in the last year has raised alarms.

"In my judgment, a crisis could occur next week or 10 years from now," said Rudolph Penner, an Urban Institute economist who co-chaired a huge budget report sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Public Administration. "I don't really think we can go much beyond 10 years."

Polls show rising public alarm - and public refusal of specific spending cuts or tax increases required to change course. A Field Poll last month showed most Californians do not want to cut the largest parts of the state budget, such as education or transportation.

The polling firm Democracy Corps recently warned Democrats that the deficit now tops unemployment as a voter concern. But it also found voters "unenthusiastic" about the options to close the deficit. Voters overwhelmingly prefer spending cuts to tax hikes but reject cutting specific programs.

Republicans promise to make deficits a premier political issue. But during the health care debate, they opposed any cuts to Medicare, the chief source of rising deficits. They also oppose tax increases and defense cuts. In January, they sabotaged rare bipartisan legislation to create a powerful deficit-reduction commission that would have forced action.

Stabilizing the debt without raising taxes, cutting Medicare or defense, or defaulting on the debt would eviscerate everything else, from the Border Patrol to highways. Earmarks constitute a pittance.

The numbers don't add up for Democrats either. For all their railing against the Bush tax cuts that contributed to the current dilemma, Obama intends to extend almost all of them. That will cost $2.5 trillion, said the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Obama also escalated the war in Afghanistan.

And he joined Republicans in sabotaging the deficit commission by creating a substitute commission by executive order that seems designed to fail. It cannot compel action, and its recommendations are postponed until after the November election.

Consensus difficult
Obama and party leaders stacked it with partisans, from Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, to Andrew Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, making it difficult to get the 14 out of 18 votes required to agree on anything.

The executive order is a study in artfulness. It calls for a deficit target in 2015 that will be largely reached through the recovery and opens a wide escape hatch by saying decisions are contingent on the economy.

Democrats are already picking off low-hanging, deficit-reduction fruit to increase spending instead. Led by Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, Democrats approved $61 billion in savings last week by cutting banks out of student lending - and used it to expand aid to students and colleges.

Democrats often give the impression that taxes on the rich can fix everything. But the center-left Tax Policy Center ran simulations showing that Obama's budget would have to raise $775 billion in new taxes every year to stabilize deficits at 2 percent of GDP. That means that if Obama keeps his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class, the rich would pay 90 percent of their income in taxes, the center said.

Obama "promised to be honest with the public, and he has a talent for doing so," said Maya MacGuineas, president of the moderate Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. "Yet he hasn't used it yet to describe what types of hard choices will be involved."

Mexican Border Violence Threatens Americans

The killings last month in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez of two U.S. citizens, including an employee at the city's U.S. Consulate, along with the slaying of an Arizona rancher, have fueled concerns among U.S. officials that Americans are becoming fair game for Mexican drug gangs seeking control of smuggling routes into the United States.

For more than two years, U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials have been warning that the dramatic rise in violence along the southwestern border could eventually target U.S. citizens and spread into this country. The violence posed what the officials called a "serious threat" to law enforcement officers, first responders and residents along the 1,951-mile border.

The numbers bear out those concerns, according to the State Department: 79 U.S. citizens were killed last year in Mexico, up from 35 in 2007. In Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, 23 Americans were killed in 2009, compared with two in 2007.

In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Sen. John McCain, both Republicans, have called on the Department of Homeland Security to deploy the National Guard along the Arizona border. Mrs. Brewer said the rising violence showed the "abject failure of the U.S. Congress and President Obama to adequately provide public safety along our national border with Mexico."

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Arizona Democrat, whose district includes the area where rancher Robert Krentz was killed, said if the slaying was connected to smugglers or drug cartels, the federal government should consider all options, including sending more Border Patrol agents to the area and deploying the National Guard.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, and former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, a Republican who is seeking Mr. McCain's senatorial seat, joined in the call for National Guard troops to be stationed along the border.

Mr. Hayworth said the federal government should "act now and step up its efforts to secure our borders."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also has put into play a "spillover violence contingency plan" to address attacks on American citizens in Mexico. The plan increases border surveillance; intelligence sharing; and ground, air and maritime patrols.

A day before the March 13 Juarez killings, Mr. Perry unsuccessfully sought help from Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to use unmanned Predator drone aircraft and 1,000 additional soldiers for missions on the Mexican border. He said there was a disparity in the amount of federal resources allotted to Texas for border security.

The White House said Mr. Obama was "deeply saddened and outraged" by the killings and had pledged to "continue to work with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and his government to break the power of the drug-trafficking organizations that operate in Mexico and far too often target and kill the innocent."
The latest victims were Lesley Enriquez, 25, who worked at the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, and her husband, Arthur Redelf, 30, both U.S. citizens. They were killed March 13 when Mexican drug gang members fired shots at their sport utility vehicle as they left a birthday party.

Mr. Redelf was a 10-year veteran of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office. Ms. Enriquez was four months pregnant with their second child. The couple's 7-month-old daughter was found unharmed in the back seat.

That same day, Jorge Alberto Salcido, 37, a Mexican citizen whose wife also was an employee at the U.S. Consulate in Juarez, was killed when cartel members shot at his car at a separate location, also wounding his two young children. They had attended the same birthday party.

Mr. Krentz, 58, a longtime Douglas, Ariz., rancher, was killed Saturday. He was found by a Cochise County Sheriff's Department helicopter, slumped over his Polaris all-terrain vehicle on his 34,000-acre ranch. His dog also was shot and was critically wounded. The animal was euthanized on Sunday.

Arizona authorities said they think Mr. Krentz was shot by an illegal immigrant. Police dogs followed the tracks of the suspected killer back into Mexico, about 20 miles south. Authorities think the shooter was either a drug cartel scout or a member of a known gang of border thieves that has terrorized the area's remote ranches.

The Krentz ranch sits in an area that has become a lucrative smuggling route for Mexican drug cartels.

"It's a big deal. It's something that could be a turning point here," said Cochise County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Carol Capas. "People in the area are on heightened alert. They're grief-stricken, saddened, and they're extremely angry."

Two years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, said in a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless and had begun targeting rivals and federal, state and local police. ICE said the violence had risen dramatically as part of "an unprecedented surge."

Last year, the Justice Department identified more than 200 U.S. cities in which Mexican drug cartels "maintain drug distribution networks or supply drugs to distributors" - up from 100 three years earlier.

The department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug threat assessment report, described the cartels as "the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States." It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area of the United States and were expanding into more rural and suburban areas.
The report noted that adding to the violence were assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers assigned to posts along the southwestern border. It said assaults against Border Patrol agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in fiscal 2007 to 1,097 incidents in fiscal 2008 - including the January 2008 killing of an agent by the automobile of a fleeing drug suspect and the fatal shooting of another agent in July 2009.

Although no arrests have been made in the Krentz killing, there has been an arrest in the Ciudad Juarez killings. The Mexican military detained a member of the Barrio Azteca gang, which works for the infamous Gulf drug cartel on both sides of the border. The suspect was identified as Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, 42, a resident of both Ciudad Juarez and El Paso.

Barrio Azteca is a U.S. prison gang that later found its roots in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the Ciudad Juarez killings; the Department of Homeland Security did not return messages seeking comment.

The Mexican Embassy in Washington condemned the killings but did not respond to a follow-up request for comment about whether the Americans had been targeted intentionally. In a statement, it said the Mexican government would "work closely" with its U.S. counterparts "to track down those responsible for these killings so justice can be served."

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would not comment specifically on the case but said "the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success that our very courageous Mexican counterparts have had in attacking those drug-trafficking organizations."

The drug rings "are acting like caged animals because they are caged," said DEA spokesman Rusty Payne. "They have lost roots, and they have lost control. The Mexican government has gone after them, and this is the reaction from drug organizations that are in disarray."

On March 14, the State Department issued its strongest travel warning to date for U.S. citizens planning on traveling to Mexico. The department also approved the departure of the dependents of U.S. personnel from consulates in the northern Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterey and Matamoros.

It warned that the cartels are using automatic weapons and grenades, that "large firefights" have taken place in towns and cities across Mexico and that public shootouts have taken place during daylight hours in shopping centers and other public venues.

The department said drug criminals have followed and harassed U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles, that travelers on major highways have been targeted for robbery and violence and that others have been caught in incidents of gunfire between criminals and Mexican law enforcement.

"While most crime victims are Mexican citizens, the uncertain security situation poses serious risks for U.S. citizens as well," it said.

Since January 2008, nearly 5,000 homicides have been committed in Ciudad Juarez alone, making it one of the most violent cities in the world. The bodies of some of those killed have been dumped in schoolyards and other public venues. Many of the victims were ambushed. Others were killed with grenades and AK-47 assault rifles.

Still others have been decapitated, their bodies hung from bridges - along with banners with warning messages from the cartels.

Mr. Calderon declared war against the Mexican cartels in 2006 and has committed more than 40,000 Mexican soldiers to the fight, although the violence continues to escalate. To date, the cartels in Mexico have killed more than 17,000 people.

At the core of the drug fight are the Sinaloa and Gulf drug cartels, along with Los Zetas, a group led by former Mexican military officers. They seek to control long-established smuggling corridors into this country, over which billions of dollars in illicit narcotics travel annually.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Mexico City this month as part of a delegation to underscore concern over Mexico's drug violence.

"These appalling assaults on members of our own State Department family are, sadly, part of a growing tragedy besetting many communities in Mexico," Mrs. Clinton said.

The Coming Obama Dictatorship

I commented on how pleased I’ve been to see Glenn Beck talking about a subject I’ve been writing about: a government-declared state of emergency leading to a “temporary” dictatorship.

Will Obama purposely foment “civil unrest” rather than wait for something like unemployment or runaway inflation to make it happen?

I have long believed that the mathematics of an insatiable entitlement society in the U.S. guarantees a runaway inflation, which likely would be followed by anarchy and chaos – a perfect excuse for government to resort to strong-armed totalitarian measures to “restore order.” My model has always been Germany’s Weimar Republic in the 1920s, where runaway inflation brought Adolf Hitler to power.

I originally believed that the runaway-inflation scenario in the U.S. would play out in the early 1980s, but a combination of Ronald Reagan and an explosion in computers and electronic technology made possible by the remnants of our capitalist system headed it off.

Nevertheless, the threat of a runaway inflation has continued to increase over the years, even while our false-prosperity economy was booming. That’s because the underlying causes (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, insane union and government-employee wages and benefits, Social Security, Medicare, etc.) of our sick economy have never been addressed.

Unemployment is just a symptom; the disease is entitlements. Throughout the false-prosperity years, Social Security did not go away. It got bigger. Medicare did not go away. It got bigger. Virtually no other benefits went away. They only got bigger. So the underlying problem of entitlements not only has remained, but continued to grow.

The big news now is that Social Security may “go broke” this year instead of in 2017, which was originally projected. Really? And here I thought it’s been broke for decades. Ditto with Medicare. These programs were long ago Madoffized. Almost from the start, government has simply taken in new money from “investors” (read, taxpayers) and handed it over to those on the entitlements side of the fence – with a large chunk of the largesse being skimmed off the top for government employees who administer these programs (and vote for those whom they believe are most likely to safeguard their jobs).

All it took to bring things to a head was a shameful spending spree by a progressive Republican president and a Republican Congress, followed by the ascent of a committed Marxist to the presidency (along with a cooperative majority in Congress).

Now, throw on top of all that a huge new tax-and-spending bill (euphemistically referred to as “health-care legislation”), and the end result seems assured. However, with the government’s power to tax, print, and borrow, no one knows how long it will be before the inevitable runaway inflation sets in.

But if BHO truly has his mind set on establishing a dictatorship – and it is my personal belief that he does – it’s too risky for him to wait for a runaway inflation as an excuse to call a state of emergency. He knows that as long as there is a semblance of a free market in place, producers will continue to push back against the economy-killing effects of his policies.

Thus, he needs another excuse to declare a state of emergency, and over the past year I’ve given a lot of thought to what that excuse might be. In previous articles, I’ve mentioned a nuke exchange between Iran and Israel as one possibility. Another is civil unrest due to unemployment rates that could reach 25 percent or more in the not-too-distant future.

These and others still remain possibilities, but last week Glenn Beck came up with one that may be even more likely. Beck believes that Obama will continue to keep the accelerator pressed to the floor – amnesty for illegal immigrants, a cap-and-trade bill that will eliminate the U.S. as a global business competitor, and more – thus enraging an already angry public to the point of revolution.

In other words, purposely foment “civil unrest” rather than wait for something like unemployment or runaway inflation to make it happen. As Beck puts it, just continue to poke people in the eye, then use their predictable and justifiable backlash as an excuse to establish dictatorial powers.

I thought about this issue while attending the recent tea party outside the Capitol Building in Washington. As I crossed Independence Avenue, I noted a somber-looking guard holding a Rambo-style weapon in his hands. I have no idea what it was, but there’s no question in my mind that just one pull of the trigger could have rearranged the body parts of a large number of tea-party people.

The totally peaceful gathering – repeat, totally peaceful – was infested with heavily armed police, but one, in particular, was especially ominous. As the tea partiers chanted “Kill the Bill” on the east side of the Capitol Building, a uniformed, lone figure stood at the top of the steep flight of stairs on the House side of the structure, automatic weapon at the ready, gazing down over the crowd. Sun glasses and all, he reminded me of the “boss man” of Cool Hand Luke’s chain gang.

It gave me the eerie feeling that I was in a banana republic. Had anyone dared to take things beyond mere chanting, there’s no doubt in my mind that it would have become a scene right out of Caracas. All that was missing was Sean Penn.

Yep, I believe Glenn Beck might be on to something. But if the American public refuses to take the bait and doesn’t resort to violence, BHO will have to go to Plan B to have an excuse to declare a state of emergency.

Having said all this, don’t despair. No one, including myself, can predict the future with certainty. In a rapidly changing world, nothing is certain. Which is why I don’t make predictions; I just lay odds. And here’s my odds based on what I know and see today:

• The chances of a declared state of emergency and ensuing dictatorship prior to the 2010 elections: 25%
• The chances of a declared state of emergency and ensuing dictatorship prior to the 2012 elections: 50%
• The chances of the U.S. dollar becoming worthless within three years: 25%
• The chances of the U.S. dollar becoming worthless within ten years: 90%
• The chances of the Republicans cutting back on major entitlements if they regain power in the 2010 elections: Zero
• The chances of the Republicans cutting back on major entitlements if they win the presidency and an overwhelming majority in Congress in 2012: 5%
• The chances of the so-called tea-party people (i.e., everyday Americans who believe in liberty) winning out over the long haul: Hmm … let me procrastinate on that one a bit before I lay odds.

Of course, I could be wrong about all this … but what if I’m right?

Obama Says Conservative Talk Radio Is Enemy No.1

After shooting hoops for the cameras, Harry Smith of CBS asked Obama his thoughts on talk radio. Smith said a lot of people consider him a “socialist” and even a “Nazi” and asked the president if he is aware of this.

“Well, I think that when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it’s pretty apparent, and it’s troublesome, but keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out,” Obama responded. “It happens often when you’ve got an economy that is making people more anxious, and people are feeling like there is a lot of change that needs to take place. But that’s not the vast majority of Americans. I think the vast majority of Americans know that we’re trying hard, that I want what’s best for the country.”

According to CBS, Obama said “both Democrats and Republicans have a responsibility to tone down the rhetoric, but that much of it has to do with the current media environment in which extreme comments are echoed in the blogosphere.”

In other words, the problem is not so much establishment talk radio hosts like Limbaugh and Beck but the internet and alternative media. Obama wants the “blogosphere” (corporate media shorthand for alternative media) to “tone down the rhetoric,” that is to say follow the rules on discourse established by the government. Americans have a “responsibility” to be polite and wait for the corporate media to get around to interviewing them for fifteen second sound bites. Critics of a predatory and ever-expanding federal government are expected to sit on their thumbs and wait for hell to freeze over.

It is an understatement to say “you’ve got an economy that is making people more anxious.” In fact, the hijacked and looted economy is making them increasingly angry and moving them toward political action.

Large and growing numbers of Americans understand that Obama and Congress do not have their best interests in mind. The Obama administration is filled to the brim with insiders and bankster operatives like Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner. Obama’s economic team is headed up by a former Federal Reserve mob boss, Paul Volcker, who has said the American people need to do with less. Obama’s State Department is staffed with Trilateralists and CFR members who believe in and work for world government.


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During the election Obama insisted he is a man of the people. His “change” mantra fooled millions. Obama said he would get rid of the corporate lobbyists but on the day after the election (only hand-picked contenders like Obama and John McCain were allowed to participate) he gathered together K Street insiders behind closed doors for a question and answer session (translation: corporations gave Obama his marching orders).

Obama said he would bring home the troops and put an end to torture. He said he would close Gitmo. Instead he expanded the number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He invaded Pakistan and killed countless civilians. He ordered a “surge” (in the killing of civilians) in Afghanistan. Obama promised to put an end to the practice of issuing executive orders but continued the practice of ignoring the will of Congress. In fact, he signed one the day after taking office. He left untouched illegal and unconstitutional government surveillance of the people. Obama and Congress left the Patriot Act in place. Obama continued the Bush legacy (as Bush continued the legacy of his predecessors). He added to this noxious legacy by cranking up the national debt (owned to bankers) to a historically unsustainable and stratospheric level. He marshaled a “health care” bill that will intrude at gunpoint on the privacy and medical decisions of every single American.

But we are not expected to get angry about any of this. We are expected to sit down and shut up. Obama wants us to “tone down the rhetoric.” Instead of taking to the streets and protesting against tyranny, we are expected to attend government orchestrated town hall meetings where questions for bureaucrats are submitted in advance and vetted by officialdom.

Obama’s hoop shooting propaganda stunt with corporate media crown jewel CBS will not convince those of us angry about authoritarian government shredding the Constitution and trampling the Bill of Rights and expanding government power at every turn to sit down and shut up.

The outrage will continue. Both Democrats and Republicans will feel the wrath come the midterm elections — that is if there will be elections in November. Never underestimate the will of tyrants and their minions and executioners to frustrate the will of the people.

Finally, Obama is not a Nazi or a Socialist. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what he really is — a cigar store Indian for the ruling elite and the bankers. Obama is a front man who does the bidding for our globalist rulers. He is the public relations spokesman for international banks and transnational corporations. Obama’s job is to shoot hoops and look confident and come off as if he is in control while the real controllers pull the strings from behind the curtain.

Krugman Admits Death Panels In Obamacare

Now that Obamacare is law of the land, Dems and their supporters admit what we knew all along.
Amusing how the rest of the people at the table were nervously giggling at the prospect of death panels in anticipation of a resounding confirmation that there are not going to be death panels or anything remotely resembling death panels only to hear this man confirm that there will be death panels and they will certainly save money.

Those giggling idiots have already forgotten how shocked they were for that brief moment of transition from nervous expectation to dumbfounded silence. All in a moment it was all forgotten.

They get paid well to forget so quickly what they held dear in the prior moment.

Climategate Investgation A Complete Whitewash

A Parliamentary investigation into the climategate scandal has cleared the scientists involved of any data fixing and subversion of the peer review process, and notes that the scandal provides no evidence to challenge the notion that human activity is causing catastrophic global warming.

The House of Commons’ Science and Technology Committee Report (PDF), the first of three investigations into climategate, produced its report after only a single day of oral testimony.

The report concludes that UN IPCC affiliated scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, led by director Phil Jones (pictured at the hearing), did not tamper with data in an effort to exaggerate the threat of global warming.

The Report states that “The scientific reputation of Professor Jones and CRU remains intact”.

The committee added that it found nothing sinister in Jones’ use of the words “hide the decline” and “trick” with regards to data on temperature changes.

The committee contends that when Jones stated “hide the decline” in an email to his colleagues, he was referring to discarding erroneous data, rather than deliberately concealing it.

The report also states that Jones’ use of the word ‘trick’ “appears to be a colloquialism for a ‘neat’ method of handling data.”

The Committee pulled this explanation from testimony by the CRU itself, which stated:

…as for the (now notorious) word ‘trick’, so deeply appealing to the media, this has been richly misinterpreted and quoted out of context. It was used in an informal email, discussing the difficulties of statistical presentation. It does not mean a ‘ruse’ or method of deception. In context it is obvious that it is used in the informal sense of ‘the best way of doing something’. In this case it was ‘the trick or knack’ of constructing a statistical illustration which would combine the most reliable proxy and instrumental evidence of temperature trends.

Scientist Steve McIntyre, who is mentioned over 100 times in the hacked emails has consistently explained how this explanation is insufficient and falls flat on its face.

On his blog, Climate Audit, McIntyre rebuts the Parliamentary Committee’s conclusion, noting:

“Contrary to [the University of East Anglia's] claims, there is no valid statistical procedure supporting the substitution of tree ring proxy,”

“This is absurd.” McIntyre added, “The trick was not a “neat” way of handling data, nor a recognized form of statistical analysis. The trick was a clever way of tricking the readers of the IPCC 2001 graphic into receiving a false rhetorical impression of the coherency of proxies – a point understood at the beginning by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, but now misunderstood due to continued disinformation.”

McIntyre points out that at no time did even the CRU itself contend that any of its data was “erroneous”, so to conclude that it had to dispose of such data is ludicrous:

In addition, their suggestion that Jones and others were doing nothing more than “discarding data known to be erroneous” is simply absurd. There was no testimony to the Committee (nor has it ever been suggested) that the tree ring data was measured incorrectly or that the data was “erroneous” – the data is what it is. The tree ring data goes down instead of up – but that doesn’t make it “erroneous”. It only means that the data is a bad proxy – something that was concealed from IPCC readers.

McIntyre submitted notes to the Science and Technology Committee on this very detail of the matter, however, it seems his detailed description has been completely disregarded.

The idea that the “trick” was not to conceal data that was out of step with the scientists warming thesis also falls down when you consider that the code within the CRU’s climate models prove that temperature numbers were “artificially adjusted” to hide the decline in global warming since the 1960’s.

This information was leaked along with the inflammatory emails referring to it and provides the real smoking gun. However, predictably, there is no mention of the coding in the STC report.

With reference to charges of subverting the peer review process by Jones and the CRU, the report states “the evidence we have seen does not suggest that Jones was trying to subvert the peer review process”, adding that academics should not be criticised for “informal comments” on papers.

So when Phil Jones wrote the following to climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State University: We “will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!” that was not a declaration of intent, according to the STC investigation.

The committee essentially believes it is A-OK for the CRU scientists to routinely refer to any research offering alternate viewpoints as “disinformation“,”misinformation” or “crap” that needs to be kept out of the public domain. The committee sees no problem with the fact that those same scientists have the power to do just that.

It is backwards and upside down to constantly refer to a “scientific consensus” in order to back up claims of human induced warming and then to essentially state that it doesn’t matter whether or not the scientists at the head of that same consensus have operated within a culture of stonewalling dissenting evidence, theories, data and viewpoints.

After one afternoon of interviews, the STC report concludes “We have found no reason in this unfortunate episode to challenge the scientific consensus.”

“There was no evidence to challenge the ’scientific consensus’ that global warming is induced by human activities.” the report states elsewhere.

Of course, the committee did not spend any time looking at the science, and it was never the intention of the investigation to vindicate the scientific theory behind anthropogenic global warming, however, those two juicy quotes will serve to do so in the eyes of the media and the public at large.

The STC investigation into climategate is farcical on its face. The Committee itself admits that it’s report is insufficient and does not cover all the issues. Phil Willis, the committee’s chairman, noted that it had to produce something quickly before the British general election, and a possible change of government, in May.

“Clearly we would have liked to spend more time on this,” Willis said, adding “We had to get something out before we were sent packing.”

Though the Committee condemned the CRU for withholding information requested by outsiders under Britain’s freedom of information laws, it failed to determine whether Professor Jones had actively deleted information to prevent requests to publish it, as indicated by requests made by Jones in emails to his colleagues.

“The culture of non-disclosure at CRU and instances where information may have been deleted to avoid disclosure, particularly to climate change sceptics, we felt was reprehensible,” Willis told a news conference.

However, the report does not indict Jones on these charges, perhaps because, as revealed by one of the MP on the committee in comments to The Times of London, all members had agreed not to question Professor Jones too closely because of his “fragile condition” – now that’s what I call getting to the bottom of the matter.

Phil Willis also said that the further two pending inquiries into the e-mail scandal would provide a more in depth review. However, as we have previously reported, we can hardly expect the so called “independent” investigation led by Sir Muir Russell to be in any form impartial, given that Russell himself vehemently supports the notion of anthropogenic global warming and has constructed a panel of “experts” that share the same views.

Those views clearly contradict the founding principle of the inquiry – to appoint experts who do not have a “predetermined view on climate change and climate science”.

Thus, any notion that this investigation might shake the foundations of the perceived “consensus” on climate science, by being anything other than favourable to Phil Jones and the CRU, is highly unlikely.

Once again it will be left to the alternative media and the blogs to expose these whitewash reports for what they are, given that the vast majority of the corporate mainstream media will undoubtedly run with headlines such as “Investigation Clears Climate Scientists” and “Warming Science Vindicated”, headlines that will be repeated ad infinitum by warmists, carbon trading scam artists and eco-fascists everywhere.