Yes, We Really Could Be Headed Into Another Depression

Dan Albert - Yesterday, economist Paul Krugman said we're headed for another Depression.  The world's new obsession with "austerity" will kill the global recovery, Krugman says, and plunge the economy into a double dip.Could that really happen? Could we really be headed for a repeat of the 1930s?
Last year, Dan Alpert, managing principal with Westwood Capital, described the huge stock market rally that followed the March lows as the "greatest sucker's rally in history."  He also produced a fascinating series of news clippings from early 1930, a few months after the historic market crash of 1929, that showed that market participants in those days had no idea of what was about to hit them.
Specifically, Dan assembled headlines and commentary from the New York Times, Wall Street, Journal and other papers that showed vigorous debate about how strong the recovery would be--with almost no suggestion that the market crash of the previous fall might only be the beginning.  The market rallied strongly in the spring of 1930 amid booming optimism.  Then it crashed to the horrific lows of early 1932.
Dan Alpert says we have not yet addressed the core problem with our economy, which is the massive debt mountain that we have built up over the past 30 years. Until we address that problem, and fix it, the economy will struggle. 
And with unemployment still at 10%, global economic indicators turning downward, and the government's stimulus efforts failing to turn things around, it is not a stretch to think that another Depression has already begun.

48% See Government Today As A Threat To Individual Rights

Nearly half of American Adults see the government today as a threat to individual rights rather than a protector of those rights.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 48% of Adults see the government today as a threat to rights. Thirty-seven percent (37%) hold the opposite view. Fifteen percent (15%) are undecided.

Most Republicans (74%) and unaffiliateds (51%) consider the government to be a threat to individual rights. Most Democrats (64%) regard the government as a protector of rights.

Additionally, most Americans (52%) say it is more important for the government to protect individual rights than to promote economic growth. Just 31% say promoting economic growth is more important. But again a sizable number (17%) of Adults aren’t sure which is more important.

This nationwide survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on June 18-19, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Men strongly believe it is more important for the government to protect individual rights, while women are almost evenly divided on the question.

Fifty-five percent (55%) of whites feel the emphasis should be on protecting individual rights. African-Americans are closely divided over which is more important.

There is little partisan disagreement when it comes to individual rights versus economic growth.

Data released earlier this week shows that 62% believe politicians want the government to have more power and money. At the same time, 58% think most voters want less power and money for the government. This gap helps explain why 21% believe that government has the consent of the governed. Repairpal is a terrific idea that is likely to become even more valuable as it grows in popularity. The concept is simple a one stop website.

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Gun Rights Must Be Honored By States, Cities, Supreme Court Rules In 5-4 Vote

Bloomberg - The U.S. Supreme Court extended the reach of the constitutional right to bear arms by saying it binds state and local governments as well as the federal government.

The justices, voting 5-4 in a case involving Chicago’s handgun ban, said that individual gun rights were among the fundamental guarantees protected against state interference through a constitutional amendment after the Civil War.

The ruling broadens the sweep of the court’s 2008 ruling interpreting the Constitution’s Second Amendment as protecting the rights of individuals, rather than just those of state-run militias. It’s a victory for the National Rifle Association, which joined a group of Chicago residents in challenging the city’s laws.

It will open a new front in the fight over gun rights, setting the stage for courtroom battles over the constitutionality of weapons restrictions around the country.

BP Oil Spill: A Louisiana Woman Tells It Like It Is

Kurt Nimmo - BP is engaged in criminal negligence. It only pretends to clean-up its mess when government officials arrive for photo-ops. BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama.

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told reporters earlier this month: “I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don’t care, but that is not the case with BP. We care about the small people.”

Small people. Expendable people. The woman in this video tells us what is really happening in Louisiana. BP, Obama, and Congress — all beholden to large corporations and bankers — are sacrificing thousands of people and keeping it hidden.

The corporate media talks about Florida’s beaches and lost tourism money. They talk about the marine animals covered in oil but not the children who are coming down with respiratory problems from toxic gases blowing in from the Gulf.

Idiots on Fox and CNN trade barbs back and forth about Obama’s lack of leadership. It’s the Democrats say the Republicans. It’s the Republicans say the Democrats. Fingers get pointed while oil washes up in the salt marshes and deadly chemicals rain down on crops in Mississippi. People are beginning to talk about a new disease… Gulf of Mexico Syndrome.

“The petro-chemical-military-industrial complex is gassing Gulf Coast residents with poisonous Benzene and Corexit dispersant at dangerously high levels in the largest U.S. domestic military operation to date,” writes Deborah Dupré. “Human suffering in the Gulf is increasing from the world’s latest and largest toxic oil kill as BP lies and government remains silent about human health risks and associated military interventions. Most immediately damaging of the operation’s withheld information pertains to toxins breathed since the explosion.”

Near the end of the above video Kindra Arnesen talks about what toxins are doing to her children. Her story is likely not an isolated incident. Lots of children and old people with respiratory ailments are having problems with the air in Louisiana (and soon other Gulf states and Florida). The media is just not telling us about it. The media is owned by large corporations. The corporate media’s job is to distract with mindless fluff and cover up the crimes of the corporatists.

If this continues much longer the military will be called in — not to evacuate people but to contain angry people who will ultimately organize and take things into their own hands. Violence and revenge cannot be ruled out.

Can you blame them? Wouldn’t you do the same thing if BP destroyed your livelihood and poisoned your children?

States Of Crisis For 46 Governments Facing Greek-Style Deficits

Bloomberg - Californians don’t see much evidence that the worst economic contraction since the Great Depression is coming to an end.

Unemployment was 12.4 percent in May, 2.7 percentage points higher than the national rate. Lawmakers gridlocked over how to close a $19 billion budget gap are weighing the termination of the main welfare program for 1.3 million poor families or borrowing more than $9 billion in the bond market. California, tied with Illinois for the lowest credit rating of any state, is diverting a rising portion of tax revenue to service debt, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its August issue.

Far from rebounding, the Golden State, with a $1.8 trillion economy that’s larger than Russia’s, is sinking deeper into its financial funk. And it’s not alone.

Even as the U.S. appears to be on the mend -- gross domestic product has climbed three straight quarters -- finances in Arizona, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and other states show few signs of improvement. Forty-six states face budget shortfalls that add up to $112 billion for the fiscal year ending next June, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington research institution. State spending is 12 percent of U.S. GDP.

“States are going to have to cut back spending and raise taxes the same way Greece and Spain are,” says Dean Baker, co- director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “That runs counter to stimulating the economy and will put a big damper on the recovery in the latter half of this year.”

Stimulus Dries Up

State budget woes are a worsening drag on growth as the federal government tries to wean the economy from two years of extraordinary support. By Jan. 1, funds from the $787 billion federal stimulus bill will dry up. That money from Washington has helped cushion state budgets as tax revenue has plunged.

State leaders won’t be able to ride out this cycle the way they have in the past. The budget holes are too large. For the first time since 1962, sales and income tax revenue fell for five straight quarters, through December 2009, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York at Albany.

Lawmakers need to overhaul tax policy, underfunded public pensions and entitlement spending programs such as Medicaid if they want to establish long-term plans that will foster growth, says former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman.

If they fail to act, state fiscal positions will steadily erode and hurt the U.S. economy through 2060, according to a March 2010 report prepared for Congress by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

‘Major Surgery’

“States don’t have a choice anymore,” Whitman says. “These problems are going to require major surgery.”

Reform may get short shrift as Republicans and Democrats intensify their age-old fight over taxes and spending in this election year. On May 20, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a Democratic bill that would have raised income taxes for residents earning at least $1 million a year to help close an $11 billion deficit. Christie, a Republican, wants to cut spending for school districts and cap property tax increases.

“At some point, the people’s ability to pay runs out,” Christie said in a speech in New York on May 25.

The widening deficits have led to some unorthodox moves. In California, the state grabbed $1.7 billion in redevelopment money from local governments in May. Riverside County, a Los Angeles suburb where the housing bust has left unemployment at more than 15 percent, lost $28 million that had been set aside to build fire stations, senior centers and other public works.

Jobs or Education

The projects would have created 3,000 jobs, says Tom Freeman, spokesman for the county’s Economic Development Agency. The government needed the county cash for schools, says Aaron McLear, spokesman for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The episode demonstrates how the fiscal mess pits job creation against education in a zero-sum game, says Robert Hertzberg, the Democratic speaker of the State Assembly from 2000 to 2002. California is locked in a rigid system in which legislators need a two-thirds majority to raise taxes and yet must comply with voter-approved initiatives that mandate prison construction and other spending.

There’s little chance of any sweeping changes this year ahead of a gubernatorial race between Republican Meg Whitman, former chief executive officer of EBay Inc., and Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat who was governor from 1975 to 1983.

‘So Dysfunctional’

The winner will have to muster the political courage to take on core constituencies, whether anti-tax conservatives who support Whitman or labor unions that back Brown, says Steve Westly, California’s Democratic treasurer from 2003 to 2007.

The risk is that California ends up like Greece, with no one trusting that it can get its financial house in order, says Westly, now a venture capitalist in Menlo Park. “It has to be a combination of cuts and revenue increases,” he says.

Still, California isn’t Greece. It’s home to Silicon Valley, Hollywood and a $27 billion agriculture industry. “It’s unbelievable,” says Bob Nichols, CEO of Windward Capital Management Co. in Los Angeles. “How do you screw up a place with the growth capability of California? It’s so dysfunctional.”

Audio: In 2004 Interview Obama Advocated Trading Border Security For Amnesty

In a 2004 interview with Chicago Public Radio, President Obama’s words are consistent with Sen. Kyl’s recent remarks.

Obama May Soon Unilaterally Legalize Millions of Illegal Aliens By Executive Diktat

Kurt Nimmo - NumbersUSA and Fox News report today that Obama may issue an executive order that will grant amnesty to between 10 and 30 million illegal aliens.

	Republicans say Obama will legalize millions of illegal aliens with a stroke of a pen.

“Eight Republican senators and an independent group that supports tighter limits on immigration are warning that the Obama administration is drafting a plan to ‘unilaterally’ issue blanket amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants as it struggles to win support in Congress for an overhaul of immigration laws,” reports Fox News.
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), David Vitter (R-La.), Jim Bunning (R-Ky.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), and Thad Cochran (R-Miss), have sent a letter to the White House asking for clarification on the issue:

Dear President Obama:
We understand that there’s a push for your Administration to develop a plan to unilaterally extend either deferred action or parole to millions of illegal aliens in the United States. We understand that the Administration may include aliens who have willfully overstayed their visas or filed for benefits knowing that they will not be eligible for a status for years to come. We understand that deferred action and parole are discretionary actions reserved for individual cases that present unusual, emergent or humanitarian circumstances. Deferred action and parole were not intended to be used to confer a status or offer protection to large groups of illegal aliens, even if the agency claims that they look at each case on a “case-by-case” basis.
While we agree our immigration laws need to be fixed, we are deeply concerned about the potential expansion of deferred action or parole for a large illegal alien population. While deferred action and parole are Executive Branch authorities, they should not be used to circumvent Congress’ constitutional authority to legislate immigration policy, particularly as it relates to the illegal population in the United States.
The Administration would be wise to abandon any plans for deferred action or parole for the illegal population. Such a move would further erode the American public’s confidence in the federal government and its commitment to securing the borders and enforcing the laws already on the books.
We would appreciate receiving a commitment that the Administration has no plans to use either authority to change the current position of a large group of illegal aliens already in the United States, and ask that you respond to us about this matter as soon as possible.

In February, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, indicated his boss would rule by executive dictate and bypass Congress.
“We are reviewing a list of presidential executive orders and directives to get the job done across a front of issues,” said Emanuel. “The challenges we had to address in 2009 ensured that the center of action would be in Congress. In 2010, executive actions will also play a key role in advancing the agenda,” added Dan Pfeiffer, White House communications director.
The New York Times reported in February that White House officials believe the increased focus on executive authority reflects a natural evolution from the first year to the second year of any presidency.
In fact, it represents an increasing tendency by the Obama administration to rule by authoritarian diktat and a willingness to engage in treason against the Constitution.
The founders devised a carefully balanced separation of powers explicitly to prevent any of the three branches of government from acting unilaterally. Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution grants to the president “executive power,” but this is kept in check by Section 3 of Article II that instructs the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” Laws originate and are passed by the House and Senate.
In other words, the U.S. Constitution declares that the legislative branch writes the laws of the land and the law of the land supersedes any executive action. No executive order or regulatory policy can override a statutory man
Obama is now a dictator and Democrats fully support his assumed dictatorial power. Nancy Pelosi and other leading Democrats have stated they believe Obama is acting within the Constitution.
Obama, of course, is not merely acting on his own. He is following orders issued by his globalist handlers.
The Council on Foreign Relations has long favored and used its considerable influence to push for granting legal status to illegal aliens. Last July the globalist organization said local police should not take lead roles in immigration enforcement and workplace raids (the CFR issued its opinion after Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas conducted immigration raids and prosecutions against businesses hiring illegal immigrants and also drop-houses used by smugglers trafficking illegal immigrants into Arizona from Mexico).
Our rulers are cynically exploiting illegal immigrants to drive down wages of American workers. This ongoing process compliments more than two decades of globalist “trade” agreements like NAFTA designed to offshore American jobs — the “giant sucking sound” presidential candidate Ross Perot warned about in 1992.
According to the master plan, Mexicans that momentarily benefited from the sucking sound experienced one of their own when jobs traveled to the slave gulag in China. Now many of them — destitute and desperate — are flocking illegally over an open border and are in competition with American workers and bankrupting the states as they fill generous welfare rolls.
Last week we learned about Obama’s plan to ignore growing violence and criminal activity on the border when Arizona senator Jon Kyl told an audience at a North Tempe Tea Party town hall meeting that during a private, one-on-one meeting with Obama in the Oval Office, the president told him, regarding securing the border, “The problem is … if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

It now appears Obama will not need the support of Kyl and the Republicans. He will simply sign an unconstitutional executive order and legalize millions of felons who have crossed the border illegally.

Is U.S. Now On a Slippery Slope To Tyranny?

http:Thomas Sowell - When Adolf Hitler was building up the Nazi movement in the 1920s, leading up to his taking power in the 1930s, he deliberately sought to activate people who did not normally pay much attention to politics.
Such people were a valuable addition to his political base, since they were particularly susceptible to Hitler's rhetoric and had far less basis for questioning his assumptions or his conclusions.
"Useful idiots" was the term supposedly coined by V.I. Lenin to describe similarly unthinking supporters of his dictatorship in the Soviet Union.
Put differently, a democracy needs informed citizens if it is to thrive, or ultimately even survive.
In our times, American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it.
The president's poll numbers are going down because increasing numbers of people disagree with particular policies of his, but the damage being done to the fundamental structure of this nation goes far beyond particular counterproductive policies.
Just where in the Constitution of the United States does it say that a president has the authority to extract vast sums of money from a private enterprise and distribute it as he sees fit to whomever he deems worthy of compensation? Nowhere.
And yet that is precisely what is happening with a $20 billion fund to be provided by BP to compensate people harmed by their oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many among the public and in the media may think that the issue is simply whether BP's oil spill has damaged many people, who ought to be compensated.
But our government is supposed to be "a government of laws and not of men."
If our laws and our institutions determine that BP ought to pay $20 billion — or $50 billion or $100 billion — then so be it.
But the Constitution says that private property is not to be confiscated by the government without "due process of law."
Technically, it has not been confiscated by Barack Obama, but that is a distinction without a difference.
With vastly expanded powers of government available at the discretion of politicians and bureaucrats, private individuals and organizations can be forced into accepting the imposition of powers that were never granted to the government by the Constitution.
And, without constitutional government, freedom cannot endure. There will always be a "crisis" — which, as the president's chief of staff has said, cannot be allowed to "go to waste" as an opportunity to expand the government's power.
That power will of course not be confined to BP or to the particular period of crisis that gave rise to the use of that power, much less to the particular issues.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt arbitrarily took the United States off the gold standard, he cited a law passed during the First World War to prevent trading with the country's wartime enemies. But there was no war when FDR ended the gold standard's restrictions on the printing of money.
At about the same time, during the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people."
That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people — indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others.
If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.
The man appointed by President Obama to dispense BP's money as the administration sees fit, to whomever it sees fit, is only the latest in a long line of presidentially appointed "czars" controlling different parts of the economy, without even having to be confirmed by the Senate, as Cabinet members are.
Those who cannot see beyond the immediate events to the issues of arbitrary power — vs. the rule of law and the preservation of freedom — are the "useful idiots" of our time. But useful to whom? Computer Become can save you money on new computers, computer accessories, computer components and find the best laptop deals. Visit Computers Become http://computers.become.com and buy any kind of computer. Therefore, Computers Become is where http://computers.become.com you can buy a HP, Dell, or Apple computer for the cheapest price on the web. Computers Become http://computers.become.com has offers you can not refuse.

The End Of Afghanistan

Larry Johnson - We’re done in Afghanistan and so is General Stan McChrystal. McChrystal, who has been on the frontlines of combatting Islamic extremists since 2003 when he was put in charge of the Joint Special Operations Command, has self-destructed with the help of Rolling Stone Magazine. McChrystal’s problem? He’s not a politician and spoke candidly about his political masters to a journalist. That’s a no-no if you want to stay in your job.
Here’s the nuts and bolts of what’s going on:

The top U.S. war commander in Afghanistan is being called to the White House for a meeting with President Obama after issuing an apology Tuesday for an interview in which he took shots at top administration officials and his staff described the president as unprepared for their first one-on-one encounter.
In the article in this week’s issue of Rolling Stone, Gen. Stanley McChrystal also said he felt betrayed and blind-sided by his diplomatic partner, Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.
McChrystal’s comments are reverberating through Washington and the Pentagon after the magazine depicted him as a lone wolf on the outs with many important figures in the Obama administration.
It characterized him as unable to convince some of his own soldiers that his strategy can win the nation’s longest-running war and dejected that the president didn’t know about his commendable military record.
In Kabul on Tuesday, McChrystal issued a statement saying: “I extend my sincerest apology for this profile. It was a mistake reflecting poor judgment and should never have happened.”
McChrystal has been called to the White House Situation Room on Wednesday to explain his comments to the magazine directly to the president, a senior administration official told Fox News. Normally, he would appear on a conference call for a regular strategy session.
The general was making a flurry of calls and decisions in the wake of the article’s publication. Fox News has learned that he fired the press aide, Duncan Boothby, who booked the interview. McChrystal also called Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen late Monday to apologize. Mullen told the general he was deeply disappointed, according to a senior military official at the Pentagon.
He has since spoken with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, both of whom were described as attention-seekers by an aide in the article. Kerry said afterward that he has “enormous respect” for the general, while a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai reportedly said Karzai “strongly supports” McChrystal and his strategy.
McChrystal is expected to reach Washington early Wednesday.
The article says that although McChrystal voted for Obama, the two failed to connect from the start. Obama called McChrystal on the carpet last fall for speaking too bluntly about his desire for more troops.
“I found that time painful,” McChrystal said in the article, on newsstands Friday. “I was selling an unsellable position.”
It quoted an adviser to McChrystal dismissing the early meeting with Obama as a “10-minute photo op.”
“Obama clearly didn’t know anything about him, who he was. The boss was pretty disappointed,” the adviser told the magazine.

Gee, Obama clueless about his military chiefs? How can that be (SUPER SNARK)?
You can read the full article here. (You also should take a look at Ed Morrissey’s piece at Hot Air).
McChrystal’s chain of command goes through David Petraeus. While Barack is ostensibly Commander-in-Chief, Petraeus is McChrystal’s immediate boss and should be disciplining his ass for this article. But that’s not going to happen. McChrystal is now a political football and will have to make some decisions. Is he going to pretend that he did not believe what he is reported as saying in the Rolling Stone article? If he does then the thing that has made McChrystal unique–a man of great integrity–will be tarnished.
The real damage here is that this distraction will ultimately make it impossible to sustain our effort in Afghanistan. I know there has been a lot of hand wringing about the continued war in Afghanistan and suggestions that we are losing. But I don’t think that’s true. In the past we always faced a late Spring/Summer offensive by the Taliban. That’s not the case this year (even though our casualties are up). The violence is confined largely to southeastern Afghanistan. We are not in danger of a military defeat.
Politically? That’s another problem. Stan McChrystal understood this part and proposed a strategy based on training and equipping Afghani’s to do the fighting and creating some space where the various Afghan tribes and factions could sort things out. That will be the ultimate outcome. We are not able to impose a government on Afghanistan that is politically palatable to the American people.
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Obamanomicis: China To Overtake U.S. In Manufacturing

The good news just keeps rolling in, doesn’t it? From the Financial Times:

The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production.

This is an outright disaster and proof that our economic system is fundamentally flawed. We have a massive government, special privileges for some companies which work out as restraint of trade for small and start-up firms, a burdensome tax and regulatory climate which makes it easier for corporate pinheads to move factories to China rather than keeping them here. And it all adds up to a system which makes life hard for the working poor and middle class.

The very rich and the very poor get on ok with this – only in America are the non-working poor overweight, driving cars and watching cable TV. Meanwhile, the super rich are still out there buying luxury goods at a fast pace while regular retailers face bankruptcy

Revolution, my friends – it is the only way. We must overturn this bastard combine of corporatism and socialism and build an economy fit for regular men and women to work in. November will likely prove a good first step in this, but keep in mind that it is just a first step – if we are not relentless post-November, then our own GOP will slip back in to the bad, old ways.

Never let up – the fight is just beginning and it will take a generation to complete.Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computer Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Visit http://computers.become.com. Also, check out Computers Become online specials. This is a offer you can't refuse. Visit http://computers.become.com.

Obama Gives Major Portion Of Arizona Back To Mexico

The federal government is now telling American citizens to stay out of three southern Arizona counties. It is too dangerous because of armed smugglers from Mexico.Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computer Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Visithttp://computers.become.com. Also, check out Computers Become online specials. This is a offer you can't refuse. Visit http://computers.become.com.

What If Tea Partiers Waving Gadsen Flags Had Rioted In LA?

Paul Joesph Watson - Imagine if Tea Partiers waving Gadsden flags had rioted, started fights with police and trashed public property in a major American city. The corporate media would be all over the story for weeks, lecturing us all about how it was an ominous sign of the rise of an extremist fringe that threatens to destabilize America.

However, when hordes of Los Angeles Lakers fans waving Mexican flags go drunken rampages, start fights with cops, attack motorists, start fires, and deface public property, as happened last night following the NBA Final, the press barely even takes notice. The story has received local coverage in the L.A. media, but it’s nowhere near a top story nationally. Do you think the same would be the case if anti-big government protesters had engaged in the kind of behavior seen last night?
“Crowds hurled bottles and other objects at police, smashed marquees, jumped on vehicles, broke windows, and set rubbish dumpsters and vehicles on fire along Figueroa Street north of Staples Center and on Flower Street,” reports the L.A. Times.
“Police fired non-lethal rounds to disperse the crowd at Figueroa and Venice Boulevard after several small fires were set, as well as at 11th and Hope streets. At 7th and Flower, a car believed to be a taxicab was engulfed in flames.”
Watch the clip below. Thugs waving Mexican flags and others riot while attacking public property.

Of course, the only question is why are they waving Mexican flags in America after attending an American basketball final? Do these individuals consider themselves to be Mexicans or Americans? These kind of scenes will only encourage other states to pursue similar laws to those that Arizona is attempting to enact in the face of White House lawsuits.
The clip below shows the mob setting a car on fire.

Another clip shows what appear to be Hispanic-Americans bragging about the chaos they are causing.

No matter what color you are, and let’s not forget that Hispanic-Americans and non-whites nationally are some of the strongest proponents of enforcing immigration laws, this kind of behavior should repulse everyone, especially considering the fact that these thugs are aggressively waving the flag of a foreign nation while engaging in this moronic and mindless violence.
The double standard is clear to see – if a so-called Tea Partier is so much accused of breaking a window, the corporate networks obsess over the story as if it’s some kind of Al-Qaeda terror attack, yet when thousands of drunken yobs, many of whom are waving Mexican flags, completely turn a downtown city upside down, the establishment press shrugs its shoulders. Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computer Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Visit http://computers.become.com Also, check out Computers Become online specials. this is a offer you can't refuse. http://computers.become.com

BP AWARE OF CRACKS IN OIL WELL TWO MONTHS BEFORE EXPLOSION

Paul Joseph Watson - BP was aware of cracks appearing in the Macondo well as far back as February, right around the time Goldman Sachs and BP Chairman Tony Hayward were busy dumping their stocks in the company on the eve of the explosion that led to the oil spill, according to information uncovered by congressional investigators.

The Mining and Mineral Services agency released documents to Bloomberg indicating that BP “was trying to seal cracks in the well about 40 miles (64 kilometers) off the Louisiana coast,” according to the report.

The fissures, which BP began to attempt to fix on February 13, could have played a role in the disaster, though this is a question still being explored by investigators. Improperly sealed, the cracks cause explosive natural gas to rush up the shaft.

“The company attempted a “cement squeeze,” which involves pumping cement to seal the fissures, according to a well activity report. Over the following week the company made repeated attempts to plug cracks that were draining expensive drilling fluid, known as “mud,” into the surrounding rocks,” states the report.

As we previously highlighted, eyewitness evidence indicates that Deepwater Horizon managers knew that the BP oil rig had major problems before its explosion on April 20. A crew member who rescued burning workers on the rig told Houston attorney Tony Buzbee of a conversation between Deepwater Horizon installation manager Jimmy Harrell and someone in Houston. According to the witness, Harrell was screaming, “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”

The fact that BP managers were aware of problems with the rig and were seemingly unconcerned about fixing them only lends more weight to the already startling indications of some having foreknowledge of the disaster.

As we highlighted last week, on page 37 of British Petroleum’s own investigative report into the oil spill, it is stated that the Hydraulic Control System on equipment designed to automatically seal the well in an emergency was modified without BP’s knowledge sometime before the explosion.

Highly suspicious stock and share trades by people connected to BP before the explosion indicate some extent of foreknowledge.

Goldman Sachs dumped 44% of its shares in BP Oil during the first quarter of 2010 – shares that subsequently lost 36 percent of their value, equating to $96 million. The current chairman of Goldman Sachs is Bilderberg luminary Peter Sutherland, who is also the former chairman of British Petroleum.

Furthermore, as reported by the London Telegraph on June 5th, Tony Hayward, the current BP CEO sold £1.4 million of his shares in the fuel giant weeks before the spill.

On April 12th, just over one week before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded, Halliburton, the world’s second largest oilfield services corporation, surprised some by acquiring Boots & Coots, a relatively small but vastly experienced oil well control company.

Halliburton is named in the majority of some two dozen lawsuits filed since the explosion by Gulf Coast people and businesses who claim that the company is to blame for the disaster.

Halliburton was forced to admit in testimony at a congressional hearing last month that it carried out a cementing operation 20 hours before the Gulf of Mexico rig went up in flames. The lawsuits claim that four Halliburton workers stationed on the rig improperly capped the well. Visit http://computers.become.com for the best computer products for the lowest prices on the web. Computers Become has the most affordable prices and best quality. Find any computer on the market and compare prices. Visit  http://computers.become.com. Also, check out Computer Become Online Specials. This is a offer you just can't refuse.http://computers.become.com.

MSNBC & Corporate Media Says Sharron Angle Calling For Revolution

Democrats and liberals are petrified by the primary win by Sharron Angle in Nevada. She threatens to unseat the current Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, and upset the Democrat balance in the Senate and because of this she must be demonized as a dangerous gun nut who advocates violent revolution.

Greg Sargent of the CIA’s favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, warned that Angle is calling for violent revolution. “In an interview she gave to a right-wing talk show host, Angle approvingly quoted Thomas Jefferson saying it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years — and said that if Congress keeps it up, people may find themselves resorting to ‘Second Amendment remedies,’” Sargent wrote.

“You know, our Founding Fathers, they put that Second Amendment in there for a good reason and that was for the people to protect themselves against a tyrannical government. And in fact Thomas Jefferson said it’s good for a country to have a revolution every 20 years,” Angle told radio host Lars Larson. “I hope that’s not where we’re going, but, you know, if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying my goodness what can we do to turn this country around? I’ll tell you the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out.”

“The most charitable interpretation here was that Angle was floating armed insurrection,” opines Sargent.

Democrats and liberals continually avoid the fact the United States was established by a revolution in armed — and, yes, violent — opposition to tyranny. “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness,” states the Declaration of Independence.

A recent poll reveals 72 percent of voters disapprove of the job Congress is doing. The number hasn’t been that high since the week before the 1994 election. Obama’s weekly approval rating is at an all-time low, according to the Gallup Poll, and it is especially low among those 65 or older, those who are married, and those who attend church every week — in other words, the demographic “progressives” characterize as rightwing nut cases, bible-thumpers and Tea Party supporters.

Justin Elliott, writing for TPM, added an element of hysteria to the growing anti-Angle jihad:

For at least six years in the 1990s before she held state-level elective office, Angle was a member of the little-known Independent American Party, a right-wing party that combines elements of Ron Paul’s doctrinaire libertarianism — pro-gun, anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy, pro-states’ rights — with Christian social conservatism and fear of the “North American Union” and other forms of “global government.”

The Independent American Party is a threat to not only the Democrats but Republicans as well. The party was founded in 1967 by former Republican activist Daniel M. Hansen, who believed the GOP was growing “too corrupt and socialistic,” a fact beared out by the fact both Democrats and Republicans have increased the size of government and increased the national debt owed to the bankers.

“Don’t give up your guns, folks,” Hansen told a crowd. “That’s all we’ve got to protect us against the advance of socialism. America is in a survival phase.”

Constitutionalists continually place emphasis on using the electoral process to take the United States back to the days when it was a republic, but this aspect is almost completely ignored by the government and the corporate media. Chris Matthews, for instance, insists the Tea Party movement consists primarily of nativist neanderthals, racists, and gun nuts bent on violence.

The patriot movement is increasingly faced with calls by so-called liberals to grant Obama dictatorial power that violate the Constitution. For instance, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz has called for Obama to become a dictator in response to the BP disaster. “Don’t you think this is a moment where President Obama has to make sure that he lets everybody know that he’s calling the shots, and almost in words of maybe a dictator, that this is the way we’re going to do it?” said Schultz. “It’s OK tonight to act kind of like a dictator and call the shots saying this is the way it’s going to be.”

Schultz said the country can no longer afford the Constitution. Obama has to put a boot on the neck of those Schultz and the Democrats consider enemies. He made this statement in regard to BP but the mere suggestion of dealing with corporations and people in this way reveals an intolerance for all who would oppose Obama and the federal government.

Is it any wonder patriots are talking about taking back the government by the last resort means of revolution when Democrats and liberals are urging Obama to become a dictator?

Hopefully, so-called Tea Party candidates will realize a big win in November and during the presidential election in 2012. Short of that, other less palatable options may become necessary in order to save the country from tyranny.

Illegal Aliens Openly Promote Communism At Atlanta Rally

Before It's News - The recent pro-illegal alien rally in Atlanta would shock most Americans. These people are openly promoting the destruction of Capitalism along with their hatred of America. Their answer to all problems is the establishment of Communism in the United States. An outright Atheistic pure Communistic government. Why does this story not make the News anywhere in the Mainstream Media? The absence of media coverage speaks to the great advances that Anti-American forces have made in controlling a once venerable profession. Note how they blame Capitalism for Americas debt as Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi spend the country into oblivion. Watch this video, think about it -and pass it along. Then think about Obama’s rush for Amnesty for Illegal Aliens and what it means for America!

Louisianans Think Bush Did A Better Job On Katrina Than Obama On the Gulf Oil Spill

Hot Air - Our new Louisiana poll has a lot of data points to show how unhappy voters in the state are with Barack Obama’s handling of the oil spill but one perhaps sums it up better than anything else- a majority of voters there think George W. Bush did a better job with Katrina than Obama’s done dealing with the spill.

50% of voters in the state, even including 31% of Democrats, give Bush higher marks on that question compared to 35% who pick Obama.

Overall only 32% of Louisianans approve of how Obama has handled the spill to 62% who disapprove. 34% of those polled say they approved of how Bush dealt with Katrina to 58% who disapproved.

The big winner? Bobby Jindal, whose 63 percent approval (65 percent on handling the spill) is the highest for any senator or governor in PPP’s polling this year. He lost some of his righty rock-star luster after that SOTU disaster, but I think it’s safe to say that he’s gotten it all back: The latest is that he’s lost patience with BP’s containment efforts and given the order to the National Guard to start building a barrier wall off the coast to try to protect the shoreline. 70 percent, here he comes!

As for The One, aside from delivering a big speech tonight in the Oval Office, he’s busy … delivering other speeches, like this one today in Pensacola. Note the quasi-martial rhetoric in the clip about “fighting back” against an “assault on our shores” while a crowd of troops stands assembled behind him. Looks like he’s taking Eugene Robinson’s advice and essentially declaring war on the spill, which won’t change a thing on the ground but might brighten up his approval numbers by projecting some C-in-C authori-tah. Exit question: Did you catch the magic word in the clip? He said it twice!

Gulf Oil Disaster Will Be End Of Life As We Know It

John Doty Jr. - This is it. It’s over. Get ready for the most insane year of your life. 5 years. 10 years. One day you will look back at your life right now and think about how easy it was, how innocent. We are on the cusp of total collapse, right at the precipice.

If you’re like most people you probably have already decided that I am exaggerating without knowing why I am saying this. Well let me make it clear that I also wish I was exaggerating. I don’t sell survival equipment or gold. My job is not recession proof. I have a family. I didn’t wake up today and randomly decide to declare that this is the end of life as we know it. But I do research. I make calls and tune into radio, scouring the internet for news clips and analysis. I make a concerted effort to only quote trustworthy sources. The information that has emerged over the past few days confirms fears that this is actually an “Armageddon” event. I am being completely serious.

Check it: The oil, spewing out at 20,000 to 70,000 psi, and the sediment within it has eroded the very walls of the well itself in several areas. This means that this is now an uncontainable gusher that is literally spewing oil up from dozens of sites across the gulf floor. The massive oil pocket tapped under immense pressure is now spewing out into the seabed. Capping the well does nothing. The oil pocket is tapped, the pipe is eroded and the oil is now spewing up to the ocean floor with intense pressure. Plumes are being generated everywhere. They cannot stop this. Human technology cannot contain a liquid at that pressure, especially at that depth under the ocean. We simply do not have the technology or know-how to fix this. We don’t. The relief wells are essentially useless now because the original well cannot be plugged so oil will always flow out of it regardless of how many other wells they dig. They needed to get into the pipe, fill the old pipe with mud and cement and then divert the oil into the new well. But because the tapped oil pocket is sand blasting itself routes to the surface that grow each day in diameter due to the eroding walls and passageways, there is no “well” to fill. That is because whats left of the well is already dissolving. And each day that passes until they drill their so-called “relief wells” will only see the oil finding new routes through the escapes it has carved through erosion of the pipes and rock. Thad Allen, the head of the US Coast Guard, has said that the oil isn’t all flowing up the pipe anymore but is now “in communication” with the seabed and the surrounding soft rock formation. It is now blasting its own wells.

Ya, that’s bad, but that isn’t even the scary part. Hydrogen Sulfide, Benzene, Methylene Chloride, and other toxic gases are also spewing out along with the oil. In concentrations hundreds and thousands of times greater than what is considered safe for humans. Lethal levels. When the hurricanes come they will absorb this toxic seawater and drop it as rain. Literally toxic rain. Let me guess, toxic rain doesn’t scare you. The biggest threat is already actualized with the chemicals entering the atmosphere and being carried around by the wind.

“The media coverage of the BP oil disaster to date has focused largely on the threats to wildlife, but the latest evaluation of air monitoring data shows a serious threat to human health from airborne chemicals emitted by the ongoing deepwater gusher,” the Institute for Southern Studies blog reported on May 10.

Any one of these chemicals in these concentrations would be lethal. Mixed together it’s truly unthinkable.

The fragile US economy, in the midst of a feeble attempt at a jobless recovery, overstretched by war and out of control spending is not equipped to handle a disaster of this magnitude. No country in the world could. Remember how well they handled the Katrina thing? This makes Katrina look like a grade school fire drill. Well I wonder how well they will do this time as they prepare to evacuate entire cities and states. See this and this. Once the evacuations begin the markets will tank. Once people are forced to grasp what is happening around them the global economy will come to a screeching halt as it’s engine, the USA, sinks into the throes of the worst environmental disaster in the history of the world. This will cause a dollar confidence crisis. Enraged citizens will riot and loot with no hope of a decent life ahead of them. Martial law will be declared.

They have no way to stop this, only a theory that maybe a nuke would implode the oil pocket. Ya, we’re talking about nuking the earths crust under the ocean. Eventually the oil will make it’s way around the world as the entire oil deposit is unleashed into the ocean.

Are you buying the crap coming from BP? The bogus press releases and the downplayed assessments? They’ve been lying through their teeth, censoring the media and destroying evidence. If you trust them, you have some problems.

It's 3 a.m., The Phone Is Ringing And Obama Is Asleep

Larry Johnson - Hillary was right. Obama was not and is not ready to answer the 3am call. The evidence, especially with respect to his failure to properly manage the response to the blow out of B.P.’s Deep Horizon well, is damning. Tim Dickinson’s lays out the evidence methodically and in depth in his recent piece in Rolling Stone, The Spill, The Scandal and the President.

Dickinson makes it clear that Obama failed in every regard to even answer the damn phone. He let it ring while the oil flooded the Gulf.

Let’s review the key points:

On March 31st President Obama trotted out his plan to support drilling in the Gulf. He said, “it turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills . . . they are technologically very advanced.” Unfortunately, Obama failed to ensure that the Department of Interior had the proper safeguards and procedures in place and that the existing regulations on the books were being enforced. He trusted the oil companies.

Before he took office Obama vowed to clean up the cronyism and corruption rampant in the Minerals Management Service of the Department of the Interior. Obama did not create the mess. The Bush Administration’s hands are filthy on this count. George W. and his band left Obama with a steaming turd. And what did Obama do when he assumed office? As Dickinson notes, “Obama left in place many of the top officials who oversaw the agency’s culture of corruption. He permitted it to rubber-stamp dangerous drilling operations by BP . . . with virtually no environmental safeguards.” He did nothing and, on the day that the head of the MMS resigned (or was fired) Obama did not have a clue what was going on. He said as much at a press conference.

Obama and his team continued the negligence of the Bush Administration. Wilkinson reports that, “MMS continued to issue categorical exclusions to companies like BP, even when they lacked the necessary permits to protect endangered species.” Moreover, Obama’s Department of Interior did not even ensure “that the MMS had a written manual–required under Interior’s own rules–for complying with environmental laws.”

Obama and his team knew from day one that the blown rig, under a worst case scenario, was spewing as much as 110,000 barrels of oil a day into the Gulf of Mexico. And what did the intrepid Captain Kick Ass Obama do? Did he mobilize a fleet of ships to start capturing the oil? Did he get on the phone to BP and demand they move immediately to prepare for a worst case scenario? Did he act as if this could be worse than the Exxon Valdez? Nope, he and the wife took off for a weekend excursion in Asheville, North Carolina to play golf and eat barbecue. And when he got back from vacation did he demand that BP give him a current status report? Nope. Instead he hosted the New York Yankees at the White House. In the ensuing weeks he glad handed with the men and women champions from the NCAA basketball tournament instead of accepting offers from other countries to provide oil skimmers. Oh, did I mention the parties and concerts? He had Sir Paul in to sing “Hey Jude.” Captain Kick Ass was just a party animal who couldn’t be bothered with the particulars of harnessing all public and private resources to fight the oil spill.

More than a week passed before Obama’s team declared the BP disaster an “Oil Spill of National Significance.” As Dickinson notes, this was “required to draw on regional resources and to appoint an incident commander to coordinate a federal response.

Who was in charge, on May 3rd of cleaning up the oil spilling into the Gulf? According to Robert Gibbs said, “the responsible party is BP.” Swell. One little problem. According to the National Oil and Hazardous Substance Pollution Contingency Plan an “oil company like BP cannot be left in charge” and the “government must direct all federal, state or private actions to clean up a spill where a discharge or threat of discharge poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare of the United States.” Captain Kick Ass and his crew of buffoons dropped this ball and the oil continued to flow.

On May 21st the President’s vapid mouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, said that Obama lacked the authority to play anything more than a supervisory role. Obama and his team, four weeks into the disaster, were still sitting on the sidelines.

Less than a week later Obama summoned the press and announced, “I take responsibility.” He stated further, “I was wrong in my belief that the oil companies had their act together when it came to worst-case scenarios.” That, boys and girls, is known in intelligence circles as “NO SHIT ANALYSIS.”

Dickinson also reports that the Obama Administration waited six weeks before deploying its own research vessel to investigate whether or not BP’s estimates of the escaping oil were valid. SIX WEEKS!!

This is not about partisanship. This is about competence and Obama does not possess it. Please be sure to read the DIckinson piece in its entirety. He has done America a service and exposed Obama for the vacuous fraud he is.

"Gulf Oil Spill 'Could Go On For Years' If Not Dealt With

F. William Engdahl - The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy.

In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” 1

According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”3 Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.

As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,3 Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April.

“In my view the heads of BP reacted with panic at the scale of the oil spewing out of the well,” Kutcherov adds. “What is inexplicable at this point is why they are trying one thing, failing, then trying a second, failing, then a third. Given the scale of the disaster they should try every conceivable option, even if it is ten, all at once in hope one works. Otherwise, this oil source could spew oil for years given the volumes coming to the surface already.” 4

He stresses, “It is difficult to estimate how big this leakage is. There is no objective information available.” But taking into consideration information about the last BP ‘giant’ discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, the Tiber field, some six miles deep, Kutcherov agrees with Ira Leifer a researcher in the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, Santa Barbara who says the oil may be gushing out at a rate of more than 100,000 barrels a day.5

What the enormoity of the oil spill does is to also further discredit clearly the oil companies’ myth of “peak oil” which claims that the world is at or near the “peak” of economical oil extraction. That myth, which has been propagated in recent years by circles close to former oilman and Bush Vice President, Dick Cheney, has been effectively used by the giant oil majors to justify far higher oil prices than would be politically possible otherwise, by claiming a non-existent petroleum scarcity crisis.

Obama & BP Try to Hide

According to a report from Washington investigative journalist Wayne Madsen, “the Obama White House and British Petroleum are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP’s liability for damage caused by what can be called a ‘mega-disaster.’” 6 Madsen cites sources within the US Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, and Florida Department of Environmental Protection for his assertion.

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Salazar, are working with BP’s chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. According to informed estimates cited by Madsen, however, the disaster has a real potential cost of at least $1,000 billion ($1 trillion). That estimate would support the pessimistic assessment of Kutcherov that the spill, if not rapidly controlled, “will destroy the entire coastline of the United States.”

According to the Washington report of Madsen, BP statements that one of the leaks has been contained, are “pure public relations disinformation designed to avoid panic and demands for greater action by the Obama administration., according to FEMA and Corps of Engineers sources.” 7

The White House has been resisting releasing any “damaging information” about the oil disaster. Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers experts estimate that if the ocean oil geyser is not stopped within 90 days, there will be irreversible damage to the marine eco-systems of the Gulf of Mexico, north Atlantic Ocean, and beyond. At best, some Corps of Engineers experts say it could take two years to cement the chasm on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. 8

Only after the magnitude of the disaster became evident did Obama order Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to declare the oil disaster a “national security issue.” Although the Coast Guard and FEMA are part of her department, Napolitano’s actual reasoning for invoking national security, according to Madsen, was merely to block media coverage of the immensity of the disaster that is unfolding for the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean and their coastlines.

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to hide the extent of the oil leak, according to the cited federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day were gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day. However, submersibles monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what they describe as a “volcanic-like” eruption of oil.

When the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick, which is larger than is being reported by the media, it was reportedly denied the access. By chance, National Geographic managed to obtain satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site. Other satellite imagery reportedly being withheld by the Obama administration, shows that what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to Madsen’s sources.

The Corps of Engineers and FEMA are reported to be highly critical of the lack of support for quick action after the oil disaster by the Obama White House and the US Coast Guard. Only now has the Coast Guard understood the magnitude of the disaster, dispatching nearly 70 vessels to the affected area. Under the loose regulatory measures implemented by the Bush-Cheney Administration, the US Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service became a simple “rubber stamp,” approving whatever the oil companies wanted in terms of safety precautions that could have averted such a disaster. Madsen describes a state of “criminal collusion” between Cheney’s former firm, Halliburton, and the Interior Department’s MMS, and that the potential for similar disasters exists with the other 30,000 off-shore rigs that use the same shut-off valves. 9

Silence from Eco groups?... Follow the money

Without doubt at this point we are in the midst of what could be the greatest ecological catastrophe in history. The oil platform explosion took place almost within the current loop where the Gulf Stream originates. This has huge ecological and climatological consequences.

A cursory look at a map of the Gulf Stream shows that the oil is not just going to cover the beaches in the Gulf, it will spread to the Atlantic coasts up through North Carolina then on to the North Sea and Iceland. And beyond the damage to the beaches, sea life and water supplies, the Gulf stream has a very distinct chemistry, composition (marine organisms), density, temperature. What happens if the oil and the dispersants and all the toxic compounds they create actually change the nature of the Gulf Stream? No one can rule out potential changes including changes in the path of the Gulf Stream, and even small changes could have huge impacts. Europe, including England, is not an icy wasteland due to the warming from the Gulf Stream.

Yet there is a deafening silence from the very environmental organizations which ought to be at the barricades demanding that BP, the US Government and others act decisively.

That deafening silence of leading green or ecology organizations such as Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Sierra Club and others may well be tied to a money trail that leads right back to the oil industry, notably to BP. Leading environmental organizations have gotten significant financial payoffs in recent years from BP in order that the oil company could remake itself with an “environment-friendly face,” as in “beyond petroleum” the company’s new branding.

The Nature Conservancy, described as “the world’s most powerful environmental group,”10 has awarded BP a seat on its International Leadership Council after the oil company gave the organization more than $10 million in recent years. 11

Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked with BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate-change issues. An employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. In addition, according to a recent report published by the Washington Post, Conservation International, another environmental group, has accepted $2 million in donations from BP and worked with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil-extraction methods. From 2000 to 2006, John Browne, then BP's chief executive, sat on the CI board.

Further, The Environmental Defense Fund, another influential ecologist organization, joined with BP, Shell and other major corporations to form a Partnership for Climate Action, to promote ‘market-based mechanisms’ (sic) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Environmental non-profit groups that have accepted donations from or joined in projects with BP include Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, Environmental Defense Fund, Sierra Club and Audubon. That could explain why the political outcry to date for decisive action in the Gulf has been so muted. 12

Of course those organizations are not going to be the ones to solve this catastrophe. The central point at this point is who is prepared to put the urgently demanded federal and international scientific resources into solving this crisis. Further actions of the likes of that from the Obama White House to date or from BP can only lead to the conclusion that some very powerful people want this debacle to continue. The next weeks will be critical to that assessment.

Mexico Formally Complains About Shooting By U.S. Border Agent

(Reuters) - Mexico has sent a formal complaint to Washington over the fatal shooting of a teenager by a U.S. border patrol agent and is pressing for answers on the incident, Mexico's foreign minister said.

Grieving relatives wept at a funeral wake on Wednesday over the body of Sergio Hernandez, shot on the Mexican side of the border in the frontier city of Ciudad Juarez as he and other youths were running from U.S. border patrol agents.

The death of the teenager has sparked outrage in Mexico, where many already bristle at the way Mexican immigrants doing menial jobs are treated in the United States.

"We have sent diplomatic letters of complaint to the U.S. federal government insisting on an exhaustive investigation," Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa told a news conference.

"We are using all the resources available to us."

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation and put the border agent on leave.
The FBI said Hernandez was in a group of illegal immigrants trying to sneak into the United States and when two of them were detained, the teen and another individual began throwing rocks at the border patrol agents.

Espinosa said it was not clear if the youths, who were under a bridge border crossing a few meters into Mexican territory, had attacked the agents.

Tensions between the major trading partners have been fanned by the state of Arizona's decision to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Mexico has slammed the Arizona law and human rights groups are using Hernandez's death as a platform to talk about the dangers faced by migrants who cross the border each year.
"This shooting across the border appears to have been a grossly disproportionate response and flies in the face of international standards, which compel police to use firearms only as a last resort," Susan Lee, Americas director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.

Amnesty said that in recent days a Mexican immigrant who was being deported died after a U.S. border patrol agent used a stun gun on him.

Hernandez's father said high-tech security at the border, including security cameras, should help U.S. authorities solve the case.

"They saw what happened. They have the video. They have the proof," Jose Hernandez said at his son's wake in the town of Ciudad Juarez. "With the technology they use to detect people (crossing), they can see who is guilty."

Is Obama BP's Puppy

Shamus Cooke - After BP successfully placed a cap to divert some of the spewing oil into tankers, tens of thousands of gallons continue to flow daily into the gulf. August is slated as the earliest date that any permanent solution may emerge. BP remains totally in charge of potentially the largest environmental disaster in the earth’s recorded history, a fact that proves — in “check mate” fashion — that corporations dominate the inner workings of the U.S. government, a truth previously revealed by the bank bailouts.

More than one gigantic eco-system may be destroyed by BP, and the President of the U.S. is sadly reduced to lecturing in “serious tones,” with daily adjustments of tone based on the results of polling agencies.

When the polls reported that Obama wasn’t taking the oil spill seriously enough, his next TV appearance depicted him as “outraged.” Yet his continuing lack of action doesn’t match his new, stronger emotions; nor does his inaction match the dire seriousness of the situation.

Indeed, Obama continues to allow BP to lie about the seriousness of the spill, even when numerous independent scientists disputed BP’s estimates of the spillage. Of course Obama knew that BP had a profit incentive to lie, while Obama has his own incentive to allow the lie — and continued lies — of BP.

One reason Obama doesn’t challenge BP is because he’s on their payroll. The news agency Reuters explains: “During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.” (May 5, 2010).

In July, BP is set to give its shareholders multi-billion dollar dividends — prompting more toothless anger from Obama — while BP continues to maintain a healthy distance from taking complete accountability for the oil spill.

The results are sadly predictable: many of the effects of the spill will be permanent, while the cleanup and recovery will go on for years and decades, possibly costing the extinction of some species and the United States billions and maybe trillions of dollars in the long term.

BP will throw itself at the mercy of the courts, an elite entity much friendlier to the mega-corporations than to the millions of U.S. workers demanding justice. Add to the equation BP’s elite attorneys and you have an eventual settlement — after years — that will equal the tiniest fraction of the caused devastation. This prediction was all but confirmed by the mainstream media, when Curt Anderson of the Associated Press reported:

“More than half of the federal judges in districts where the bulk of Gulf oil spill-related lawsuits are pending have financial connections to the oil and gas industry, complicating the task of finding judges without conflicts to hear the cases…” (June 6, 2010).

Aside from the above financial blocks to holding BP accountable, there lays a deeper code of ethics that prohibit government interference into the matters of private corporations, no matter how great the damage done to the general public.

At the top of this corporate code of ethics is the sacredness of property rights, meaning that large corporations have complete control — outside the grasp of any government — to do what they want with their giant wealth and facilities, wherever and whenever they want.

To the U.S. government, this right pre-empts human rights, environmental rights, etc. Property rights are enshrined in every free-trade agreement the U.S. government signs, so that overseas corporate investments are strictly protected, prohibiting foreign nations from using U.S. corporate facilities for the social needs of their native populations. Although BP is a British corporation, the rules of this code are mutual and global.

Nowadays, the tiniest crack in the foundation of corporate property rights constitutes “communism” — a right wing accusation hurled at Obama after he partially nationalized General Motors and other institutions in response to the economic crisis. And although Obama intruded into the sanctity of property rights when the financial crisis exploded, it was with the general consent of the corporate establishment — who viewed those actions as necessary, short-term evils — meant to save the investments of the rich, while using taxpayer money to rehabilitate the companies before they were eventually handed back to shareholders.

The emergency in the Gulf of Mexico, on the other hand, is viewed by the corporate elite as a lesser crisis, demanding the government not set another precedent that would point to the necessity of public ownership.

Obama’s unwillingness to push aside BP and take government charge of the operation makes him an accomplice to the environmental disaster. For example, in order that BP be allowed to remain at the helm, Obama has given them professional credibility where none should exist — “they have the expertise and technology,” etc. BP’s actions prior to the spill constitute criminal negligence. The comments of BP’s CEO since the spill undoubtedly prove that the company views the disaster as more of an inconvenience, to be handled at their leisure.

Furthermore, every public appearance of a BP executive or spokesperson serves to minimize the crisis, implying that a less immediate reaction is required. Indeed, as a for-profit company, BP’s actions remain motivated by concern for their shareholders, whose only motivation is profit. In practice, this means fewer resources are dedicated to the spill than would be otherwise, since higher cleanup costs equal lower profits. One glaring example of this was cited in The New York Times, which quoted a scientist working for the Flow Rate Technical Group, a team of scientists trying to accurately gauge the flow of oil into the Gulf:

“It’s apparent that BP is playing games with us, presumably under the advice of their legal team,” Dr. Leifer said. “It’s six weeks that it’s been dumping into the gulf, and still no measurements.” (June 7, 2010).

Local government officials in Florida are also disgusted with BP’s lack of action in preventing the oil from landing on their beaches, while doing next to nothing in cleaning up the beached oil. The attorney general of Florida complained:

“I’m outraged…why are we waiting so long to do this? Why is the Coast Guard, Obama, BP waiting? They’ve seen it coming, so why are we waiting?” (Bloomberg, June 7, 2010).
Obama’s religious faith in BP to properly handle the spill — after it had no emergency plan to deal with such a spill in the first place — borders on lunacy. But the logic is sensible from the corporate prospective, which preaches that all is rational which protects profits.

In a sane world, BP’s executives would be facing severe criminal charges, and the billions of profits they’ve earned in the last year would be confiscated to pay for the cleanup. BP’s infrastructure would be taken under the control of the U.S. government, which could ensure that the job was done correctly, timely, and publicly, as opposed to the shield of corporate secrecy currently protecting BP.

The ultimate lesson of this environmental/economic catastrophe is that Obama is not at all serious about confronting corporate interests. Rather, he allows them to stampede over the public interests, ensuring that such disasters will happen again.

U.S. Will Be Like Greece In Seven To Ten Years Says Congress And Experts

(CNSNEws.com) - Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), along with other members of Congress and leading financial experts, is warning that the United States is in danger of being in the same dire situation as Greece – national bankruptcy -- in seven to 10 years unless the federal government radically curtails spending.

Last month, Gregg, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said the United States will “essentially be where Greece is in about seven years.”

“If we continue to spend much more than we take in," he says. "We'll double our debt in five years and triple it in 10 years and essentially be where Greece is in about seven years,” Gregg told the Fox Business Network in May.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee, has also said that the United States has been making decisions similar to that which caused Greece’s debt crisis.

“We’re on this trajectory where we will have more takers than makers in society. We’re going to have more people taking from government than living on their own, paying taxes and contributing into it. That is a dangerous position to be in, that’s the position Greece is in,” Ryan said in a radio interview on News/Talk 1130 WISN in May.

Brian Riedl, lead budget analyst at The Heritage Foundation, agrees that unless the federal government radically curtails spending, a debt crisis as severe as or worse than that now happening in Greece will erupt in the United States in as soon as seven to 10 years.

“We can say that we will be at about the Greek level of debt probably in the next seven to 10 years,” Riedl told CNSNews.com. “There is no reason that with the same economic policies at the same level of debt, that the United States won’t face the same economic and financial crisis as Greece.”

But for Reidl, who recently issued his own report on federal spending, seven to 10 years may be too optimistic.

“It’s very tough to predict when a financial crisis will hit, because much of it depends on bond market psychology,” Reidl said. “As soon as the bond market decides the U.S. may not be able to fully service its debts, they will respond with a flight from our currency. When the bond market makes that decision is really anybody’s guess. It could be two to three years from now, it could be 10 years from now.”

Given the relative economic strength of the United States compared to many other nations, and President Obama’s promises of job creation thanks to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, it may strike some as unfathomable that the United States could sink to the level of Greece’s economy.

Still, the current numbers are frightening. The U.S. national debt now stands at more than $13 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. In addition, the estimated U.S. federal deficit in 2009 was $1.5 trillion.

In order to compare the economic situations between countries, economists often look at the figures as a percentage of each country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). GDP represents the value of all of the goods and services produced by a country within a given year.

When Greece started to admit its debt problems last November, the government estimated its deficit last year was 12.7 percent of its GDP – a figure that Eurostat, the European Commission’s official statistics agency, said was too low and which it revised to upward 13.6 percent.

Meanwhile, the U.S. deficit is on track to become 10.3 percent of GDP in 2010 under President Obama’s budget.

In his report, “Federal Spending by the Numbers,” Reidl pointed out that the projected 2010 U.S. deficit would represent the biggest percentage of GDP the United States has seen since World War II.

That same report shows that average deficits over the next 10 years will be almost $1 trillion instead of returning to pre-recession levels of $100 billion to $400 billion. The projected deficits, Riedl pointed out, would double the current national debt.

However, spending -- not shrinking revenue -- is the principal cause, according to the report, which said “90 percent of the rising long-term budget deficits are driven by rising spending,” and just 10 percent of the rising deficits are caused by falling revenues.

“This is 100 percent a spending problem in the long term,” Reidl said.

Greece’s debt hovered above 110 percent of the GDP in November. Meanwhile, the estimated U.S. national debt was 52.9 percent of GDP in 2009 -- a significant jump from the 39.7 percent in the previous year, according to data from the CIA World Factbook.

The economic crisis in Greece came to a peak in the past few months as the global recession started to expose the consequences of overspending, which up to that point had been shrouded in fudged budget numbers.

Both Riedl and Rep. Ryan warn that the potential financial disaster would be more devastating for the United States than it has been for Greece.

“(T)here will be nobody to bail us out,” Ryan said in the radio interview. “You’ve got the IMF, Germany and France that are basically bailing out Greece, but we are the world’s reserve currency. If we go down the same path it will not only give us a problem of our own reckoning, but it would turn upside down the global financial system.”

The Greek economy is a fraction of the size of the U.S. economy, Riedl noted.

“Greece’s economy is small,” says Reidl, “and therefore when it borrows 100 percent of its economy, it’s still not a huge amount of money in the context of the broad global economy.”

“But when the U.S. has to borrow 100 percent of its economy, that’s a real lot of money for the global economy to absorb – that’s something like $20 trillion by the end of the decade. Other countries may not be able to absorb $20 trillion in debt once we hit that level,” Reidl warned.

The bond market and U.S. Treasury ratings will be the tell-tale signs that disaster has arrived, according to both Sen. Gregg and Riedl.

“When people stop buying our bonds,” people will know that the United States is in trouble, Gregg said. He continued explaining that this would mean investors are saying “‘we do not believe you can repay the debt or can repay it in a way to make us buy your debt at a reasonable price.’”

“Moody’s has repeatedly threatened to downgrade the U.S. triple-A bond,” which would debase the value of bonds in the eyes of world investors, Riedl said.

Although the United States has been able to skate by as a good investment up until now, Riedl says this is only because we are better off right now than most other economies:

“People are still willing to invest in United States, because, quite frankly, what other country are they going to invest in? There’s nobody in very good shape,” Riedl said.

But this will change, he said, if emerging economies, like China and Brazil, continue to improve and "provide safe and predictable returns for investors.”

If U.S. bonds falter, their interest rates will have to rise to compete with these other investments.

“And that’s when the real problems begin,” said Ried.

Tax Hikes And 2011 Economic Collapse

Arthur Laffer - People can change the volume, the location and the composition of their income, and they can do so in response to changes in government policies.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the nine states without an income tax are growing far faster and attracting more people than are the nine states with the highest income tax rates. People and businesses change the location of income based on incentives.

John Fund of WSJ's Political Diary breaks down Tuesday's most interesting primary contests. Also, WSJ Columnist Mary Anastasia O'Grady translates the latest economic signals from Washington.

Likewise, who is gobsmacked when they are told that the two wealthiest Americans—Bill Gates and Warren Buffett—hold the bulk of their wealth in the nontaxed form of unrealized capital gains? The composition of wealth also responds to incentives. And it's also simple enough for most people to understand that if the government taxes people who work and pays people not to work, fewer people will work. Incentives matter.

People can also change the timing of when they earn and receive their income in response to government policies. According to a 2004 U.S. Treasury report, "high income taxpayers accelerated the receipt of wages and year-end bonuses from 1993 to 1992—over $15 billion—in order to avoid the effects of the anticipated increase in the top rate from 31% to 39.6%. At the end of 1993, taxpayers shifted wages and bonuses yet again to avoid the increase in Medicare taxes that went into effect beginning 1994."

Just remember what happened to auto sales when the cash for clunkers program ended. Or how about new housing sales when the $8,000 tax credit ended? It isn't rocket surgery, as the Ivy League professor said.

On or about Jan. 1, 2011, federal, state and local tax rates are scheduled to rise quite sharply. President George W. Bush's tax cuts expire on that date, meaning that the highest federal personal income tax rate will go 39.6% from 35%, the highest federal dividend tax rate pops up to 39.6% from 15%, the capital gains tax rate to 20% from 15%, and the estate tax rate to 55% from zero. Lots and lots of other changes will also occur as a result of the sunset provision in the Bush tax cuts.

Tax rates have been and will be raised on income earned from off-shore investments. Payroll taxes are already scheduled to rise in 2013 and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) will be digging deeper and deeper into middle-income taxpayers. And there's always the celebrated tax increase on Cadillac health care plans. State and local tax rates are also going up in 2011 as they did in 2010. Tax rate increases next year are everywhere.
[laffer]

Now, if people know tax rates will be higher next year than they are this year, what will those people do this year? They will shift production and income out of next year into this year to the extent possible. As a result, income this year has already been inflated above where it otherwise should be and next year, 2011, income will be lower than it otherwise should be.

Also, the prospect of rising prices, higher interest rates and more regulations next year will further entice demand and supply to be shifted from 2011 into 2010. In my view, this shift of income and demand is a major reason that the economy in 2010 has appeared as strong as it has. When we pass the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 2011, my best guess is that the train goes off the tracks and we get our worst nightmare of a severe "double dip" recession.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan—with bipartisan support—began the first phase in a series of tax cuts passed under the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA), whereby the bulk of the tax cuts didn't take effect until Jan. 1, 1983. Reagan's delayed tax cuts were the mirror image of President Barack Obama's delayed tax rate increases. For 1981 and 1982 people deferred so much economic activity that real GDP was basically flat (i.e., no growth), and the unemployment rate rose to well over 10%.

But at the tax boundary of Jan. 1, 1983 the economy took off like a rocket, with average real growth reaching 7.5% in 1983 and 5.5% in 1984. It has always amazed me how tax cuts don't work until they take effect. Mr. Obama's experience with deferred tax rate increases will be the reverse. The economy will collapse in 2011.

Consider corporate profits as a share of GDP. Today, corporate profits as a share of GDP are way too high given the state of the U.S. economy. These high profits reflect the shift in income into 2010 from 2011. These profits will tumble in 2011, preceded most likely by the stock market.

In 2010, without any prepayment penalties, people can cash in their Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), Keough deferred income accounts and 401(k) deferred income accounts. After paying their taxes, these deferred income accounts can be rolled into Roth IRAs that provide after-tax income to their owners into the future. Given what's going to happen to tax rates, this conversion seems like a no-brainer.

The result will be a crash in tax receipts once the surge is past. If you thought deficits and unemployment have been bad lately, you ain't seen nothing yet.