Needed: The Third Continential Congress

As much as we liberty-loving, Constitution-loving, America-loving patriots hate to admit it, the government in Washington, D.C., is NOT fixable. The elitist power structure in D.C. is too ensconced and too powerful. They will never cede power to folks, such as Justin Amash, Thomas Massie, etc., who truly believe in limited government. Nor will they permit the states to reclaim ANY of their constitutionally recognized powers. And neither party in D.C. has enough Ron Paul-types to thwart the evil machinations of the power-drunk leviathan that is Washington, D.C.

Furthermore, the same forces of darkness that control the political establishment in Washington, D.C., also control the media and financial establishments in New York City. The voters of America have too often rejected the presidential and congressional candidates who had the potential to help lead our ship of state to safer waters (if we even have untainted elections). The warnings of the prophets and porters have fallen on deaf ears. For the most part, Americans refuse to dislodge themselves from their addiction to government handouts. In addition, America’s pastors have largely abandoned their calling to be watchmen on the wall, which has left our ship of state without a moral compass or a spiritual rudder.

As much as I hate to say it, it is becoming more and more clear that Washington, D.C., may not be fixable. If that’s the case, it is only a matter of time before freedomists will be forced to do what freedomists have always been forced to do when facing a tyrannical juggernaut: declare independence.

The closest thing America has had in modern times to Patrick Henry or Thomas Jefferson is former Congressman Ron Paul. In late January, Dr. Paul brought a speech before the Mises Institute. The theme of the event was “Breaking Away: The Case For Secession.”

In his address, Ron said, “‘And it’s [secession] not gonna be because there will be enough people in the U.S. Congress to legislate it. It won’t happen. It will be de facto. You know, you’ll have a gold standard when the paper standard fails, and we’re getting awfully close to that. And people will have to resort to taking care of themselves. So when conditions break down, you know, there’s gonna be an alternative. And I think that’s what we’re witnessing.’

“Later, Paul said the Federal Reserve would end and the states would stop listening to federal laws they didn’t agree with.

“‘The Fed is gonna end. There is going to be a de facto secession movement going on. The states are going to refuse to listen to some of the laws. We’ve seen tremendous success already with states saying to the federal government, “We’re not gonna listen to you anymore about the drug laws.” And they’re getting out of it, and I think the American people are waking up to that, and as far as I’m concerned, the more the merrier.’”

See the report here:

I believe Dr. Paul is right. Secession (“de facto” or otherwise) is inevitable. How it will come and when it will come is debatable. That it will come is not. The only question is, do we wait for a national or international crisis of apocalyptical proportions or do we begin the debate now in the relative tranquility of peace and order? I say we should begin the debate NOW.

The assaults against our liberties are rooted and grounded inside The Beltway. The federal government in Washington, D.C., has been attacking our Natural rights for decades, to the point that it is almost insufferable. It is fomenting war and aggression all over the world; it is turning people around the globe into the enemies of the American people; it is training its own officers to enslave the American citizenry; it has set up a domestic military command that is nothing less than an occupation force; it has passed laws and policies stripping the American people of virtually every freedom protected in our Bill of Rights; it has set the world’s most sophisticated spy system against its own citizens; it has freely allowed violent criminals and gang members from foreign nations to have unfettered access to America’s heartland; it has dictated policies to the sovereign states to the point that our states more resemble national provinces; it has taken liberty to the precipice of destruction.

The powers of darkness manipulating the politicians in Washington, D.C., are leading us to financial collapse and global war. They are manipulating the east and west against each other; they are facilitating the military build-up of China; they are goading Russia into war; they are manipulating the collapse of the U.S. dollar; and they are declaring patriotic, God-fearing Americans as “homegrown terrorists,” while creating real terrorists abroad.

I propose that the People of the several states begin calling for The Third Continental Congress to the intent that this Congress proposes, debates, and eventually votes on the decision to declare independence from the government in Washington, D.C.

Delegates to such a Congress would by necessity be sent by the People of the states, not by the State legislatures. The focus of the Congress would be singular in purpose: to debate and eventually vote on a resolution of independence. I think the resolution of The Third Continental Congress should mirror Richard Henry Lee’s resolution during The Second Continental Congress in 1776:

“Resolved, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

I am fully aware that this is a bitter thought to contemplate. It is for me, too. But, ladies and gentlemen, there may be no other way to preserve liberty in our land.

Granted, if Ron Paul (or perhaps his son, Rand) could obtain the White House–and providing he could stay alive–substantial victories could probably be wrought over the Beast. We should NOT stop fighting for the principles of liberty. No one is more engaged in the liberty fight than I. And I will continue to be engaged.

Furthermore, I continue to believe if America’s pastors and churches would collectively awaken to the principles of liberty, see “the man behind the curtain,” and aggressively preach and teach the principles of Natural Law regarding government, a certain amount of time might be able to be purchased. That’s what I’m trying to accomplish with my . It’s yet to be seen how quickly we will be able to restore patriot pulpits to America.

Yet, many patriotic folks mistakenly believe that we must preserve the Union at all costs. This is NOT the case. We must preserve LIBERTY at all costs. Our loyalty to the Union should only be up and unto the point that it “becomes destructive” to the security of our liberties. Our original Declaration says it plainly:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

The mood for such a declaration is already growing. I believe if such a Congress were convened, several of our sovereign states would vote in the affirmative. I think states such as Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, Missouri, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, West Virginia, Virginia, Alaska, and even Hawaii, would seriously entertain such a resolution. The actual number of states who might be inclined to vote in the affirmative could potentially number at least half (or more) of the total states in the Union.

The idea that we will be able to maintain the Union under the growing tentacles of Washington, D.C., while maintaining liberty at the same time is now an utterly irreconcilable notion. As did our Founding Fathers before us, we have made–and continue to make–repeated redresses, we have convened conferences, we have repeatedly petitioned, and we have “voted the bums out” over and over again. No matter! The Beast in Washington, D.C., only gets more and more insatiable in its hunger to eat away our liberties. At some point, the American people must take their principles of liberty to The Third Continental Congress and vote on a Twenty-First Century declaration of independence.

And, no, a modern declaration of independence does not have to be bloody. Had Scotland voted for independence a few months ago, would London have sent troops to stop them? Absolutely not. World opinion would not tolerate it. Plus, the need for peaceful trade, commerce, and mutual self-defense would demand cooperation between neighboring governments. This would equally apply in North America.

What separation would likely accomplish is to take the teeth out of a ravenous Beast. It would accomplish what our separation from Great Britain accomplished two hundred years ago. The Beast would not be able to subjugate the free people of a new nation. No longer would it be able to play the world’s policeman. No longer would it be able to freely foment hatred and war between nations. Plus, it would give the new republic that would likely form the opportunity to export the ideas of liberty, free enterprise, peaceful trade and diplomacy, etc., around the world. You know, the ideas and principles that the United States USED to export. Separation might actually save, not just the liberties of the American people, but the lives of people around the world from a global catastrophe.

The worst scenario is that the American people wait until the powers of darkness controlling Washington, D.C., bring about a global apocalypse before they realize what they must inevitably do. That is the scenario that Dr. Paul alluded to in his remarks referenced above. The better scenario is that the American people have the sagacity and foresight to see the storm clouds on the horizon and put in motion NOW the remedy for their–and their children’s–survival.

Unfortunately, the established track record of the American electorate seems to favor Ron Paul’s scenario. I much prefer that liberty-loving patriots begin broaching this subject NOW, before times are desperate.

Either way, sooner or later, in my lifetime or not, in a time of relative peace or extreme chaos, separation is inevitable, because unless the patriot pulpit quickly returns to America, or a Ron Paul-type leader be elected President, the government in Washington, D.C., is not fixable. And as such, we desperately need The Third Continental Congress. It just might be liberty’s last chance.

How Covering Up Minority Crime Leads To Gun Control

Commenting recently on the Elliot Rodger killings, arch-leftist Michael Moore  that while “other countries have more violent pasts…more guns per capita in their homes…and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do….” From a man who used to take the simple-minded gun-control position “fewer guns=less homicide,” it was surprising evidence of growth. After making his point, however, Moore made a mistake in following up with, “and yet we don’t seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: “Why us? What is it about US?” It’s not, however, that we don’t want to ask the question.

It’s that we don’t want to hear the answer.

We can begin seeking it by asking another question: Why is it that Vermont, with approximately the same rate of gun ownership as Louisiana, has less than one-eighth the murder rate? Even more strikingly, why does New Hampshire have both a far higher gun ownership rate and a lower murder rate than England, Piers Morgan’s favorite poster-boy nation for gun control?

Professor Thomas Sowell provided more of these seeming contradictions in 2012, writing:

When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks.

… [There are also] countries with stronger gun control laws than the United States, such as Russia, Brazil and Mexico. All of these countries have higher murder rates than the United States.

You could compare other sets of countries and get similar results. Gun ownership has been three times as high in Switzerland as in Germany, but the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finland.

So what’s the answer we don’t want to hear? The critical difference among these regions and nations is explained right in Sowell’s title: it’s “not guns.”

“It’s people.”

What “people” differences are relevant? Let’s start with race and ethnicity. In the cases of homicide in 2012 in which the races of the perpetrators were known, 55 percent were committed by blacks, 62 percent of whom were under 30 years of age. Black youths are 16 percent of the youth population, but constitute 52 percent of those arrested for juvenile violent crime.

The statistics for Hispanics are more difficult to ferret out because, unbeknownst to many, law enforcement agencies tend to lump them in with whites in crime statistics (the FBI has announced that it will finally categorize Hispanic crime — in its report on 2013). However, there is some information available. Examiner’s Ken LaRive tells us that “Hispanics commit three times more violent crimes than whites,” but that the disparity could be even greater because of their often being classified as white.

The National Youth Gang Survey Analysis reports that gang members are approximately 49 percent Hispanic, 35 percent black and 10 percent white. And while whites are 35 percent of NYC’s population, blacks and Hispanics commit 96 percent of all crime in the Big Apple and 98 percent of all gun crime.

Another good indicator is international crime statistics. Hispanic countries dominate the homicide-rate rankings, with Honduras topping the list with a rate eight times as high as that of our worst state, Louisiana. Also note that there are no European/European descent nations in the top 20 and not one Western-tradition nation in the top 30 (Russia and Moldova are 24 and 28, respectively).

And what can we say about these “people” differences? It’s much as with the question of why men are more likely to be drunkards than women. You could explore whether the differences were attributable to nature, nurture or both. But it would be silly to wonder if the answer lay in men having greater access to bars, alcohol or shot glasses.

This brings us to why covering up minority criminality encourages gun control:

Americans won’t understand that the critical factor is people differences if they aren’t told about the people differences.

They will then — especially since most citizens aren’t even aware that there are nations with more firearms but less murder — be much more likely to blame guns. Of course, this is precisely what you want if you’re a left-wing media propagandist.

There is a question that could now be posed by the other side: if the main difference in criminality is demographics, why not outlaw guns? After all, it won’t make a difference one way or the other, right? I’ll offer a couple of answers to this question.

First, for a people to maintain just liberties, a freedom must always be considered innocent until proven guilty; the burden of proof is not on those who would retain it, but on those who would take it away.

Second, while private gun ownership and just law enforcement can’t turn barbarians into civilized people any more than excellent schools can transform dunces into geniuses, they can act as mitigating factors that minimize criminality as much as possible given the “raw material” with which the particular society has to work. It’s much as how you can maximize your personal safety: you may be safer in a great neighborhood with no martial arts training than in a terrible one with that training. Nonetheless, it allows you to be safer than you would be otherwise whatever neighborhood you choose.

And what do the stats show in our fair to middling USA neighborhood? Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck reported that guns are used by good citizens 2.2 to 2.5 million times per year to deter crime. That likely saves many more innocent lives than are lost in massacres every year, but these unseen non-victims don’t make headlines the way Sandy Hook tragedies do. That’s why I like to say, using a twist on a Frédéric Bastiat line, a bad social analyst observes only what can be seen. A good social analyst observes what can be seen — and what must be foreseen.

Lastly, one more truth becomes evident upon recognizing that demographics are the main factor in criminality: even if you do believe in gun control, imposing it federally and applying a one-size fits all standard is ridiculous. In terms of people and crime, there’s a world of difference between towns in New Hampshire or Vermont, with their England-level murder rates, and cities such as East St. Louis, IL, or Detroit, which rival El Salvador in citizen lethality. You can make gun control the same everywhere, but you can’t change the fact that people will be very, very different.

Establishment Partisan Politics Protection Racket

The enormous energy spent on analyzing candidates and predicting elections is time wasted when the actual decisions are predetermined before the voting takes place. Even excluding voter fraud from the final count, the party selection process has made the decision. The pretense that primaries reflect the will of the electorate deceives the registered voter, amuses the party insiders and benefits the advertisement and media moguls. Ideas, policy positions and core principles take a back seat to the art of spinning and negatively defining the opponent.

Rivals start within your own party. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Republicans Tighten Grip on Debates in 2016 Race.

“Party leaders want to tighten their grip on a presidential primary season they believe has grown unruly and too long. This year, the party moved to set the nominating calendar by scheduling the first four contests — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — for February, allowing other states to begin voting in March and holding winner-take-all primaries starting March 15.

Taken together, these procedural steps could thwart an underfunded insurgent who needs the free exposure of televised debates and would be hurt by a series of rapid-fire contests in March that could be tilted toward an establishment-backed contender.

A few conservative stalwarts on the committee are nervous about the establishment’s consolidation of power over the primaries. “Do we want a committee of the national committee, which will surely be controlled by the national chairman, picking which candidates participate in all Republican presidential debates?”

This point is illustrated in the AP report RNC Changes debate Rules for 2016. “The RNC rules panel endorsed the creation of a 13-person committee that would limit how many presidential debates can take place and who can ask the questions. The full committee on Friday went along with that plan to ban candidates who participate in scofflaw debates from future RNC-backed sessions, by a 152-to-7 vote.”

Before the usual ceremonial indignation takes hold, ask yourself what is exactly sacrosanct about a stacked primary system that has little to do with an open contest. Patricians that make up the GOP establishment long ago graduated from the country club set.

Nonetheless, the bleeding hearts over at Salon would have you believe that the Democrats operate by different rules. Why Democrats need a primary, too offers advice why the anointed “Queen of Mean” that Rodman woman, would attain a benediction from going through an orchestrated charade before her canonization.

“Clinton would benefit from that input just as all incumbents and other party luminaries do, despite the fact that they would rather not have to have that fight. It is not good for a president to take the office without having taken the temperature of his or her supporters and understanding what they care about and what they expect. During a tempestuous period like this one, it’s even more important than usual. It would only be to her advantage to have a challenger who could bring forth those issues and allow the public to see them argued before she goes up against a Republican.”

Lost in the fervor of progressive rhetoric is that the Democratic Party is just as elitist as the Republicans are. Both operate as useful idiots and corporatist tools of a system that has long ago abandoned the practice of free enterprise.

Contrast this American version of a Punch and Judy show that has an elephant bully bemoaning the folk hero Robin Hood, who actually resembles an ass, with the exceptional Broadway Play, “The Best Man” by Gore Vidal. Watch the 1964 movie version and consider just how far the political system has collapsed in half a century.

The basic assumption in the play and movie is that the nominee of the Democratic Party will handedly beat their Republican opponent. Characterizing convention ballot voting by delegates as a genuine selection process may be strange to those who were raised on the myth that registered voters in a state primary really has a voice in the inauguration of the next President.

A system of party bosses and smoke room dealmakers, surely must be far worse from the televised mortifying pilgrimage and penitent self-flagellation that goes into winning the party’s nomination? Or, is it . . .

Remember the way the primaries served the faithful Democrats in 2008.

“According to news reports, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton went out of their way to hold their long-awaited private meeting in a very specific location – not at Hillary’s mansion in Washington – but in Northern Virginia, which also just happens to be the scene of the 2008 Bilderberg meeting.The neo-liberal website Wonkette, which had previously ridiculed “conspiracy theorists” for ascribing power to Bilderberg, seemed to take a somewhat different tone when it made the connection between Obama and Hillary’s meeting and the Bilderberg Group.”

Orders from on high or more to the point, international deciders had their “heart to heart” with Hillary, passing her over, and giving her a maybe for 2016. George W. Bush liked to call himself the decider, but we all should know that decisions out of Skull and Bones are not based upon primary results.

Vidal’s screenplay portrayed a party convention as a real nomination fight. To whatever slime degree existed in the horse-trading to win delegates back then, the appearance in today’s selection makes no pretext of concealing the hidden hands behind picking the next President.

The partisan politics protection racket has but one goal; namely, serve and safeguard establishment interests of the elites, who really command the ultimate power. In addition to the Presidency, Congress shares broad similarities in their version of The Incumbent Protection Racket.

“In the U.S. House of Representatives, over the past five elections, incumbents have been re-elected at an average rate of 96 percent. According to my unscientific calculations, a congressman is more likely to be eaten by a polar bear while panning for gold in Key West than to be voted out of office.”

Serious challenges in Congressional district primacies are rare. The exception was in 2010 with the success of Tea Party candidates. However, such expression of the will of the people cannot stand in the polluted Potomac sewer that passes for representative democracy. Just look at the concerted efforts to sabotage populist support to retool the excesses in the federal government. Party Goers – What Do You Take With Your Tea?, indicates that all the sugar in the Caribbean will not prevent the political diabetes disease from going into shock. The bipartisan protection con knows how to close ranks among the political class.

“When main street middle class beleaguered taxpayers resonated that, the system was out of whack, the damage control team went into overdrive. This background helps to explain why the face of unprompted Tea Party individualism must be distorted, maligned and redirected.”

Great disappointment among Tea Party activists in the hostile welcome from establishment NeoCons has set in. The alternative to playing the no win beltway game provided in Dissecting U.S. Elections – the People vs. the Pols, best states the rational solution.

“What if a real grassroots national movement emerged that supersedes all ideology with a singular purpose – remove all careerist “pols” from office. Forget about the phony No Labels effort to diffuse popular disgust. The solution is to attract the very citizens who NEVER vote in elections.

A national campaign – No Confidence – would be the clear message that the arrogant confidence game crooks could understand.”

Drawing upon a universal appeal to break from the travesties of the two party frauds is necessary to register countrywide outrage. Only through vigorous dissention will The Meaning of Third Parties in America, bring the necessary pressure to collapse both the Democrat and Republican Parties.

“The solution to implement meaningful reform is to defuse the political power that is presently concentrated within the ‘Tweedle-dumb and Tweedle Dee’ parties. The notion that differences between them are based upon core principles, denies the unending descent into ‘collectivism’. The edges have varied shapes, but the centers are formed from the same sponge.”

You can always resolve that either party will never nominate “The Best Man”. If you are so delusional to believe that a woman is the answer in the oval office, look in a different direction. Elizabeth Warren the self-proclaimed Pinocchio-hontas, is a sorry excuse for an accomplished liar. Flush with law school disingenuous skills, this want-a-be feminine messiah would have you believe that Hillary is the New World Order’s favorite grandmother.

Nonetheless, fake opposition simply projects the image that there is a choice in candidates. Noam Scheiber, in the New Republic writes, “A Clinton-Warren matchup would have all sorts of consequences, none of them especially heartwarming. The most immediate is that Warren would probably lose.” Well so much for a contest between squaws, better suited for commitment to the Hiawatha Insane Asylum.Partisan politics is mostly a ruse designed to divert attention from service to the substantial interests of establishment globalists. The noise generated around campaigns and media coverage, ignores or conceals the existent deals that serve the real goals and intentions of the master puppeteers. The terminal lesson is that establishment politics treats the public as reservation squatters.

Will Les Clintons Scuttle Us/Iran Rapprochement?

Beirut – They will if they can, and in league with the US Zionist lobby they well might. The latter is currently eager to fund and promote the Clintons’ new project, according to New Orleans sources close to political operative James Carville, a veteran of three Clinton and two Obama presidential campaigns. Carville has publicly sworn recently, while out late with drinking buddies in his favorite French Quarter bar, that he was finished “pimping for the Clintons.” Plus he has come to “really admire the current President”.

But Bill is not and does not.

Despite the Clinton estate, by now valued at tens of millions of dollars which continues its rapid expansion since the White House days, the former President is reportedly often short-tempered and grouchy these days.

Put very simply, Bill’s problem has to do with his planned “third act” in life. Le Clinton needs La Clinton to return the Oval Office to where Le claims he belongs. But La is tired and laments that she does not really want to go through another grueling and humiliating (her word) Presidential campaign season. Adding, one imagines, to domestic pressure at home is the fact that the 2016 Presidential campaign is already starting, as White House aspirants move around Iowa and New Hampshire and to myriad venues launching their ‘trial balloons.’

Mrs. Clinton is reportedly hearing from her husband sweet entreaties and whispers to the effect that all she needs to focus on is getting elected in November of 2016 and he will help her campaign a lot. If things work out as hoped, La Clinton’s name will be on the White House stationery, but Le will run the show through 2024 from “behind the curtains and do the yeoman labor in the vineyards for America,” according to one former Member of the Democratic National Committee with whom this observer served as DNC member from Oregon years ago.

There are several surfacing problems, some apparently not anticipated, with the former President’s reportedly carefully crafted plan. An increasingly major one is perceived to be President Obama. “Barack appears to be threatening to break out of the Uncle Tom mold and get all uppity and radical and do things he claims to have believed in from childhood but put off until his last term,” according to the same source. American history reveals many similar transformations of lame duck Presidents with many falling short of their last term goals. Obama appears ready to fight for his.

As he increasingly discusses privately with friends in Congress, Barack Obama wants to extricate the US at least to some extent from the Middle East quagmire, end more than a decade of criminal wars, get real about the phony ‘war on terror’ and lessen US funding and even lighten US and UN political cover for the Zionist regime still illegally occupying Palestine. He is equally passionate about wanting to “re-build America-its schools, medical system and infrastructure” as he stressed during his joint appearances with the Republican nominee Mitt Romney, shortly before Obama’s stronger than expected showing on election night.

Moreover, Republicans don’t appear to have connected much with the voters and they have yet to capitalize on Obama’s shortcomings. The Clinton camp sees Obama’s hoped for legacy as fatal to their chances, not least for the reason that he makes no bones about being livid over Tel Aviv’s obstructionism during “peace negotiations” which he has reportedly come to believe are a ploy to steal more Palestinian land and undermine any realistic prospect for a viable Palestinian state.

The Clintons are said to believe that if Obama breaks loose from the Washington establishment and returns to the ideas his unconventional mother, who was an activist, liberal multicultural student who not only advocated full racial and gender equality, but married an African that the US right wingers and the Zionist lobby will combine to put a Republican in the White House.

One political operative on Capitol Hill who follows Presidential politics closely claims that over the past few weeks one issue has come to symbolize the Obama Administrations goals and Obama’s potential legacy, and that is restoring some modicum of normalization of US-Iranian relations. John Kerry, a potential 2016 White House candidate himself, and one who stands to gain substantially at the ballot box for his role, since his and Obama’s views are increasingly in synch with the American public, which according to a recent poll favors improved relations with Iran by more than 80%.

For Le Clinton and his team, this is not good news, less so for the Zionist Congressional lobby which reliably and consistently votes for Israel’s interests over their own constituents’ needs and wishes. For this reason Tel Aviv has gone all out to force Congress to impose more sanctions on the people of Iran and to raise barriers to the Obama-Kerrey initiative. This week they failed again to scuttle hopes for improved US-Iran relations, try as they might, to impose threats that would force the Rouhani government in Tehran to retreat from their gamble that the American side was serious about resolving the nuclear file and improving relations while scrapping some of the US political sanctions that having increasingly been targeting the civilian population of the Islamic Republic with the hope of igniting a street movement for regime change given the inflating cost of food and consumer, and unavailability of certain chronic care drugs.

Some of the regular cast of characters, who appear as if for a Broadway curtain call when summoned by AIPAC, Congressmen Eric Cantor, Mark Kirk, Ed Royce, Elliot Engel, Robert Menendez, Michael McCaul, Rep. Brad Sherman among others, failed to parry John Kerry’s arguments late this week before Congress as he argued for more time to see what will happen over the next six months. This observer’s Congressman in Maryland’s 5th District, whose staff swear they read CounterPunch and my 2-cents worth of rants, actually balked and left the lobby high and dry on the efforts to abort the While House initiative. Times they may be changing–however, late on the game clock.

Kerry teamed with Obama in the White House decision to crack down on oil and shipping companies accused of helping Iran evade economic sanctions, a move that came as the White House appeared to gain ground in its fight to keep Congress from enacting even tougher restrictions that threaten to derail nuclear talks with the Islamic republic. “We will continue to take action against those who evade, or attempt to evade, our manifold sanctions on Iran,” David S. Cohen, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, to Congress this week. “Make no mistake about it, Iran is still off-limits “for most oil and banking transactions,” Cohen said.

The enforcement actions against Asian, European and Iranian firms were announced moments before two of the administration’s top experts on Iran appeared before a Senate panel to warn again that the imposition of further sanctions could doom any chance of a final agreement with Iran on permanent limits to the country’s nuclear program. The White House is reported to have loved the timing which helped deflate the Zionist project.

Late this week, according to a former aide who claims that she has given up politics, word from the Clinton camp is that Bill has apparently concluded that La Clinton can’t secure the Oval Office without the green (as in the color of US currency) light from Tel Aviv.

Even though this observer was a Jerry Brown supporter at the 1992 Democratic Convention in New York and stuck with my guy despite heavy lobbying from William Jefferson Clinton, I sort of like the fellow and think the charitable work he is doing is helping many and he should stick with it. As for Hilary, as she told Katie Couric recently, what she really wants most is a grandchild to love and spoil. Let it be so…

The Post-Racial President’s Profiling: DWW (Defending While White)

What would it have taken for the jury that acquitted George Zimmerman to find him guilty? Well, try this on for size: imagine that instead of emerging from his encounter with Trayvon Martin bloodied with a broken nose, he didn’t have a scratch on him. Imagine he had also admitted he confronted Martin with gun drawn and hadn’t actually been attacked — but had shot Martin simply because the teen was running at him. Lastly, imagine Zimmerman was built like a brick outhouse, had trained in a few martial arts and even competed in martial-arts tournaments. Is it conceivable there could have been an acquittal?

Luckily for Zimmerman, the above was not his scenario. But those were the facts in the case of another man who shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old.

And there was an acquittal.

The case was however, different in two apparently significant ways: the teenager was white and the shooter was black.

The man’s name is Roderick Scott, and he shot teen Christopher Cervini in 2009 in Greece, New York. As with Zimmerman, Scott was aware there had been crimes in his neighborhood; unlike Zimmerman, Scott wasn’t a neighborhood-watch volunteer. But after observing some individuals preparing to break in to a neighbor’s vehicle on an April 4 night, Scott grabbed his handgun and walked outside “to stop or detain the criminals,” as he put it. He then saw someone rummaging around inside the vehicle and saw two suspects altogether, at which point he drew his weapon, chambered a round, took a shooting stance and ordered the teens to freeze, prompting one them to run off. But the other, Chris Cervini, charged toward him yelling that he was going to get him, claims Scott. Having already warned the criminals he was armed, Scott testified that he then shot the teen so he would not “kill me or hurt me.”

Other similarities between the two cases are that Scott was also faced with a manslaughter charged and was judged by a mostly white jury. But then there are some more differences. The national media didn’t pick up his story and make it a cause célèbre. We didn’t see news outlets plaster articles with a picture of a smiling, cherubic, pubescent Chris Cervini or NBC doctor a tape to provoke racial unrest and make Scott appear a bigot. We didn’t see the DOJ send operatives to NY to foment demonstrations, and Eric Holder never contemplated civil-rights charges against Scott. And no one said “It’s now legal to shoot white kids in America.”

Oh, yeah, and the best information has it that Cervini was not armed with a bag of Skittles.

It is also inconceivable that muscular martial-arts competitor Scott couldn’t have taken the teen down in mere seconds with his bare hands. But I suspect he was a no-nonsense type, that his attitude was, “If those punks make one wrong move, I’m gonna’ smoke ‘em.” But this is conjecture. Scott is a human being, deserves fair treatment, and I accept that reasonable doubt existed in his case. From a practical standpoint, however, that wasn’t the main reason why — unlike Zimmerman — his case proceeded without fanfare. It’s not the main reason he is not now a marked man.

It is that he wasn’t guilty of DWW.

At least since the first high-profile Defending While White case — Bernhard Goetz’s in 1984 — it has been clear that liberals have it exactly backwards (as usual). They feel that whites get favored treatment after inter-racial confrontations, but the reality is that if there’s any gray at all when it’s black vs. white, the journalism runs yellow. The media can have that story they love: privileged white oppressor guns down helpless black babe-in-the-woods victim. And then it’s sort of how your sex can be whatever you want today. Hispanics become white, a teen thug becomes a child, a defender becomes an attacker and lies become truth.

One thing Martin’s defenders are right about, however, is that black kids just aren’t safe on the streets of America. After all, homicide is the leading cause of death among black teens. In fact, as liberal Juan Williams wrote last year citing DOJ statistics based on a 2005 analysis, “Almost one half of the nation’s murder victims that year were black and a majority of them were between the ages of 17 and 29. Black people accounted for 13% of the total U.S. population in 2005. Yet they were the victims of 49% of all the nation’s murders.” But then there’s something else the DOJ tells us.

Ninety-three percent of these black victims were killed by other blacks.

That doesn’t leave much left over for other races, so what percentage of black and white homicides involves whites killing blacks?

Three percent¹.

Moreover, this includes justifiable homicides (defensive situations), and only a minority would be incidents in which an older white man kills a black teen. And very, very few of those would be considered murders. Yet Eric Holder’s DOJ now behaves as if this phenomenon is such an epidemic that federal power must be used to stamp it out.

Of course, if Holder truly cared about blacks and not just agendas, his focus would be on the true epidemic of blacks killing other blacks. And if he cared about truth, he would actually publicize the findings of a study conducted by his own DOJ in 2011. And here is a sampling of them from Investor’s Business Daily:

[E]ven though black men between the ages of 14 and 24 make up only 1% of the U.S. population, they represent 27% of all the nation’s murderers.

…While blacks make up just 13% of the population, they’re responsible for more than half — 53% — of the country’s murders.

The 36-page study, which analyzed race-based crime data spanning three decades, found that whites were twice as likely to be murdered by blacks than the other way around….

Note that the DOJ included Hispanics in its “white” category. If only non-Hispanic whites are considered, however, the US murder rate is comparable to that of Western Europe (because of this demographic reality, the murder rates in New Hampshire, Vermont and Iowa are lower than Britain’s).

Conclusion? If you’re a prospective murder victim in America, the probability is good that your victimizer will be a black youth. This is why the DOJ study also tells us, “[N]early 40% of all justifiable homicides were blacks defending themselves against violent blacks (and that doesn’t include all the black cops killing black thugs),” writes IBD. And we don’t hear much about this. But what if you’re a white person who must defend himself against a violent black youth?

You may be charged with DWW.

Then the media can publish its baby pictures. It can talk about how you murdered a “child” as it murders your reputation and perhaps your chances for a fair trial. It can twist the truth. And it can state idiotic things, such as that your “injuries weren’t life-threatening,” as some said about Zimmerman (wait until you have life-threatening injuries before defending yourself and you may not be able to defend yourself).

And if you think DWW is problematic here, just look overseas to South Africa, where whites are sometimes imprisoned on trumped-up charges after defending themselves. Moreover, the nation’s ANC-led government started disarming the white population in 2010 and, wrote Frontpage Mag in March:

Thus, white farm families were forced to relinquish their last line of defense against the tens of thousands of criminal gangs roaming the countryside–armed with AK47s. [sic] and as Genocide Watch noted on its website last July one more step was taken as well. “The government has disbanded the commando units of white farmers that once protected their farms, and has passed laws to confiscate the farmers’ weapons,” it reported. “Disarmament of a targeted group is one of the surest early warning signs of future genocidal killings.”

Speaking of which, Genocide Watch places the imperiled South African whites at stage six in the genocidal process.

Stage seven is extermination.

Much like what some plan for George Zimmerman, the DWW transgressor with a $10,000 New Black Panther bounty on his head.

¹Data are from the FBI, the Census Bureau, and the Department of Justice (details)

The Shot Heard ‘Round The World – April 19, 1775

As the harsh storms of winter subside we approach the 238^thanniversary of an event in American history which provides insight and direction badly needed today. On April 19, 1775 a musket was discharged, beginning a clash of arms over a small bridge standing astride the stream at Concord, Massachusetts. We have all seen the statues and, perhaps, remember the poems.

To this day no one knows who fired the shot. But the unfolding clash shocked the British Crown and set the stage for the first nation on Earth who proclaimed the principle of universal freedom in July of the next year.

This was not a government operation. These were a people who recognized the power was within them.

Perhaps the best lesson to be drawn from those events, which we have allowed to be obscured through the misted lens of time, is that this marked a moment when the people did it themselves. By so doing, they confounded the greatest power then existing on Earth.

The people had come together to determine their course thorough the Committees of Correspondence. In most towns across the colonies small groups met and discussed all of the reasons for action and their options. Today, the parallel method would be the Internet.

The British had been emboldened by their success in seizing the colonist’s powder, read this ‘ammunition,’ held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire the year before. With their supply of munitions cut off from capture of the Fort William And Mary, the colonists were determined to be prepared. Town folk armed themselves and turned out to practice.

The British Empire had 8,000 men under arms across the globe. A far smaller number were serving the Crown in New England. That, the Crown felt, was entirely sufficient.

At the close of day, April 19, 1775, 10,000 Americans were marching towards Lexington and Concord, muskets, knives, and hammers in hand, prepared to die to win their freedom.

Women who helped their husbands, fathers, grandfathers and sons ready themselves, packing their pouches with food, filling containers with water, understood the danger they, too, faced. This was not a war fought far away, but one which would shatter families, homes and destroy their businesses and the food they relied on for winter.

They were a people who understood the value of freedom to each, as part of their nature granted, not by a king, but by God.

More Austerity Cuts Coming To The States

The Great Recession has quietly devastated public services on a state-by-state basis, with Republican and Democratic governors taking turns leading the charge. Public education has been decimated, as well as health care, welfare, and the wages and benefits of public sector workers. The public sector itself is being smashed. Since the recession began, states have made combined austerity cuts of at least $337 billion, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities

The 2012-2013 budget deficits for 34 states resulted in $55 billion in cuts, according to the Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. The coming budgets for 2013-2014 that begins on July 1st is becoming clear as well, and the deficits are rolling in by the billions: Connecticut, Minnesota, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington, and many others have large deficits projected.

You’d expect after years of austerity cuts to public services, state politicians would think of new ways to raise revenue from those who can afford it — the wealthy and corporations. Not so. The cuts that began as a consequence of the 2008 recession are set to continue; raising revenue from the wealthy is “off the table” for Republicans and Democrats alike.

The pattern of budget cuts has revealed that the age-old distinction between Republican and Democrat has evaporated on the state level. The state budget trends — what’s getting funded and what’s not — are similarly aligned across the country. Both parties have merged their state-level agendas into a singular focus on “economic growth,” a bi-partisan euphemism meaning “corporate profits.”

Below is the bi-partisan funding trends for the states that began with the 2008 recession and continue to this day:

1)  The Attack on Public Employees and Pension “Reform”

It wasn’t long ago that everyone understood that the states’ budget crises was caused in part by the recession, itself caused by the big banks and greedy corporations, and in part by the politicians continuing willingness to lower taxes on the rich. Now the corporate media and politicians have re-written history: suddenly it’s “greedy” public workers and their “lavish” pensions that are bankrupting the states. Two years ago it was the health care of public employees that was bankrupting the states, which resulted in large cuts to workers in many states.

The pre-recession pension system was working fine, but it, too, suffered under the bank-caused financial crisis; pension returns sank and right-wing economists projected ruin for the states in the future (they conveniently assumed that recession era rates would continue forever, thus under-funding the system).

Democratic governors are now as eager as their Republican counterparts to destroy the pensions of public employees. Democratic politicians in Oregon, Washington, California, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, Massachusetts, and several other states are leading the charge to erode the last bastion of retirement security for working people, while continuing to lay off public employees by the thousands. This national shrinkage of state governments is a long-standing right-wing dream: the smaller the state, the greater the “growth opportunities” for corporations that take over privatized public services and the lower their taxes since a smaller state requires less revenue for operating expenses.

2) Education Reform

The National Governors Association (NGA) spoke for both political parties when announcing a renewed focus on education funding for the states during the annual “state of the states” address. The funding is necessary because schools across the country are expecting an influx of students, while school districts everywhere have been starved funds by the ongoing austerity cuts; the system has been literally crumbling. But the new funding is to be used for the undermining and destruction of public education, since it is based on Obama’s pro-corporate Race to the Top education “reform” where charter schools replace public schools.

Democrats and Republicans are in complete agreement over Obama’s education policy, which closes “failing schools,” (those in poor neighborhoods), opens privately run, non-union charter schools, and fires “bad teachers,” (typically those who teach poor students). The whole system is based on standardized testing, which poorer students will spend most of their education preparing for, (those who don’t drop out from sheer boredom). Bi-partisan education reform targets teacher unions while privatizing education — the Democrats have adopted the ideas from the right-wing think tanks of the 1990′s.

3) Raising Revenue – But Not From the Wealthy or Corporations

Many states have implemented — or are planning to implement — a variety of taxes that disproportionally affect working and poor people, including increased sales taxes, alcohol, tobacco and other “sin” taxes, not to mention increases in different fees, from state parks to driver registration.

At the same time that these taxes have been upped, a consistent clamor has been raised by the media and politicians to lower the taxes for corporations, give them new subsidies or “freeze” their already-low taxes so that future tax increases will be impossible. In Oregon the Democratic governor declared a “special session” emergency in order to ensure that NIKE’s super low tax status would be frozen in place for decades, outside the reach of the public, which might want to raise corporate taxes to fund public services.

Democrat and Republican controlled states are equally competing for the adoration of corporations by lavishing a never-ending flow of taxpayer money on them, while “guaranteeing” them “investment security,” i.e., promising low taxes and an open spigot of taxpayer money. This is the basis for several states implementing “right to work” laws that target unions for destruction, while also attempting to “revamp the tax code,” which is a euphemism for lowering corporate taxes.

4) Welfare Reform: Attacking the Safety Net

Waging war against the safety net is like picking a fight with road kill — the states’ safety net is already disfigured beyond recognition, but the bi-partisan assault nevertheless continues. Bill Clinton started welfare “reform” as president, and the 2008 Great Recession accelerated the attack on those in poverty. The year 2011 was a devastating one for welfare, now called Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

In 2011, states implemented some of the harshest cuts in recent history for many of the nation’s most vulnerable families with children who are receiving assistance through [TANF] … The cuts affect 700,000 low-income families that include 1.3 million children; these families represent over one-third of all low-income families receiving TANF nationwide.

But these TANF “reforms” continue, to the detriment of the neediest. Newly released budgets in several states — including California and Oregon — further tighten the program, a relentless boa-like constriction that’s already suffocated millions of the country’s poorest citizens. Typically TANF reform either lowers the monthly payment, shortens the time one can receive benefits, or raises the standards for staying in the program.

Before the giant TANF cuts in 2011, the program was already shrunken such that TANF only assisted 28 families for every 100 in poverty — the ludicrous definition of “poverty” being a family of four that makes only $22,000 or less.

There is a direct link between the assault on TANF and the rising poverty levels in the United States. Cutting TANF in a time of mass unemployment means consciously consigning millions of families to grinding poverty, hunger, homelessness, and the many other barbarisms associated with extreme poverty.

Conclusion:

It wasn’t long ago that the Democrats understood that the government can and should create jobs, especially during a recession. But now the Democratic Party has fully adopted the economics of Reaganism. As a result, the only “job creators” now recognized are the corporations. This bi-partisan agreement not to tax the rich and use the revenue for public spending to create jobs — hiring more teachers, firefighters, roads and parks workers, etc. — is unnecessarily prolonging the job crisis, ensuring more years of deficits and a deeper gouging of the public sector.

These cuts are having a devastating effect on public sector unions, the last bastion of union strength in the country. These unions are being weakened to such an extent that stripping them of their right to collectively bargain — the nail in the coffin — becomes a real possibility. No state is safe from this threat.

If unions don’t unite with community groups to demand that public services be fully funded by taxing the wealthy and corporations, the cuts will continue, communities will feel helpless, inequality will continue to spiral out of control, and working people will be further subjected to the policies of the 1%, now implemented in chorus by Republicans and Democrats alike. But, of course, this means that the unions will have to break with the suicidal strategy of relying on the Democrats for handouts. Time and again the Democrats have demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice the needs of working people in order to curry favor with the rich and corporations, their greatest benefactors when it comes to election campaign contributions.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=711

http://www.nga.org/cms/stateofthestates

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3498

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?

Do We Want Mr. Nice Guy As President?

Watching the debate on Wednesday, I truly can’t imagine Barack Obama having come off as the more likeable candidate. Continuously glancing downwards, perhaps looking for inspiration (I glance upwards, myself), and often displaying an angry countenance, he seemed stiff, detached and petulant; in contrast, Mitt Romney appeared energetic, nimble-minded, affable, engaged and engaging. It was the Mind vs. the Unkind.

Nonetheless, the left is still pushing the narrative of Mitt the Mean. CNN disseminated a poll showing that only 46 percent of debate viewers thought Romney was likeable (of course, we have to consider the source), and the Democrat National Committee just cooked up an ad—showing Romney interrupting moderator Jim Lehrer—whose thrust is that the governor was pushy and bullying. Let’s understand, however, that as it was Romney was given 4 fewer minutes to speak; if he’d been a “nicer” guy, it would have been 10. This brings me to my point.

Years ago a reader emailed me regarding a piece I wrote on Obama’s predecessor and called him “George the Nice.” It was not a compliment. The idea was that President Bush often seemed more interested in getting along than getting things right. And whether you agree with this assessment or not isn’t the issue. It is, rather, as I recently asked, what’s “like” got to do with it?

Oh, I understand that “likeability” influences voters. This and the fact that polls have shown it to be Obama’s strong suit with the electorate is, of course, why the left wants to perpetuate their Mean Mitt myth. And while I find Obama as likeable as poison ivy in private areas, let’s for argument’s sake assume that he truly is the more likeable candidate. Is this meaningful in a leader? Could it even be a warning sign?

This point can be illustrated with a tale of two men, both colleagues of mine at a former place of employment. One was a charming fellow who specialized in the schmooze; the other was a curmudgeonly, stone-faced and sometimes gruff WWII veteran. Now, it’s obvious who was more likeable, and I cottoned to the charmer myself. If you got to know them, however, you learned that Mr. Charm was a Machiavellian operator with a Clintonesque attitude toward truth, while the veteran was a trustworthy, upstanding straight-talker.

Knowing this, how could I like the charmer? Well, what we like is determined by emotion or taste, which generally has little acquaintance with reason. A person may like tobacco more than vegetables or chocolate more than exercise, but few would call them wiser choices. In the same vein, I never would have chosen the charmer if he had been running for office against the curmudgeon. For this is where we must lead with our heads, not our hearts, resist the urge to kowtow to our likes and not eat, smoke or vote ourselves to death.

In fact, it’s usually unwise to choose anyone based solely on likeability, as there’s little correlation between extreme likeability, and virtue and competence (and some virtue, such as conscientiousness, is necessary for competence). One reason for this is that since all three qualities are relatively rare, they aren’t often possessed by the same person. As an example, I know a soft-spoken, affable fellow who most anyone would call a nice guy, but he couldn’t figure out whether the kind of infanticide prohibited by BAIPA legislation was okay or not. As for competence, if you’d chosen a general based on likeability, would you have picked George Patton? And if you’d chosen a computer developer on likeability, Steve Jobs wouldn’t have been your man. So is it wise to choose a president based on likeability? If a man can’t even stand up to an ossified debate moderator, how will he fare locking horns with the Russians or Chinese? In fact, we could use a variation on a famous saying here and wonder if the road to Hell isn’t paved by nice guys.

More ominously, likeability can actually be a red flag. Why? Because projecting it is the specialty of the con man. He will tell you exactly what you want to hear; the good person tells you what you need to hear. The con man will peddle seductive little lies to appear charming—at least until he doesn’t need you anymore.

Of course, a good person’s likeability is also situational, but for a different reason. You may generally be likeable, but will you seem so violently wielding a sword on a battlefield? Similarly, fighting on the moral/cultural battlefield can be messy business; thus, if you’re ever and always likeable amidst this fray, you’re doing it wrong. Just consider Ronald Reagan, a man so affable he won even the hearts of many ‘80s Democrats. How likeable did he seem at the 1980 Nashua, New Hampshire, primary debate when he , “I’m paying for this microphone, Mr. Green”? He was playing hardball, not Mr. Nice Guy, but it was a defining moment that evoked cheers and helped pave his way to the presidency.

So what’s “like” got to do with it? It should be no more relevant to choosing a president than to choosing runners for the Olympic team. Unfortunately, though, man’s nature won’t change; just as we elevate intellectuals over wise men, many will continue to choose likeability over virtue. It’s why our government and culture become less likeable all the time.

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

How The Republicans Stole The Nomination From Ron Paul

If you follow mainstream election coverage, you might think Mitt Romney has coasted to an honest, easy, well-deserved Republican nomination. Unfortunately for Republican voters, nothing could be further from the truth. The primary process has been an all-out slugfest and many of the delegates Romney has won may be the result of dirty tricks and even election fraud. The following narrative includes links to reports, first-hand testimonials, and video evidence highlighting actions taken by the GOP to ensure a Romney victory, at the expense of fracturing the party just prior to the general election. Party leaders at the county and state level have changed or violated party rules, cancelled caucuses, changed vote counts, thrown out entire counties of votes, counted public votes privately, called-in the SWAT team, and inexplicably replaced Paul delegates with Romney delegates to block Ron Paul from winning the nomination.

Iowa: Days before the caucuses, Paul held a commanding lead in the polls and all the momentum, with every other candidate having peaked from favorable media coverage and then collapsed under the ensuing scrutiny. Establishment Republicans, like Iowa’s Representative Steve King (R), attempted to sabotage Paul’s campaign by spreading rumors he would lose to Obama if nominated. Even though the Iowa GOP platform reads like a Ron Paul speech, shortly before the caucuses, Iowa Governor Terry Barnstad told Politico , “[If Paul wins] people are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third. If Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire”. The message from the Governor to voters of his state was: a vote for Ron Paul was a wasted vote.

Huffington Post reported that Paul was ahead by one point over Romney and Rick Santorum inentrance polls conducted by Edison Media Research for the AP before the caucuses. For the first time ever, the Iowa GOP changed the final vote count to a secret location . After the caucus, resultsfrom 8 precincts (including those with colleges, in a state where Paul won 48% of the youth vote) went missing. Interestingly, these were all precincts Romney lost in 2008. In addition, GOP officials discovered inaccuracies in 131 precincts. Though polling in a comfortable first place, Paul finished third in this non-binding straw poll, behind Romney and Santorum.

Iowa originally reported Romney in first, Santorum in a close second, and Paul third. After the recount, Santorum was named the winner with Romney in second. No mention was given to how the recount affected Paul’s vote count. Iowa GOP chairman, Matt Strawn, later resigned and wasreplaced by Paul supporter, A.J. Spiker and Paul went on to win the majority of delegates.

Florida: The Florida GOP broke party rules by switching to a winner-take-all state before the date allowed, which favors the candidate with the most money for advertising and attack ads.  Senior Advisor to the Ron Paul campaign, Doug Wead, claims this was done specifically to favor Romney.

Nevada: There is bad blood between Paul’s supporters and establishment Republicans in Nevada. This dates back to 2008, when Convention Chair, Sue Lowden and her enlisted delegates got up andwalked out of the convention when it became apparent Paul’s supporters would claim a majority of the delegates. She claimed she would reconvene at a later time, but instead approved the McCain slate of delegates. This year, Paul supporters expected shenanigans; so his State Chairman, Carl Bunce, planned to win by outworking Romney. Just before the caucuses, he claimed to have “ than Romney had votes in ’08″. This means through canvassing door-to-door and phoning voters, he had identified about 25,000 voters committed to show up and vote for Paul.

On caucus day, the media was denied access to most caucus sites and the few that were permitted were not allowed to take photos. Others were even ejected from sites.  shows GOP staff preventing a Paul supporter from entering the premises to vote at a special caucus that was set up at the last minute for Newt Gingrich backer, Sheldon Adelson. Here, participants were asked to sign an affidavit (under penalty of perjury) stating they were Jewish and couldn’t vote earlier in the day due to “religious reasons”. CNN showed  of votes being counted at this event, with Paul amassing nearly 60% of the votes. In some precincts in Clark County, the largest in Nevada, the number of ballots  the number of voters signed in at the caucus. Though votes were to be counted publicly, they were largely counted in private. The vote count was also inexplicably dragged out for several days, leading to a victory for Romney. Nevada State GOP Chairwoman, Amy Tarkanian resigned the day after the caucuses.

Another interesting note is that Paul’s 2012 votes had doubled, tripled, and more than quadrupled his2008 votes in every state leading up to the Nevada caucuses, yet Paul received only 88 more votes there. Of all the places for this to occur, Nevada, the country’s most libertarian state; is the last in which anyone would expect this.

In spite of these irregularities , Paul won 22 of 25 state delegates and replaced state party officials with Paul supporters. Romney supporters then formed their own state party, called “Team Nevada”. The RNC then bypassed the official state party in order to organize for Romney and send all funds to Team Nevada.

Colorado: Romney supporters were caught passing out  Ron Paul slates at the state convention. The RNC has not investigated or even commented on the matter.

Minnesota: Doug Wead, claims the state party instructed members not to vote for any delegates under age fifty because most young delegates support Paul.

Missouri: WXIX Cincinnati’s Ben Swann covered the  in St. Charles County. Temporary Chairman, Eugene Dokes, started the meeting by banning video recording devices, a first for this event. Robert’s Rules of Order require the temporary chairman to accept nominations and elect a convention chairman to run the event. Instead, he appointed a chair of his choice. The crowd immediately erupted with booing. Shortly after, Dokes adjourned the meeting without the required two-thirds majority, called the police on attendees, and left. In adherence to state rules, Paul supporter, Brent Stafford, along with one of the top parliamentarians in the state, reconvened in the parking lot and attempted to resume the event. Shortly after, the SWAT team arrived and arrested Stafford, who was following state party rules. Dokes later admitted on  that he and other deliberately broke the rules to prevent Paul from winning.

Maine: Ben Swann reported on  . Even though only 84% of votes had been counted; State GOP Chairman, Charlie Webster, declared Romney the winner over Paul by less than 200 votes. Hancock and Washington Counties hadn’t voted yet because Webster cancelled the caucuses due to an impending snowstorm, promising they could vote later and their votes would be counted. The snowstorm never occurred and he later reneged on his promise, telling voters in those counties their votes would not be counted after all. Washington County was Paul’s strongest in the state in 2008. Though other states with close outcomes held recounts, this was never a consideration for Maine.

At least one of the counties that did vote claims the state party recorded its tallies incorrectly. Matt McDonald, pastor of a small community church in Belfast, was nominated as the chairman of his caucus. He says the state instructed the caucus chairmen not to read any of the vote totals aloud, but rather to send the results straight to Augusta without a public reading. McDonald made a motion to change this rule, and it was approved unanimously. McDonald says 22 voters showed up, resulting in 8 votes for Paul, 7 for Santorum, 5 for Romney, and 2 undecided. When he called the votes into Augusta, he was told they already had the results and the totals read 9 for Romney, 5 or Santorum, and 2 for Paul. When McDonald told her the tally had been counted publicly, he says “her voice changed and she said…we’ll record this”. Doug Wead , “On every occasion, the votes that were lost were Ron Paul votes and the person responsible for reporting them were Mitt Romney supporters…in one case the votes were actually transferred from paper to…a computer and the lady doing the transfer was a Mitt Romney person”. To date, these tallies have not been corrected and Romney is still credited with the straw vote win while the media continues to report that Paul never won a state contest.

Arizona: The Examiner’s Kevin Kervick reports “ballot stuffing, rule violations, and improper vote counting that occurred behind closed doors” at the convention. In addition, Paul supporters  of physical violence from Romney supporters.

Michigan: Doug Wead reports, ” Michigan, unlike any other state…had a special party rule forbidding any precinct delegate vacancies from being filled at county conventions until after the state delegates and alternates were chosen. In other words, countless Ron Paul supporters attending county convention were forcibly blocked…because they weren’t elected precinct delegates in 2010-long before the Ron Paul 2012 campaign began”. Wead also claims “documented instances in multiple counties where county party officials “edited” the state delegation lists after the county conventions adjourned”.

Wyoming: A commenter on Paul supporter website, DailyPaul.com, explains how members of the Republican Executive Committee (all Romney supporters)  in the delegate selection vote.

Washington: At the state convention , a Ron Paul delegate claimed bubble ballot sheets were withheld in King County’s district 36. He also claims the 37 ^th district caucus was forced to conduct the meeting outside because Chairwoman, Lori Sotelo, was irritated when a Ron Paul supporter was elected to run the caucus, instead of her choice.

Ben Swann  in Pierce County, Washington; who claims the local Republican leadership passed out what they called a “unity slate” to voters and said it represented an equal distribution of delegates committed to Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich. The plan was to organize to block Ron Paul supporters, who outnumbered the other candidates’ supporters, from receiving the lion’s share of the delegates. The Republican leadership prevailed.

Alaska: In spite of last-minute rule changes and violations of party rules, Paul supporters longtime state chairman, Randy Ruedrich, and voted-in Paul supporter, Russ Millette.  Ruedrich then tried to sabotage the state convention and transferred all of the state party’s $100,000 to the local Capital City Republicans in Juneau, effectively bankrupting the party now controlled by Paul supporters.

Georgia: This video shows GOP Chairwoman, Sue Everhart, at the Athens Clarke County GOP meeting admitting “shoddy treatment of the Ron Paul people at that [2008] convention” and publicly apologizing. She presents the rule book that she helped to write and claims it won’t happen again. The video then shows the actual convention and party leaders breaking those rules to force their pre-selected slate of delegates and prevent Paul’s supporters from electing their own. Party leaders then adjourned the meeting illegally and ran out of the meeting.

Massachusetts: Paul won 16 of the 27 delegates selected so far in Romney’s home state. In addition, he swept all 6 from Romney’s home county. As a result (for the first time ever in the state), delegates were asked to sign an affidavit stating ” I certify under the pain and penalty of perjury, that on the first ballot at the 2012 Republican National Convention, I will affirmatively Vote for Mitt Romney, the winner of the 2012 Massachusetts Presidential Primary.” The state GOP then covered up Romney’s embarrassing loss by invalidating ballots and  the Paul delegates.

North Dakota:  the selection of delegates was unfair: the GOP handed out pre-printed ballots with a slate of delegates with 60% of them being Mitt Romney supporters in a state where he won only 26% of the vote.

Oklahoma: Kevin Kervick of The Examiner reports that the Oklahoma convention had to be moved to the parking lot because Robert’s Rules were ignored, delegate credentials were not verified, a convention chair was never appointed, motions made from the floor were ignored, the Chairman illegally elected a slate of Romney delegates, and the convention was closed without a two-thirds majority vote. Consistent with Robert’s Rules, Paul supporters reconvened in the parking lot to elect delegates. Paul supporters have now filed a  to ensure their delegates will be seated.

Virginia: Doug Wead claims “at a district convention, they coaxed the Ron Paul delegation outside and then locked the door. The pastor of the church that was hosting the event was, himself, locked out”.

U.S. Virgin Islands: Ron Paul won his first caucus, only to have the GOP take down the straw vote results from their website showing Paul the victor with 29% over Romney’s 26% and replaced with a note from the party claiming Romney won because he won more delegates. Paul’s Official Campaign Blogger, Jack Hunter,  how every other contest determined the victor by the straw vote, except the one straw vote Paul won.

Alabama: An  exists between Paul’s popular vote count and his delegate vote count. This is odd because voters choose both on the same day and on the same ballot. Alabama Republican Party rules state that voters can only vote for one candidate and then must choose between his delegates. Statewide, Paul received only about one-third as many votes as his delegates. This means voters chose another candidate, but selected Paul’s delegates. No other candidate’s totals showed a similar pattern.

Louisiana: Ben Swann reports a clash between the old Louisiana State GOP leadership and newly-elected leaders who support Paul. Old Chairman, Roger Villere, angered attendees with last-minute rule changes the night before the convention. At the start of the convention, Villere attempted to recognize the former Chair of the Rules Committee, who had been voted out the night before. When new Chair, Alex Helwig, rose to address the delegation; Villere instructed security (comprised of off-duty Shreveport Police) to  . They arrested him for trespassing and broke several of his fingers. Next, an overwhelming majority elected a new Convention Chair, Paul supporter Alex Helwig. Members then turned their chairs to face Helwig, with their backs to Villere. In desperation, Villere instructed the police officers to remove the duly-elected Herford. They did so and in the process, sending him to the emergency room.  The reconvened group followed state party rules and went on to elect a majority of Paul delegates, which the state party later replaced with its own slate of Romney delegates.  The Paul campaign has appealed to the RNC, but it is unlikely that the RNC will reinstate the Paul delegates.

Oregon:  This  shows establishment Republicans in Congressional District 4 attempting to steal the ballot box and leave the premises when it became apparent the Ron Paul supporters were in the majority.  A Paul supporter is chased away from the ballots and claims he was accosted by an establishment party member.

Wisconsin: MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell  Romney violated state campaign laws by bribing voters with free subs.

In other states, Paul supporters claim  occurred with electronic voting machines. Once about 40% of votes are reported, there is typically little variation in the final numbers. However on several occasions, at about 40% Romney’s trajectory “flipped” with the leader, which was often Paul.  Austin Election Judge, Anne Beckett, has come forth publicly to claim she witnessed this firsthand.

Baseless allegations or a few isolated incidents may not be cause for concern, but there is enough video evidence in this report to disturb anyone who cares about fair elections.  Rule changes, disregard for existing rules, cancelling elections, running off with ballots, secret vote counts, throwing out votes, threats, physical violence, and arbitrary replacement of delegates are activities unbecoming of a democratic society.  Whether you’re a Ron Paul supporter, or even a Republican, is irrelevant.  That the Republican Party will seemingly stop at nothing to ensure their selected candidate is the nominee should be deeply troubling for all Americans.

Source: Free Words

Small Business Assault From Obamacare

Hold on to your socks, the part time hiring of employees will become the new normal. The biggest prohibitive hit against job creation is in full motion. The consequences from Obamacare place a drag on the economy that is undeniable. This mugging of small business will guarantee that the primary engine of employment will sputter and knock, as the federal government forces higher and higher taxes on the last semblance of free enterprise.

Do not ignore the significance of this seminal moment. Forget about any economic recovery on Main Street. The unemployment stats will be stuck in a permanent loop, as the gross domestic product stagnates, at best. The more likelihood is that the characterized “double dip” recession will experience a full-blown depression. Government’s response will inflate prices in a feeble attempt to stave off deflation retractions.

Ponder the fallout of this escalated assault on the middle class. Larry Kudlow portrays in John Roberts Is a Super-Taxer the Supreme Court ruling as a dangerous precedent.

“The Roberts court has served up a “tax mandate” that is more powerful than the still-limited Commerce Clause regulatory mandate. Roberts has created a huge new loophole. Instead of new purchase mandates, we’ll have new purchase tax mandates.

Americans for Tax Reform estimates that Obamacare contains 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses. Investor’s Business Daily says this comes to a $675 billion tax hike over the next decade.”

 

Watch the  of Stephen Moore, Senior Economics Writer with the Wall Street Journal, explaining that nearly 75% of Obamacare costs will fall on the backs of those Americans making less than $120,000 a year.

How Will The Supreme Court’s Decision To Uphold Obamacare Affect Small Businesses And Job Creation?, confronts the consequences of approving the tax mandate.

Beginning in 2014, the “Employer Responsibility” provision would require employers with 50 or more workers to provide health coverage.

Critics say it could hurt small businesses that have more than 50 workers and can’t afford to offer health care coverage. Moreover, it could curb hiring among companies that have fewer than 50 employees.

Also, “A lesser-known provision of Obamacare penalizes small businesses for hiring more than 25 employees, said Ben Piper, President of Ben Piper Consulting LLC. “Small businesses that have 25 or fewer employees and offer health care insurance will receive a 35 percent tax credit under the law.”

When the pro government mouthpiece CNBC reports of negative aftermaths, you know the prospects are awful. From Small Business on Obamacare: No Reason to Hire or Invest the warning follows:

Jim Amos, CEO and chairman of Tasti D-Lite, a frozen yogurt franchise that operates in 14 states as well as globally, is certain of one thing: The ruling will hinder growth in the franchise space. “It’s going to force franchisees to shift workers to part-time to avoid the 50-employee threshold,” he said. “It will keep new owners and new openings on the sideline.”

The Street exhibits an unsupported sentiment in, Small Business Reacts to Obamacare Ruling, “small businesses by and large are resigned to the law and preparing to move ahead with the required health care changes.” Maybe the more accurate assessment, in this same article is the operative response.

“Still, the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization dedicated to protecting small business and promoting entrepreneurship, says the ruling is a “major blow” to entrepreneurship overall.

The SBE Council has a broad-based membership of 100,000 members comprised of self-employed and small to mid-size businesses across industries.

“Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court undercuts freedom, which is essential to economic growth and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is on the decline in the U.S., and we need policies that will encourage risk-taking and start-up activity. Intrusive government policies and punishing taxes, like the Affordable Care Act with its individual mandate, work against a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, ” SBE Council President and CEO Karen Kerrigan says in a statement.”

Add to the intentional and punitive burden that especially targets the independent business, the long list of corporate exemptions to the Obamacare requirements. These waivers are pure crony favoritism. Can anyone have confidence that the Obama administration will apply the law equally when their willingness to reward campaign supporters is so well established?

Over a year ago, Human Events listed HOW TO GET AN OBAMACARE WAIVER.

1. Join a labor union: The waiver list reads like a “who’s who” of Big Labor organizations.

2. Work for a huge corporation: Jack-in-the-Box, Cracker Barrel, Ruby Tuesday’s, Waffle House… these are among the most recognizable names of corporate waiver winners.

3. Work for a health care company: Quite a few of these exemptions go to the health care industry and pharmaceutical companies.

4. Work for the government: State and local governments get plenty of ObamaCare waivers.

5. Open a luxurious boutique in Nancy Pelosi’s district: Fully 20% of the latest ObamaCare waivers go to luxury businesses that happen to be located in the district represented by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

6. Live in Nevada, New Hampshire, or Maine: These three wonderful states have been granted special exemptions from many of ObamaCare’s provisions.

The law that “Big Phama” and the insurance carriers wrote has small business at such a disadvantage, that the actual survival of independent enterprises is at stake. When establishment business reporting sounds the danger siren, their corporate sponsors usually take note. The dancing in the corporate suites just goes to prove that the centralization of everyday commerce is behind the draconian burden placed on small business under Obamacare.

Most Americans know little of the risks and responsibilities of being in business. However, many more residents will experience the plight of unemployment and the curse of government dependence. The strength of economic viability must rest upon a sound foundation of small business. The bulk of jobs come from this sector. By inflicting financial costs, that bankrupt Main Street only leads to the destruction of prosperity.

Feeding The Homeless BANNED In Major Cities All Over America

What would you do if you came across someone on the street that had not had anything to eat for several days?  Would you give that person some food?  Well, the next time you get that impulse you might want to check if it is still legal to feed the homeless where you live.  Sadly, feeding the homeless has been banned in major cities all over America.  Other cities that have not banned it outright have put so many requirements on those that want to feed the homeless (acquiring expensive permits, taking food preparation courses, etc.) that feeding the homeless has become “out of reach” for most average people.  Some cities are doing these things because they are concerned about the “health risks” of the food being distributed by ordinary “do-gooders”.  Other cities are passing these laws because they do not want homeless people congregating in city centers where they know that they will be fed.  But at a time when poverty and government dependence are soaring to unprecedented levels, is it really a good idea to ban people from helping those that are hurting?

This is just another example that shows that our country is being taken over by control freaks.  There seems to be this idea out there that it is the job of the government to take care of everyone and that nobody else should even try.

But do we really want to have a nation where you have to get the permission of the government before you do good to your fellow man?

It isn’t as if the government has “rescued” these homeless people.  Homeless shelters all over the nation are turning people away each night because they have no more room.  There are many homeless people that are lucky just to make it through each night alive during the winter.

Sometimes a well-timed sandwich or a cup of warm soup can make a world of difference for a homeless person.  But many U.S. cities have decided that feeding the homeless is such a threat that they had better devote law enforcement resources to making sure that it doesn’t happen.

This is so twisted.  In America today, you need a “permit” to do almost anything.  We are supposed to be a land of liberty and freedom, but these days government bureaucrats have turned our rights into “privileges” that they can revoke at any time.

The following are some of the major U.S. cities that have attempted to ban feeding the homeless….

Philadelphia

Mayor Nutter recently banned feeding homeless people in many parts of Philadelphia where homeless people ….

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter has announced a ban on the feeding of large numbers of homeless and hungry people at sites on and near the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Mayor Nutter is imposing the ban on all outdoor feedings of large numbers of people on city parkland, including Love Park and the Ben Franklin Parkway, where it is not uncommon for outreach groups to offer free food.

Nutter says the feedings lack both sanitary conditions and dignity.

Orlando

Last June, a group of activists down in Orlando, Florida were arrested by police for feeding the homeless in defiance of a city ordinance….

Over the past week, twelve members of food activist group Food Not Bombs have been arrested in Orlando for giving free food to groups of homeless people in a downtown park. They were acting in defiance of a controversial city ordinance that mandates permits for groups distributing food to large groups in parks within two miles of City Hall. Each group is allowed only two permits per park per year; Food Not Bombs has already exceeded their limit. They set up their meatless buffet in Lake Eola knowing that they would likely be arrested as a result.

Houston

Down in Houston, a group of Christians was recently banned from distributing food to the homeless, and they were told that they probably would not be granted a permit to do so in the future ….

Bobby and Amanda Herring spent more than a year providing food to homeless people in downtown Houston every day. They fed them, left behind no trash and doled out warm meals peacefully without a single crime being committed, Bobby Herring said.

That ended two weeks ago when the city shut down their “Feed a Friend” effort for lack of a permit. And city officials say the couple most likely will not be able to obtain one.

“We don’t really know what they want, we just think that they don’t want us down there feeding people,” said Bobby Herring, a Christian rapper who goes by the stage name Tre9.

Dallas

Dallas has also adopted a law which greatly restricts the ability of individuals and ministries ….

A Dallas-area ministry is suing the city over a food ordinance that restricts the group from giving meals to the homeless.

Courts dismissed Dallas’ request for a summary judgment last week, saying the case, brought up by pastor Don Hart (in video above) may indeed be a violation of free exercise of religion, as protected by the Texas Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the blog Religion Clause reported.

In the court filing, the ministry leaders argue that their Christian faith requires them to share meals with the homeless (Jesus did!) and that the requirement that even churches and charities provide toilets, sinks, trained staff and consent of the city keeps them from doing so.

Las Vegas

A few years ago, Las Vegas became the first major U.S. city to specifically pass a law banning ….

Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people in and around the city, joins several other cities across the country that have adopted or considered ordinances limiting the distribution of charitable meals in parks. Most have restricted the time and place of such handouts, hoping to discourage homeless people from congregating and, in the view of officials, ruining efforts to beautify downtowns and neighborhoods.

But the Las Vegas ordinance is believed to be the first to explicitly make it an offense to feed “the indigent.”

That law has since been blocked by a federal judge, and since then many U.S. cities have been very careful not to mention “the indigent” or “the homeless” by name in the laws they pass that are intended to ban feeding the homeless.

New York City

New York City has banned all food donations to government-run homeless shelters because the bureaucrats there are concerned that the donated food will not be “nutritious” enough.

Yes, this is really true.

The following is from a recent Fox News article….

The Bloomberg administration is now taking the term “food police” to new depths, blocking food donations to all government-run facilities that serve the city’s homeless.

In conjunction with a mayoral task force and the Health Department, the Department of Homeless Services recently started enforcing new nutritional rules for food served at city shelters. Since DHS can’t assess the nutritional content of donated food, shelters have to turn away good Samaritans.

Can you believe that?

The bureaucrats are officially out of control.

In America today, it seems like almost everything is illegal.

One church down in Louisiana was recently ordered to stop giving out waterbecause it did not have a government permit.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I sure am going to give a cup of cold water to someone if they need it whether I have a permit or not.

It is as if common sense has totally gone out the window in this nation.

Over in New Hampshire, a woman is being sued for planting flowers in her own front yard.

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad that I have moved to a much more rural location.  People in the country tend to be much more relaxed.

Sadly, those that love to micro-manage others continue to get the upper hand in America.  Back in January, 40,000 new laws went into effect all over America.  The politicians continue to hit us with wave after wave of regulations and laws with no end in sight.

All of this is making America a very unpleasant place in which to live.

Source:

Mitt Romney Desperate To Hide Truth

ROME, Ohio – Two speeches made to different groups of supporters last Tuesday evening may change the world. The remarks were given by the winning and second place candidates vying to be the GOP nominee for president at two locations in New Hampshire minutes after the polls closed. Between these two, enunciated in word, delivery and the reaction of supporters, the watcher could see, in sharp relief, demarcation lines revealing ideas and values which define an America reaching for the future. If you have not watched the links below you should do so.

The two men themselves are both registered Republicans but live in, by and for, very different values. The winner of the GOP primary in New Hampshire was Mitt Romney, a monied and manicured contender whose campaign funds come fromcorporate sources. Leading the list provided through Open Sources is Goldman Sachs, donating $367,200, followed by Credit Suisse Group.

The second man is Dr. Ron Paul, whose campaign funds originate from the efforts of grass roots people, hungry for the truths Paul has lived all of his life. Paul’s top donor – Beefcarver Restaurants contributed $1,000. It takes a lot of donors to raise over $12,000,000, the amount reported for Paul for money raised. U. S. military serving now contribute more to Paul than to all other candidates combined.

The words of Romney and Paul spoke the shattering truths which are today changing the face of the Republican Party, repopulating its ranks from the grass-roots.

Ron Paul, whose supporters are responsible for those changes, is the People’s candidate, his supporters including a strong flow of Democrats and Independents who otherwise have no one to vote for.

The Tea Party, captured in its infancy, by money supplied by Charles and David Koch, have done all in their power to stave off the assault of the simple, direct words supplied by Dr. Ron Paul but they have, again, failed.

Both text and audio of the speeches are linked here. Dr. Ron Paul Mitt Romney

Commentators feverishly attempt to explain away the showing of a campaign entirely originating in the grass roots efforts of ordinary Americans with analysis. These graphs and exit polls caught on the question of ‘electability.’ The unspoken subtext, present but unstated being, “well, you can’t have what you want so which corporate candidate is the least offensive?” These analyzes originated with the driving need to get people to forget Paul is in the race, necessary to the powers that be. Unlike the other candidates Paul’s loyalty is not to the GOP, a corporately-controlled tool for political organizing, but to the people of our nation and to the Constitution.

Speaking straight off the cuff, as is his way, Dr. Paul thanked his supporters humbly, delight and gratitude for what they, not he, had done, clear in his face. As he said during the 2007 race, “thank you for inviting me to the Revolution.” Paul went on to enumerate, the wrongs done to Americans and the changes he would enact, if elected. It was a lengthy list, detailed and specific, leaving no doubt as to what voters will get the day he is inaugurated. Over and over again his supporters interrupted the speech with cries of “President Paul, President Paul,” and tumultuous applause.

Dr. Paul noted a first in election history, as did Romney on a very different subject. Ron Paul proudly noted he is the first to mention the Federal Reserve as a dominant issue and call for its end. He promised the ‘token’ of his intentions by pledging to cut one trillion from the budget in his first year in office. Our monetary system said Paul, is “sneaky, deceitful.”

Paul left no doubt as to his views on war, individual rights, the impact imposed by the regulatory role undertaken by the federal government ,or the hunger of people for the America, which once held so much hope to people around the world.

In 2007 Paul was also the first candidate to mention, “blow-back,” a term coined by the CIA to explain the growing hostility to America by countries where their operations are taking place. Paul called for the orderly withdrawal of troops and an end to the role of ‘policeman to the world,’ for America.

Paul’s vision for America evokes a very different vision for the future than continuous wars, which profit no one but the corporations who donate to the campaigns of his opponents. Paul calls for a world at peace. His supporters chanted, “bring them home, bring them home.” Paul is a real conservative who showed visible concern for people attempting to subsist on Social Security today and the continued reduction of spending power which is causing real suffering for older Americans.

On the subject of the Constitution Paul said, “the Constitution was written for a very precise manner. It was not designed to restrain the individual — not to restrain you — it was to protect your liberties and to restrain the federal government.”

The Paul vision is clear, unambiguous, straight from the heart, and consistent. His delivery was unstudied, warm, sincere.

And then you have Mitt Romney. On a positive note Mitt’s supporters were far more polite. They rarely interrupted with cheers or applause.

As Mitt’s speech went on he had no problem blaming Obama for the disappearance of the Middle Class, the huge bail-outs, and the myriad of other problems plaguing Americans today. Unfortunately, though he, having a firm background in economics and the financial realities of recent years, was less than candid when he blamed Obama for the US loss of the AAA credit rating, now gone. The AAA was already going before Obama was elected due to financial decisions and legislation originating in the Bush presidency, indications of which were present in 2007.

Sometimes it is small things which are most telling.

In October of that year W. Leon Smith, publisher and editor of the Lone Star Iconoclast, wrote a check to Alltel, his phone company, to pay his monthly bill. The check was run through, debiting his bank account twice, causing him to bounce checks. Smith investigated how this could have happened, resulting in an article titled, “Paper or Pretense,” which ran in the Lone Star Iconoclast January 30, 2008.

Smith’s article closes with the illuminating statement by the FBI, who Smith contacted to file a complaint, that they work for the banks. Now that is a real ‘Ah Hah!’ moment, the FBI takes orders from banks, such as JP Morgan, a leading donor to the Romney campaign.

The ‘bank error,’ ignored by most analysts, had, in this once instance, impacted 27,000 customers, each having their check run twice. As time passed Smith began to hear of other instances with other companies. The result had been to allow JP Morgan Bank, then attempting to maintain a AAA rating, to gain millions of dollars in interest on the combined small amounts held which staved off the loss of their rating until recently.

Today Mitt is not running against Obama. He, and all other GOP candidates, are running against each other. Therefore comments on the positions expressed by Paul, the second most popular candidate, would be most useful – if Mitt actually wanted to provide the public with a comparison of what they will do, if nominated and then elected.

Romney offered “I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique — We are One Nation, Under God. Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense.”

Can you tell what this means?

I’m sure the line causes shivers of happiness to ripple through the faces of Dave and Charles Koch as they cash government checks issued for cost plus contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Evidently, Mitt thinks what we have today is free enterprise, which is economic freedom and nothing could be farther from the truth. What we have today is corporate fascism, control by corporations through government.

Otherwise, the Romney speech was stilted, filled with platitudes and meaningless rhetoric, such as, “We still believe in the America that is a land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom. We believe in the America that challenges each of us to be better and bigger than ourselves. This election, let’s fight for the America we love. We believe in America.”

Here is the translation.

The strategy underlying the highly repetitive Romney speech is entirely understandable if you realize this. If Mitt had been clear or specific it would be impossible for people to fool themselves into believing him. The only way to lie to large groups is to allow them to deceive themselves by using emotionally charged images with little real meaning. Words like, “America” “One Nation” and “God” allow the listener to substitute an image, idea, or words from their own minds. The listener persuades themselves to ‘believe.’ You would not hire a plumber like this, you should not hire a CEO in this fashion, either.

But Romney’s haircut was perfect, his teeth shiny white. He was craggy and attractive.

But a real debate on the issues needs to happen and, fortuitously, one will be taking place.

Along with being a columnist for the Iconoclast I was drafted to run, as a Democrat, for president, much to my surprise. The campaign is registered with the Federal Election Commission. W. Leon Smith is my Campaign Chairman. Leon’s draft letter is here. While Obama might not want to debate me you will be able to view a debate between the First Dog, Bo, and my son’s animal companion, Meow-Meow in a matter of days. There will be specifics, substance, and dollops of humor.

The debate will really dig in to all the things, as Mitt so ably demonstrated, candidates are desperate to evade. And although I’m running as a Democrat for the nomination of the Democratic Meow-Meow is ready for action

Party, no corporate candidate will be left behind to languish any longer in the present rhetoric of the absurd.

Even Meow-Meow knows about reality.

Short Platform

• Ratify the ERA

• Fully fund Social Security
• Hold the Bankers accountable
• Give our veterans what they need to heal
• Give the world peace, withdraw the troops
• Abolish the FED
• And force restitution from the corporations for all those victimized

The Iowa Caucus: A Ron Paul Win or a GOP Heist?

A caucus selection process is a much fairer method than party controlled primaries. That is why the GOP establishment fears the voice of the public. A caucus that could actually influence or determine a nomination must be stopped. Party operated election commissions are a central cause for illegitimate elections. If your anointed candidate wins, the process reflects the will of the people, but if a true reformer wins, like Ron Paul; the caucus does not really matter. Just how stupid are these Republican stooges?

The GOP cretins, who long ago, sold out the Republic are willing to foster any lie and sling whatever slime they can make up to prevent Ron Paul from winning the nomination. Front and center is the nitwit Newt. The National Journal reports in, Gingrich Unloads on Paul: Worse Than Obama: “I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul’s views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American,” Gingrich said Tuesday in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer. Could he vote for Paul? “No.

“In Iowa push, ABC News reports, Bachmann Targets Paul.

 

In order to understand the nature of the Gingrich, Bachmann, Santorum, Perry and Romney attacks on Ron Paul, you must face the reality that their Israel First loyalty trumps their oath to protect the true interests of America.

The bold viewpoint of Brother Nathanael will never gain mainstream attention. However, in his YouTube,  a born Jew witnesses what other Americans would be condemned for saying.

In Smear Job, Michael Collins Piper provides another example of attempts to destroy Ron Paul.

What Some Black People Think	The Compassion of Dr. Ron Paul

 

Steve Watson on InfoWars offers us this summary:

 

Watch The Vote – Iowa Caucus 2012	Ron Paul: Iowa Vote Fraud

 

It is clear that the foreign affairs establishment of the bipartisan War Party will make every effort to prevent Ron Paul from becoming President. The rush for perfecting voter fraud is on. The announcement that the Iowa GOP is moving vote-count to ‘undisclosed location’ is outrageous.

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