Jeffery Folks - My childhood has long passed, but I still have a clear memory of one particular occasion when I found myself squared off against a grammar school bully -- a young misfit who roamed the playground just looking for trouble.
How the altercation began I don't recall, but it soon escalated into rounds of all-out name-calling.
My young adversary probably led off with a profound observation like, "You're a stupid idiot."
"You're not just stupid," I countered. "You're a fool."
"You're worse than a fool," he offered. "You're yellow."
"That's not as bad as being a rat!" I replied.
"Well, you're a liar," he asserted, adding a bit of questionable historical proof, "just like Benedict Arnold."
I was about to point out that Arnold, as we had been informed just that morning, was a traitor, not a liar. But I thought of something better, something that would put the argument to rest and leave my adversary reeling.
"Well, you're Hitler!" I pronounced.
It worked. My opponent was indeed speechless. Nothing could top that accusation. This, after all, was just a few years after the flesh-and-blood Hitler had dispatched hordes of goose-stepping storm troopers all over Europe while rounding up and liquidating millions of Jews, gypsies, and Slavs. So my comparison of this playground ne'er-do-well with the worst figure in human history was pretty stunning. The young villain stood silent for a few seconds, then stumbled away at a total loss for words. I was victorious on the field of battle that day. But was I fair?
For one thing, the analogy was hardly credible. It was not quite accurate to accuse my adversary of sending millions off to the concentration camps and causing a world war. Clearly, the 70-pound villain standing opposite me was not Hitler. No matter how badly he developed, he would never grow up to commit the sorts of crimes of which I was accusing him. In truth, he probably would grow up to be a kind-hearted, generous, decent member of society.
My retort was inaccurate, but it was worse. Even at that age, I realized it was something that should not have been said, and I don't recall ever saying it again.
For the rest of my life, though, I would hear it repeated by others. In fact, it became so familiar that one could expect any hard-pressed leftist to insinuate the Hitler line into his argument. The variations were endless, but they all involved the same basic analogy: anyone who is the least bit cautious or conservative is a fascist -- only leftists and anarchists are not.
I've always found the analogy distasteful, not just because it is unfair but because it diminishes the real evil of the past. Taunting Richard Nixon with cries of "fascist," as his U.S. Senate opponent Helen Douglas did in 1950, trivialized the horrific evil of actual fascism. The suggestion of a liberal blogger that the "road to fascism began with Ronald Reagan" was just as distasteful.
As socialistworker.org admits, the left routinely applies the term "fascist" to any Republican political leader. In Britain The Guardian, BBC, and other liberal media pounced on purported links between the Bush family and corporations that had dealings with Nazi Germany. The fact that Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was a "director and shareholder" with companies that had indirect financial dealings with Germany in the 1930s would hardly seem damning, however. Much the same could be said for many other affluent individuals in America or Britain at the time. Every American today with mutual fund holdings is invested, at least indirectly, in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Does that make them Marxist revolutionaries?
Talk of Hitler became a lot more common during the Bush years, when it was accepted wisdom on the left that George Bush was worse than Hitler. Then there was Nancy Pelosi, who spent weeks back in 2010 complaining of the Tea Party's so-called "swastika signs" -- signs that did not signal an alliance with fascism but opposition to it. Pelosi was hardly alone in accusing the Tea Party of fascism. Marc Rubin, writing for examiner.com, referred to Tea Party members as "text book fascists." He went on to pin the neo-fascist label on Tom Tancredo, presumably because of Tancredo's concerns over illegal immigration. If those concerns make Tancredo a fascist, they would make the majority of Americans who share those concerns fascists as well. But that's pretty much how the left sees America.
The immediate response of liberals such as Chris Matthews to the Ryan "Path to Prosperity" was to characterize it as a killer not just of babies and old people but of "half the people who watch this show." This attempt to portray the GOP plan as genocidal is just another example of the fascist rhetoric. It appears that Matthews is attempting to portray the Ryan plan as some sort of Final Solution.
It's not just loose cannons on MSNBC who resort to fascist innuendo. Obama's speechwriters are good at crafting sinister suggestions even without using the "F" word. Obama's budget speech of April 13 actually set the tone for the current debate. With Rep. Ryan sitting on the front row, Obama lectured his audience that the GOP plan would kick "someone's grandparents" out of nursing homes and cause children with autism and Down's syndrome to "fend for themselves." It is well known that Hitler sent legions of the disabled to concentration camps to be gassed, but the suggestion that a plan to actually save Medicare and Medicaid resembles the Holocaust, if that is what Obama intended, is repellent. It was one more proof, as if we needed any more, of a fatal weakness in the character of this President. He is a man whose entire existence is devoted to gutter politics. For such a man, statesmanship and dignified leadership are inconceivable.
The plan truth is that America can no longer afford this sort of reckless partisanship on the part of the chief executive. The fact that Obama disagrees with Rep. Ryan's budget plan does not justify accusations of killing sick children or tossing old folks out on the street. That kind of rhetoric may pass for wit in the sixth grade, but it is juvenile coming from the President.
When is the left going to grow up, stop tossing around irresponsible charges of fascism, and discuss issues in a mature way? Not, I suppose, until they can win the argument on the facts, and that will be a long, long time.
Showing posts with label Democracts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Democracts. Show all posts
Friday, April 22, 2011
Saturday, August 14, 2010
1-15 Children In U.S. Has Illegal Immigrant Parents
Howard Fischer - About one out of every 15 children in the United States was born to a family where at least one parent is in this country illegally, according to a new report today.
And four out of five of them are “anchor babies,” the Pew Hispanic Center concluded.
The figures, which the organization calculated based on 2009 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, are the best estimates to date of the scope of the issue which has resulted in calls to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to children solely by virtue of their birth within this country.
That percentage of children of illegal immigrant parents might be increasing.
The overall figure is about 6.8 percent of all children 17 and younger have at least one illegal immigrant parent.
But the center calculated that about 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were offspring of “unauthorized” immigrants. That computes out to 7.9 percent.
Researchers peg the number of illegal immigrants in the United States at something slightly in excess of 4 percent of the total population.
“But because they are relatively young and have high birth rates, their children make up a much larger share of the newborn population and the child population in this country,” the report says.
The 14th Amendment says that anyone born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of both this country and the state where they reside. Courts have interpreted that to entitle citizenship to those born in the United States regardless of whether one or both parents had no legal right to be here.
Some foes, including Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, argue those rulings are flawed.
He noted that the amendment makes its provisions conditional on the children being “subject to the jurisdiction” of this country. Pearce said courts, citing that language, concluded for years that did not entitle Native Americans to citizenship even though they were clearly born within the country’s borders.
It was only after Congress specifically altered the law regarding Indians that situation changed.
And four out of five of them are “anchor babies,” the Pew Hispanic Center concluded.
The figures, which the organization calculated based on 2009 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, are the best estimates to date of the scope of the issue which has resulted in calls to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny automatic citizenship to children solely by virtue of their birth within this country.
That percentage of children of illegal immigrant parents might be increasing.
The overall figure is about 6.8 percent of all children 17 and younger have at least one illegal immigrant parent.
But the center calculated that about 340,000 of the 4.3 million babies born in the United States in 2008 were offspring of “unauthorized” immigrants. That computes out to 7.9 percent.
Researchers peg the number of illegal immigrants in the United States at something slightly in excess of 4 percent of the total population.
“But because they are relatively young and have high birth rates, their children make up a much larger share of the newborn population and the child population in this country,” the report says.
The 14th Amendment says that anyone born or naturalized in the United States are citizens of both this country and the state where they reside. Courts have interpreted that to entitle citizenship to those born in the United States regardless of whether one or both parents had no legal right to be here.
Some foes, including Sen. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, argue those rulings are flawed.
He noted that the amendment makes its provisions conditional on the children being “subject to the jurisdiction” of this country. Pearce said courts, citing that language, concluded for years that did not entitle Native Americans to citizenship even though they were clearly born within the country’s borders.
It was only after Congress specifically altered the law regarding Indians that situation changed.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
U.S. Is Bankrupt And We Don't Even Know It
Laurence Kotlikoff - Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.
What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”
But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”
The fiscal gap is the value today (the present value) of the difference between projected spending (including servicing official debt) and projected revenue in all future years.
Double Our Taxes
To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.
Such a tax hike would leave the U.S. running a surplus equal to 5 percent of GDP this year, rather than a 9 percent deficit. So the IMF is really saying the U.S. needs to run a huge surplus now and for many years to come to pay for the spending that is scheduled. It’s also saying the longer the country waits to make tough fiscal adjustments, the more painful they will be.
Is the IMF bonkers?
No. It has done its homework. So has the Congressional Budget Office whose Long-Term Budget Outlook, released in June, shows an even larger problem.
‘Unofficial’ Liabilities
Based on the CBO’s data, I calculate a fiscal gap of $202 trillion, which is more than 15 times the official debt. This gargantuan discrepancy between our “official” debt and our actual net indebtedness isn’t surprising. It reflects what economists call the labeling problem. Congress has been very careful over the years to label most of its liabilities “unofficial” to keep them off the books and far in the future.
For example, our Social Security FICA contributions are called taxes and our future Social Security benefits are called transfer payments. The government could equally well have labeled our contributions “loans” and called our future benefits “repayment of these loans less an old age tax,” with the old age tax making up for any difference between the benefits promised and principal plus interest on the contributions.
The fiscal gap isn’t affected by fiscal labeling. It’s the only theoretically correct measure of our long-run fiscal condition because it considers all spending, no matter how labeled, and incorporates long-term and short-term policy.
$4 Trillion Bill
How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?
Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.
This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.
Laurence Kotlikoff - This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.
Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.
My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”
(Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund released its annual review of U.S. economic policy. Its summary contained these bland words about U.S. fiscal policy: “Directors welcomed the authorities’ commitment to fiscal stabilization, but noted that a larger than budgeted adjustment would be required to stabilize debt-to-GDP.”
But delve deeper, and you will find that the IMF has effectively pronounced the U.S. bankrupt. Section 6 of the July 2010 Selected Issues Paper says: “The U.S. fiscal gap associated with today’s federal fiscal policy is huge for plausible discount rates.” It adds that “closing the fiscal gap requires a permanent annual fiscal adjustment equal to about 14 percent of U.S. GDP.”
The fiscal gap is the value today (the present value) of the difference between projected spending (including servicing official debt) and projected revenue in all future years.
Double Our Taxes
To put 14 percent of gross domestic product in perspective, current federal revenue totals 14.9 percent of GDP. So the IMF is saying that closing the U.S. fiscal gap, from the revenue side, requires, roughly speaking, an immediate and permanent doubling of our personal-income, corporate and federal taxes as well as the payroll levy set down in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act.
Such a tax hike would leave the U.S. running a surplus equal to 5 percent of GDP this year, rather than a 9 percent deficit. So the IMF is really saying the U.S. needs to run a huge surplus now and for many years to come to pay for the spending that is scheduled. It’s also saying the longer the country waits to make tough fiscal adjustments, the more painful they will be.
Is the IMF bonkers?
No. It has done its homework. So has the Congressional Budget Office whose Long-Term Budget Outlook, released in June, shows an even larger problem.
‘Unofficial’ Liabilities
Based on the CBO’s data, I calculate a fiscal gap of $202 trillion, which is more than 15 times the official debt. This gargantuan discrepancy between our “official” debt and our actual net indebtedness isn’t surprising. It reflects what economists call the labeling problem. Congress has been very careful over the years to label most of its liabilities “unofficial” to keep them off the books and far in the future.
For example, our Social Security FICA contributions are called taxes and our future Social Security benefits are called transfer payments. The government could equally well have labeled our contributions “loans” and called our future benefits “repayment of these loans less an old age tax,” with the old age tax making up for any difference between the benefits promised and principal plus interest on the contributions.
The fiscal gap isn’t affected by fiscal labeling. It’s the only theoretically correct measure of our long-run fiscal condition because it considers all spending, no matter how labeled, and incorporates long-term and short-term policy.
$4 Trillion Bill
How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?
Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.
This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.
Laurence Kotlikoff - This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.
Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.
My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”
(Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Gallup Predicts A Republican Party Rout In The Midterms Based On Obama's Popularity Rating
Tyler Gurden - Gallup presents some troubling statistics for the democrats as we approach mid-term elections (a mere three months away). In a nutshell, the party of a president who has a sub-50% rating into midterms, has lost, on average, 36 seats since 1946. Alternatively, presidents with a popularity rating over 50%, lose just 14. As Gallup says: “The clear implication is that the Democrats are vulnerable to losing a significant number of House seats this fall with Barack Obama’s approval rating averaging 45% during the last two full weeks of Gallup Daily tracking. The Republicans would need to gain 40 House seats to retake majority control.”
Of course, the administration (and its dwindling members) is well-aware of this fact, which is why the next three months will likely see a record amount of pandering, populism and outright manipulation of everything that can be manipulated: that includes mortgages rates, and of course, stocks. Which leads us to observe the calendar of FOMC meetings until November: there are two - tomorrow and September 21. However, for a Fed loosening decision to have a material impact, the September meeting is likely cutting it too close to the election date, as the market will likely not have enough time to digest a favorable outcome, or in turn will be into its reactionary phase by the time November rolls around. Furthermore, the traditionally busy post-Labor day docket will likely mean events on the economic front already have to be in motion by then. Lastly, the fact that the Fed will have just a bare minimum quorum of just four directors through September 10 (at a minimum), means that any decision in the 11 days between then and the 21st will likely be far more problematic than one which has to be taken tomorrow. Which is why from a purely political calendar point of view, tomorrow’s Fed meeting is likely seen by the administration as a make or break. The tenuous 40 seat lead which will likely disappear should the current economic trajectory not change, is certainly on the radar for both Obama, and the very independent Federal Reserve.
More observations from Gallup:
On a historical basis, the Democrats under Jimmy Carter suffered the slimmest seat loss of a party whose president was below 50% approval, losing 11 seats in the 1978 midterms. More recently, Bill Clinton in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2006 saw their parties lose enough seats in the House to turn party control over to the opposition party when they had less than majority approval.
The president’s party nearly always loses seats in midterm elections, regardless of how well the president is rated by the public. Since World War II, only Clinton in 1998 and Bush in 2002 saw their parties gain seats in a midterm. Both men had approval ratings above 60% at the time of those elections. However, the parties of the other three presidents with ratings above 60% (Eisenhower in 1954, Kennedy in 1962, and Reagan in 1986) lost seats.
In general, though, the more popular a president is, the fewer seats his party loses, as presidents with approval ratings above 60% have averaged just a three-seat loss.
Of course, the administration (and its dwindling members) is well-aware of this fact, which is why the next three months will likely see a record amount of pandering, populism and outright manipulation of everything that can be manipulated: that includes mortgages rates, and of course, stocks. Which leads us to observe the calendar of FOMC meetings until November: there are two - tomorrow and September 21. However, for a Fed loosening decision to have a material impact, the September meeting is likely cutting it too close to the election date, as the market will likely not have enough time to digest a favorable outcome, or in turn will be into its reactionary phase by the time November rolls around. Furthermore, the traditionally busy post-Labor day docket will likely mean events on the economic front already have to be in motion by then. Lastly, the fact that the Fed will have just a bare minimum quorum of just four directors through September 10 (at a minimum), means that any decision in the 11 days between then and the 21st will likely be far more problematic than one which has to be taken tomorrow. Which is why from a purely political calendar point of view, tomorrow’s Fed meeting is likely seen by the administration as a make or break. The tenuous 40 seat lead which will likely disappear should the current economic trajectory not change, is certainly on the radar for both Obama, and the very independent Federal Reserve.
More observations from Gallup:
On a historical basis, the Democrats under Jimmy Carter suffered the slimmest seat loss of a party whose president was below 50% approval, losing 11 seats in the 1978 midterms. More recently, Bill Clinton in 1994 and George W. Bush in 2006 saw their parties lose enough seats in the House to turn party control over to the opposition party when they had less than majority approval.
The president’s party nearly always loses seats in midterm elections, regardless of how well the president is rated by the public. Since World War II, only Clinton in 1998 and Bush in 2002 saw their parties gain seats in a midterm. Both men had approval ratings above 60% at the time of those elections. However, the parties of the other three presidents with ratings above 60% (Eisenhower in 1954, Kennedy in 1962, and Reagan in 1986) lost seats.
In general, though, the more popular a president is, the fewer seats his party loses, as presidents with approval ratings above 60% have averaged just a three-seat loss.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Oakland Left-Wing Mayor Ron Dellums Owes $239,000 In Back Taxes
Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums owes $239,000 in back taxes, according to press reports. He follows in the footsteps of other local mayors, who variously killed a guy with a car; were convicted of theft; and boned an aide's wife.
The Dellums situation, in which he has acknowledged underpaying at least some taxes, is especially sad. While Dellums has been, on balance, tragically ineffective as mayor of Oakland, he had a distinguished, 28-year career in Congress that included passing anti-apartheid legislation over Ronald Reagan's veto. Now he's part of the "disgusting" backdrop of local deviance and depravity that techies love to hate, until the day they (read: some!) up and leave.
The Dellums situation, in which he has acknowledged underpaying at least some taxes, is especially sad. While Dellums has been, on balance, tragically ineffective as mayor of Oakland, he had a distinguished, 28-year career in Congress that included passing anti-apartheid legislation over Ronald Reagan's veto. Now he's part of the "disgusting" backdrop of local deviance and depravity that techies love to hate, until the day they (read: some!) up and leave.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
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.
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.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Bloggers Beware - Thery Are Coming After You Next
Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) - Just when you thought it was safe to start expressing your right to free speech, Democrats in Congress are gearing up for a vote on a new piece of legislation to blatantly undermine the First Amendment. Known as the DISCLOSE Act (HR 5175), this bill – written by the head of the Democrats’ congressional campaign committee – is their response to the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In short, the Supreme Court found that the government could not restrict the free speech rights of individuals or other entities wishing to participate in the political dialogue.
It is hard to see how establishing a level playing field for free speech – as our Founding Fathers did by making it a right under the Constitution and which the Supreme Court upheld – is a threat to our democracy. Nevertheless, the White House and their allies on Capitol Hill see honest criticism as a threat to forcing their big government, liberal agenda through Congress. So, there is no time like the present – namely five months before an election – to start putting the muzzle on those individuals and organizations not sticking to the Democrats’ talking points.
Under the DISCLOSE Act, certain incorporated entities would be restricted in how they can exercise their free speech rights. There is an exemption for some in the media sphere like newspapers, TV news, and the like. However, there is one driving force in today’s public debate that is NOT exempt. Bloggers will not have the same exemption provided to other media sources. Never mind that the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Citizens United case stated, “Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment.”
For many bloggers to exercise their free speech rights, they would have to jump through the same onerous new hoops as many businesses, nonprofit groups, and even such threats to democracy as your local chamber of commerce. If this sounds like an absurd overreach by one party in power, I invite you to take a look at their government takeover of health care, taxpayer-funded bailouts, and general hostility to private sector economic growth.
The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats have not racked up a stellar record of transparency and openness. For a White House that touted its willingness to engage critics openly in hopes of staving off greater partisan rancor, Obama’s team has endorsed backroom deal-making, special giveaways to garner support for their agenda, and a closed-door decision-making process that has the American people more fed up with Washington. Now, under their brand of leadership, they stand ready to stifle free speech via legislative fiat.
Democrats should not be allowed to give themselves carte blanche to shut down the ability of those in the blogosphere or elsewhere to participate in our nation’s collective dialogue. That flies in the face of our most sacred rights as American citizens.
It is hard to see how establishing a level playing field for free speech – as our Founding Fathers did by making it a right under the Constitution and which the Supreme Court upheld – is a threat to our democracy. Nevertheless, the White House and their allies on Capitol Hill see honest criticism as a threat to forcing their big government, liberal agenda through Congress. So, there is no time like the present – namely five months before an election – to start putting the muzzle on those individuals and organizations not sticking to the Democrats’ talking points.
Under the DISCLOSE Act, certain incorporated entities would be restricted in how they can exercise their free speech rights. There is an exemption for some in the media sphere like newspapers, TV news, and the like. However, there is one driving force in today’s public debate that is NOT exempt. Bloggers will not have the same exemption provided to other media sources. Never mind that the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Citizens United case stated, “Differential treatment of media corporations and other corporations cannot be squared with the First Amendment.”
For many bloggers to exercise their free speech rights, they would have to jump through the same onerous new hoops as many businesses, nonprofit groups, and even such threats to democracy as your local chamber of commerce. If this sounds like an absurd overreach by one party in power, I invite you to take a look at their government takeover of health care, taxpayer-funded bailouts, and general hostility to private sector economic growth.
The Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats have not racked up a stellar record of transparency and openness. For a White House that touted its willingness to engage critics openly in hopes of staving off greater partisan rancor, Obama’s team has endorsed backroom deal-making, special giveaways to garner support for their agenda, and a closed-door decision-making process that has the American people more fed up with Washington. Now, under their brand of leadership, they stand ready to stifle free speech via legislative fiat.
Democrats should not be allowed to give themselves carte blanche to shut down the ability of those in the blogosphere or elsewhere to participate in our nation’s collective dialogue. That flies in the face of our most sacred rights as American citizens.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Don't Cross My Border " Countries Around The World Illegal Immgration Laws"
In Paul Joseph Watson’s article, Corporate Media Plays Down Pro-Illegal Immigration Thugs Who Terrorized Santa Cruz, posted a comment pointed out the insanity of illegal immigration as it relates to the policies of other countries:
If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years hard labor.
If you cross the Iranian border illegally, you are detained indefinitely.
If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.
If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally, you will be jailed.
If you cross the Chinese border illegally, you may never be heard from again.
If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally, you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed.
If you cross the Mexican border illegally, you will be thrown into a political prison to rot.
If you cross the U.S. border illegally, you get:
1. and the right to carry your country’s flag while you protest that you don’t get enough respect.
2. A job,
3. a drivers license,
4. a social security card,
5. welfare,
6. food stamps,
7. credit cards,
8. subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house,
9. free education,
10. free health care,
11. a lobbyist in Washington,
12. billions of dollars worth of public documents printed in your language,
Of course, North Korea, China, and the others are dictatorships, but the fact remains that our immigration policy is destructive. It encourages illegal immigration and the bankruptcy of the states. It creates social and racial tensions.
Once upon a time, legal immigrants flocked to America to escape authoritarian government and persecution. The huddled masses cited on the Statue of Liberty were in search of liberty, independence, and prosperity.
Most illegal immigrants are not in search of liberty. They are looking for economic opportunity and in many instances the social freebies handed out by the state at the expense of the producers. Mexico is a third world cesspool lorded over by a small financial and hereditary elite that has held the people of Mexico in poverty and slavery for hundreds of years. It is human nature to escape this sort of brutality.
However, no nation can survive with an unchecked and unrestrained tidal wave of poverty-stricken foreigners flowing over its borders.
Once upon a time, immigration policies ensured that immigrants arriving on our shores were not only free of disease, but had marketable skills and would not impose an economic burden on the country. Immigrants were expected to accept American culture and speak the language.
Now the exact opposite is the case.
“An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide,” wrote the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee. America — through its immigration and economic policies — is well on its way to committing suicide.
This is no mistake. It was planned that way.
In order to destroy the United States and establish world government, the elite plan to not only take America to her knees economically, but splinter the nation into a half dozen or more antagonistic pieces (a process known as Balkanization). The British did this as they set about conquering the world (as a glance at a map of the Middle East reveals). It is also called divide and conqueor
“The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy,” writes historical scholar Seymour Lipset.
Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon have all faced crises of national existence as minorities have pushed for autonomy and independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. France confronts recurring problems with Basques, Bretons, Corsicans, and most recently a growing Muslim minority that has resulted in violence.
Globalism is the religion of the New World order. In order for it to work, borders and nation sovereignty must be eradicated. “Globalization is defined by cross-border connectivity, including porous borders, which serve to expedite flows of goods while at the same time increase the level of immigration – both legal and illegal,” explains Paul A. Harris, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, International Studies and Philosophy at Augusta State University.
Former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm explains how the process of destroying America works. “Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country,” he says. “History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.”
The most effective weapon in this process of destruction, Lamm explains, is multiculturalism — the demand that all arriving people retain their culture at the expense of the prevailing culture. “Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together,” writes Benjamin Schwarz.
“In modern times multiculturalism is instituted from the top down as an elitist ruling class tool used to play one or more racial or ethnic groups against another,” writes Louis Beam. “The ensuing cultural melee serves the political designs, economic goals and power needs of elitist rulers and their sponsors. This technique was developed by Marxist ideologues who used multiculturalism in Russia to divide and conquer resistance to the institution of a communist state…. The same internationalist cabals who sponsored Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin as the multicultural leaders of the Soviet state from their banking houses in New York, similarly sponsor the multicultural leaders of the United States, Canada, and Europe today.”
Beam explains how an interlocking network of foundations such as Ford and Carnegie, international banking empires such as Rockefeller and Rothschild, and government agencies firmly in their control work in tandem with corporate media outlets such as the New York Times, CBS, and Hollywood, to promote, foster, and institute multiculturalism.
La Raza — Spanish for “The Race” — an organization at the forefront of the effort to flood America with illegal immigrants and institute “amnesty,” is a creature of the Ford Foundation. La Raza is lavishly funded by the bankers at Citigroup and multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart. To date, the Ford Foundation has showered $12.9 million on the National Council of La Raza.
It is not coincidental the immigration issue has reached a breaking point at the same time as much of the world is wracked by economic crisis. In response to this manufactured crisis, the elite through their appointed minions have called for “global governance” (world government) and a “unified global approach” to economic and social issues. Immigration is part of the effort to merge nations into a union designed by the bankers.
In the streets of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere, thousands of pro-illegal immigration demonstrators last weekend called for “amnesty” and demanded the tidal wave of illegal immigrants continue it destructive course. Arizona’s attempt to control its border — in lieu of the federal government refusing to do so — is the lightning rod that has catapulted to the point of violence (that remains largely unreported by the globalist controlled corporate media).
This is the beginning of national suicide, as Toynbee has suggested. It will eventually result in the dissolution of the United States if not addressed in the near future.
If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years hard labor.
If you cross the Iranian border illegally, you are detained indefinitely.
If you cross the Afghan border illegally, you get shot.
If you cross the Saudi Arabian border illegally, you will be jailed.
If you cross the Chinese border illegally, you may never be heard from again.
If you cross the Venezuelan border illegally, you will be branded a spy and your fate will be sealed.
If you cross the Mexican border illegally, you will be thrown into a political prison to rot.
If you cross the U.S. border illegally, you get:
1. and the right to carry your country’s flag while you protest that you don’t get enough respect.
2. A job,
3. a drivers license,
4. a social security card,
5. welfare,
6. food stamps,
7. credit cards,
8. subsidized rent or a loan to buy a house,
9. free education,
10. free health care,
11. a lobbyist in Washington,
12. billions of dollars worth of public documents printed in your language,
Of course, North Korea, China, and the others are dictatorships, but the fact remains that our immigration policy is destructive. It encourages illegal immigration and the bankruptcy of the states. It creates social and racial tensions.
Once upon a time, legal immigrants flocked to America to escape authoritarian government and persecution. The huddled masses cited on the Statue of Liberty were in search of liberty, independence, and prosperity.
Most illegal immigrants are not in search of liberty. They are looking for economic opportunity and in many instances the social freebies handed out by the state at the expense of the producers. Mexico is a third world cesspool lorded over by a small financial and hereditary elite that has held the people of Mexico in poverty and slavery for hundreds of years. It is human nature to escape this sort of brutality.
However, no nation can survive with an unchecked and unrestrained tidal wave of poverty-stricken foreigners flowing over its borders.
Once upon a time, immigration policies ensured that immigrants arriving on our shores were not only free of disease, but had marketable skills and would not impose an economic burden on the country. Immigrants were expected to accept American culture and speak the language.
Now the exact opposite is the case.
“An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide,” wrote the famed British historian Arnold Toynbee. America — through its immigration and economic policies — is well on its way to committing suicide.
This is no mistake. It was planned that way.
In order to destroy the United States and establish world government, the elite plan to not only take America to her knees economically, but splinter the nation into a half dozen or more antagonistic pieces (a process known as Balkanization). The British did this as they set about conquering the world (as a glance at a map of the Middle East reveals). It is also called divide and conqueor
“The histories of bilingual and bi-cultural societies that do not assimilate are histories of turmoil, tension, and tragedy,” writes historical scholar Seymour Lipset.
Canada, Belgium, Malaysia, Lebanon have all faced crises of national existence as minorities have pushed for autonomy and independence. Pakistan and Cyprus have divided. France confronts recurring problems with Basques, Bretons, Corsicans, and most recently a growing Muslim minority that has resulted in violence.
Globalism is the religion of the New World order. In order for it to work, borders and nation sovereignty must be eradicated. “Globalization is defined by cross-border connectivity, including porous borders, which serve to expedite flows of goods while at the same time increase the level of immigration – both legal and illegal,” explains Paul A. Harris, Assistant Professor of Public Administration, International Studies and Philosophy at Augusta State University.
Former Colorado Governor Richard D. Lamm explains how the process of destroying America works. “Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country,” he says. “History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.”
The most effective weapon in this process of destruction, Lamm explains, is multiculturalism — the demand that all arriving people retain their culture at the expense of the prevailing culture. “Without the dominance that once dictated ethnocentrically and what it meant to be an American, we are left with only tolerance and pluralism to hold us together,” writes Benjamin Schwarz.
“In modern times multiculturalism is instituted from the top down as an elitist ruling class tool used to play one or more racial or ethnic groups against another,” writes Louis Beam. “The ensuing cultural melee serves the political designs, economic goals and power needs of elitist rulers and their sponsors. This technique was developed by Marxist ideologues who used multiculturalism in Russia to divide and conquer resistance to the institution of a communist state…. The same internationalist cabals who sponsored Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin as the multicultural leaders of the Soviet state from their banking houses in New York, similarly sponsor the multicultural leaders of the United States, Canada, and Europe today.”
Beam explains how an interlocking network of foundations such as Ford and Carnegie, international banking empires such as Rockefeller and Rothschild, and government agencies firmly in their control work in tandem with corporate media outlets such as the New York Times, CBS, and Hollywood, to promote, foster, and institute multiculturalism.
La Raza — Spanish for “The Race” — an organization at the forefront of the effort to flood America with illegal immigrants and institute “amnesty,” is a creature of the Ford Foundation. La Raza is lavishly funded by the bankers at Citigroup and multinational corporations such as Wal-Mart. To date, the Ford Foundation has showered $12.9 million on the National Council of La Raza.
It is not coincidental the immigration issue has reached a breaking point at the same time as much of the world is wracked by economic crisis. In response to this manufactured crisis, the elite through their appointed minions have called for “global governance” (world government) and a “unified global approach” to economic and social issues. Immigration is part of the effort to merge nations into a union designed by the bankers.
In the streets of Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere, thousands of pro-illegal immigration demonstrators last weekend called for “amnesty” and demanded the tidal wave of illegal immigrants continue it destructive course. Arizona’s attempt to control its border — in lieu of the federal government refusing to do so — is the lightning rod that has catapulted to the point of violence (that remains largely unreported by the globalist controlled corporate media).
This is the beginning of national suicide, as Toynbee has suggested. It will eventually result in the dissolution of the United States if not addressed in the near future.
Monday, May 3, 2010
Dems Anger Americans With Call For National ID Card
A plan by Senate Democratic leaders to reform the nation’s immigration laws ran into strong opposition from civil liberties defenders before lawmakers even unveiled it Thursday.
Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.
The proposal is one of the biggest differences between the newest immigration reform proposal and legislation crafted by late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.
It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.
“The cardholder’s identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer,” states the Democratic legislative proposal.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan.
“Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy — one that combines the worst elements of the DMV and the TSA,” said Christopher Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel.
“America’s broken immigration system needs real, workable reform, but it cannot come at the expense of privacy and individual freedoms,” Calabrese added.
The ACLU said “if the biometric national ID card provision of the draft bill becomes law, every worker in America would have to be fingerprinted.”
A source at one pro-immigration reform group described the proposal as “Orwellian.”
But Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), who has worked on the proposal and helped unveil it at a press conference Thursday, predicted the public has become more comfortable with the idea of a national identification card.
“The biometric identification card is a critical element here,” Durbin said. “For a long time it was resisted by many groups, but now we live in a world where we take off our shoes at the airport and pull out our identification.
“People understand that in this vulnerable world, we have to be able to present identification,” Durbin added. “We want it to be reliable, and I think that’s going to help us in this debate on immigration.”
Implementing a nationwide identification program for every worker will be a difficult task.
The Social Security Administration has estimated that 3.6 million Americans would have to visit SSA field offices to correct mistakes in records or else risk losing their jobs.
Angela Kelley, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said the biometric identification provision “will give some people pause.”
But she applauded Democrats for not shying away from the toughest issues in the immigration reform debate.
“What I like about the outline is that Democrats are not trying to hide the ball or soft-pedal the tough decisions,” Kelley said. “It seems a very sincere effort to get the conversation started. This is a serious effort to get Republicans to the table.”
Reform Immigration for America, a pro-immigrant group, praised Democrats for getting the discussion started but said the framework fell short.
“The proposal revealed today [Thursday] is in part the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiations and represents a possible path forward on immigration reform,” the group said in a statement. “This framework is not there yet.”
Democrats and pro-immigration groups will now begin to put pressure on Republicans to participate in serious talks to address the issue. The bipartisan effort in the Senate suffered a serious setback when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pulled back from talks with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“We call on Republican Senators to review this framework and sit down at the negotiating table in good faith,” Reform Immigration for America said in a statement. “This is a national problem that requires a federal solution and the input of leaders in both parties.”
Durbin said Democratic leaders are trying to recruit other Republican partners.
“We’re making a commitment to establishing a framework to work toward comprehensive immigration reform, and I think it’s a good framework and now we’re engaging our friends on the other side of the aisle to join us in this conversation,” Durbin said.
Democratic leaders have proposed requiring every worker in the nation to carry a national identification card with biometric information, such as a fingerprint, within the next six years, according to a draft of the measure.
The proposal is one of the biggest differences between the newest immigration reform proposal and legislation crafted by late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
The national ID program would be titled the Believe System, an acronym for Biometric Enrollment, Locally stored Information and Electronic Verification of Employment.
It would require all workers across the nation to carry a card with a digital encryption key that would have to match work authorization databases.
“The cardholder’s identity will be verified by matching the biometric identifier stored within the microprocessing chip on the card to the identifier provided by the cardholder that shall be read by the scanner used by the employer,” states the Democratic legislative proposal.
The American Civil Liberties Union, a civil liberties defender often aligned with the Democratic Party, wasted no time in blasting the plan.
“Creating a biometric national ID will not only be astronomically expensive, it will usher government into the very center of our lives. Every worker in America will need a government permission slip in order to work. And all of this will come with a new federal bureaucracy — one that combines the worst elements of the DMV and the TSA,” said Christopher Calabrese, ACLU legislative counsel.
“America’s broken immigration system needs real, workable reform, but it cannot come at the expense of privacy and individual freedoms,” Calabrese added.
The ACLU said “if the biometric national ID card provision of the draft bill becomes law, every worker in America would have to be fingerprinted.”
A source at one pro-immigration reform group described the proposal as “Orwellian.”
But Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.), who has worked on the proposal and helped unveil it at a press conference Thursday, predicted the public has become more comfortable with the idea of a national identification card.
“The biometric identification card is a critical element here,” Durbin said. “For a long time it was resisted by many groups, but now we live in a world where we take off our shoes at the airport and pull out our identification.
“People understand that in this vulnerable world, we have to be able to present identification,” Durbin added. “We want it to be reliable, and I think that’s going to help us in this debate on immigration.”
Implementing a nationwide identification program for every worker will be a difficult task.
The Social Security Administration has estimated that 3.6 million Americans would have to visit SSA field offices to correct mistakes in records or else risk losing their jobs.
Angela Kelley, vice president of immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said the biometric identification provision “will give some people pause.”
But she applauded Democrats for not shying away from the toughest issues in the immigration reform debate.
“What I like about the outline is that Democrats are not trying to hide the ball or soft-pedal the tough decisions,” Kelley said. “It seems a very sincere effort to get the conversation started. This is a serious effort to get Republicans to the table.”
Reform Immigration for America, a pro-immigrant group, praised Democrats for getting the discussion started but said the framework fell short.
“The proposal revealed today [Thursday] is in part the result of more than a year of bipartisan negotiations and represents a possible path forward on immigration reform,” the group said in a statement. “This framework is not there yet.”
Democrats and pro-immigration groups will now begin to put pressure on Republicans to participate in serious talks to address the issue. The bipartisan effort in the Senate suffered a serious setback when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pulled back from talks with Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).
“We call on Republican Senators to review this framework and sit down at the negotiating table in good faith,” Reform Immigration for America said in a statement. “This is a national problem that requires a federal solution and the input of leaders in both parties.”
Durbin said Democratic leaders are trying to recruit other Republican partners.
“We’re making a commitment to establishing a framework to work toward comprehensive immigration reform, and I think it’s a good framework and now we’re engaging our friends on the other side of the aisle to join us in this conversation,” Durbin said.
Monday, April 19, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
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."
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."
Monday, April 5, 2010
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?
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?
Friday, April 2, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Obamacare Not Such A Good Deal For Children
Prior to the passage of the “historic” Obamacare bill, Democrats went hither and yon in their effort to sell the insurance corporation crafted plan like snake oil. They said it was for the little people and if you opposed it you were a racist or some kind of rightwing extremist.
Now with the ink barely dry on the bill, the truth is beginning to come out.
“Insurance companies wasted no time after the bill was passed to unearth a loophole that allowed them to deny coverage to children with pre-existing illnesses for the next four years,” writes Sahil Kapur for Raw Story.
Unearthed? They knew it was in the bill all along because they wrote it.
“If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost,” said William G. Schiffbauer, an attorney who represents insurance companies.
Rest assured. Obama and crew “are working to bridge the gap.” Maybe they would have bridged it if they had read the bill. Nancy Pelosi said they’d have to wait for it to pass before they could read it, though.
Next up, young adults. “Health insurance premiums for young adults are expected to rise about 17 percent once they’re required to buy insurance four years from now,” according an analysis produced by Rand Health.
Not that they can do anything about it. Obamacare is mandatory. If they don’t like it, men in black ski masks will drop by.
No doubt other news about goodies for insurance corporations will emerge soon enough.
Now with the ink barely dry on the bill, the truth is beginning to come out.
“Insurance companies wasted no time after the bill was passed to unearth a loophole that allowed them to deny coverage to children with pre-existing illnesses for the next four years,” writes Sahil Kapur for Raw Story.
Unearthed? They knew it was in the bill all along because they wrote it.
“If a company sells insurance, it will have to cover pre-existing conditions for children covered by the policy. But it does not have to sell to somebody with a pre-existing condition. And the insurer could increase premiums to cover the additional cost,” said William G. Schiffbauer, an attorney who represents insurance companies.
Rest assured. Obama and crew “are working to bridge the gap.” Maybe they would have bridged it if they had read the bill. Nancy Pelosi said they’d have to wait for it to pass before they could read it, though.
Next up, young adults. “Health insurance premiums for young adults are expected to rise about 17 percent once they’re required to buy insurance four years from now,” according an analysis produced by Rand Health.
Not that they can do anything about it. Obamacare is mandatory. If they don’t like it, men in black ski masks will drop by.
No doubt other news about goodies for insurance corporations will emerge soon enough.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
DHS Claims Again Right-Wing Extremism Is On The Rise
Several months ago, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a simliar report targeting conservatives and ideals as “Right-wing Extremism”. After intense public scrutiny and a strong back-lash from Congressional conservatives, the report was retracted.
Now, with all the Tea-Party demonization efforts and hub-bub, DHS comes out with a rather timely report to further paint the Tea-Party movement into some “radical and/or racist” organization that is more or less violent. Logic would tell you this isn’t the case, as we’ve seen, the Tea-Party movement is a mix of all races and political backgrounds including Dems, Repubs, Libertarians, Independents etc. etc.. The groups have protested peacefully since its’ creation over a year ago. Other attempts to counter this group have also been tried (as with the Coffee Party).
The new report is 10 pages, and as you may have suspected, it starts with the “White Supremacist” and “anti-government” rhetoric claiming they have plans to carry out “violent acts” because of the current economic conditions causing foreclosures, unemployment etc. Like the old “lost teenager” synopsis for joining gangs, the DHS report mimics this saying the conditions are ripe for “recruitment”.
On page 1, we get a summary of what these groups are about and that “right-wing extremists” are “capitalizing on the first African-American President” as a means for recruitment (though Obama is only 50% Black – go figure)…
— Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups
during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry
out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic
downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability
to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing
extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and
government authorities similar to those in the past.
— Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first
African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new
members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal
through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.
It goes on to say what we’re seeing now is similar to the 1990’s etc. (In case you didn’t know, Bill Clinton was really the first Black President). This report, though, has a new twist about Veterans returning home. Instead of saying this time (as the last report) that they were mentally unstable and likely to form “anti-government” groups, this report claims that they are targets for recruitment by “right-wing Extremists” because of their military skills.
Yet, The Serve America Act (still in legislation), which aims to have 250,000 AmeriCorps members by the year 2017, also states that Veterans with these skills are ideal for recruitment into national service under this Act (page 234):
recruiting veterans, particularly returning veterans, into service opportunities, including opportunities that utilize their military experience;
So, the DHS reports echos exactly what is in the Serve America Act, but instead of serving the government, they would be serving “right-wing” extremists. So i guess both the DNC (sponsoring this bill) and “right-wing extremists” want these guys for their skills according to the Serve America Act and the DHS report. Go figure!
The rest of the DHS report goes on to explain these “conditions” causing an increase in hostility towards the govenment etc. There is a small section on “Disgruntled Veterans” too (now looking further down in the report).
The first report of this nature put intense pressure on Janet Napolitano for releasing it. Will she get the same scrutiny for this report?
Now, with all the Tea-Party demonization efforts and hub-bub, DHS comes out with a rather timely report to further paint the Tea-Party movement into some “radical and/or racist” organization that is more or less violent. Logic would tell you this isn’t the case, as we’ve seen, the Tea-Party movement is a mix of all races and political backgrounds including Dems, Repubs, Libertarians, Independents etc. etc.. The groups have protested peacefully since its’ creation over a year ago. Other attempts to counter this group have also been tried (as with the Coffee Party).
The new report is 10 pages, and as you may have suspected, it starts with the “White Supremacist” and “anti-government” rhetoric claiming they have plans to carry out “violent acts” because of the current economic conditions causing foreclosures, unemployment etc. Like the old “lost teenager” synopsis for joining gangs, the DHS report mimics this saying the conditions are ripe for “recruitment”.
On page 1, we get a summary of what these groups are about and that “right-wing extremists” are “capitalizing on the first African-American President” as a means for recruitment (though Obama is only 50% Black – go figure)…
— Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups
during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry
out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic
downturn—including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability
to obtain credit—could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing
extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and
government authorities similar to those in the past.
— Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first
African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new
members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal
through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.
It goes on to say what we’re seeing now is similar to the 1990’s etc. (In case you didn’t know, Bill Clinton was really the first Black President). This report, though, has a new twist about Veterans returning home. Instead of saying this time (as the last report) that they were mentally unstable and likely to form “anti-government” groups, this report claims that they are targets for recruitment by “right-wing Extremists” because of their military skills.
Yet, The Serve America Act (still in legislation), which aims to have 250,000 AmeriCorps members by the year 2017, also states that Veterans with these skills are ideal for recruitment into national service under this Act (page 234):
recruiting veterans, particularly returning veterans, into service opportunities, including opportunities that utilize their military experience;
So, the DHS reports echos exactly what is in the Serve America Act, but instead of serving the government, they would be serving “right-wing” extremists. So i guess both the DNC (sponsoring this bill) and “right-wing extremists” want these guys for their skills according to the Serve America Act and the DHS report. Go figure!
The rest of the DHS report goes on to explain these “conditions” causing an increase in hostility towards the govenment etc. There is a small section on “Disgruntled Veterans” too (now looking further down in the report).
The first report of this nature put intense pressure on Janet Napolitano for releasing it. Will she get the same scrutiny for this report?
Saturday, March 27, 2010
MSNBC's ED Schultz Demands The Fairness Doctrine
Ed Schultz, one of the more bombastic “liberals” at MSNBC, has called for “rightwing” talk radio to be shut down.
Schultz is outraged that Rush Limbaugh has called for opposition to Obama and the Democrat theft of one sixth of the economy. Ed thinks it would be ducks if the IRS and government thugs toting brand spanking new sniper rifles rounded people up for their refusal to follow Obama’s mandate that everybody in the country must give their hard-earned money to insurance companies.
Because Rush and the Republicans have not paid fealty to Lord Obama and the corporate whore Democrats who have trashed the Constitution, Ed wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. He would like to see Rush Limbaugh forced off the air. Ed dreams of his paltry radio show replacing Rush’s on the airwaves.
Ed reveals what a reprehensible collectivist he is. He is outraged that the Republicans stand in opposition to the monstrosity that is Obamacare. Like a garden variety Stalinist, Schultz believes it is treason to oppose the dictates of the communist party, actually the bankster party. Everybody must support the Leader or face persecution by the state.
Such attitudes ultimately result in almost unimaginable mass murder. Mao killed 40 million, Hitler 30 million, and Stalin around 20 million. Some historians put these numbers even higher. Mao and Stalin killed most their victims because they dared resist the state. Hitler did too, but a lot of his victims were attributed to racist beliefs inspired by eugenicists like Rockefeller.
Hitler, Mao, and Stalin — these were collectivists who believed in the primacy of the state over the individual. Ed Schultz also believes in the primacy of the state and wants to shut down anybody who opposes its criminal mandates. Such mentality eventually terminates in killing fields.
Ed says there is a culture war going on in America. Mao had his own cultural war. He called it the Cultural Revolution. It began when Mao and his lackey Jiang Qing went after the intellectuals. Mao sent his Red Guards around China to intimidate, imprison, beat, and kill those who did not live up to his communist utopian vision. A campaign of fingering traitors swept the country. Between 30 and 70 million people were killed.
If you think Ed is merely a blowhard, think again. As I write this, the Democrats — in league with America’s political police, the FBI and Homeland Security — are preparing to move against the Tea Party movement and all patriots who cherish the Constitution.
Ed Schultz and his fellow apparatchiks in the corporate media are sharpening their knives.
Schultz is outraged that Rush Limbaugh has called for opposition to Obama and the Democrat theft of one sixth of the economy. Ed thinks it would be ducks if the IRS and government thugs toting brand spanking new sniper rifles rounded people up for their refusal to follow Obama’s mandate that everybody in the country must give their hard-earned money to insurance companies.
Because Rush and the Republicans have not paid fealty to Lord Obama and the corporate whore Democrats who have trashed the Constitution, Ed wants to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. He would like to see Rush Limbaugh forced off the air. Ed dreams of his paltry radio show replacing Rush’s on the airwaves.
Ed reveals what a reprehensible collectivist he is. He is outraged that the Republicans stand in opposition to the monstrosity that is Obamacare. Like a garden variety Stalinist, Schultz believes it is treason to oppose the dictates of the communist party, actually the bankster party. Everybody must support the Leader or face persecution by the state.
Such attitudes ultimately result in almost unimaginable mass murder. Mao killed 40 million, Hitler 30 million, and Stalin around 20 million. Some historians put these numbers even higher. Mao and Stalin killed most their victims because they dared resist the state. Hitler did too, but a lot of his victims were attributed to racist beliefs inspired by eugenicists like Rockefeller.
Hitler, Mao, and Stalin — these were collectivists who believed in the primacy of the state over the individual. Ed Schultz also believes in the primacy of the state and wants to shut down anybody who opposes its criminal mandates. Such mentality eventually terminates in killing fields.
Ed says there is a culture war going on in America. Mao had his own cultural war. He called it the Cultural Revolution. It began when Mao and his lackey Jiang Qing went after the intellectuals. Mao sent his Red Guards around China to intimidate, imprison, beat, and kill those who did not live up to his communist utopian vision. A campaign of fingering traitors swept the country. Between 30 and 70 million people were killed.
If you think Ed is merely a blowhard, think again. As I write this, the Democrats — in league with America’s political police, the FBI and Homeland Security — are preparing to move against the Tea Party movement and all patriots who cherish the Constitution.
Ed Schultz and his fellow apparatchiks in the corporate media are sharpening their knives.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Dems Say That Tea Party Supporters Are Terrorist
The zombified Tea Party created by establishment Republicans and headed up by media darling Sarah Palin is taking heat for a spate of bad behavior around the country in response to the imposition of Obamacare. It is not clear who is responsible for the foul language and threats directed against Democrats but this has not stopped them from blaming their ideological twin, the Republican Party. Dems are demanding the Republicans denounce their creation — the hijacked and transmogrified Tea Party sworn to uphold the Republican platform of big government and endless war against phantom enemies.
It’s not just Democrats who get to play victim. Earlier today House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia held a press conference and said somebody fired a bullet at his campaign office on Monday. Cantor admonished Rep. Chris Van Hollen and DNC chairman Tim Kaine for fanning the flames of hysteria and attempting to gain politically from the media circus swirling around the isolated incidents of outrage over the “socialization” (more accurately the corporate monopolization at gunpoint) of health care.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn went on MSNBC’s “Hardball” this afternoon and characterized the obscene phones calls and emails as domestic terrorism. Clyburn said people are getting “signals” from Republicans on how to behave and that lawmakers need to “disown” the activity before it gets out of control. He suggested his colleagues were culpable. “If we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really,” Clyburn said.
“I think it’s part of a pattern,” said Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter after an act of vandalism at her office in New York. Slaughter, at the command of Nancy Pelosi, was ready to force through the Obamacare monstrosity without a vote in the House. Such an unconstitutional maneuver turned out not to be necessary because the Democrats twisted arms and promised the moon to get the votes required for passage. Holdout Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, was promised airport grants for his district if he abandoned his opposition. In other words, Stupak sold his opposition to abortion for a barrel of pork at the expense of the American people.
Libs over at the Huffington Post have taken up the domestic terrorism angle. It will not be members of the Borg hive Republican Tea Party that will engage in domestic terrorism, argues Jeff Schneider, but the radical fringe (in other words, the real Tea Party). “While the attack will not come from the Tea Party proper, more radical members and affiliated groups that have allied themselves with the movement are beginning to mobilize,” he writes today. “What began as the corporate funded, Dick Armey led, FreedomWorks organized, anti-health care rallying Tea Party movement has grown into something beyond what its founders intended.”
The Tea Party (if we can call it such) has entered into a series of loose alliances (of convenience or common purpose) with fringe groups like The Oath Keepers, the Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement (to name a few). While the rhetoric from Tea Party groups is vitriolic, its protests (to date) have been predominantly non-violent — but while many Tea Party protesters may be peaceful, their rhetoric, and the rhetoric of fellow traveler politicians like Rep. Bachmann and former Gov. Sarah Palin, is echoing through the Tea Party to its fringe elements — and the threat of domestic terror from these groups, or individuals who belong to them, has risen exponentially.
Closely following talking points issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Schneider connects the Oath Keepers to white supremacists, the Keystone State Skinheads forum and Stormfront. Schneider insists the “fringe” Tea Party movement is dangerous because it is linked to Gun Owners of America.
Gun Owners of America has over 300,000 members. It is the “only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington,” according to Ron Paul.
The Oath Keepers advocate that its members — who are current and former U.S. military and law enforcement — uphold their oaths of service and pledge to protect the U.S. Constitution. Even though the group is pledged to non-violence, Mother Jones has deemed it the “Tea Party’s military wing.”
The demonization of constitutionalists and patriots (minus absolutely any evidence they are involved in threats and obscene phone calls to the Congress critters who violated the Constitution this week) has moved from a concerted government and corporate media propaganda effort to a possibly more concrete and dangerous level.
“Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman’s vote for the health care bill,” Politico reported yesterday. “While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence. However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation,” Lee Catlin, community relations director for the Albemarle County Fire Marshal in Virginia said in a statement.
The FBI — America’s premier political police force with a long track record of cracking down on groups and individuals opposed to the government — is involved in the investigation.
“As of Wednesday afternoon, the FBI was investigating whether a severed gas line at the home of Congressman Perriello’s brother was related to a comment posted on a local ‘tea party’ website for activists to ‘drop by’ and ‘express their thanks’ for his healthcare vote and to ‘remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote,’” the Christian Science Monitor reports.
“Should something violent happen, Republicans know it could further discredit the Tea Party movement, and the conservative outrage that is fueling it, in the eyes of the wider American public. That explains, in part, the preponderance of condemnations now being issued by GOP congressmen, including Boehner, and by grass-roots activists,” reports Fox 31 in Denver, Colorado.
“These threats are likely coming from rogue, outside sources,” Lesley Hollywood, the director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, told Fox. The Northern Colorado Tea Party is affiliated with Glenn Beck’s 912 Project.
The Republican Tea Party and Beck’s 912 Project have nothing to fear. If and when the Oath Keepers, Gun Owners of America, Alex Jones, and patriots not affiliated with establishment “conservative” groups are accused of domestic terrorism and the state responds in typically blunt and brutal fashion, they will be safe.
Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Glenn Beck will not be arrested and detained indefinitely as their friend in the Senate, the neocon Lindsey Graham, has recently proposed.
It’s not just Democrats who get to play victim. Earlier today House Minority Whip Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia held a press conference and said somebody fired a bullet at his campaign office on Monday. Cantor admonished Rep. Chris Van Hollen and DNC chairman Tim Kaine for fanning the flames of hysteria and attempting to gain politically from the media circus swirling around the isolated incidents of outrage over the “socialization” (more accurately the corporate monopolization at gunpoint) of health care.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn went on MSNBC’s “Hardball” this afternoon and characterized the obscene phones calls and emails as domestic terrorism. Clyburn said people are getting “signals” from Republicans on how to behave and that lawmakers need to “disown” the activity before it gets out of control. He suggested his colleagues were culpable. “If we participate in it, either from the balcony or on the floor of the House, you are aiding and abetting this kind of terrorism, really,” Clyburn said.
“I think it’s part of a pattern,” said Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter after an act of vandalism at her office in New York. Slaughter, at the command of Nancy Pelosi, was ready to force through the Obamacare monstrosity without a vote in the House. Such an unconstitutional maneuver turned out not to be necessary because the Democrats twisted arms and promised the moon to get the votes required for passage. Holdout Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, was promised airport grants for his district if he abandoned his opposition. In other words, Stupak sold his opposition to abortion for a barrel of pork at the expense of the American people.
Libs over at the Huffington Post have taken up the domestic terrorism angle. It will not be members of the Borg hive Republican Tea Party that will engage in domestic terrorism, argues Jeff Schneider, but the radical fringe (in other words, the real Tea Party). “While the attack will not come from the Tea Party proper, more radical members and affiliated groups that have allied themselves with the movement are beginning to mobilize,” he writes today. “What began as the corporate funded, Dick Armey led, FreedomWorks organized, anti-health care rallying Tea Party movement has grown into something beyond what its founders intended.”
The Tea Party (if we can call it such) has entered into a series of loose alliances (of convenience or common purpose) with fringe groups like The Oath Keepers, the Committees of Safety, and the Three Percenter Movement (to name a few). While the rhetoric from Tea Party groups is vitriolic, its protests (to date) have been predominantly non-violent — but while many Tea Party protesters may be peaceful, their rhetoric, and the rhetoric of fellow traveler politicians like Rep. Bachmann and former Gov. Sarah Palin, is echoing through the Tea Party to its fringe elements — and the threat of domestic terror from these groups, or individuals who belong to them, has risen exponentially.
Closely following talking points issued by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Schneider connects the Oath Keepers to white supremacists, the Keystone State Skinheads forum and Stormfront. Schneider insists the “fringe” Tea Party movement is dangerous because it is linked to Gun Owners of America.
Gun Owners of America has over 300,000 members. It is the “only no-compromise gun lobby in Washington,” according to Ron Paul.
The Oath Keepers advocate that its members — who are current and former U.S. military and law enforcement — uphold their oaths of service and pledge to protect the U.S. Constitution. Even though the group is pledged to non-violence, Mother Jones has deemed it the “Tea Party’s military wing.”
The demonization of constitutionalists and patriots (minus absolutely any evidence they are involved in threats and obscene phone calls to the Congress critters who violated the Constitution this week) has moved from a concerted government and corporate media propaganda effort to a possibly more concrete and dangerous level.
“Law enforcement authorities are investigating the discovery of a cut propane gas line at the Virginia home of Rep. Thomas Perriello’s (D-Va.) brother, whose address was targeted by tea party activists angry at the congressman’s vote for the health care bill,” Politico reported yesterday. “While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence. However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation,” Lee Catlin, community relations director for the Albemarle County Fire Marshal in Virginia said in a statement.
The FBI — America’s premier political police force with a long track record of cracking down on groups and individuals opposed to the government — is involved in the investigation.
“As of Wednesday afternoon, the FBI was investigating whether a severed gas line at the home of Congressman Perriello’s brother was related to a comment posted on a local ‘tea party’ website for activists to ‘drop by’ and ‘express their thanks’ for his healthcare vote and to ‘remember exactly what it is their constituents are saying and how they are telling them to vote,’” the Christian Science Monitor reports.
“Should something violent happen, Republicans know it could further discredit the Tea Party movement, and the conservative outrage that is fueling it, in the eyes of the wider American public. That explains, in part, the preponderance of condemnations now being issued by GOP congressmen, including Boehner, and by grass-roots activists,” reports Fox 31 in Denver, Colorado.
“These threats are likely coming from rogue, outside sources,” Lesley Hollywood, the director of the Northern Colorado Tea Party, told Fox. The Northern Colorado Tea Party is affiliated with Glenn Beck’s 912 Project.
The Republican Tea Party and Beck’s 912 Project have nothing to fear. If and when the Oath Keepers, Gun Owners of America, Alex Jones, and patriots not affiliated with establishment “conservative” groups are accused of domestic terrorism and the state responds in typically blunt and brutal fashion, they will be safe.
Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Glenn Beck will not be arrested and detained indefinitely as their friend in the Senate, the neocon Lindsey Graham, has recently proposed.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Obamacare Exempts Congress And Staff
This is so outrageous I’m fairly speechless.
Politico reports:
The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation “would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”
However, when the combined Senate bill came to the floor, the definition of staff had been narrowed. Both senators filed a second amendment in December restating their original intent, but they say Democrats blocked it.
“The American people will be appalled to learn the health care bill exempts leadership and committee staff. This special deal for unelected staff underscores everything the public detests about the arrogance of power in Washington,” Coburn said. “I tried to fix this inequity along with senators Grassley, Burr and Vitter, but Majority Leader [Harry] Reid obstructed our effort.”
The fascist democrats obstructed an amendment that forced themselves and their crony staff from being put into the same lot with the rest of us.
Of course, why wouldn’t they?
They are a bunch of fascist looting criminal thieves intent on destroying this country at all costs. They have no morals. They have no respect for freedom or liberty. They have no respect for the constitution.
As with all tyrannical governments – laws are for the little people.
Of course, this is just one outrage among thousands. The history of government giving itself more rights than its citizens is nearly endless, even in our supposedly “free” country.
Politico reports:
The Congressional Research Service believes a court could rule that the legislation “would exclude professional committee staff, joint committee staff, some shared staff, as well as potentially those staff employed by leadership offices.”
However, when the combined Senate bill came to the floor, the definition of staff had been narrowed. Both senators filed a second amendment in December restating their original intent, but they say Democrats blocked it.
“The American people will be appalled to learn the health care bill exempts leadership and committee staff. This special deal for unelected staff underscores everything the public detests about the arrogance of power in Washington,” Coburn said. “I tried to fix this inequity along with senators Grassley, Burr and Vitter, but Majority Leader [Harry] Reid obstructed our effort.”
The fascist democrats obstructed an amendment that forced themselves and their crony staff from being put into the same lot with the rest of us.
Of course, why wouldn’t they?
They are a bunch of fascist looting criminal thieves intent on destroying this country at all costs. They have no morals. They have no respect for freedom or liberty. They have no respect for the constitution.
As with all tyrannical governments – laws are for the little people.
Of course, this is just one outrage among thousands. The history of government giving itself more rights than its citizens is nearly endless, even in our supposedly “free” country.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
IRS Needs 10 Billion To Enforce Obamacare
The Internal Revenue Service will function as the government’s chief enforcer for health care reform, should President Obama sign the bill into law as expected, monitoring both businesses and individuals to certify whether they have the insurance coverage the government requires.
The tax collection agency will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the individual and employer insurance mandates which form the backbone of the Democrats’ hard-won reforms.
The bill states that the purpose of the mandates is to regulate “economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.”
The mandates require that all Americans carry a minimum level of health insurance or pay a separate tax for every month they are without such coverage. All employers with 50 employers or more will also be required to provide their employees with that same minimum level of coverage.
While that minimum level of coverage will be defined at a later date by the Department of Health and Human Services, it will be the responsibility of the IRS to monitor individuals and employers and to punish those who do not comply.
Under the bill, which passed despite bipartisan opposition March 21, starting in 2014 the IRS would be responsible for monitoring which employers are complying with the mandate and which ones are not. The IRS would begin such monitoring of individuals’ health insurance status in 2014 as well.
The IRS would monitor individuals and businesses’ health insurance statuses through the mandatory reporting the bill requires. Under the law, every individual and most businesses are required to report to the IRS, on their tax returns, whether they have purchased or provided the required level of coverage and disclose to the IRS which months, if any, in which they failed to do so.
Using this information, the IRS would then determine whether an employer or individual falls under the mandate, which contains exceptions for religious conscience, hardship, incarcerated persons, and members of Indian tribes.
If either an individual or a business has failed to comply with this mandate for any month out of the year, they are required to pay a separate tax to the IRS. For individuals this is a maximum of $750 per person (up to $2,250 per household) and $750 per uncovered employee for businesses.
Because these penalties would each apply on a monthly basis, individuals and employers would have to pay 1/12th of the maximum penalties for each month they failed to comply with the mandates.
In order to carry out its new monitoring and enforcement duties, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the IRS will need $10 billion in additional funds, funds which were not made available under the health reform bill.
An analysis done by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that this $10 billion could go to fund an additional 16,500 new IRS agents and other personnel to monitor and enforce the new mandates.
“[T]he IRS could add more than 16,500 additional agents, auditors, examiners, and administrative support personnel to enforce large portions of the nation’s health insurance system,” the report said.
The IRS will also be in charge of collecting the new taxes on high cost insurance plans and on so-called unearned income from couples making over $250,000 per year and single filers making over $200,000 per year.
Both of these provisions could be modified should the Senate approve a budget reconciliation measure the House also passed March 21. Whichever final form they take, they are both direct taxes and thus will be directly administered by the IRS.
Because these new mandates and taxes are under the purview of the IRS, taxpayers and businesses could incur additional penalties normally reserved for normal income tax cheats, paying fees over and above those for not complying with Congress’ new mandates.
The IRS currently charges potentially hefty penalties for, among other things, filing false or fraudulent returns, filing late returns, and failure to pay a tax on time.
Taxpayers and businesses could be hit with these extra penalties because they are required to use their tax returns to prove to the IRS that they are complying with the mandates and because they will have to pay any tax penalties to that agency as well.
The tax collection agency will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with the individual and employer insurance mandates which form the backbone of the Democrats’ hard-won reforms.
The bill states that the purpose of the mandates is to regulate “economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.”
The mandates require that all Americans carry a minimum level of health insurance or pay a separate tax for every month they are without such coverage. All employers with 50 employers or more will also be required to provide their employees with that same minimum level of coverage.
While that minimum level of coverage will be defined at a later date by the Department of Health and Human Services, it will be the responsibility of the IRS to monitor individuals and employers and to punish those who do not comply.
Under the bill, which passed despite bipartisan opposition March 21, starting in 2014 the IRS would be responsible for monitoring which employers are complying with the mandate and which ones are not. The IRS would begin such monitoring of individuals’ health insurance status in 2014 as well.
The IRS would monitor individuals and businesses’ health insurance statuses through the mandatory reporting the bill requires. Under the law, every individual and most businesses are required to report to the IRS, on their tax returns, whether they have purchased or provided the required level of coverage and disclose to the IRS which months, if any, in which they failed to do so.
Using this information, the IRS would then determine whether an employer or individual falls under the mandate, which contains exceptions for religious conscience, hardship, incarcerated persons, and members of Indian tribes.
If either an individual or a business has failed to comply with this mandate for any month out of the year, they are required to pay a separate tax to the IRS. For individuals this is a maximum of $750 per person (up to $2,250 per household) and $750 per uncovered employee for businesses.
Because these penalties would each apply on a monthly basis, individuals and employers would have to pay 1/12th of the maximum penalties for each month they failed to comply with the mandates.
In order to carry out its new monitoring and enforcement duties, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the IRS will need $10 billion in additional funds, funds which were not made available under the health reform bill.
An analysis done by Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee estimated that this $10 billion could go to fund an additional 16,500 new IRS agents and other personnel to monitor and enforce the new mandates.
“[T]he IRS could add more than 16,500 additional agents, auditors, examiners, and administrative support personnel to enforce large portions of the nation’s health insurance system,” the report said.
The IRS will also be in charge of collecting the new taxes on high cost insurance plans and on so-called unearned income from couples making over $250,000 per year and single filers making over $200,000 per year.
Both of these provisions could be modified should the Senate approve a budget reconciliation measure the House also passed March 21. Whichever final form they take, they are both direct taxes and thus will be directly administered by the IRS.
Because these new mandates and taxes are under the purview of the IRS, taxpayers and businesses could incur additional penalties normally reserved for normal income tax cheats, paying fees over and above those for not complying with Congress’ new mandates.
The IRS currently charges potentially hefty penalties for, among other things, filing false or fraudulent returns, filing late returns, and failure to pay a tax on time.
Taxpayers and businesses could be hit with these extra penalties because they are required to use their tax returns to prove to the IRS that they are complying with the mandates and because they will have to pay any tax penalties to that agency as well.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Obama and Dems Amnesty Plan To Steal 2012 Election
As Barack Obama’s approval ratings continue to plummet, the tea party movement explodes and Democrats lose election after election – even in Massachusetts – one giant question looms large for Team Obama: How to stay in power?
“The people currently running the show in Washington,” said Whistleblower Editor David Kupelian, “come from the radical leftist world of Saul Alinsky in which everything they do – no matter how unethical, corrupt and flat-out illegal – is morally justified if it advances their agenda. Winning votes and elections by any means possible is their stock in trade.”
…The various stratagems the far left is currently developing to consolidate power in the U.S. long-term include:
Universal voter registration: Now being secretly prepared by at least two prominent members of Congress, this is essentially a scheme to legalize voter fraud by shifting responsibility for registering to vote from the citizen to the government, meaning people are automatically registered to vote, based on DMV records, income-tax returns, welfare rolls, unemployment lists and other government databases.
Illegal immigrant registration: Since government databases contain names of non-citizens, not to mention mentally incompetent individuals and felons – factors that would ordinarily disqualify a person from voting in most states – universal registration would open the floodgates to fraud. And since many people own property in more than one location and pay taxes to numerous government entities, they would be afforded the opportunity to vote in multiple locations.
Amnesty: Disguised once again by euphemisms like “comprehensive immigration reform,” amnesty will create millions of new Democrat voters. As Obama adviser and SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina said recently regarding amnesty: “Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”
Convicted felons voting: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late last year cleared the way for inmates to vote from prison. The court overturned a Washington state law prohibiting felons from voting until they are released and off parole, arguing state restrictions unfairly penalized minorities since they have a higher incarceration rate. Polls show felons overwhelmingly prefer Democrats.
Planting operatives in America’s statehouses: A subversive, Soros-backed group called the Secretary of State Project is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation, from which posts they can help tilt the electoral playing field.
“The people currently running the show in Washington,” said Whistleblower Editor David Kupelian, “come from the radical leftist world of Saul Alinsky in which everything they do – no matter how unethical, corrupt and flat-out illegal – is morally justified if it advances their agenda. Winning votes and elections by any means possible is their stock in trade.”
…The various stratagems the far left is currently developing to consolidate power in the U.S. long-term include:
Universal voter registration: Now being secretly prepared by at least two prominent members of Congress, this is essentially a scheme to legalize voter fraud by shifting responsibility for registering to vote from the citizen to the government, meaning people are automatically registered to vote, based on DMV records, income-tax returns, welfare rolls, unemployment lists and other government databases.
Illegal immigrant registration: Since government databases contain names of non-citizens, not to mention mentally incompetent individuals and felons – factors that would ordinarily disqualify a person from voting in most states – universal registration would open the floodgates to fraud. And since many people own property in more than one location and pay taxes to numerous government entities, they would be afforded the opportunity to vote in multiple locations.
Amnesty: Disguised once again by euphemisms like “comprehensive immigration reform,” amnesty will create millions of new Democrat voters. As Obama adviser and SEIU executive vice president Eliseo Medina said recently regarding amnesty: “Can you imagine 8 million new voters who care about our issues and will be voting? We will be creating a governing coalition for the long term, not just for an election cycle.”
Convicted felons voting: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals late last year cleared the way for inmates to vote from prison. The court overturned a Washington state law prohibiting felons from voting until they are released and off parole, arguing state restrictions unfairly penalized minorities since they have a higher incarceration rate. Polls show felons overwhelmingly prefer Democrats.
Planting operatives in America’s statehouses: A subversive, Soros-backed group called the Secretary of State Project is gearing up to steal the 2012 election for Obama and congressional Democrats by installing left-wing Democrats as secretaries of state across the nation, from which posts they can help tilt the electoral playing field.
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