Brian Williams, Scott Pelley, And Diane Sawyer: The Three Stooges

I think, at the very least, YouTube should censor them. Well, wait a minute. Not censor, but put up a notice on all their videos:

“It’s come to our attention that these three characters are as annoying as a bad case of fleas. Caution: watch and listen at your own risk.”

The three stooges. Three schmucks in the fountain. Send in the clowns, don’t bother, they’re here.

If people are beginning to get the idea I’m waging a war against against elite media, they’re right.

At the same time, I’m fascinated. How do these anchors do it? How do they lie so consistently, and with such aplomb, day in and day out, without going up in puff of smoke and vanishing?

The Big Three anchors are a miracle, in the sense that they need a whole construction company to build the walls that permanently separate them from the truth…so they can sit in a television studio in New York and believe they’re in the wheelhouse of Real News.

When you see the Big Three are discussing their own footage, but you find visual clues as big as the moon that their analysis is 180 degrees away from actual fact—as has been happening from Aurora to Sandy Hook to Boston—and the Stooges just sit there and drone on…well, that’s a CSI or a Law&Order you just can’t get if you pay the best scriptwriters in the world to come up with it.

“The bomb was a pressure cooker.”

Right, and the Twin Towers went down because two planes flew into them.

Because the Web has been alive and humming, media coverage of every major catastrophe since 9/11 has been rejected by extraordinary numbers of people.

The elite network anchors have been trying to hold the fort, but they’re failing.

Their long-running stage play is closing down.

Despite their traditional skills and technological backup, they’re coming across like cartoon hacks.

These days, it’s better to be a marginally believable doofus like Diane Sawyer, who chooses to affect a persona based on depression, than to be the eternal boy wonder, Brian Williams. Williams, the smoothest of the smooth, comes across like the biggest liar, because he’s the most dedicated of the lot when it comes to defending the indefensible.

And Scott Pelley is Scott Pelley, the hospital doctor you’d least like to show up at your bedside. He might tell you you need an amputation just because he’s having a bad day.

“Who do we need for the most important anchor’s job in the world?”

“How about Pelley? He’s utterly convinced the lies we feed into the propaganda machine are the last word.. He’s sold. He couldn’t look outside the box if we drilled holes in it and let him see a mountain of gold bars and 50,000 naked bureaucrats running down Broadway at high fucking noon.”

The Big Three strut their stuff on the evening news, executing well-oiled, high-priced transitions from one completely false/basically deceptive story to another completely false/basically deceptive story.

Recall the often-quoted George Burns pearl? “In acting, sincerity is everything. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” But suppose the sincerity isn’t faked? Then, the schmuck becomes king.

My late friend and colleague, hypnotherapist Jack True, described the television-news audience: “Mind control is accepting what you know to be false. You do it because you think the only other alternative is a vacuum: you either buy the news or you’re left with nothing.”

Once in a while, you can see cracks. Scott Pelley, stewing in his juices, looks like he’s ready to pull his uncle’s old revolver out of his pocket and fire a few rounds at the teleprompter.

Diane Sawyer appears to be on the verge of sagging to her right and collapsing out of her chair, on her way to a fit of copious weeping.

Brian Williams wants to say, more than anything, “Live From New York, it’s Saturday night!” Then a few coiled springs pop out of the top of his head and he winds down and stops moving.

Subliminally, the three stooges are announcing: “We’re showing you the most important stories of our time, and each one has a television lifespan of ninety seconds, after which they no longer exist.”

Television news is really all segue all the time. That’s what it comes down to.

The word “segue,” pronounced “segway,” refers to a transition from one thing to another, a blend.

Ed McMahon once referred to Johnny Carson as the prince of blends, because Carson could tell a clunker of a joke, step on it three times, and still move to the next joke without losing his audience.

Television news is very serious business. A reporter who can’t handle segues is dead in the water. He’s a gross liability.

The good anchors can take two stories that have no connection whatsoever and create a sense of smooth transition.

Brian Williams can say, “The planes were recalled later in the afternoon. And a man was castrated in a horrific accident in Idaho today…” And no one says, WHAT? WAIT!

You take an elevator up to the 15^th floor in an office building. The door opens and you step into a medieval dungeon. That doesn’t compute in real life, but it does on the news.

The networks basically have, on a daily basis, fragmented stories, and they need an anchor who can do the blends, the segues, and get away with it, to promote the sense of one continuous flow.

So the audience doesn’t say, “This is just an odd collection of crap.”

The news is all segue all the time.

Not just nationally. On the local level, too. The pounding lead-in music at the top of the show is a segue, to prepare the audience. A) Music. B) “Tonight, our top story: a man ate a hot dog and died …”

The voice of the anchor is the non-stop blending machine that ties all news stories together. That’s why the elite network stars earn their paychecks.

Good segue people are stage magicians. They can move the viewer’s attention from item A to item B without a tremor or a doubt.

It’s often been said of certain actors, “He could read from the phone book and you’d listen.” Well, an elite anchor can hold the viewer’s mind as he reads a sentence from the phone book, another one from a car-repair manual, a third from a cookbook, and a fourth from a funeral-home brochure. Without stopping.

And afterward, the viewer would have no questions.

The news is surreal because the stories are mostly fool’s gold to begin with; and they’re unrelated. They’re rocks lying around on the floor. The anchor picks them up and invents the illusion of One Flowing Stream.

This is what the audience wants. It feels like a story. It feels like unity. It feels like a stage play or a movie. It feels, when all is said and done, good.

The anchor (as his title suggests) holds the fragments together in one place. For the audience, he’s the focus. He’s the maestro. The hypnotist.

You can’t pull anyone off the street and have him describe car crashes, murders, storms, threats of war, political squabbles, 300 cats living in a one-room apartment, a new piece of Medicare legislation, genitalia picture tweets, and the dedication of a library, while placing and keeping millions of people in a light trance.

Katie Couric couldn’t do it. People were waiting for her to break out into an attack of Perky and giggle and cross her legs. Diane Sawyer does it poorly. She seems to be affecting somber personal grief as her basic segue-thread. Scott Pelley is competent, but he sits like a surgeon ready to signal the anesthesiologist to clamp a mask on your face, before he cuts into your stomach.

Brian Williams is the current king of segue. He does smooth-serious-affable-employee-of-the-month-I-know-all-the-news-is-true.

None of these elite anchors can hold a candle to Cronkite or Chet Huntley, the past masters. Ed Murrow was the first star-practitioner of the television-news form. He was working a kind of sepulchral spin-off of Hemingway prose.

Murrow got his first break, right out of college, working for the Institute of International Education, a pathetic front for what they used to call “internationalists” (aka globalists). Elihu Root founded the organization. Root was also founding chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations and president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In other words, one world together actually meant: all you peons down there and we wise men on top…

Anyway, all anchors can do segue. They are dedicated to The Blend. They put their souls, such as they are, into transitions.

“What do you want to do when you grow up, Brian?”

“I want to take people from A to B.”

Whereas, a true version of the news would go something like this: “Today, in fact just now, I moved from a tornado in Kansas to the removal of restrictions on condom sales, and I’m blending into penguins in Antarctica. I’m doing Salvador Dali and you’re not noticing a thing.”

What does all this tell us? The news, if it were taken apart into its component pieces, would look quite surreal. And the anchor, by blending, manufactures a hypnotic illusion of interconnection.

The audience wants to be put in a trance. Even a several-day event, like the Boston bombing, with all its twists and turns, doesn’t mitigate that basic big sleep. Television news, with a good anchor, with the television screen itself, with the electromagnetic emissions and frequencies, can attain and hold the hypnotic state.

Therefore, the content of the news sinks in below the level of the rational mind.

But with each shift in story line, with each new breaking bit of revelation, with each disturbing image, the anchor must be there to execute the segues.

He is basically saying to the audience, “I’m a few feet inside your personal landscape, your mind, feeding you all the turns in the river, and I’ll always be here, so things are all right…”

Elite anchors invent and maintain certain tones of voice, certain rhythms, certain cadences, certain variations of musical pitch, throughout the stage play, in order to sustain the sense of continuity.

They’re mechanics of voice.

They use their skills to report the false facts handed down to conceal ops and staged events.

They need to believe in what they’re doing. They need to be that stupid. Talent search: 130 IQ, inherently stupid.

They can know they’re actors on television, but they have to believe they’re acting out the truth. Ends justify the means. Of course, “truth” often means to them: that which will bind us all together.

What is the role they’re cast in? It’s: Normal. It’s a heavy part in the play, because this joke of a society has a prime-cut value called Normal.

“Okay, look,” the Broadway director says to the veteran actor he’s interviewing for the lead, in a billion-dollar production. “This may sound strange, but you’re going to have to do Normal as it’s never been done before. That’s what the audience wants. You’ve got to come across as very, very smart and very, very Normal. Get it? I mean, you can emit a few rays of Elite here and there, but you have to do that Normal dance. The audience has to believe you somehow fit in with being a solid American, whatever the hell that is. You can be the news boy down the street, riding his bike, tossing papers on front porches (Brian Williams), wholesome as Wonder Bread, or you can be a socialite on the Upper East Side teetering on the verge of a nervous breakdown (Diane Sawyer), or you can be a doctor moving briskly through his morning hospital rounds telling the interns trailing behind him what incompetent assholes they are (Scott Pelley)…but it has to be Normal at the same time. You’re the brain of every other brain. You’re the conscience of every other conscience. You’re just as walled off from the conspiracy to own every inch of America and grind down the people into dust-bowl hell as all Americans are walled off from knowing about it. You know as little as they do. You’re just as clueless as the great unwashed, but you put your stupidity on display with some measure of grace and style. Got it? You’re clean, sanitary, loyal as a dog, dumb as fog but very smart. You spew absolute nonsense every second of your time on stage, but it sounds plausible, and again, Normal. You constantly change subjects, and the subjects are in no way related to each other, but you make it all seem sensible. It’s a joke. But you’re serious. And you have to Believe, as if you’ve always believed, from the moment you emerged out of your mother’s body.

“And if you need a model for all this, just watch the news every night on the three major networks and focus on these geniuses.”

See the bomb exploding, the one that emits a puff of smoke straight up in the air? The one that was built in a pressure cooker? The bomb that didn’t tear the flags to pieces and didn’t shred the blue canopy right next to it? The bomb that didn’t cause the men in yellow jackets standing in front of it to even blink? That bomb vectored at a very low angle and took out people’s legs in the Boston street. That right, America. It did. I swear it did.

See the purple and pink pigs flying over the White House? They’re bringing food from Mars for all the bureaucrats who push paper in the city every day, the people who can’t be fired during the Sequester, while flights all over the country are delayed. That food from Mars keeps the paper pushers going. It does. It has special vitamins in it. See how fat the pigs in the sky are? How do you think they got that way? They ate the food. It’s so healthy. It’s mystical and magical. It’s just part of the largesse coming to you from your eternal government. Wait a little while longer. It’ll be here. There are lots more flying pigs. They’ll drop off little bags of Martian tasties on your street any week now. It’s the new Normal. Get used to it. We know what you want, and we’re going to give it to you.

We know what you want and we’re going to give it to you.

If you have any doubts and need more information and assurance, just watch Brian, Scott, and Diane every night. They’re narrating the Days of Our Lives. They’re from Mars. They’re the advance scouts for the pigs.

Brian’s the happy pig. Diane’s the sad pig. Scott’s the cold pig.

They’re America. The best of America.

This is why the Colonies fought a revolution against the British. So you could suck up stories, like a vacuum cleaner, from the three little pigs.

Jon Rappoport

The author of two explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED and EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29^th District of California. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free emails at www.nomorefakenews.com

Source: Jon Rappoport’s Blog

Now You Can’t Drink Water

Americans take so many mood-altering and addictive pills that water supplies are being contaminated. Just ask the fish. Do the drugs in your water pose a risk to your health—and even your sobriety?

The idea that we’re being unwittingly drugged when we drink a glass of ordinary tap water smacks of dystopian science fiction or political conspiracy theory. Accusations that Communists were spiking America’s water with sedatives—under the cover of the federally instituted fluoridation program—were such a staple of Cold War–era paranoia that Stanley Kubrick satirized it in his 1964 masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove. While such fear-mongering may seem quaint, what’s truly ironic is that Americans today are consuming prescription drugs—including addictive psychoactive ones—via the water supply. Who knew?

There’s a good chance that if you live in an urban area, your tap water is laced with tiny amounts of antidepressants (mostly SSRIs like Prozac and Effexor), benzodiazepines (like Klonopin, used to reduce symptoms of substance withdrawal) and anticonvulsants (like Topomax, used to treat addiction to alcohol, nicotine, food and even cocaine and crystal meth). Such are the implications of environmental studies that have been leaking out over the past decade. Whether or not this psychoactive waste has any effect on the human nervous system remains unclear, but when such pharmaceuticals are introduced into the ecosystem, the fallout for other species is demonstrable—and potentially dire.

There’s no mystery to the way prescription medications wind up in our tap water. Whether you flush a bottle of old pills down the toilet or, more likely, excrete the remains of a daily dose (an estimated 80% isn’t broken down in our bodies), active chemicals get recycled back into reservoirs because sewage treatment plants aren’t able to filter them out. “They just fly right through,” says Michael Thomas, an associate professor of bioinformatics at Idaho State University.

Although government officials and scientists are in no rush to look into this potential threat, some environmentalists are becoming worried. In a preliminary study at the University of Idaho, fathead minnows were plunked in water spiked with a combination of SSRIs and anticonvulsants—a lab version of American tap water. After swimming in the contaminated water for 18 days, the minnows exhibited 324 genetic alterations associated with human neurological disorders, including autism.

Mutated minnows admittedly do not signal a hazard of global-warming dimensions. Yet messed-up genes are what cause disease. Studies have shown that regular doses of SSRIs can sometimes damage human DNA, most notably in sperm. The minnows offer evidence that even trace amounts of SSRIs can infiltrate DNA. For now, the implications for humans of ongoing exposure can only be extrapolated from the effects on wildlife: According to a 2008 AP investigation, trace pharmaceuticals already contaminate a wide variety of species, from algae on up to mammals.

The peculiarities of sedative-fed perch were highlighted last month in a front- page article in The New York Times. The fish had been fed trace doses of oxazepam—a benzodiazepine commonly used in Europe—over a period of two months, as part of a Swedish study. The fish exposed to the anti-anxiety medication socialized less but ate more zooplankton and swam further, behaviors with potential long-term consequences for local ecosystems. This sparked fears among environmentalists that under the influence, the fish are more susceptible to predators, which could weaken the strength of the species. Not mentioned in the Times piece is the fact that SSRIs have been detected in plankton, which are a “foundation” organism in the food chain. “It’s inescapable,” Sudeep Chandra, an associate professor of natural resources and environmental science at the University of Nevada, told the AP. “There’s enough global information now to confirm [trace pharmaceuticals] are affecting organisms and wildlife.”

“This looks like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public,” a British Parliament member charged.

This drugs-in-our-drinking-water issue has remained mostly below the radar of the government, researchers and the media. The AP chalked up the lack of focus on the issue partly to government agencies’ and nonprofits’ wariness about stoking public fear. “It’s a hard topic to talk about without creating fear in the general public,”said the Water Research Foundation’s Robert Renna.

While the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandates that other kinds of contaminants, such as pesticides and lead, be filtered out before our drinking water flows through a municipal tap, there remain no guidelines at all for pharmaceuticals, despite the fact that as far back as 2000, a US geological survey found low levels in 80% of the rivers and streams sampled. Nor is much funding available for even rudimentary studies of this potential public health problem.

The EPA does not even track the statistics collected by the few municipalities that do surveillance. In 2008, after surveying results from the municipalities that did test, the AP found over 50 pharmaceuticals that “could harm humans” in the water of 41 million Americans. Because most cities don’t test—and those that do generally refuse to release their findings, citing “security concerns” —the actual number of affected people is almost certainly much higher. “I think we have a lot of work to do,”said the EPA’s Benjamin Grumbles.

The problem is not restricted to the US. Over a hundred trace pharmaceuticals have been detected in waterways around the globe, from Pakistan to Finland. But the highest concentrations of drug pollution by far are here at home, where nearly half the population is on at least one prescribed medication. The 10% of Americans who take antidepressants (mostly SSRIs) accounted for 255 million scripts in 2010. With all that runoff, you might think Americans would be happier—and less addiction prone—than they are.

In Britain, where psychoactive drugs are prescribed at a fraction of US levels, a 2004 Environment Agency study cited “low-level, almost continuous discharge” of Prozac through the tap water there. Parliament member Norman Baker stated ominously, “This looks like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public.” Yet no US municipalities have done similar measurements that quantify the amount of each drug detected. It’s reasonable to assume, however, that consistent quantities of trace antidepressants flow through American taps—especially since fish collected in fresh-water bodies near several urban centers have tested positive for these contaminants.

New York City is widely believed to have the nation’s cleanest tap water, which is supplied from protected upstate reservoirs. The feds consider these reservoirs so pure that the Big Apple’s H2O is not required to be filtered. As far as is known, no official agency has tested the city’s water supply for pharmaceuticals. Yet a 2008 study by Stony Brook University found a number of sedatives and anti-depressants in upstate waterways that feed the reservoirs. A just-released study by the Citizens Campaign for the Environment found that contrary to public health guidelines, over 50% of the medical facilities in nearby Suffolk County flush their unused meds down the toilet.

Because pharmaceutical compounds make their way into the watershed itself, private wells are also affected; as for the bottled stuff, it’s no purer than most tap water because it comes from the same water sources. If prescription medications are being passed into the water supply, it follows that some illegal drugs must take the same route, although in substantially lower quantities. Sure enough, aSpanish study found cocaine in 22 of 24 random samples of that country’s tap water and an Italian study found cocaine flowing through the Po River.

The future social and ecological fallout, if any, from the drugs in our drinking water is impossible to foresee. But in the short term, within the 12-step community, the issue could have a special resonance. Many AA members believe that true sobriety requires abstinence from all mood-altering drugs, whether addictive (like benzodiazepines) or not (like antidepressants). A pamphlet issued by AA’s General Services Conference warns that it’s “generally accepted” that these meds can “threaten the maintenance of sobriety.” But given the prevalence of these substances in the water supply, it appears that you can’t even drink a glass of good, old tap water without going off the wagon. Where does that leave people who believe in a literal interpretation of the Big Book? Crossing Italy and Spain off the travel itinerary is easy enough. It may also be time, for sanity’s sake, to take another look at what “total abstinence” means.

Matt Harvey is an award-winning freelance journalist whose writing has appeared on AnimalNY.com, Black Book, the New York Post and the New York Press, among other publications. He lives in Manhattan.

Source: The Fix

37 Statistics Which Show How Four Years Of Obama Have Wrecked The U.S. Economy

The mainstream media covered the inauguration of Barack Obama with breathless anticipation on Monday, but should we really be celebrating another four years of Obama?  The truth is that the first four years of Obama were an absolute train wreck for the U.S. economy.  Over the past four years, the percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen, median household income has declined by more than $4000, poverty in the U.S. has absolutely exploded and our national debt has ballooned to ridiculous proportions.  Of course all of the blame for the nightmarish performance of the economy should not go to Obama alone.  Certainly much of what we are experiencing today is the direct result of decades of very foolish decisions by Congress and previous presidential administrations.  And of course the Federal Reserve has more influence over the economy than anyone else does.  But Barack Obama steadfastly refuses to criticize anything that the Federal Reserve has done and he even nominated Ben Bernanke for another term as Fed Chairman despite his horrific track record of failure, so at a minimum Barack Obama must be considered to be complicit in the Fed’s very foolish policies.  Despite what the Obama administration tells us, the U.S. economy has been in decline for a very long time, and that decline has accelerated in many ways over the past four years.  Just consider the statistics that I have compiled below.  The following are 37 statistics which show how four years of Obama have wrecked the U.S. economy…

1. During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day.

2. At the beginning of the Obama era, 32 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 47 million Americans are on food stamps.

3. According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

4. The number of Americans receiving money directly from the federal government each month has grown from 94 million in the year 2000 tomore than 128 million today.

5. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income” at this point.

6. The unemployment rate in the United States is exactly where it was (7.8 percent) when Barack Obama first entered the White House in January 2009.

7. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.

8. During the first four years of Obama, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” soared by an astounding 8,332,000.  That far exceeds any previous four year total.

9. During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans collecting federal disability insurance rose by more than 18 percent.

10. The Obama years have been absolutely devastating for small businesses in America.  According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

11. Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

12. The economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for the hordes of young people now entering the workforce.  Approximately 53 percentof all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed in 2011.

13. According to a report from the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of the jobs that have been created since the end of the recession have been low paying jobs.

14. Back in 2007, about 28 percent of all working families were considered to be among “the working poor”.  Today, that number is up to 32 percent even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.

15. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all of the jobs in the United States are “good jobs” at this point.

16. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.

17. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the United States is losinghalf a million jobs to China every single year.

18. The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

19. According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percentof all global economic activity in 2001.  That number declined steadily over the course of the next decade and was only at 21.6 percent in 2011.

20. The United States actually has plenty of oil and we should not have to import oil from the Middle East.  We need to drill for more oil, but Obama has been very hesitant to do that.  Under Bill Clinton, the number of drilling permits approved rose by 58 percent.  Under George W. Bush, the number of drilling permits approved rose by 116 percent.  Under Barack Obama, the number of drilling permits approved actuallydecreased by 36 percent.

21. When Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.84.  Today, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is$3.26.

22. Under Barack Obama, the United States has lost more than 300,000 education jobs.

23. For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

24. Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 now have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

25. More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as were sold in 2012.

26. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

27. Health insurance costs have risen by 29 percent since Barack Obama became president.

28. Today, 77 percent of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

29. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

30. The total amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has grown by 32 percent since Barack Obama became president.

31. The Obama administration has been spending money on some of the most insane things imaginable.  For example, in 2011 the Obama administration spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

32. U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.

33. The U.S. government has run a budget deficit of well over a trillion dollars every single year under Barack Obama.

34. When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 103 percent.

35. During Obama’s first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.

36. As I wrote about yesterday, when you break it down the amount of new debt accumulated by the U.S. government during Obama’s first term comes to approximately $50,521 for every single household in the United States.  Are you ready to contribute your share?

37. If you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.

But despite all of these numbers, the mainstream media and the left just continue to shower Barack Obama with worship and praise.  Newsweek recently heralded Obama’s second term as “The Second Coming“, and at Obama’s pre-inauguration church service Reverand Ronald Braxton openly compared Obama to Moses…

At Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Braxton reportedly crafted his speech around Obama’s personal political slogan: “Forward!”

Obama, said Braxton, was just like Moses facing the Red Sea: “forward is the only option … The people couldn’t turn around. The only thing that they could do was to go forward.” Obama, said Braxton, would have to overcome all obstacles – like opposition from Republicans, presumably, or the bounds of the Constitution. Braxton continued, “Mr. President, stand on the rock,” citing to Moses standing on Mount Horeb as his people camped outside the land of Israel.

But it wasn’t enough to compare Obama with the founder of Judaism and the prophet of the Bible. Braxton added that Obama’s opponents were like the Biblical enemies of Moses, and that Obama would have to enter the battle because “sometimes enemies insist on doing it the hard way.”

So what do you think the next four years of Obama will bring?

Source: The Economic Collapse

The Irony of 47.7 Million Americans Subsisting On Food Stamps

As of November of 2012, a mind-numbing 47.7 million Americans subsist on taxpayer-funded food stamps.  One in seven Americans cannot feed himself or herself with a job or work of any kind.  What constitutes the irony to this national tragedy?  Answer: our U.S. Congress imports 100,000 legal immigrants into the USA with green cards every 30 days.

No matter how much poverty and unemployment blacks, whites and Hispanic Americans suffer– the leaders of this country continually pound more humans into the mix without pause.  At the same time, food banks go belly up with bare shelves. Over 13 million American children live in destitute poverty and cannot secure three square meals per day.

While Congress supports our enormous military spending into the trillions of dollars and two 10 year long wars that devour (ed) money—it fails to create jobs and feed our poorest.  It fails the fundamental rights of our own citizens to work and eat.

The gross statistics created by our U.S. Congress:  (Source:hubpages.com)

#1 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#2 In October 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps. By August 2012 that number had risen to 47.1 million Americans.

#3 Right now, one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps and one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#4 It is projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#5 According to new numbers that were just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans living in poverty increased to a new all-time record high of 49.7 million last year.

#6 The number of Americans living in poverty has increased by about 6 million over the past four years.

#7Today, about one out of every four workers in the United States brings home wages that are at or below the federal poverty level.

#8According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is about 22 percent.

#9 Overall, approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

#10 In the United States today, close to 100 million Americans are considered to be either “poor” or “near poor”.

#11 One university study estimates that child poverty costs the U.S. economy 500 billion dollars each year.

#12 Households that are led by a single mother have a 31.6 percent poverty rate.

#13 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps.

Once you research the numbers, you cannot help but look to your own U.S. Senators and House reps and see failure, duplicity and corruption.  No excuses!  How could men and women who are supposed to represent American citizens continually leave American citizens in the grips of poverty, joblessness and homelessness?

Some kind of moral, ethical and spiritual wrong grows in the nation’s capitol all the way up to the president.  American citizens become its victims.

Do you think there is any chance of it changing and becoming better as that same U.S. Congress adds over 3.1 million immigrants every year on our way to adding 100 million immigrants within the next 38 years?

A Convenient Scapegoat

In this column last week, I took sportscaster Bob Costas to task for his inane comments regarding the murder-suicide deaths committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. Costas ignorantly and irrationally blamed the deaths of Jovan and his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, on “our current gun culture.” Costas naively said, “If Jovan Belcher didn’t possess a gun, he and Kasandra Perkins would both be alive today.”

See my column on Bob Costas at:

http://veracityvoice.com/?p=16402

Well, here is another tragic story of an NFL player’s untimely death. This time the team is the Dallas Cowboys. USA Today covers the story:

“For the second time in a week, from one Saturday to the next, another young professional football player is dead at the age of 25 and another NFL team is grieving after allegations of a terrible and tragic crime.

“Last weekend, it was Kansas City. This weekend, it’s Dallas. The circumstances are different, but the results are eerily similar. Two players are gone: One by his own hand in front of his coach and general manager in the parking lot of the team’s practice facility; the second in the morgue after a night out with a teammate, who is now sitting in an Irving, Tex., jail cell while his teammates fly to Cincinnati for Sunday’s game.

“One week after Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher killed the mother of his nearly 3-month-old daughter and then killed himself, the Cowboys are mourning the loss of a teammate while another has been arrested for intoxication manslaughter.

“Nose tackle Josh Brent, who was to have started this Sunday against the Bengals, was arrested early Saturday morning after the car he was driving flipped over, killing his lone passenger, Cowboys practice-squad player Jerry Brown, who was Brent’s teammate not only in Dallas but also at the University of Illinois from 2007-09.”

See the report at:

http://tinyurl.com/ajh9jkv

So, why didn’t Bob Costas get on national television and say, “If Josh Brent didn’t possess a car, Jerry Brown would be alive today”? Why? Because Bob Costas doesn’t think critically, that’s why! He simply regurgitates the same antiquated anti-gun rhetoric he hears from his pro-gun-control buddies.

But it’s true: if the gun is to blame for Belcher and Perkins’ deaths, the car is to blame for Brown’s death.

And speaking of cars and guns, the total number of deaths nationwide from the misuse of firearms pales in comparison to the total number of deaths from the misuse of automobiles. Yet, I don’t hear the Bob Costases of the world screaming for “automobile-control.” Come on, folks, get real! Plus, as Larry Pratt and others have already noted, firearms in the possession of American citizens are actually used to protect the lives of people some 4,000 to 6,000 times A DAY. When Costas said, “Handguns do not enhance our safety,” not only was he wrong, he was miserably wrong! Handguns DO enhance our safety–not to mention our liberty!

Look at the city of Chicago. More people have been murdered in the city of Chicago this year than soldiers killed in Afghanistan. One hundred and forty-four US troops have been killed in Afghanistan so far in 2012, while 228 people have been murdered so far in 2012 in The Windy City.

According to The Huffington Post, “The war zone-like statistics are not new. As WBEZ reports, while some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during that time, based on Department of Defense and FBI data.”

See the report at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/16/chicago-homicide-rate-wor_n_1602692.html

Yet, Chicago, Illinois, has some of the strictest gun-control laws in America. Then again, maybe that’s one of the reasons why so many people are killed in Chicago. The laws of this city forbid honest citizens from being armed and, thus, they are unable to defend themselves. Let the good guys start shooting back and one will see a dramatic lapse of courage among miscreants. Don’t believe that? Check out the violent crime rates in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Vermont.

This modern infatuation with blaming inanimate objects for acts of immorality and impropriety is nothing short of epidemic! Of course, the reason for this madness is it facilitates the expansion of government into the minutest details of our lives. Big-Government zealots have an innate fear of power and responsibility resting in individuals. They see government as the only suitable source of power. To big-government toadies, individuals are merely the property of government. To them, government bureaucrats can do nothing wrong, while individual citizens can do nothing right. Hence, to big-government hacks, only government officials have the right to keep and bear arms.

The same reasoning applies to America’s so-called “War on Drugs.” Marijuana, especially, is blamed for all kinds of immoral and unsavory conduct, even though the overwhelming evidence simply does not support the accusation.

My youngest son, Timothy, is a former Florida Assistant State Attorney who is now in private practice. Regarding marijuana as being a source of criminal conduct, he wrote, “Drawing from my own personal experience, I see the absurdity of the ‘war on marijuana.’ During my time as a prosecutor at the Florida State Attorney’s Office from 2004 to 2006 where I handled literally thousands of criminal cases and tried nearly 60 jury trials, I was never impressed that marijuana was the cause of any criminal activity. Oh sure, possession of marijuana charges comprised a large number of my criminal cases; but the criminal act was merely the man-made law of possession of marijuana. In fact, most criminal activities were in large part caused by alcohol, where one who consumed too much alcohol became violent; beat his wife; neglected his children; drove drunk and hurt someone; caused a disturbance of the peace; or other similar evils.

“I saw those alcohol-related cases every day. Yet, I cannot say the same regarding marijuana. I would estimate that of the thousands of cases I handled, at least half (if not more) were a direct cause of alcohol consumption or addiction. Yet, alcohol is legal and marijuana is illegal.”

See Tim’s column at:

http://newswithviews.com/Timothy/baldwin159.htm

In fact, marijuana was not even considered harmful or illegal in the United States until 1937, as Tim pointed out in his column. Most people would probably be surprised to learn that four out of our first five presidents not only promoted the use of the hemp plant, but also grew it. Can one imagine putting George Washington or Thomas Jefferson in jail for growing what we now call marijuana? Egad!

The idea that the use of marijuana is harmful because “it leads to hard drugs” is tantamount to saying that beer is harmful because “it leads to hard liquor.” But it’s just not true! There are tens of millions of people who drink responsibly, or who use alcohol medicinally (as prescribed even by Holy Scripture), who never become alcoholics. Likewise, there are tens of millions of marijuana users who use it responsibly or medicinally, who never go on to use hard drugs or become drug addicts. And when it comes to addictions, Americans’ addiction to sugar and laziness kills far more people than those addicted to alcohol–or even tobacco for that matter.

But by making marijuana responsible for all kinds of untoward behavior, and by ignoring the personal accountability of people to behave responsibly, it has helped provide the justification for government to trample the Bill of Rights and create huge bureaucracies, which swell the size and scope of government–especially the federal government.

The same is true for firearms. By making guns responsible for all kinds of untoward behavior, and by ignoring the personal accountability of people to behave responsibly, it helps provide the justification for government to trample the Bill of Rights (in this case the Second Amendment) and create huge bureaucracies (the ATF among others), which swell the size and scope of government–especially the federal government.

Marijuana is a convenient scapegoat. Firearms are a convenient scapegoat. Automobiles, on the other hand, are not so convenient! Hence, we hear nothing from Bob Costas about the need for more “automobile-control.” Plus, amazingly enough, neither did Costas say a word about bringing back Prohibition! In Costas’ world, only guns are sufficiently evil enough to warrant his righteous indignation.

The tragedies in Kansas City and Dallas cause all people of good will to grieve. We grieve for the people involved; we grieve for the families of the victims; and we grieve for the NFL players, coaches, and management. But what we must not do is use these tragedies as an excuse to justify and condone the suppression of our God-given liberties! In addition, it’s past time for America, at every level, to start re-emphasizing the primacy of personal responsibility. That’s something that isn’t being taught much in our nation’s schools, churches, or even families.

But the promotion and expectation of personal responsibility is what made America great; and it’s also what provides our nation with its liberties. If men cannot be expected to be accountable for their conduct, they can hardly be expected to be accountable for their freedom. This is why inanimate objects are used as scapegoats by big-government toadies: it diminishes the virtue of individualism and extols the necessity of governmentism.

In Kansas City, the problem was not the gun; the problem was Belcher. And in Dallas, the problem was not the car–or even the booze–the problem was Brent. Straighten out the man and one will have no need to worry about the objects that are at his disposal.

13 States Now Considering Gold And Silver As Money

When the governor of Utah signed a bill that made gold bullion and silver bullion legal tender in the state last March, he had no idea of the groundswell he was going to start.

The Utah Sound Money Act outright flies in the face of the fiat money system, which is the printed money used today; backed by nothing but the promises of politicians. While U.S. states cannot create their own currency under the Constitution, they are allowed to use gold bullion and silver bullion as legal tender. More and more states are now exercising that right.

Lawmakers in Utah, when they studied history, found that every single instance of money printing and massive increases in a country’s debt always led to the destruction of the currency and a depression among the citizens that lived through it.

They were concerned about the Fed’s money printing and massive government debt accumulation and thus signed into law the Utah Sound Money Act, which recognized gold bullion and silver bullion as currency. They felt that the U.S. dollar would continue to lose its value, while gold bullion and silver bullion would continue to maintain their value, because they are sound currencies with no debts attached to them.

The Utah law states that the gold bullion and silver bullion coins issued by the U.S. Mint can be used as payment with any merchant in the State of Utah for the purchase of all goods and services.

It is not practical for people to carry around heavy gold bullion or silver bullion coins, so the Utah Gold & Silver Depository was created. People can deposit their gold bullion and silver bullion coins there and receive a debit card to make transactions with—just like depositing money at a bank. The prices of gold bullion and silver bullion are based on the closing prices of both precious metals in U.S. dollars in London on each business day, creating the exchange rate used on the debit card.

Missouri and South Carolina in 2012 are the closest to enacting very similar legislation and creating a gold bullion and silver bullion depository, just like Utah. (Source: CNN Money, February 3, 2012.) Both states echo the same sentiments as Utah and this is evident by the names chosen for the bills. For example, in Missouri, the legislation put forth is called the Missouri Sound Money Act of 2012.

Other states considering legislation to make gold bullion and silver bullion legal tender are Montana, Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, New Hampshire, Georgia, Washington, Minnesota, Tennessee, and Virginia.

This may seem strange, dear reader, but cultures in Asia would not be surprised, considering that gold bullion and silver bullion have been considered money for 5,000 years there. Also, people forget that, until 1971, the U.S. dollar was backed by gold bullion.

The distrust of the money printing being enacted by the Federal Reserve and the unprecedented debts being accumulated by the U.S. government, which are increasing by at least $1.0 trillion per year, are being questioned.

States are fighting back with what they believe are sound money policies: gold bullion and silver bullion. We should heed their example as a warning of what’s to come. (Also see: Switzerland Debating Gold-backed Currency.)

 

Source: Profit Confindential

Where Do We Go From Here?

Believe it or not, I was thinking that my column of two weeks ago was my last column in which I would focus on Congressman Ron Paul–that was before the Republican National Convention in Tampa took place. I have never seen such a disgusting display of chicanery and duplicity in all of my life. So, in spite of the fact that I have written so much about The Greatest Congressman In US History (my title for Ron Paul), here I go again.

First, a report on Paul Fest: I was honored to be one of the featured speakers for the event, which drew thousands of Ron Paul supporters from all over the country. I was able to meet and speak with hundreds of these wonderful people, as they came up to me before and after I spoke.

Not only was I surprised at how many of these people read this column, but how many are watching our Sunday services that we livestream each Sunday afternoon. I am convinced that there are hundreds of thousands of patriot Christians who are fed up with mainstream churches and pastors, who are hungering and thirsting for patriot pastors who know what’s going on and are not afraid to speak the truth. Not able to find such pastors where they live, they are tuning in to our services on the Internet.

The service at Liberty Fellowship is broadcast live each Sunday at approximately 2:30pm Mountain Time. To access the service live this Sunday, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/live-stream

To watch my archived messages online, go to:

http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/archives/category/video-messages

Next, the thought of Ron Paul no longer being our champion on Capitol Hill is extremely disconcerting! There is sadness in my heart at Dr. Paul’s departure from Congress that I don’t think I’ve ever felt. The only instance I can think of that comes close is when Helen Chenoweth of Idaho term-limited herself in order to fulfill her word of honor to her constituents. (It was even sadder to hear of her untimely death a few years ago.) But Dr. Paul’s absence in Congress will leave a void that is difficult to describe. Suffice it to say, as Congress is currently comprised, there is no one on Capitol Hill who comes close to taking his place. But it is the way that this champion of liberty was treated by the GOP establishment that has my blood boiling!

Anyone who has paid any attention to what the Republican Party has done to Ron Paul and his supporters must be thoroughly outraged at the injustice and injurious treatment inflicted, not only upon Ron and his followers, but also upon the integrity of a free and fair political process. In short, we don’t have a free and fair political process in America anymore! What we have is a Soviet-style political apparatus that thrives on manipulation, intimidation, and downright dishonesty.

The RNC was so blatantly manipulative and crooked that the Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, justifiably boycotted the convention–and the Maine Ron Paul delegation understandably all left in protest. The video tribute the RNC played at the convention in honor of Congressman Paul (while very good as far as it went) was shown in an attempt to placate Ron’s millions of supporters. However, in actuality it was the height of hypocrisy, as the RNC had pulled out every underhanded and unethical trick in the book in order to make sure that Ron Paul was never given a chance to prevail as the Republican nominee for President. Of course, the national propaganda press corps was a willing accomplice to the RNC destruction of Ron’s campaign.

But the establishment’s ultimate insult to the twelve-term congressman occurred as Ron Paul and his wife tried to leave Tampa using a private plane. Lew Rockwell posted this: “Ron, Carol, and one of their granddaughters left the GOP snake pit yesterday afternoon, but the State was not yet through with them. At the little airport in Clearwater, 8 TSA agents descended on them and ordered them not to board their private plane. First, the pilots, the airplane, and the passengers would have to be screened in great detail, because Romney might be nearby. After a long examination of the pilots and their credentials, the agents said they had to check the plane for explosives. One of the pilots noted that the plane, full of gas, was already a bomb. Then Carol Paul, who has a heart pacemaker, refused to be screened, and an aide started taking video of the whole rotten proceeding. At that point, the TSA backed down and let them through.”

Such is the way a totalitarian-state-in-the-making treats a 76-year-old congressman with more than two decades of seniority and three-time candidate for President of the United States! Welcome to the United Soviet Socialist America!

Now, with millions of so-called Christians and conservatives lining up in support of the phony conservative Mitt Romney, the American people are once again left with the choice of Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Dum. No, I don’t buy the “anybody-but-Obama” mantra, either! In many ways, an unprincipled, compromising pseudo-conservative Republican is worse than an obviously liberal Democrat. The patriots of 1776 had far more to fear from Benedict Arnold than they did King George. An enemy easily identified is much less formidable than one who marches in the uniform of an ally.

That being said, where do we go from here?

Regardless who is elected President in November, nothing will be done to stop, or even slow down, America’s lust for foreign entanglements and wars. And that means nothing will be done to stop or slow down the burgeoning police state that is enveloping our nation. By 2016, there won’t be many liberties left in this country, regardless which party captures the White House. That is an absolute certainty! With the approbation and blessing of both Romney and Obama, the police and warfare states–not to mention the size and growth of government–will continue to accelerate at an unprecedented scale.

At this point, I am going to borrow from notable researcher and analyst Joel Skousen. In my opinion, his analysis regarding the “Where are we going” question is absolutely spot on. Here I share with readers Skousen’s sagacity. My condensed version of his comments follows.

“1) The [American] people are no longer worthy of liberty. Americans as a whole are soft, materialistic and too content with life to fight, let alone recognize the loss of liberty. As long as they are allowed to go to church and buy what they want, they think they are free. But the noose is tightening. The youth are even softer, so the trend is in the wrong direction. Americans may still consider themselves a religious people, but religion, for the most part, doesn’t change their little bad habits, so at some point their religion is not leading to righteousness. They stop listening to the refining voice of conscience. Religious people don’t even honor the Sabbath anymore.

“To the Lord, listening to the personal promptings of conscience is where the real test of religiosity lies and most Christians are chronic violators of conscience in the ‘little things’ relative to weight control, nutrition, recreation choices, use of time and failure to discipline children. Trouble is, this callous disregard for the ‘still small voice’ leads to bigger problems and worse decisions. That is why immorality and divorce are high even among church goers. There are notable exceptions, but in general America is getting more unworthy to be saved by God.

“2) Americans are lazy about finding truth. Today, more than ever with the vast information on the web, the truth is out there (except for most of the deepest and darkest secrets of conspiracy), and if people don’t find it, something is wrong with them relative to the workings of conscience and self control. That’s my point. Far too many people have become immune to the faint warning signals that something is wrong, or if they do hear it, they are too busy searching for material welfare to care.

“[3] States have become corrupt too: It is only partially true that state and local governments are easier to reform than the federal government. All state governments have corruption problems and some states like California, Illinois and New York have corruption machines that rival the mafia. Most large cities are also totally corrupt inside. That said, some states are clearly less corrupt than others, but there is an establishment good ‘old boy network, closely allied with the liberal press in every major city that works together to make sure than no Ron Paul or free market revolutionary gains control.

“What about the God is in Control argument? Optimistic Christian conservatives always throw out the argument that ‘God is in Control’ and so we don’t have to worry. He has the power to change things. As a believer, I agree. He does have the power. But the real question is will He intervene to save us? And, is America worthy of being saved by God? I don’t think so anymore. That doesn’t mean all is lost for everyone, but it does point to us heading for a great period of tribulation and the loss of liberty at the national level as it morphs into the NWO. I’m a religious person, and keep my eyes open constantly searching for signs that God is intervening as he did in the nation’s founding– allowing a set of leaders to rise to positions of influence where they can turn the tide, or even allowing major financing to come to principled people so they can bypass the establishment media, or schools, and fund a national movement to renew America. Nothing has happened. The big money only goes to ineffective or mainstream causes. We do have ample numbers of great thinkers with ideals and principles as profound as America’s founders, but none have been allowed to rise in power. Ron Paul got the closest. Those ministers who have achieved great wealth and fame in televangelism have done so by singing the easy gospel that people want to hear. Those that have been granted access to the White House prayer breakfast meetings during the Bush administration were those who refused to speak up or criticize the big government or war agenda. All the real champions of freedom have been left on the sidelines. Ron Paul is the only one to even get close to a run at the presidency and he has been shut down–but not without building the movement. I’ve seen God’s hand helping to gather the remnant, but no indications of any real optimism toward beating the mammoth evil that is growing even faster than the Liberty Movement.

“Considering the overwhelming moral evil in our nation that burdens the Lord’s sense of justice, I think He is bound to let the sword of justice fall. You can’t just manufacture specific faith in a proposed event by hope only or wishful thinking. For specific faith in a hoped for event to be valid, you have to have the spiritual confirmation that it is the Lord’s will, and that must come from God and not rosy-eyed optimism. While the Lord might certainly want the nation to be saved, God himself cannot arbitrarily disregard the decree of justice upon which the universe operates. Only upon terms of repentance and change of heart can condemnation be averted, and I don’t see that happening. I’m keeping an open heart and mind that it might, but the signs aren’t good.”

But it is Skousen’s conclusion that truly speaks to my heart. He writes:

“We can still fight for liberty to gain a minority foothold within the nation–a resistance movement, if you will, even if we can’t win back the whole. But when you are dealing with a minority of good people, to exercise any power at all, you have to congregate together so that you have a majority in a region or local area. Our greatest problem in a losing battle of attrition is that we are spread out uniformly across the nation–dispersed in a sea of humanity where none of us constitute a majority.

“If there is any hope for liberty it will be because pockets of liberty and resistance form during the next war when government itself is busy saving itself and not targeting freedom-loving dissidents–yet. I think you’ll see the time, when crisis comes that the social unrest will drive people out of their current places and the Lord will inspire those who can listen to go to places of refuge where other like-minded people are also gathering. Some will be inspired to go to safe places before the crisis, and if you are one of those, heed the promptings.”

My take differs only slightly from Skousen’s: I believe when the crisis comes, people will not be able to relocate, which is why the Lord is inspiring people to relocate NOW, and why the gathering of eagles is already taking place here in Montana’s Flathead Valley and in other places.

To subscribe to Joel Skousen’s World Affairs Brief (highly recommended), go to:

http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/

If my understanding of scriptures is close to accurate, one of the signs that God is giving a nation or people over to judgment is a dearth of principled leadership. Ron Paul’s departure from Congress–along with the way the Republican Party, the national media, and the American people as a whole, rejected his message of liberty and constitutional government–make it appear that judgment has already begun.

“The Fear Of God Is Not In This Place”

What in the world has happened to America? How has it come to this? The America that we currently see is unrecognizable from the America many of us grew up in. The America that many oppressed people risked their lives to escape to now more resembles the oppressed nations that those people fled. (I’ve had scores of immigrants tell me that personally.) And make no mistake about it, the problem is much deeper than the shallow partisan mantra, “It’s the Democrats’ (or Republicans’) fault.” The root cause of America’s woes is much deeper than that. For decades, we’ve been trading Democrats for Republicans, Republicans for Democrats, liberals for conservatives, and conservatives for liberals, and nothing has changed–except the problems keep getting worse!

To the heathen king, Abimelech, in Genesis chapter twenty, Abraham said, “Surely, the fear of God is not in this place.” Two thousand years later, in Romans chapter three, the Apostle Paul said, “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” I’m inclined to believe that this may be at the root of most of America’s problems. And for the non-religious reader, please don’t stop reading now. Hear me out.

For one thing, a person does not have to be a Christian to possess the fear of God. I’ve met many unbelievers who possess a firm and unmistakable fear of God. Furthermore, from what I’ve seen among professing Christians, most of them do NOT possess the fear of God–their Christian profession notwithstanding!

At the risk of sounding “carnal,” I am literally sick to my stomach with all this talk about electing “Christians” to public office! A thorough examination of the Scriptures teaches us that the Bible itself does not promote the concept of choosing “Christians” to be civil magistrates. A political candidate’s Christian profession or church affiliation means absolutely nothing to his or her fitness for public office. You heard me: NOTHING!

When John F. Kennedy was running for office, I remember all the excitement among Catholics to go out and elect a Catholic president. When Jimmy Carter was running for office, I remember all the excitement among Baptists to go out and elect a Baptist president. When G.W. Bush was running for office, I remember all the excitement among “born-again” Christians to go out and elect a “born-again” president. This year, Mormons are all excited that they can go out and elect a Mormon president. It’s all hooey! Whether our civil magistrates at the federal level are Democrat or Republican, Catholic or Baptist or “born-again” Christian or Mormon, our country continues to spiral into oppression and despotism. Instead of getting all wrapped up in a candidate’s religious profession or affiliation, we should heed the counsel of Holy Writ.

Here is the Biblical requirement for civil magistrates: “Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.” (Exodus 18:21 KJV)

See it again: “The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” (II Samuel 23:3 KJV)

What difference does it make if one is a Democrat or Republican, if he or she doesn’t have the fear of God in his or her heart? What difference does it make if one is a Catholic or Baptist or “born-again” Christian or Mormon, if he or she does not have the fear of God is his or her heart? What difference does it make if they are “conservative” or “liberal,” if they are not men and women of truth, men and women who hate covetousness, and men and women who are just?

No two men were more different than George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They were opposites in just about every measure of determination. But without a doubt, these two men were two of the most valuable and influential men at the time of America’s founding. It is safe to say that without these two men, the United States of America would not even exist. Though they differed in religious persuasion, background, education, etc., they both expressed the same sentiment in regard to the discussion at hand.

George Washington said, “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.”

Thomas Jefferson said, “And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

Christians or unbelievers, churchgoers or non-churchgoers, Federalists or Democrat-Republicans, northerners or southerners, to a man, America’s founders were men that feared God. That doesn’t mean they were without sin. It doesn’t mean that they possessed some sort of super-spirituality. But universally, the founding generation (and many generations afterward) possessed an innate fear of God.

Almost to a man, the founders emphasized that morality was the underpinning of liberty and freedom. And what is morality if it is not the governance of the way people treat one another? Furthermore, morality is something that must come from within; it cannot be coerced or forced externally. And, pray tell, where does morality come from if one has not the fear of God in his or her heart? And, again, this has nothing to do with one’s religious profession or affiliation–or lack thereof!

The fear of God is part of the Natural Law of God written in men’s hearts. The problem is that far too many people’s hearts have grown callused and hard to the “inner voice” of moral consciousness. How else can one explain the conduct of so many people?

The natural fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for their mother and father. (Leviticus 19:3) The fear of God is a predicate for a person’s respect for others, especially those who are disadvantaged. (Leviticus 19:14) This passage specifically notes the deaf and the blind.

So, how can TSA agents at the Louisville, Kentucky, airport possess the fear of God when they mockingly laugh at deaf people who were leaving the annual conference for the National Association of the Deaf in that city, calling them “F*%# Deafies”?

See the story at:

http://reason.com/blog/2012/07/10/tsa-agents-at-louisville-airport-steal-d

The fear of God is a predicate for people’s respect for the elderly. (Leviticus 19:32) The fear of God is a predicate for a political leader’s respect for liberty and refusal to engage in or allow oppression. (Leviticus 25:17) The fear of God is a predicate for honest financial and business practices. (Leviticus 25:36) And the fear of God is a predicate for a leader of any kind to not be tyrannical and heavy handed. (Leviticus 25:43)

And, as we are approaching the anniversary of the federal fiasco that took place near Ruby Ridge, Idaho, I am reminded again of how the lack of the fear of God is demonstrated in the way that our political leaders conduct themselves. How could federal agents possess the fear of God when they shot a fourteen-year-old boy in the back, and when one of them took aim through a high powered scoped rifle and shot the brains out of a young mother who was innocently standing in the doorway of her own home holding her infant child in her arms? Furthermore, how could federal agents possess the fear of God when they machine-gunned mostly elderly men, women, and children as they fled the burning buildings at Mt. Carmel outside Waco, Texas?

In addition, how can politicians in Washington, D.C., possess the fear of God when they routinely lie, steal, violate their oaths to the Constitution, and wreak havoc upon the liberties and freedoms of the American people? How can the banksters at the Federal Reserve possess the fear of God when they deliberately rape the US economy and purposefully manipulate the markets so as to destroy the financial well being of tens of millions of families? How can federal government officials at the highest levels possess the fear of God when they engage in international drug running and murder?

For that matter, how can professing Christians possess the fear of God when they engage in deliberate character assassination and slander? How can they possess the fear of God when they steal the honor and reputations of their own brothers and sisters? How can they possess the fear of God when they demonstrate selfishness, greed, and hypocrisy? How can they possess the fear of God when Christian school administrators lord over their staff and students as oppressively as any tyrant? How can pastors possess the fear of God when they willingly allow themselves to become the sheepish slaves of the state by avoiding–or even deliberately altering–the sacred principles of liberty set forth in the Holy Scriptures?

National policies and practices are totally dependent upon the personal fear of God by those who enact these policies and practices. No wonder the Scriptures admonish people to select civil magistrates who fear God. Forget his or her church affiliation! Forget his or her “Christian” profession! Are they people of their word? Do they hate covetousness? Are they people of truth? Are they men and women of character and integrity? Do they fear God?

America is not falling because of its politics. It is not falling because of its financial foibles. It is not falling because of its religious preferences. It is falling because “the fear of God is not in this place.”

“Turn In Your Guns At Your Local Church”

Last weekend, the Chicago Police Department collaborated with over 20 local churches in a giant effort to encourage Chicagoans “to get guns out of their homes.” WBBM News Radio has the story. “Using the lure of $100 gift cards, the Chicago Police Department is encouraging people to get guns out of their homes and turn them in this Saturday, during the annual gun turn-in program.”

The news report goes on to say, “[T]he Police Department is partnering with 20 churches.

First Deputy Supt. Alfonza Wysinger says anyone who turns in a real gun will get a $100 gift card. Replicas and BB guns are worth $10.

“‘No questions asked,’ Wysinger said. ‘Just show up at the church, and hand over the weapons to the CPD officer that will be there, and get your $100 gift card. So we strongly suggest that people come out that have weapons lying around the house, or weapons, maybe, that they don’t necessarily want in their house. This is a chance to get some money for their weapon, and get another dangerous weapon on [sic] the street.’”

The report then lists 23 churches that are identified as participating in the gun turn-in event.

See the report at:

http://tiny.cc/m5kkgw

But I particularly enjoyed a few of the comments that readers posted to the online report:

One guy wrote, “Gun thieves will be lined up for blocks.”

Another wrote, “They can arrest you for having a gun outside of your house.”

And another person wrote, “[Criminals] are turning in the guns they used in multiple crimes because the stupid politicians will destroy them thus getting rid of the evidence…”

And perhaps my favorite comment on the story was this one: “WOW. BOTH police and CHURCHES turning traitor against the Constitution.”

Truthfully, think about the absurdity of this gun turn-in program. As one reader noted, think of the money gun thieves will make on this program. As any tenured lawman knows, most guns are stolen to resell in order to get the money to purchase drugs, booze, sex, etc. Some are used in crimes, sure. But most are used for the purpose of making a buck. Imagine a gun thief who has perhaps 50 or 60 stolen guns in his possession: that guy has just made a small fortune OFF THE TAXPAYERS. Remember, there are “no questions asked.” And since the cops in Chicago seem to be doing this annually, how many gun thieves are stealing guns all year long and just saving up for the big payout, or how many start a gun-stealing frenzy just before the anticipated gun turn-in program? $100 for a stolen gun is often a higher bid than what the thief would get on the street. What a deal!

And think of this angle: what better way to get some quick dough by selling a gun or two that is totally inoperable, and then taking the money and buying a gun that actually works? Again, what a deal!

And another reader nailed it when he observed that taking a firearm outside your home is a CRIME in Chicago. In fact, I am surprised to learn that people in Chicago can even legally have a gun in their homes. You cannot legally carry a firearm in Chicago. So, the CPD is encouraging people to BREAK THE LAW. I can just imagine people all over Chicago caught carrying guns and telling the arresting officer, “I was going to take it to the gun turn-in program.” And you know what the cop would say, right? “Tell it to the judge.”

This brings up another point: why is there so much gun-related crime in Chicago, anyway? After all, Chicago has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the entire country. GUNS ARE ILLEGAL IN CHICAGO! So, pray tell, where is all of this gun-related crime coming from? I thought that passing laws restricting the ownership and possession of firearms was supposed to reduce crime? If that is truly the case, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and New York City, etc., should be the most peaceful places on earth! Of course, the truth is if you want to find peaceful communities, go to states such as Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Vermont where just about everybody is packin’ heat!

Plus, the point that another reader made about criminals turning in the guns with which they have committed crimes and thereby letting the authorities destroy those firearms–thus destroying the evidence–is a very astute observation. Way to go CPD!

But the icing on the cake for me is the point that one reader made when he said, “WOW. BOTH police and CHURCHES turning traitor against the Constitution.” Bingo!

Another reader was even more direct. He said, “The government and so called churches will be the downfall of this great country’s Constitution.” Amen!

It grieves me to say that a sizeable percentage (if not a majority) of today’s churches are as culpable in the dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights as any entity one can think of. So many pastors and churches today are unwilling to take a stand against almost ANYTHING that might have political overtones. I doubt that most of them would say “Boo” to the devil himself–especially if he came dressed in a government uniform. They are all about making people feel good, entertaining people, and stroking people’s egos.

In fact, let me ask my church-going readers to try an experiment. The next time you go to church, ask your pastor where he or she stands on the Second Amendment. Ask them, “Would our church participate in a police-sponsored gun turn-in program?” Ask them, “If the President declared a ‘national emergency,’ and FEMA (or any federal or State agency) asks you to ask your congregation to turn in their firearms, would you agree to do so?” Go ahead: ask them! Then observe their reaction very carefully.

You can count on this: virtually no pastor whose church is receiving federal “faith based initiative” taxpayer monies would take a public stand for the Second Amendment under those conditions. Count on it. So maybe you should also ask your pastor if your church is receiving federal “faith based initiative” monies. All over America, literally thousands of churches are accepting federal tax dollars to help support their daycare centers, their after-school programs, their “Christian” schools, their food banks, etc.

Contrast today’s churches to those of Colonial America. In those days, gun racks for the rifles that had been brought to church were as common as coat racks. In fact, many times, the church basement or back room was used as a place in which caches of firearms were commonly stored.

I realize the times in which we live do not remotely resemble those of Colonial America, but the spirit and attitudes of the pastors and men of the church should still be the same: that freedom is fragile and that firearms are “the people’s liberty teeth” (George Washington), that, “An armed society is a polite society” (Robert Heinlein), and, “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms” (Thomas Jefferson).

And while these milquetoast preachers are preparing their sermonettes, they should read what the Lord Jesus said: “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” (Luke 22:36) Of course, the Roman sword was the First Century equivalent to a Twenty-First Century handgun: it was the weapon of choice for personal, close quarter combat. In today’s parlance, Jesus said if you don’t have the money, sell your clothes if you have to, and buy a GUN! That’s a far cry from churches in Chicago asking people to give up their guns, isn’t it?

I don’t know about anyone else, but I will take the word of Jesus over the word of Barack Obama and his Chicago Gestapo any day!

Hutaree Militiamen Cleared In Court

Much to the chagrin of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a federal judge has cleared the members of a Michigan militia who were accused by federal law enforcement agents of conspiracy to commit sedition. Since you didn’t hear much about this ruling from the national press corps, here is one online version of the report:

“Seven members of a Michigan militia have been cleared of plotting to overthrow the U.S. government as a judge dismissed the most serious charges against them.

“In a shock defeat for federal authorities, District Judge Victoria Roberts said the group’s expressed hatred of law enforcement did not amount to a conspiracy.

“The FBI secretly planted an informant and an agent inside the Hutaree militia in 2008 to collect hours of anti-government audio and video that became the cornerstone of the case.

“Senior officials had insisted they had captured homegrown rural extremists poised for war.

“But the judge said: ‘The court is aware that protected speech and mere words can be sufficient to show a conspiracy. In this case, however, they do not rise to that level.’’

“Judge Roberts granted requests for acquittal on the most serious charges: conspiring to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the U.S. and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction.

“Other weapons crimes linked to the alleged conspiracies were also dismissed.”

Read more:

http://tinyurl.com/7wp8jhe

At this point, I believe it is necessary that I review a column I wrote on April 6, 2010, regarding the Hutaree militia raid. As you read the words that follow, please remember that they were written TWO YEARS AGO–almost to the day.

[2010 column starts here] I want to try and expound on William Norman Grigg’s outstanding analysis of the Hutaree militia raid. In doing so, I am going to also expand upon Grigg’s reference to James Madison’s trenchant treatise in Federalist 46.

Referring to the federal indictment against the Hutaree militia, that alleged members were making preparations for potential armed conflict against law enforcement officers as a “seditious conspiracy,” Grigg astutely noted, “If they were acquiring weapons and developing appropriate skills in anticipation of defending themselves against government aggression, their actions–while possibly conspiratorial in nature–don’t amount to a crime. This is particularly true in light of our cultural history, in which sedition–agitation to change the existing political order–is our proudest civic tradition.”

Grigg then rightly observes, “Government is nothing more than the rationalization and exercise of violence. Everything done by government contains at least the implicit threat of lethal coercion. Thus the indictment’s description of Hutaree as ‘an anti-government extremist organization which advocates violence against local, state and Federal law enforcement’ is a product of rhetorical onanism [from Genesis 38:9--a great analogy, Will].”

As a general rule, government is the most violent force on the planet. If one wants to get a true perspective on the historical record regarding who or what routinely produces the most violence and death, one should pick up a copy of R. J. Rummel’s book, “Death By Government.” Since the end of World War II, Communist China and Red Russia lead the pack when it comes to death and brutality; however, the US government has inflicted its share of carnage as well. For example, in Iraq and Afghanistan alone, the government in Washington, D.C., has killed over 800,000 civilians (and this figure is a conservative estimate noting the most credible resources possible).

See: http://www.unknownnews.net/casualties.html

Also see: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/images/10/11/human.cost.of.war.pdf

Plus, does anyone remember the violence that our federal government enacted upon the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas? Does anyone remember the mother shot in the head while innocently holding her little baby in her own home by a federal sniper near Ruby Ridge, Idaho (after her small son was shot in the back by federal agents)? In fact, the list of civilians who have been killed by federal law enforcement agents over the years is a very long one. Granted, many of these killings were done in lawful self-defense; but others amounted to nothing less than old-fashioned murder (and never was the federal agent who committed the murder ever brought to justice).

If one wants to indict an “organization which advocates violence,” then surely the central government in Washington, D.C., should be indicted!

If Hutaree members were indeed planning AGGRESSIVE violence against anyone–in the government or without–they deserved to be stopped. If, however, they were simply preparing to DEFEND THEMSELVES against government overreach or abuse–and would only resort to violence in an act of lawful self-defense–they committed no crime and are but the most recent victims of federal abuse of power. This is a question that will doubtless be determined in a court of law.

To charge, however (as the indictment does), that Hutaree members (all 9 of them!) planned “to levy war against the United States, [and] to oppose by force the authority of the Government of the United States . . .” will take some doing to make stick. As Grigg points out, “If Hutaree was preparing for armed DEFENSE against criminal actions by government officials, this charge is as pointless as a broken pencil. If their efforts to ‘prevent, hinder, and delay’ various government initiatives were confined to activism, rather than armed conflict, they are–in that particular–not substantially different from hundreds or thousands of other groups.”

The entire case against Hutaree appears to be based upon the testimony of an FBI undercover agent inside the group. Placing agent provocateurs inside groups such as Hutaree is a classic strategy of federal police agencies. This part of the story was broken by the Wall Street Journal.

See the WSJ report at:

http://tinyurl.com/wsj-hutaree

Using agent provocateurs is a long-favored tactic of both the Kremlin and the White House. Joel Skousen’s latest WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF contains an extremely trenchant and insightful analysis of how Russia and the US have used–and continue to use–this tactic.

Skousen writes, “A related tactic [to false flag operations] is the hiring of agent provocateurs to infiltrate a group targeted for destruction and induce radical elements of that group to perform crimes against innocent civilians that will justify armed retaliation or arrest. With the sudden surge in claimed terrorism in Russia and the arrest of the radical Hutaree group in the US, it is helpful to review the role of false flag terror attacks in Russia and the role of agent provocateurs in the US as we analyze what’s really going on.”

Skousen further states, “As we move on to discuss the arrest of the radical members of the Hutaree cult in Michigan, it is important to note that virtually every prosecution of so-called domestic terrorism in the past decade is owed to the infiltration of FBI informants. While none of us in America dispute the need to gain intelligence on real threats to national security, we have to question the propriety of training and pressuring informants (most of which have been forced to accept the informant assignment in lieu of a prison term for other crimes committed) to provoke and induce angry and unstable dissidents to commit acts of terror.

“All too often, FBI ‘informants’ have been pressured by superiors to go far beyond informing. They have provided weapons, explosives, and even acted as the guiding hand to map out the strategy and tactics for performing the deed. These things only come out reluctantly during trial, and even then I suspect that we are never allowed to know the full extent of these provocations.”

To receive a sample of Joel Skousen’s WORLD AFFAIRS BRIEF or to subscribe to this excellent newsletter (I highly recommend it), write to:

editor@worldaffairsbrief.com

In addition, Will Grigg states that another major component of the indictment that is worrisome is the charge that Hutaree is guilty of “seditious conspiracy.” As Grigg writes, “Whatever is eventually learned about Hutaree, as things presently stand the indictment against it could provide a template for ‘seditious conspiracy’ prosecutions involving practically any group that endorses the use of defensive force to protect citizens against government aggression.

“Indeed, the definition of ‘conspiracy’ used in the Hutaree indictment could make a criminal out of anyone who reads Federalist Paper 46 in public, thereby sharing James Madison’s commendably seditious admonition that the people preserve ‘the advantage of being armed’ in the event that insurrection against the central government proves necessary in order to preserve liberty.”

Let’s look a little closer at Federalist 46, written by Founding Father, author of the US Constitution, and America’s fourth President, James Madison. In dispelling the fears of colonists toward a standing federal army, Madison said in Federalist 46, “Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.”

Madison went on to say, “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Could Madison be any clearer? He (and the rest of America’s founders) emphatically expected the militia of the “several States” to be universally armed against the potential encroachment on liberty by the central government, meaning: the citizenry must at all times be prepared to use their arms against any aggressive nature of the federal government to trample their freedoms.

This, of course, reinforces the founders’ intent, that the 2nd Amendment protected the right of the people to keep and bear arms for the express purpose of providing the citizenry with the capability to repel (with violence) any assault against their liberties by their own federal government.

So, pray tell, would today’s FBI categorize James Madison’s statements in Federalist 46 as “seditious conspiracy”? If so, perhaps we are closer to tyranny than any of us wants to admit!

Furthermore, it is not lost to millions of Americans that this is the same federal government (through Department of Homeland Security fusion centers) that just recently characterized pro-lifers; people who support the 2nd Amendment; people who oppose the United Nations and illegal immigration; people who voted for Ron Paul or Chuck Baldwin; and Iraq War veterans as “extremists” and potential “dangerous militia members.”

But, once again, the federal government–along with their propagandists in the major news media, including its artificial authority on militias, the ultra-liberal Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) in Montgomery, Alabama–is able to use the Hutaree militia to demonize militias in general, and even more damaging, to try and destroy the concept of constitutional State militias in the minds of the American public.

Did members of the Hutaree intend to carry out aggressive violence against law enforcement personnel? I have no idea. Until this story broke in the national media, I had never heard of this group. I will wait for the facts to come out–if indeed the federal government and national media even allow the facts to come out.

I do know this: I do not trust the federal government to tell the truth about anything! They did not tell the truth about the Branch Davidians at Waco; they did not tell the truth about Randy Weaver; they did not tell the truth about Gordon Kahl; and, if their track record is any indicator, it is doubtful that they are telling the truth about the Hutaree militia. But we shall see.

In the meantime, as William Norman Grigg opines, “There’s reason to believe that the Feds have expanded and escalated this ongoing enterprise to exploit, and exacerbate, growing public hostility toward an increasingly invasive and esurient government.

“Whether it is ever demonstrated that Hutaree intended to ‘levy war’ against the U.S. government, this much is beyond serious dispute: The Homeland Security state is unambiguously preparing for war with the public–in fact, it has been doing so for a long time.” [2010 column ends here]

I invite readers to visit William Norman Grigg’s blog at:

http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/2010/03/causus-belli.html

Well, now in 2012, the facts have all been laid bare. The Hutaree militia was innocent of the federal government’s conspiracy charges, and the federal government, once again, did not tell the truth. And, furthermore, the words written by yours truly and Will Grigg seem even more relevant today than they did two years ago, do they not?

In closing, let me be very clear about this: I have nothing but appreciation and respect for honest, God-fearing law enforcement personnel. I count law enforcement personnel among my kinfolk, and I feel very privileged to have been made an honorary deputy sheriff by my former county sheriff. I certainly share no anti-law enforcement prejudice. But the current trend to militarize and federalize law enforcement is both unconstitutional and alarming. Even more alarming is the manner in which the federal government and its toadies at the SPLC are attempting to criminalize the expressions of freedom and constitutional government–the same words, thoughts, and ideas expressed by America’s Founding Fathers. To quote myself, “So, pray tell, would today’s FBI categorize James Madison’s statements in Federalist 46 as ‘seditious conspiracy’? If so, perhaps we are closer to tyranny than any of us wants to admit!”

In the meantime, congratulations to federal District Judge Victoria Roberts for representing the court in a manner consistent with the founders’ intentions: by using the gavel as a hammer to protect liberty rather than as a rubber stamp to dismantle it–as so many federal judges are inclined to do these days.

The EPA an Out of Control Monster

Government arrogance and pious hypocrisy reaches a new high when the sinister Environmental Protection Agency strikes out to save the children. The official position on the EPA website has one singing the Amerika version of “Don’t cry for me Argentina”. EPA Proposes First Carbon Pollution Standard for Future Power Plants

“Today we’re taking a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy,” said EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson. “Right now there are no limits to the amount of carbon pollution that future power plants will be able to put into our skies – and the health and economic threats of a changing climate continue to grow. We’re putting in place a standard that relies on the use of clean, American made technology to tackle a challenge that we can’t leave to our kids and grandkids.”

What is missing from this statement is that regular citizens are under direct assault from their utility companies that force “so called” Green electric generation into the mix. Soon people will be living like beggars in order to pay the overpriced schemes that impoverish the population.

The latest outrage from the EPA bootjack thugs is the EPA Emission Rules To Effectively Ban New Coal Plants. “The Environmental Protection Agency effectively banned new coal-fired power plants Tuesday, announcing emission rules that will make them uneconomical to build. This follows other recent rules squeezing coal. The actions show the administration following through on an earlier promise to crack down on the industry via regulation after the “cap and trade” carbon bill stalled in Congress in 2010.”The proof of Obama ‘All the Above’ Strategy Does Not Include Coal, is seen by his EPA policy.

“The goal of President Obama’s “all of the above” energy policy is to drive up the costs on traditional energy sources, leveling the playing field so green energy power can someday become competitive economically.

But if the White House energy policy begins to phase out coal power before green energy sources are ready to take over, how is President Obama going to charge the battery in his Chevy Volt?”

With the demise of the nuclear alternative after the Fukushima cover-up, where is the sensible acknowledgement that electric generation requires a reliable source of energy?

Investor Business Daily cites the crucial reality. “Coal is an essential part of a diverse, reliable and affordable energy mix, supplying nearly 40% of our electricity,” said Bruce Josten, the Chamber of Commerce’s executive vice president, in a statement. “It remains a cost-effective and secure source of power in a time of soaring energy prices.”

 

The video President Obama’s Energy Promises Overlook Coal adds upon this analysis.Environmental whacks that hail shutting down electric generation from coal are utterly mad. Since this country has abundant and cheap coal deposits, powering generation plants just does not fit with their goal of turning the consumer into a subservient slave. Left out of this equation is that effective banning of new coal generation will simply divert coal sales for export to China and India.

With the intense use and continuous building of new coal facilities, the notorious record of the Chinese and India subcontinent to foster clear air standards is pale in comparison to the current emissions from U.S. generation. The EPA will do nothing to stop the use of coal oversea.

The Wall Street Journal writes in EPA Tips Scales Toward Natural Gas in Power Generation; Miners, GOP Cry Foul.

“Despite the EPA’s insistence that the new rule will still allow advanced coal plants to be built, many critics aren’t convinced. “This really is a ban on new coal-fired generation. The EPA knows that,” said Jeff Holmstead, a partner at Bracewell & Giuliani LLP in Washington and former head of the EPA’s air office under President George W. Bush.

With the new rule, the mining industry will look to the export market for relief. Asian coal demand more than doubled in the past decade, led by China and India. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects Chinese coal demand to rise by 2.4% annually through 2035, almost ten times as fast as U.S. demand. However, U.S. miners are constrained by rail and port limitations, and exports will only partially offset declining domestic consumption.”

 

The You Tube of Pompeo responds to EPA’s regulatory overreach has a Congressional hearing worth viewing.The fundamental issue with the EPA is that it is an out of control agency. Accountability for its abuses is long overdue. However, recent Presidents and Congresses refuse to set a rational energy policy because the hidden objective is to destroy the domestic economy.

EPA CO2 Regulation Effectively Bans New Coal Facilities adds the details.

“Case in point: regulations subjecting existing coal plants that wish to make upgrades to costly and exhaustive New Source Review requirements, which actually discourage energy efficiency and safety improvements that plants would undertake on their own accord.

Congress should step up and stop the EPA from bypassing Congress’s sound rejection of cap and trade. The EPA regulations on CO2 are just one of those other ways to skin the cat, as President Obama famously promised.”

Such excess and high-handedness from the EPA is even more evident in the following example.

Bloomberg reports in EPA Enforcement Tool Blunted by High Court in Wetlands Case,

“The U.S. Supreme Court blunted a commonly used Environmental Protection Agency enforcement tool, siding with landowners and companies that said the federal agency was abusing its power.

The justices today unanimously ruled in favor of an Idaho couple blocked by the EPA from building a home on land the agency says is restricted wetlands. The justices said the couple can go directly to court to challenge an EPA order requiring them to restore property they had begun preparing for construction.

The decision weakens the force of so-called administrative compliance orders that the EPA issues on average 1,500 times a year to businesses and individuals. The orders demand an end to alleged violations, applying fines that pressure owners to settle. The government said those orders couldn’t be appealed to a court.”

The Environmental Protection Agency functions as a gatekeeper for the all knowing and powerful Wizard of Oz, the despotic State. The legal hurdles that forced a Supreme Court case just to obtain permission to file a court challenge against the EPA draconian rules are absurd. Likewise, the motivation to prohibit the use of coal for electrical generation solidified the rule of the tyrants.

Then again, do not place your faith that the Supreme Court gets it correct often.

An analysis by Steven F. Hayward in the American Enterprise Institute, applies today as it did when first published back in 2006.

“This is preface to a big story that is getting surprisingly little coverage in the media this week, namely, the design of the Environmental Protection Agency to double its budget, and to increase its number of employees more than tenfold, from the current level of about 18,000 to more than 230,000, over the next four years. And this just for one single program: the greenhouse gas regulations under the Clean Air Act. And all of this arises from the Supreme Court’s botched 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which said the EPA could regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act, even though Congress never intended this, and even said so at the time during floor debate over the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.

Here’s the problem, long predicted by me and lots of other folks who know how the Clean Air Act works. The Act says any stationary source that emits as little as 100 tons a year of a pollutant must get annual permits from state agencies and the EPA. 100 tons is a lot if you’re looking at pollutants like volatile organic gases (unburned hydrocarbons) that contribute to ozone, but is a tiny amount for carbon dioxide. Your average fast-food restaurant or donut shop or apartment building easily emits 100 tons of CO2. Right now about 14,000 stationary sources have to get annual emission permits under the Act. By regulating CO2 through the Clean Air Act, the number of businesses that will require EPA permits will be over 6 million.”

The Federal executive branch has scores of agencies that act well beyond the intention, if not, the spirit of the law. Power hungry autocrats that lost the cover of “good intentions” decades ago, devise these governmental regulations. The ultimate goal is to synchronize a Cap and Trade policy through administrative ordinances. Congress needs to focus on repealing legislation that creates and funds rogue agencies like the EPA. Clean air is important, but singling out coal for replacement by “Green” alternative energy is simply suicidal.

Soon the EPA will impose a tax on your own breathing, since you are a CO2 exhaling machine.

Tennessee Joins TSA In Creating Random Check Points

In 1836, former frontiersman and congressman Davy Crockett led a band of volunteers all the way from their home State of Tennessee to San Antonio, Texas, in order to join up with William Travis and his small company of soldiers, and help defend the Alamo–and Texas independence–from Mexican General Santa Anna and his army of over 5,000 seasoned troops. To men such as Crockett, Travis, Jim Bowie, and the rest, State independence and freedom was worth fighting and dying for. To a man, they each proved that. Therefore, it is fitting to wonder what Davy Crockett would think about his home State of Tennessee joining with federal agencies in establishing random checkpoints throughout the Volunteer State.

According to a local Tennessee news source, “You’re probably used to seeing TSA’s signature blue uniforms at the airport, but now agents are hitting the interstates to fight terrorism with Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR).

“‘Where is a terrorist more apt to be found? Not these days on an airplane more likely on the interstate,’ said Tennessee Department of Safety” Homeland Security Commissioner Bill Gibbons.

“Tuesday Tennessee was first to deploy VIPR simultaneously at five weigh stations and two bus stations across the state.”

The report went on to say, “The Tennessee Highway Patrol checked trucks at the weigh station with drug and bomb sniffing dogs during random inspections.”

See the report at:

http://tinyurl.com/3zeq864

As I have noted in this column before, the one thing that the bogus “war on terror” and “war on drugs” does is it justifies and ratchets up the emerging surveillance state in America. In this regard, virtually every constitutional and historical protection of our God-given and civil rights are being systematically and thoroughly expunged–in the name of “national security.”

For all intents and purposes, the Patriot Act eviscerated the 4th and 5th amendments to the US Constitution (and seriously injured many of the others). The Posse Comitatus Act, which dates back to 1878, was flushed down the toilet during the presidencies of George Herbert Walker Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama. Since 1968, 2nd Amendment liberties are only a shell of what America’s founders intended and established. And the above-mentioned story out of the State of Tennessee is just the latest example of how the US and State governments are continuing to shred the Bill of Rights–and virtually every other protection of individual liberties once thought sacred.

The State of Tennessee should be ashamed of itself–and the people of Tennessee should be outraged!

The problem is, this kind of unlawful activity has been taking place for years. And more often than not, it is the federal government that is both promoting this practice and paying for it, of course. So, why should anyone be alarmed that TSA is now joining scores of other federal alphabet agencies and getting into the act? At least, that’s the thinking of these KGB wannabes.

Most of us over the age of 50 can well remember the stories and images that came out of the old Soviet Union and its satellite states in the East Bloc. In fact, the phrase, “Show us your papers,” was symbolic of totalitarianism and despotism. Today, that same phrase is part and parcel with America’s “war on terror” and considered “patriotic.” Back in the days of “Free America,” checkpoints were synonymous with Red Russia and Red China. We could never have imagined–or tolerated–those kinds of practices going on in these United States. Now, they are part of everyday life in “Occupied America,” and standard operating procedure in the State of Tennessee and elsewhere.

For federal police agencies to be conducting checkpoints (i.e., Tennessee), organizing searches and seizures against citizens complying with State law (i.e., Montana), patrolling city streets (i.e., Alabama, Florida), and even ambushing and killing American citizens (i.e., Idaho, Texas) is the sign that the American experiment of federalism, separation of powers, State sovereignty, etc., is certainly over, and that this new “Occupied America” is in the throes of an ever-burgeoning police state!

If Davy Crockett lived today, he wouldn’t have to ride far to find oppression to fight, would he?

Who Are The Top 1%?

The movement that began as Occupy Wall Street in New York has spread to other cities across America as well as countries. In Italy, the Occupiers instigated a riot in Rome, torching cars and smashing windows, which required armed police to be brought in.

In the name of equity, the Occupiers say they are the 99% opposed to the top 1%, the filthy rich. So who are America’s Top 1%?

To begin, we need to define “income” vs. “wealth or net worth.”

Income is what people earn — from salaries, wages, dividends, interest, royalties, and rents from properties they own. U.C. Santa Cruz Sociology Professor William Domhoff claims that most of the income of “the rich” does not come from “working”: In 2008, only 19% of the income reported by the 13,480 individuals or families making over $10 million came from wages and salaries.

Wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns in marketable assets (such as real estate, stocks, and bonds, but not including cars and household items), minus any debts or liabilities (such as home mortgages, credit card debts and auto loans). In effect, wealth is assets minus debts, or W = A-D. That is why a better term for “wealth” is “net worth.”

High income (HI) may or may not mean great wealth because a high-income person or household may simply spend everything they make — and more, by going into debt. At the same time, an individual or household with moderate or even low income (MI/LI) may actually become wealthy by being frugal and investing their savings wisely.

Thus, HI ≠ W; whereas it is highly possible that MI/LI = W. Remember that when you decide to condemn “the wealthy.”

Wikipedia says the current per capita (per person) median income in the United States is roughly $32,000 (for those employed full-time between the ages of 25 and 64, it’s $39,000). By “median” income is meant that the figure $32,000 divides the American population into two equal halves — half (50%) of Americans make more than $32,000, and the other half make less than $32,000.

The U.S. Census Bureau offers income data by household and individual. 42% of U.S. households have two income earners; thus making households’ income levels higher than personal income levels. According to a 2008 article on the investment website My Budget 360, the median U.S. household income was $46,326. Dual earner households had a higher median income at $67,348.

Currently marketing corporations and investment houses classify those with household incomes exceeding $75,000 as “mass affluent,” while sociologistLeonard Beeghley identifies all those with a net worth of $1 million or more as “rich.” The upper class is most commonly defined as the top 1% with household incomes commonly exceeding $250,000 annually.

In a recent Census report there are 110 million households in the United States.Here’s the distribution of U.S. households’ income in 2006:

• Top third (34.73%) of households had annual gross income of $65,000or more.
• Top quarter (25.60%) of households had annual gross income of$80,000 or more.
• Top quintile (20%) of households had annual gross income of $91,202or more.
• Top 15% (17.80%) of households had annual gross income of $100,000or more.
• Top 10% of households had annual gross income of $118,200 or more.
• Top 5% of households (3/4s of whom had 2 income earners) had annual gross income of $166,200 or more.
• Top 3% (2.67%) had annual gross income of $200,000 or more.
• Top 1.5% had annual gross income of $250,000 or more.
• Top 0.1% (0.12% or 146,000 households) had annual gross income of$1,600,000 or more.

The 2008 article on My Budget 360 further breaks down that Top 0.1%. At its apex are:

• The top 0.01% (11,000 households) with annual incomes of $5.5 million or more.
• The top 400 highest tax payers in America had annual incomes of $87 million or more.

Notice how the incomes gradually go up from the Top Third’s $65,000 to the Top 1.5%’s $250,000, but between the Top 1.5%’s $250,000 and the Top 0.1%’s $1.6 million) is a huge gap of $1.35 million!

While households in the top 1.5% of households had incomes exceeding $250,000, 443% above the national median, their incomes were still 2200% lower than those of the top 0.01% of households. One can therefore conclude that almost any household, even those with incomes of $250,000 annually are poor when compared to the top 0.1%, who in turn are poor compared to the top 0.000267%, the top 400 taxpaying households.

According to the Federal Reserve Board, here’s the distribution of U.S. households’ networths in 2001:

• 6.9% of U.S. households had a negative networth of <$0 (i.e., those who not only have zero assets but are in debt).
• 5.4% of households had a networth of $0-$999.
• 2.4% of households had a networth of $1,000-$2,499.
• 3.5% of households had a networth of $2,500-$4,999.
• 4.7% of households had a networth of $5,000-$9,999.
• 8.1% of households had a networth of $10,000-$24,999.
• 9.2% of households had a networth of $25,000-$49,999.
• 12.8% of households had a networth of $50,000-$99,999.
• 19.2% of households had a networth of $100,000-$249,999.
• 13% of households had a networth of $250,000-$499,999.
• 7.8% of households had a networth of $500,000-$999,999.
• 7% of households had a networth of $1 million or more.

Alas, the Federal Reserve Board did not break that top 7% down, so we don’t know what’s the networth of the Top 1% of U.S. households, other than that the Top 1% own 32.7% of Americans’ total networth in 2001. In contrast, 50% of U.S. households own just 2.8% of Americans’ total networth.

Here are some interesting tidbits about the above distribution of U.S. households’ networths:

• 58% of households with negative networth were young, i.e., under 35 years old (which makes sense because many college students are poor).
• Those with negative networth are more likely to have a less-than-high-school education.
• Among those with negative networth, the percentage who are unemployed (but not retired) is more than twice they are in the larger population.
• Households with negative networth are concentrated in the South and in the West.
• 10.1% of households with networth of $1 million or more are Boomers (aged 46-55).
• 28.2% of the Top 1% households in networth are Boomers.

The Top 1%

Leonard Beeghley called the top 0.9% the “Super Rich”, whom he described as “Multi-millionaires whose incomes commonly exceed $350,000; includes celebrities and powerful executives/politicians.” The OWS Movement say they are against the Top 1%. Here are some members of the Top 1% who are or should be targets:

Barack Obama: (supports OWS)

• Annual POTUS salary (not total income): $400,000
• Net worth in 2010: $10.5 million

The 25 richest members of Congress (in Roll Call’s 2009 annual survey that gives only their estimated net worth. Under federal law, members of Congress must disclose their personal investments and liabilities, but only in broad categories, thereby shielding the exact value of any asset or debt):

1. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass): $188.37 million
2. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Ca): $160.05 million
3. Rep. Jane Harman (D-Ca): $152.62 million
4. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va): $81.50 million
5. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas): $73.75 million
6. Sen. Mark Warner (D- W.Va): $70.19 million
7. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo): $56.49 million
8. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla): 55.47 million
9. Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ): $49.70 million
10. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Ca): $46.07 million
11. Sen. Alan Grayson (D-Fla): $31.41 million
12. Rep. Harry Teague (D-NM): $25.52 million
13. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca): $21.74 million (supports OWS)
14. Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NY): $19.90 million
15. Sen. James Riche (R-Idaho) : $19.69 million
16. Rep. Gary Miller (R-Ca): $19.37 million
17. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Tx): $18.41 million
18. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn): $18.21 million
19. Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo): $15.73 million
20. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY): $14.90 million
21. Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine): $12.52 million
22. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn): $12.12 million
23. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont): $10.90 million
24. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz): $10.52 million
25. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa): $10.45 million

Non-elected political figures:

• Louis Farrakhan (leader of Nation of Islam): $3 million
• Ralph Nader: $4.2 million
• Chelsea Clinton: $5 million
• Al Sharpton: $5 million
• Joy Behar: $8 million
• Ann Coulter: $8.5 million
• Rev. Jesse Jackson: $10 million (supports OWS)
• Henry Kissinger: $10 million
• Eric Holder (U.S. attorney general): $11.5 million
• Sarah Palin: $12 million (networth); $1 million (annual salary)
• Hillary Clinton: $21.5 million
• Arianna Huffington: $35 million
• John Edwards: $55.5 million
• Al Gore: $100 million (supports OWS)
• Mitt Romney: $250 million

The Media:

• Matt Drudge: $15 million
• Brian Williams: $30 million (networth); $13 million (annual salary)
• Sean Hannity: $35 million
• Diane Sawyer: $40 million (networth); $12 million (annual salary)
• Katie Couric: $55 million (networth); $15 million (annual salary)
• Glenn Beck: $85 million
• Barbara Walters: $150 million
• Rush Limbaugh: $300 million (est. networth); $40 million (annual salary).

Celebrities who’ve spoken out in support of Occupy Wall Street:

• Yoko Ono: $500 million
• Russell Simmons: $325 million
• Roseanne Barr: $80 million
• Deepak Chopra: $80 million
• Kanye West: $70 million
• Alec Baldwin: $65 million
• Susan Sarandon: $50 million
• Tim Robbins: $50 million
• Michael Moore: $50 million

Here are the networths of some of the Super-Rich, the Top 0.01% (from Forbes’ richest 400 in America list):

1. Steve Jobs: $8.3 Billion
2. Carl Icahn (leveraged buyouts): $12 Billion
3. Sergey Brin (Google): $15.9 Billion
4. Charles Koch (manufacturing, energy): $19 Billion
5. Michael Bloomberg (NY mayor): $20 Billion
6. George Soros: $22 Billion
7. Jim Walton (of Wal-Mart): $23.4 Billion
8. Lawrence Ellison (of Oracle): $27 Billion
9. Warren Buffet: $50 Billion
10. Bill Gates (Microsoft): $57 Billion

The Occupy protesters reportedly are armed with iPhones and laptops and are active in social media — the very gadgets and communications technology invented by Jobs, Brin, Ellison, and Gates. Reportedly, Soros is funding the Occupy movement.

Will irony ever end?

By the way, raging socialist and President-for-life of Venezuela Hugo Chavez has an estimated networth of $1 Billion (!) — the same as Prince Albert II of Monaco. Another raging socialist, Fidel Castro of Cuba, has an estimated networth of $900 million.

Adios for now. See you at the Revolution!

Source: Fellowship of the Minds

Government Gunrunners

Not that the national media notices much, but the federal government under President Barack Obama has been supplying guns to Mexican drug gangs for quite a spell. With only a few print media bothering to cover the story, Obama’s Justice Department has been discovered secretly supplying firearms to Mexican drug lords using taxpayer “stimulus” monies. If that wasn’t bad enough, guns supplied to these Mexican miscreants by federal agents were used to kill at least one US Border Patrol agent. After the death of the BP agent, California Congressman Darrell Issa launched an investigation into the matter and uncovered what most anyone would correctly describe as a vast government conspiracy to supply firearms to Mexican drug cartels. As a result of Issa’s congressional investigations, numerous heads at the ATF have lost their jobs–or more correctly–have been “reassigned.”

Two days ago, the Washington Post reported, “The ATF head has been reassigned amid an investigation into a controversial U.S. gun-trafficking operation, part of a broader shake-up at the Justice Department in which the U.S. attorney in Phoenix also stepped down, officials said Tuesday.

“Kenneth E. Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, will become a senior adviser on forensic science in the department’s Office of Legal Policy. He will be replaced as acting director at ATF by B. Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, the department said in a statement.”

The Post report went on to say, “In a sign of the continuing fallout, Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Phoenix who worked closely with ATF and provided legal guidance for “Fast and Furious,” [codename for the ATF gunrunning operation] has resigned, the department said Tuesday. He is being replaced on an acting basis by his deputy, Ann Scheel.

“An assistant U.S. Attorney in Phoenix, Emory Hurley, who helped oversee “Fast and Furious,” is being transferred out of the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s criminal division and into the civil division. That means he will not be involved in criminal cases.

“The multiple moves amounted to an extraordinary shake-up for a Justice Department that has been under fire for the gun-trafficking probe, which critics consider ATF’s biggest debacle since the deadly 1993 confrontation in Waco, Tex. ATF is part of Justice.”

The Washington Post has since revised this report. See it at:

http://tinyurl.com/3ncvnym

Back in July, World Net Daily ran a story featuring Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America in which he warned the American people of the ATF’s horrific scheme by saying, “Ten million dollars, and one of the ways they were spending it was a paid FBI informant who was a drug dealer they had flipped. So he was buying lots of guns with that stimulus money.”

Pratt went on to say, “We can say there’s one thing that was stimulated by the stimulus bill and that was the Mexican undertaker business. Mexican authorities say that 150 people were murdered using these guns.”

World Net Daily also reported, “Firearms law analyst and writer David Codrea believes that even if there is evidence to prove that known criminals used taxpayer money to get guns to take to Mexico, nothing is likely to be done with the evidence.

“‘If left to Holder’s Justice Department, nothing, because it shows this had to be top-level DoJ-authorized,’ Codrea explained.

“Reports say other federal agencies have also been drawn into the operation. The DEA, FBI and upper-level DOJ officers, including the U.S. Attorney’s office in Phoenix, have been named.”

WND goes on to state, “Pratt also believes that some of the guns were purchased by the Mexican cartels directly from federal agents.

“‘One of the founders of the cartel, one of the top 14 directors if you will, a guy whose nickname is El Mamito, has said that he was buying guns directly from the federal government,’ Pratt explained.”

And one more quote from the WND report: “Pratt said he believes for the guns to go across at a designated location, there had to be coordination between several federal law enforcement agencies.

“‘There had to be some kind of a deal with the Border Patrol. . . .We know that in the ’09 meeting that set up Fast and Furious, those four or five agencies were all part of the deal,’ Pratt said.”

See the report at:

http://gunowners.org/beltway-gunrunners.htm

What makes the ATF’s criminal gunrunning conspiracy even worse (if that’s possible) is the fact that, much like his superiors Obama and Holder, Melson has a career-long reputation for wanting to curtail the right of law-abiding US citizens to keep and bear arms. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the weird world of Obama/Holder/Melson, law-abiding US citizens cannot be trusted to keep and bear arms, but US tax dollars and federal police agencies are used to provide firearms to Mexican drug gangs. Then, when Mexican drug gangs using firearms supplied by the US Justice Department murder one of their own Border Patrol agents, the only retribution that follows is for underlings to be “reassigned.”

Seriously folks, have you ever known of any federal agent being brought to justice for even the most egregious violations of life and liberty? Where was the first federal agent brought to justice for the murders of over 80 mostly old men, women, and children outside Waco, Texas? Was agent Lon Horiuchi brought to justice for murdering Vicki Weaver? That monster shot Vicki in the face with a high-powered, scoped rifle as she stood in her kitchen holding her little baby. Not only was this creep not punished, he was later promoted and continues to work in law enforcement today. (Horiuchi was charged with manslaughter in Idaho State court, but US District Judge Edward Lodge dismissed the case. In justifying his horrific ruling, Lodge said that the Supremacy Clause of the US Constitution “grants immunity to federal officers acting in the scope of their employment.” Way to go judge! Heil Hitler!) Oh! And by the way, Horiuchi was a federal sharpshooter at Waco, too.

So, one more time, criminals inside the US federal government have been found out! I hope Congressman Issa will not be content to let the matter die with the reassignments of a few underlings. The American people have been enduring criminality, bloodshed, and death perpetrated by rogue elements inside the federal government for far, far too long! It is time now for true justice to come to the US Justice Department!

Our Spiritual Leadership Stumbles and Falls

A Lesson in Betrayal and Trust…

The world is standing at a crossroads.  Many believe that the world has, in fact, already chosen its path and has now tunneled deep into the darkness.  Like many who are working to bring to light the truth of our collective predicament, I prefer to believe there is still time for corrective action, and that the headlong rush towards self destruction can be reversed. In order for this to take place, the disturbing and deplorable facts about what we are going up against need to be revealed. The very first step on the way to substantive change is that the truth must come out.

Ideally, religious leaders carry a moral imperative to bring us to the truth.  But while it is true that certain congregations are headed up by leaders who may rail against war, or may advise against taking part in certain government programs—homeschooling and vaccines come to mind—there are other, critically important issues concerning which our religious leaders remain silent.

Many of us  have come to  realize that there is a dark impetus that has emerged, an ever more powerful section of the body politic which advocates for eugenics.  In plain words, this means that certain sectors of the population are facing elimination.  But even in the most “progressive” of congregations, you won’t hear the pastor pounding the Sunday pulpit and asserting that geneticists within the government have developed chemical compounds which are right now being leaked into most processed foods, bonding with melanin and resulting in the epidemic of hypertension and diabetes among the African American population (who have the most melanin in their systems). You won’t hear the  rabbi explaining to his congregation during Friday night Shabbat services that the double line water system has the capability of wiping off the face of the earth every Jew, or every political activist, or every Jehovah’s witness, or every red haired, freckle faced single mother of three on welfare, for that matter. Pick your demographic and the water weapon can hone in on any segment of the population that is selected.

One can argue endlessly which groups are targeted for the clean sweep. To my way of thinking, it doesn’t matter who Mother Government has decided to cull. We are all American citizens; we all allegedly have rights under the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees us “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Please note that the primary word here is “life.” The fact remains that the eugenics movement within the U.S. government—a movement which boasts a long history of advocating the desirability of killing people (proponents include the Bush family and their well-documented support of Adolph Hitler)—has privately and covertly made decisions and plans which defy every constitutional and moral principle upon which our country is founded.  Add to this the fact that those “scientifically” promoting mass covert eugenics programs have risen to ascendancy in our country and we have a recipe for a crisis which religious leadership has a moral obligation to address.

But they don’t.  Some churches may organize anti-war demonstrations and others may serve soup to homeless folks. But the dark train is moving forward and our religious leaders are keeping their own counsel.

I would like to think they are merely frightened.  It would be easiest to excuse the roaring silence, the enormous gap between what is at play and what is said about it as cowardice.  I would like to think that the rash of unsolved murders of scientists working on biowarfare/eugenics programs has not escaped the attention of our esteemed religious leadership and that they are collectively quaking in their silk-lined, tasseled robes at the thought of what might happen to them, personally, should they speak out about where this train is going. I would like to think it is merely spinelessness which keeps our spiritual leaders bound to silence.  This is the most generous conclusion I can reach.  But I suspect that the truth may be much, much worse.

CASE IN POINT—WHAT’S GOING ON WITH THE RABBIS?

It is an uncomfortable and seldom discussed historical fact that much of the rabbinate escaped Hitler’s extermination agenda and were able to emigrate out of Eastern Europe, to safety elsewhere.  It is also a matter of historical record that the Jewish leadership in the U.S. , through the American Jewish Congress, lobbied against lifting immigration restrictions on European Jews, thus ensuring that they would be trapped in Eastern Europe and perish.  One third of the Jews on the planet were eliminated due to Hitler’s efforts, as were many other targeted groups.  These efforts were enabled by the likes of such Jewish luminaries as Stephen Wise, who helped establish the American Jewish Congress back in 1918.

In Los Angeles, a synagogue is adorned with the name of Stephen Wise.  The Wise Temple is one of the largest in Los Angeles, with a congregation of over 3200 member families.  The betrayal of his fellow Jews by Stephen Wise, who through his lobbying against lifting immigration restrictions contributed to the mass murder of untold numbers of Jews, is not fodder for sermons at the temple which bears his name.  Nor, in my experience, is this ghastly fact discussed elsewhere in Los Angeles synagogues.

I first began attending Temple Beth Shir Shalom in Santa Monica in 2004.  I had already begun researching the double line water system in   Los Angeles, spending long afternoons  scouting out city work crews, ingratiating myself with the laborers and finding ways to get a peek at (and snapshot of)  the water system blueprints.  I had already received input, albeit somewhat reluctantly so, from several rabbis indicating that they knew something was afoot with the water.

I decided to meet with the rabbi at Beth Shir Shalom, Rabbi Neil Comess- Daniels, and ask him some direct questions.

Beth Shir Shalom is an attractive, modern building on a quiet street in Santa Monica.  It is home to a Reform congregation, which has been headed up by Comess-Daniels for many years. Much of the service is conducted in English, a boon for me as I do not speak Hebrew and at Beth Shir Shalom much of it is conducted in song, as Comess- Daniels plays guitar and sings. He is also a well known anti-war activist and social justice advocate.

I met with the rabbi in his study at the temple. We chatted for a bit then I got down to business. I began pulling out of my knapsack photographs of water crews, hard at work on busy Los Angeles Streets. I pointed out to him the double lines that appeared in the blueprints and asked him if he understood what I was working on. He turned pale and gulped.

“I know what is going to happen,” I stated. “I want to know when deployment is planned. I want to know how much longer I have to get the word out.”

Daniels looked away. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. Realizing that I wasn’t getting anywhere, I thanked him for his time and said I looked forward to returning on Friday for Shabbat services. We chatted a few more minutes and I left.

I got to Temple a few minutes before services started that Friday and slipped into a pew near the back.  Within two minutes, a large dark- suited man sidled up to me.  Leaning down, he whispered that he would like to have a word with me. Would I mind coming with him for a moment?

We went outside and he told me to leave. Leave, and don’t come back. Bewildered, I asked why. “You threatened the rabbi,” he said. “I did not!” I protested.

The rabbi felt threatened, I was told. I was to leave or the police would be called.

I made a number of attempts, over the next several weeks, to speak with the President of the Temple, a large noisy red haired woman. She declined to return any of my calls.

I then spoke with some friends who also attended Beth Shir Shalom. One of them spoke to the President on my behalf and she assured him there was a mistake. I was free to return anytime, she told him.

About two months passed by and I showed up again. I had told my friends that I was returning and to look for me. I also called the President and left a message thanking her for clarifying my status and letting her know I would be returning on Friday night.

I walked into the hall of worship, searching for my friends. Not seeing them initially, I seated myself near the rear.  It only took thirty seconds for several security guards to swoop down on me. And this time, they weren’t issuing warnings.

I was escorted outside. My ID was demanded of me.  I began to search my pockets for it, then changed my mind and declined.  Three more people showed up, two of them women whom I recognized  as temple management. One of them mumbled something…sounded like “keep her here while I call” and went back in side.  Oh great, I thought. They are calling the police.

I did nothing wrong. I said. I started to walk off. My suspicions were confirmed. Wait, said one of the women, coyly. We just want to talk to you. I could hear her voice trailing off…”come back…” as I walked away.

WHAT IF?

I have chosen to relay this story about what happened at Beth Shir Shalom. I could just have easily imparted an equally troubling story about the Catholic diocese in St. Louis or a squirrelly Methodist minister in Sandpoint, Idaho.  While I find it hard to believe that every man of God has gone to the devil, it has become clear to me that the spiritual leadership in our country has fallen into grave disrepair. We have too many chefs trying to keep the lid on a pot that is clearly set to blow.

It is unsettling enough to know that our government cannot be trusted.  Let down, we begin to look elsewhere. The first stop is usually the media. It doesn’t take too long to realize that the Fourth Estate has become an arm of government, there to protect rather than watchdog those in power. Betrayed again, we turn off the tube and boot up the computer, and begin to search the web for what we cannot find from traditionally trusted sources. And many of us look for spiritual guidance.

If I have learned anything through this passage, it is how critical it is to develop discernment. Wolves abound dressed like Grandma, offering all kinds of diversions and temptations.  It is incumbent upon each and every one of us to develop our own internal warning systems and to learn to listen to that small still voice of God which is in each and every one of us, and to learn to trust that voice. Our very future, together and separately, depends upon this.

The Fed And America’s Financial Reckoning Day

In a letter to President Thomas Jefferson in 1805, John Adams wrote, “All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, nor from want of honor or virtue, as much as downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.” Thomas Jefferson would later write, “I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” Jefferson would also warn, “We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.”

Today, our nation is sinking into bankruptcy, insolvency, and a serious financial reckoning day because our political class in Washington DC continues to load our posterity with perpetual debt and servitude. Most Americans are distressed, perplexed, and confused because of their “downright ignorance” of sound money principles enshrined in our US Constitution and the evils of central banking. In 1910, a secretive cabal of Wall Street and international bankers conspired to create the Federal Reserve System, which became our nation’s central bank in 1913. Our Founding Fathers were well acquainted with the evils of central banking (beginning with the Bank of England in 1694), and they diligently sought to enshrine hard money principles into our Constitution. In 1913, our national debt was $2.9 billion dollars and today it is $14.5 trillion dollars–an incomprehensible 400,000% increase! According to our US debt clock below, our unfunded liabilities now exceed $115 trillion and each taxpayer is on the hook for over $1 million dollars!

www.usdebtclock.org

Our present banking system was conceived in fraud and deceit by our modern money changers and corrupt politicians. Over 200 years ago James Madison wrote, “History shows that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain control over governments by controlling the money and issuance of it.” The Bible affirms that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (I Timothy 6:10), and we also read that when our Lord saw the “money changers” in the Temple, He drove them off with violence (John 2:13-15). Jesus knew how they were exploiting the people and He knew what He had to do about it.

Today, the only Republican presidential candidate who consistently speaks out against the money changers is Congressman Ron Paul who declares that we need to end the Fed! Yet, evangelical Christians, pastors and many in the Tea Party movement consistently support the puppet candidates who are beholden to the money changers and their control of our government. They may express concern about our national debts but they are not calling for the Fed to be abolished!

Currently, the Fed and US Treasury are facing an August 2nd deadline for the continued funding of our national debt and the need to raise our debt ceiling. Republicans have vowed to vote against this authorization (don’t count on it), which will cause a default of $23 billion in Social Security checks on August 3rd and $15 billion in bond interest payments on August 15th. Will the US default on its payments? Will the US become un-creditworthy?

The fact is we are already un-creditworthy and our creditors (foreigners like China) know it! Because of our reckless spending and printing money (called QE), rating agencies like Moody’s Investor Services and Fitch Ratings are threatening to downgrade US bonds to AA. In April of this year Standard & Poor’s (founded in 1860) downgraded all US debt to “negative” and both Germany and China have downgraded US bonds to AA from AAA with a “negative” outlook.

America is facing a dangerous tipping point unless we enact some serious fiscal and monetary reform. Already 46 out of 50 states have failed to meet their balanced budget deadlines for June of this year, and many like Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, California, Wisconsin, and Arizona are laying off workers and suspending essential services. As Margaret Thatcher famously said, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” The states are broke! And, unlike the federal government, they cannot print money over at the Fed. Now we also learn that the federal government has drawn up plans for “a large-scale economic breakdown” in 2011 called “Unified Quest 2011.” This year-long Army exercise is studying the implication of a collapse of the US dollar and bond market, maintaining “domestic order amid civil unrest” and “ways to deal with fragmented global power and drastically lowered budgets.” If the US government and military is currently making contingency plans shouldn’t you be making plans? Shouldn’t your financial advisor also be helping you to be informed and prepared? You can learn more about this at the link below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt9CnXhLZRA

In response to these developments several states are asserting their state sovereignty by adopting sound money legislation to declare gold and silver as legal tender. The US Constitution says that no state “shall coin money; emit bills of credit; [or] make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts” (Art. 1, Sec. 10). The wording here is clear. As George Washington said, “Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” Utah has become the first state to fully adopt sound money legislation in May, and others that are in the process of adopting this legislation include Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Montana, Missouri, Indiana, Idaho, New Hampshire, and Washington. In addition to supporting these bills, we also need to support The Free Competition in Currency Act (HR1098) introduced by Ron Paul to repeal US legal tender laws and remove taxation on gold and silver. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate (SB500) by Senators Rand Paul, James DeMint, and Mike Lee.

Sir Thomas Gresham’s Law says that bad money drives out good money. Because we have allowed the Federal Reserve System to illegally and unconstitutionally act as the fiscal agent for the US government we are experiencing Gresham’s Law. Concerned investors and foreign nations are literally dumping US currency and assets and favoring gold and silver as a historic store of wealth and safety in uncertain times. If you are like me, you, too, are looking for a reliable and honest source for acquiring gold and silver, and maybe even a place to fund your retirement accounts into precious metals.

I am, therefore, proud to partner with my friends at IDP Consulting Group and Mass Metal (through their Silver Saver monthly program) and recommend them to my readers. I know these fellows personally. They are fine Christian patriots who truly understand what’s going on and have a heart to help their fellow patriots affordably obtain precious metals. Please use the following link:

http://tinyurl.com/3v5ouq2

Thomas Jefferson has warned us that banking institutions are more dangerous to our freedom and liberty than standing armies. This truth holds true to this day and probably even more so. America is facing a reckoning day and to “reckon” means to “settle” and we cannot settle our assets against our liabilities. This cannot go on forever. For a thorough and detailed look at our current economic situation, I highly recommend that you obtain a copy of the brilliant book, “America’s Financial Reckoning Day” written by my friend Chuck Coppes. This book has been on my recommending reading list for two years and has recently been revised with my endorsement. This is a must read. To order, click here:

www.chuckcoppes.com

Finally, Thomas Jefferson has challenged us that we must make our election between liberty or servitude. Our monetary system today is an abomination unto the Lord (Proverbs 11:1). It is time to end the Fed and drive out the money changers! Remember, anyone running for public office who does not understand this economic raping of our people’s wealth and prosperity–and who is not willing to publicly stand and fight against this evil–is not worthy of our support, be they Republican or Democrat.

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