Hurricane Sandy’s Austerity Lessons

Teaneck,N.J.  — The damage incurred by Hurricane Sandy – the largest Atlantic super-storm on record — is second only to New Orleans’ Hurricane Katrina in terms of magnitude and cost.  Occurring just before Halloween and dubbed “Frankenstorm,” Sandy demolished coastal communities in the Caribbean, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States.

One hundred-mile winds and powerful high tide waters ripped into coastal barriers and the landscape, causing an estimated $60 billion dollars in damages 1.  Flooding and power outages were commonplace, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, and millions without electricity, heat and/or provisions.  Others devastated by the storm included the sick, elderly, handicapped, and poor who could not get vital medicines by pharmacy or mail; those who lost life savings because the damage to their homes were not insured against certain eventualities; and those who lost their livelihoods through destruction. And although there was no gas shortage by cause of resource depletion, the lack of electricity prevented filling stations from dispensing fuel, resulting in long lines and rationing.

While the level of distress among storm casualties should not be underestimated, and many Good Samaritans rushed to the aid of the less fortunate and continue to selflessly volunteer right up until today, there were those in the Northeastern United States who were wholly unprepared to be inconvenienced by ensuing power outages. It is to “the inconvenienced” that this article is dedicated.

Following are bona fide statements made by some New Yorkers and New Jersey-ites during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

• “I couldn’t take living in a cold house, so checked into a hotel.”

• “The storm has been devastating. No Internet and TV for two days.”

• “I’m dying to wash my hair, but it’s too much work to heat the water on my stove top.”

• “It was murder waiting in line for three hours this morning for gas.”

• “How am I supposed to survive without eggs?”

Now let’s compare these to comments made by authentic casualties of the super-storm:

• “Our house got washed out into theAtlantic, but we’re glad to be alive and will make a fresh start.”

•  “A tree fell on our roof and other neighborhood homes, so we’ve gathered the downed limbs and hosted an outdoor bonfire to build morale.”

•  “Winds were whipping through my windows when I heard screams for help. I saw my neighbor clutching a fence as water surged around her. If I didn’t open our door and drag her in, she would have been swept out to sea.”

• “I’ve stayed behind to chainsaw down a tree that fell on our house, but the worst hasn’t happened. The important thing is that my wife and children are out of harm’s way.”

• “Floods displaced almost everyone on the block, so we hosted a Hurricane Party to offer a safe place and serve the food that was going to spoil without refrigeration.”

The latter category of commentaries demonstrate that there are many who know the meaning of life-and-death circumstances, and can even uplift others in the wake of hardship.

While surely unintentional, this natural disaster has afforded those affected by it a small taste of how countless others around the rest of the world live – and many not just during a crisis, but on a regular basis. Perhaps the most ironic here is that a great number of the deprived in less fortunate lands have been disenfranchised or “bombed back into the Stone Age” as a result ofUSforeign policy.

According to a 2009 report in Scientific American magazine, more than one quarter of the world’s population does not have electricity 2. Obviously, since that estimate was recorded three years ago, it does not include the more recent destruction, sometimes of entire infrastructures, in Afghanistan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Syria, or Gaza.  And a World Watch Institute report notes that the United States, with less than five percent of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s natural resources 3.

Perhaps Americans — especially younger generations who have not experienced war, shortages or poverty — are unaware of the above statistics and the privileged lifestyles that they themselves enjoy. More than 1.5 billion people around the world live in absolute poverty, with scarce access to food, shelter, water or sanitation 4.  In many countries, people customarily wait on lines for the distribution of food and fuel.  Kenyans, among many other nationals around the globe, boil untreated water for cooking and drinking. As Peace Corps volunteers will attest, firewood remains a primary everyday source of heat and method of cooking in many countries where reliable electricity and gas supplies are still not always available 5.  Families in Armenia with the means to do so salt their meats, pickle their vegetables, and preserve their fruits to cope with the absence of refrigeration or food in winter.   According to an Aleppo native who only wanted to be identified as “Takouhi,” and who, like her neighbors, roams for food while dodging indiscriminate shelling in Syria, “we eat what ever we can find at this point.” The above are where austerity lessons are to be learned.

If Hurricane Sandy has helped those inconvenienced by the storm begin to identify the however temporarily missing privileges they have taken for granted, the storm’s damage may provide a ‘teachable moment.’ But if a college-educated, foreign-born-but-local acquaintance of mine is any barometer (she was nonplussed that her grocery store stocked no bananas in the immediate aftermath of the Hurricane), let us not be surprised if cognitive dissonance persists among some who can’t or won’t gain insight from adversity.   As such, I welcome the notion of a lawful requirement that every American perform volunteer humanitarian work, particularly abroad, to get a sense of how many others must live.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is among those who consider climate change “the new normal,” and calls for fresh approaches to protect the environment and public 6. As natural resources continue to deplete and pundits debate the reality of global warming and its effect on the planet, will Americans wake up to the realities and necessities of conservation? Are we prepared to survive amid hardship if and when we cannot simply retreat to the nearest hotel, restaurant or safe house? Do we know how to deal with scarcity, practice self-reliance, and band together?  While municipalities are increasingly on the alert, it would be circumspect for individuals to also prepare for future environmental disasters, and interrupted or altogether eliminated conveniences down the line.

A woman slated to participate in the New York Marathon was interviewed on CBS News Radio, saying, “As soon as Mayor Bloomberg cancelled the Marathon in the face of Sandy, I donated my hotel room to someone displaced by the storm, and volunteered with relief workers to help those in need. 7”  Once electrical power returned to her home in Queens, civic-minded Rocio Duque immediately joined with the “Occupy Sandy” volunteers to help the dispossessed in Staten Island 8.  “We want to teach our children that while there may always be somebody more fortunate in life than they are, there will also be those who are less fortunate, too,” said Wendy Loszynski of Bergenfield, New Jersey, who, with her husband and three children, helped out at a hurricane relief center in Moonachie. “Volunteering this way can help our children better appreciate what they have in life, whether possessions or good health, instead of worrying about what they don’t have,” Loszynski continued.

Particularly as Thanksgiving approaches, may these and other examples of altruism, charity and solidarity in the face of adversity continue to emerge, inspire, and even guide us if and when disaster comes along.

1         http://business.time.com/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-estimated-to-cost-60-billion/

2         https://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electricity-gap-developing-countries-energy-wood-charcoal

3         http://www.worldwatch.org/node/810

4         http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/gaef3313.doc.htm

5         http://www.teachkidspeace.org/the-importance-of-the-work-of-the-peace-corps-volunteers.html

6         http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/15/cuomo-on-climate-change-extreme-weather-new-york-governor-daily-news-op-ed_n_2137559.html

7         http://www.wtop.com/1211/3105123/NYC-marathon-runners-donate-hotel-rooms-to-Sandy-victims

8         http://interoccupy.net/occupysandy/

 

Lunacy of FEMA Hurricane Insurance Subsidy

One of the most ludicrous fantasies of the self-indulgent is that a property owner has an entitlement of subsidized government flood insurance. The inherent risk of building along the ocean shoreline is self-evident. The benefits that enhance the pleasure of proximity to the seaside seem unending. However, when the forces of nature thrust her fury and a wall of water inundates pristine dwellings, the first question asked after the storm usually involves rebuilding. The cost of repairs and renovated construction, once paid by private insurance, now normally requires a federal guaranty.

James Bovard made some salient points just after Katrina in Uncle Sam’s Flood Machine.

“The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) is the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s crown jewel. Unfortunately, the heavily subsidized insurance bribes people to scorn common sense, damages the environment, and creates staggering liabilities for taxpayers. Federal flood insurance illustrates how selling at a loss can be politically profitable.

The primary effect of federal flood insurance is that far more property is now damaged by floods than would have occurred if the insurance had not made it possible to build in flood-prone areas. The Long Island Regional Planning Board in 1989 complained that federal flood insurance “in effect encourages a cycle of repeated flood losses and policy claims.” And, especially in places like Long Island, the program underwrites the vacation homes of the wealthy.”

Now that Sandy made her presence known, many of those aforementioned Long Island properties were washed into the sea. Would anyone believe that federal guarantees have any premium correlation to the actual costs of such disasters? The current disconnect between subsidized costs for NFIP flood insurance and the enormous expense for reconstruction is beyond imagination.

The libertarian and media celeb, John Stossel relates his personal experience inTaxpayers Get Soaked by Government’s Flood Insurance. One factor in building his beachfront property on Long Island was that government insurance provided the guarantee necessary to qualify for a mortgage.

“Should a big storm wipe out half the coast, you’ll cover our losses — up to a quarter-million dollars. Thanks — we appreciate it — but what a dumb policy.

The insurance premiums were a bargain. The most I ever paid was a few hundred dollars. Federal actuaries say if the insurance were realistically priced, it would cost thousands of dollars. Why should the government guarantee water’s-edge insurance? Why should the government be in this business at all?”

Mr. Stossel has the knack for boiling down the complex into the common dominator. If private underwriting is not willing to cover the obligation of the risk, at a NFIP discount premium, maybe the insurance is too cheap. The Century Housing organization inShould Taxpayers Subsidize Property Owners in Flood Areas?, states: “Private insurance companies provide almost no flood insurance, because the insurance industry recognizes the huge risks.”Their conclusion is,

“The  is that the taxpayers subsidize the development of property located in known floodplains. And that raises the question of whether that subsidy is good public policy, or whether the whole approach to flood emergencies should be changed. Would we all be better off if we ended the NFIP and instead provided short-term subsidies to floodplain property owners to move out of the danger zone, avoiding the inevitable loss of property and lives that occur so predictably along the nation’s waterways?At the very least, it seems that FEMA should end subsidizing the NFIP premiums for any insured property owners. And it may be a good idea for the states (which control land use) to prohibit construction within floodplains, or require any owner of property located in a floodplain to carry insurance to reimburse public agencies for emergency services when floods do occur.”

The political attraction to continue cheap government waterfront insurance has property owners flocking to buy up and build their dream house. This is probably the costliest boondoggle that benefits the upper middle class and the affluent. Human nature, being what it is, even the purest, as John Stossel, knows a good deal when it is dangled in his face by a seductive government.

So what is the alternative, only high-rise condominiums with expensive maintenance fees owned by offshore tax dodgers? Let us hope that the cherished tradition of individual property ownership is the standard that is protected by all government jurisdictions. However, perpetuating the incentive to willingly build in harm’s way, where personal financial risk is substituted by government guarantees that reward imprudent decisions, needs to change.

The rush to federalize disaster aid and transfer funds back into state coffers is symbolic of the obscene distortion within national taxation. As long as individual states must balance their yearly budgets and the federal government persists with unfunded deficits, individual states will gladly take the bribes and handouts.

Disasters are part of life. There is no warranted absolution from calamites. Insurance that is fairly priced, and rigidly administrated is a system that has provided relief from great suffering and pain. Nevertheless, the business of insurance should be a private contract among willing participants.

If the cost to insure is too high, just maybe the economics of ownership is too steep to continue to support the lifestyle.

The collectivist proponents of big government continue to spread their confusion and prevarications. The Hill reports in Democratic leaders say FEMA has enough cash for Sandy recovery.

“FEMA’s coffers are nearly full because the storm struck at the beginning of the fiscal year, which started Oct. 1.

On top of more than $1 billion left over in the Disaster Relief Fund from last year, Congress has appropriated $7.1 billion for fiscal 2013. President Obama’s decision to make disaster declarations in New York and New Jersey — in addition to emergency declarations in eight other states and the District of Columbia — allows local officials to access those funds immediately.”

Disaster relief can be compassionate and supportive. Even so, the practice of subsidized federal flood insurance only encourages the extent and degree of future disasters. Lacking common sense is a national condition. Building on high ground is the prudent course for action.

Bludgeon Constitution Replaced By Fiat Edicts

The rule of law is an empty memory of the past. The powers that rule are globalists that control governments and use their media outlets to write the first version of history. They pull the strings of the intelligence agencies that function as over throwers of non-compliant regimes. Constitutional restrictions that limit impulsive or capricious dictates once protected citizens. With the utter eradication of separations of power and the “Federalist“, form of distinct roles and authority of independent States, the core legitimacy of the United States vanished.

As central ascendancy consolidates, the tyranny of the majority becomes obvious to even the most vocal statist proponent. The reason for this development is well defined. The most wicked and corrupt criminals have hijacked the system and dismantled the checks and balances, placed into the constitutional framework.

However, let us be crystal -clear. The original formation of a supreme central government doomed the infant republic to the same fate of all other countries. Most Americans are so deep in denial that they are unable to confront the truth of this conclusion. The legislative, legal and judicial systems are all complicit in the destruction of the independence of individual states. States’ Rights are essential, and are the original jurisdiction authority, that formed a purported limited role for the federal government.

The hedonistic hordes that extend their consent to the dictatorial governance keep voting for more oppression. A nation of free people endowed in Liberty has become a cesspool of cretins begging for more social welfare benefits and cradle to grave guarantees.

The reliance of executive orders to circumvent, “The People’s House“, has relegated Congress to a homeless child in a globalist orphanage. The internationalists, who unremittingly sought the dismantling of the principles and goals of the American Revolution, have commandeered the compromised institutions of power. Their handpicked candidates and administrators are mere tools for the banksters and corporatists in their long quest to subjugate the public under fiat edicts that only benefit the oligarchy elites. With the passage of the Patriot Act and the NDAA, you have two dreadful examples of the extent of the authoritarianism that rules this country.

Where is the national outrage? What happened to the spirit of the populace that once fought tyranny, but now accepts the boot of a despot on the genitals of a neutered stud? Macho-man, now relegated to video games, act as wimps and yes-men to threats from the federal government stooges.

The military-industrial-security complex wages uninterrupted warfare without any declaration of war or real national threat. The homeland is euphuism for the police state. The domestic drone deployment sheds the Bill of Rights that presupposes the criminalization of ordinary citizens. Who really cares, when the public continues to accept the dictates of the ruling class?

Preppers, labeled as internal terrorists, are slated for FEMA re-education camps. While bleeding heart collectivists point to the recent east coast storm as justification for more big government. Soon the call for more federal powers will be posted all over the sick social networks by the halfwits that solicit an upgrade to the newest Obamaphone.

The causes for the disintegration of commonly shared traditional culture are part of a master plan to destroy our country. Unless people overcome their fear of ostracization by establishment apologists and discover a backbone, the obligatory pattern of propaganda indoctrination, will remain.

As the country is coerced into greater compliance, resistance to illegitimate orders is the crucial element needed to foster a needed confrontation with federal thugs. The visual images and verbal sucking up by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to the dictator in chief, Barack Hussein Obama is symptomatic of the national malaise that worships at the throne of the “Dear Leader”.

Those confused that Christie disrespected the GOP campaign, fail to appreciate that loyalty to the political system requires homage to the dictatorship, before your next gratuitous photo op. A toady in find standing is a necessary requirement to get your own party’s nomination in the next presidential cycle.

Even at a time of national distress and regional emergency, Washington bureaucrats should not decide the tasks of rebuilding. Yet, the strings attached for federal aid, always requires a pound of flesh to be paid. Could compliance with Agenda 21 be in the fine print for FEMA claims?

Such edicts poison the good will from constructive relief. However, the largesse out of the deficit coffers of the federal treasury necessitates states succumb to political blackmail. This is not a new trend, only the acceleration, frequency and audaciousness as the intimidation increases. Conditions for assistance are dandy opportunities to keep the heel on the throat of the petitioning states.

The constitution is used as wrapping paper, when it comes to the prescription plan used by agencies like FEMA. Carving up the remnants of the prophetic wisdom from separations of power is now the new national anthem.

Allowing federal power grabs has left a legacy of tyranny that touches every level of government. Yet, the apathetic public refuses to fight this absolutism. The globalists have succeeded in their scheme to brainwash the servile populace into accepting that there is no way to alter the supremacy of the beast. Since most voters reflect that conclusion in their balloting practices, the technocrats keep skimming off local home rule with every regulation or decree.

Community ordinances best serve the populist interest. For this very reason, globalists are relentless in their hatred of individual independence. Arbitrary decisions are a way of life for the enablers of the potentates. The elites that write legislative policy also dominate the selection and composition of the administrative bureaus that control much of the political process.

However, accepting that the political process is relegated to feeble attempts to elect new representatives misses the practical reality. The imbalance in the Federalistmodel of government is a root cause that allows elites to destroy society.

What is lacking in the hearts and spirit of our fellow neighbors is the courage to accept Patrick Henry’s proclamation: “Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death!” This country was born by revolution, but is dying under the fright that the federal government may target you as a dissenter. A national revolt is imperative, fought not with weapons, but with the bravery of trusting in the salvation of your immortal soul.Your own self-respect demands action. Indifference is no longer an option. Without political involvement and vocal pressure, the forces of dictatorial edicts will intensify. The constitutional right to assemble and petition your government is now criminalized.

“The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of ‘The Federal Restricted Buildings And Grounds Improvement Act of 2011′. The bill will allow the government to bring charges against Americans exercising their rights as protesters, demonstrators and activists at political events and other outings across America. So not only can you be subjected to the indignity of being labeled a low-level terrorist for daring to petition your government for grievances, but protest itself, and other ‘disruptive activity’ in the presence or vicinity of government officials, buildings, & ‘official functions’ is being deemed illegal.”

Political officials fear the public because the enforcement arm of the evil empire is disposable. The goons that obey orders are beginning an awareness of their expendability. How long will they protect the mad emperor or another tyrannical successor, when the outpour of the masses, finally realizes that the police state is designed to prey on your own person?

Careerist political sycophants and big government lackeys enable the globalists. They are the adversary of the public. The deception of a beneficial federal government is manifestly absurd. Discretionary crony favoritism is a result of this corrupt political culture. The beltway disease infects even the sturdiest of public servants.

The depravity virus is more acute in the federal syndrome because the central government perfects deficit spending as a high art form. Wasting money is rewarded in its extreme. Issuing favors or buying votes qualifies for a vested pension. Pursuing foes with harsh regulations, stipulates your allegiance for advancement.

The bludgeon club used to impose federal dictates grows longer and weighs heavier with each year. Wishful thinking that elections will place honest representatives into seats of power is often pointless. However, for those so inclined to register disapproval in the upcoming presidential election, you might want to consider some alternative candidates.

AMERICAN THIRD POSITION PARTY (A3P) – Merlin Miller

CONSTITUTION PARTY – Virgil Goode

LIBERTARIAN PARTY – Gary Johnson

Read their stand on the issues. The power elites will not quietly relinquish their stranglehold of their perverted and repressive government. The fundamental failure of citizens rests with their reluctance to confront evil. The federal government is despotism on steroids. Until the public accepts this assessment and commits themselves to replace the tyrannical monster with a limited constitutional republic, the fate of the nation will continue to deteriorate. A fiat presidency is pure treason. Woefully, how many folks are willing to manifest the moral fiber of Patrick Henry?

If Mitt Was President (During Hurricane Sandy)

1–He would have scheduled a flyover photo-op on his way to sunny California for a campaign fundraiser.

2–He would have herded homeless African Americans into Yankee Stadium and kept them there for 3 days without food or water.

3–He would have deployed armed mercenaries to flood-stricken areas with orders to “shoot to kill” anyone suspected of looting.

4–He would have authorized FEMA to transport thousands of asbestos-filled trailers to the New York and New Jersey to house storm victims.

5–He would have required that victims produce a valid ID, proof of insurance and FICO scores before providing them with first aid or medication.

6–He would have appointed “Brownie” to head the relief effort.

7–He would have terminated all the teachers in the area and turned the schools into “charters”.

8–He would have told the residents of Manhattan and low-lying areas of New Jersey that they should abandon their neighborhoods and move to higher ground “for good”.

9–He would have used professional actors to appear on camera fixing damaged storefronts and homes so it looked like the government was responding to the crisis.

10–He would have ordered the FEMA Director to deal exclusively with GOP “big donors” in issuing contracts for reconstruction.

11–He would have used private contractors to keep pesky journalists from interviewing victims or photographing the damage.

12–He would have used military personnel to stop victims from fleeing the flooded areas on foot, forcing them to turn around at gunpoint.

13–He would have brought in thousands of low-paid immigrant workers who would live in shipping containers to do the reconstruction work.

14–He would have declared martial law, deployed the 82nd Airborne Division to keep the peace, and declared New Jersey and New York “right to work” states.

We’ll never know for sure how Romney would have reacted, but it’s worth mulling over, don’t you think?

America The Next Lost Atlantis: Geographically, Economically, Politically & Morally

Geographically:  Now that the world’s ocean levels have started rising much faster than predicted, America’s coastal cities may become submerged far sooner than we thought.  And, sooner rather than later, Manhattan stands a very good chance of becoming the next lost Atlantis.

Here’s a cute little video from NASA that describes what’s been happening to our planet’s climate over the last 131 years.  Check it out:  http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/131-years-of-global-warming-in-26-seconds/  In this video animation, blue represents minus-two degrees Celsius and red represents plus-two degrees Celsius.  That’s only a four-degree variation — but what a variation it is!  At the blue point, ice all over the planet used to be still intact.  At the red point, however, it has melted.  At this rate, San Francisco will soon join Manhattan in its race to become the first lost Atlantis.

But enough said about that. I just hope that you don’t own a condo down in SoHo or beach-front property in Honolulu.  You do?  You’re screwed.

And then there’s Burning Man.  This year Black Rock City was completely engulfed in air-born dust particles and white-out sand storms almost 24/7.   If this drought doesn’t let up, perhaps they ought to change its name to Dust Bowl City.

And also, for the first time in memory, we have gotten a hecka lot of Canada geese hanging around Berkeley this summer instead of just passing by in the spring and the fall.  Guess they don’t have to fly so far south to get warm any more.  No winter vacation in Cancun for them!   And we humans don’t need to fly south to Puerto Vallarta during the winter months any more either.  Last year was the warmest winter in NorCal that I can remember (but I still love Puerto Vallarta).

Morally:  The Republican party (and the huge corporations that now own it) are completely using and abusing their only staunch allies — the older white American males and blind-faith Christians who support them — in order to enact laws and make policies that not only undermine these staunch allies’ beliefs but also their very existence.

Jobs, Social Security, homes, families, medical care, infrastructure, water supplies, energy sources, the very teachings of Christ Himself, you name it — all have been put in grave danger by the very corporate interests that naive older white Americans and gullible Christians have blindly trusted and supported all these years.  It’s just sad to watch these trusting staunch allies of the GOP constantly getting knifed in the back.

Then there are the famous Fetus Wars.  Jesus is being called upon to testify against Planned Parenthood — and yet Jesus isn’t even allowed on the premises when multiple brutal vicious and bloody wars have been declared against millions of innocent children all around the world.  You wanna call yourself a Christian?  Then you gotta act Christ-like!  Duh.

And Repubs are now actually saying that Ted Kennedy originated the War on Women.  Chappaquiddick was a tragic accident.  That’s not the same thing.  But a true war on women appears to be the GOP’s latest favorite game plan — as Repubs happily head down the same path that other “Christians” took back in the European Middle Ages when an estimated nine million women who dared to speak up for themselves, tried to get an education or attempted to practice medicine were burned alive at the stake.

Economically:  Since outsourcing and deregulation has hit America like a category-5 hurricane, our economy has become a disaster area — literally.  So many jobs have fled overseas and so much wealth has fled to the Caymans that many parts of the USA look almost like New Orleans after Katrina.

All the things that we used to make here?  We don’t even know how to make them any more.  And all that knowledge of how to make them has been lost too.

Sometimes I wish that the UN or NATO or whoever — perhaps the war-criminal-trial folks over at the Hague — would sanction America like they are now sanctioning Iran.  Then we would be FORCED to become economically independent again.

Republicans have deliberately created a vast pool of unemployed Americans so that they won’t have to pay us high wages.  Hence the GOP’s refusal to endorse a job program.  Why would they want to do that!

In their haste to make more and more money, large corporations are polluting our water and air and elevating our risk of cancer of course.  But they are also killing off billions of bees.  Good luck with getting our crops in when there is no pollination.  And bye-bye flowers too.  We don’t even have to wait until water drowns out the new American Atlantis to miss our fruit trees and flowers.  Monsanto has already taken care of that.

Politically:  Anyone can buy a seat in Congress these days — or even buy the White House itself or the Supreme Court (especially the Supreme Court).  Who would have ever thought that it would be that way here in the former Land of the Free.  Not since Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall have our public offices been so “For Sale”.  Shame on us for letting this happen.

And remember back in 1999 when we all thought that YK2 was going to be an international disaster?  Well all the computers didn’t crash, but YK2 turned out to be an incredible disaster anyway — when George W. Bush stole the 2000 election and almost NOBODY in America objected or even noticed.  Then Bush allowed 9-11 to happen, followed by the disastrous Afghanistan invasion, the incredibly expensive Iraq invasion and the 2008 economic crash.

Yes, YK2 really was a disaster.

More political immorality:  Who has been a very important ally of corporate-owned Washington in places like Afghanistan, Syria and Libya?  Wait for it.  “Al Qaeda!”  Arming and encouraging the people behind 9-11?  Isn’t that about as politically immoral as you can get?  But Americans seem to accept this hypocrisy without batting an eye.  Go figure.

And what can our bought-and-paid-for politicians possibly be thinking when they systematically alienate huge countries like Russia and China while kissing the booties of their corporate neo-con counterparts in teeny-tiny Israel.  Israel?  The size of New Jersey?  Israel’s neo-con corporatists are gonna save us from the wrath of Russia, China, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and all the other places and countries that our corporate-owned government has thoroughly screwed over the years?  Huh?

And then there’s that cruel joke that used to be America’s legendary and heroic Supreme Court.  No justice at all to be had there these days — if you are merely working class.  Those guys in black robes take their reverse-Robin-Hood roles very seriously.

“Take from the worker bees and give to the drones” should be carved in marble over our corporate-owned government buildings in Washington — just before America, the next lost Atlantis, slowly sinks into the sea.

But you had better get to carving it soon — because there is something in the air in America these days, a sense that nasty undercurrents are moving stealthily toward us from somewhere very deep, somewhere that the average voter isn’t in touch with — except in our guts.

And our guts seem to be telling us that America is now sinking fast.  And that “We the People” have absolutely no life jackets — but that the billionaires who now own our government are already provisioning their yachtshttp://www.smirkingchimp.com/node/45275.

To paraphrase Plato, “…once upon a time your State stayed the course of a mighty host, which, starting from a distant point in the Atlantic ocean, was insolently advancing to attack the whole of Europe, and Asia to boot” — and then their city of Atlantis got all drowned out.

And to paraphrase Ray Bradbury, “Something wicked is definitely coming our way”.

World’s First GM Babies Born

The world’s first genetically modified humans have been created, it was revealed last night.

The disclosure that 30 healthy babies were born after a series of experiments in the United States provoked another furious debate about ethics.
So far, two of the babies have been tested and have been found to contain genes from three ’parents’.

Fifteen of the children were born in the past three years as a result of one experimental programme at the Institute for Reproductive Medicine and Science of St Barnabas in New Jersey.

The babies were born to women who had problems conceiving. Extra genes from a female donor were inserted into their eggs before they were fertilised in an attempt to enable them to conceive.

Genetic fingerprint tests on two one-year- old children confirm that they have inherited DNA from three adults –two women and one man.

The fact that the children have inherited the extra genes and incorporated them into their ’germline’ means that they will, in turn, be able to pass them on to their own offspring.

Altering the human germline – in effect tinkering with the very make-up of our species – is a technique shunned by the vast majority of the world’s scientists.
Geneticists fear that one day this method could be used to create new races of humans with extra, desired characteristics such as strength or high intelligence.

Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the researchers, led by fertility pioneer Professor Jacques Cohen, say that this ’is the first case of human germline genetic modification resulting in normal healthy children’.

Some experts severely criticised the experiments. Lord Winston, of the Hammersmith Hospital in West London, told the BBC yesterday: ’Regarding the treat-ment of the infertile, there is no evidence that this technique is worth doing . . . I am very surprised that it was even carried out at this stage. It would certainly not be allowed in Britain.’

John Smeaton, national director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, said: ’One has tremendous sympathy for couples who suffer infertility problems. But this seems to be a further illustration of the fact that the whole process of in vitro fertilisation as a means of conceiving babies leads to babies being regarded as objects on a production line.

’It is a further and very worrying step down the wrong road for humanity.’ Professor Cohen and his colleagues diagnosed that the women were infertile because they had defects in tiny structures in their egg cells, called mitochondria.

They took eggs from donors and, using a fine needle, sucked some of the internal material – containing ’healthy’ mitochondria – and injected it into eggs from the women wanting to conceive.

Because mitochondria contain genes, the babies resulting from the treatment have inherited DNA from both women. These genes can now be passed down the germline along the maternal line.

A spokesman for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), which regulates ’assisted reproduction’ technology in Britain, said that it would not license the technique here because it involved altering the germline.

Jacques Cohen is regarded as a brilliant but controversial scientist who has pushed the boundaries of assisted reproduction technologies.

He developed a technique which allows infertile men to have their own children, by injecting sperm DNA straight into the egg in the lab.

Prior to this, only infertile women were able to conceive using IVF. Last year, Professor Cohen said that his expertise would allow him to clone children –a prospect treated with horror by the mainstream scientific community.

’It would be an afternoon’s work for one of my students,’ he said, adding that he had been approached by ’at least three’ individuals wishing to create a cloned child, but had turned down their requests.

Source:  Michael Hanlon | dailymail.co.uk

How High Will Obama Jump For Israel?

Netanyahu to Obama regarding November’s election: When we say “jump” you answer, “how high”!

Presidential candidate Barack Obama is being targeted by the US Israel lobby from A to Z, (Ackerman, Gary & Aipac to Zuckerman, Mort & the Zionist Organization of America) as no American President seeking re-election has been in the country’s 236 year history.

Israel’s duel loyalty agents, as well as more fair minded American Jewish voters have historically intimidated and influenced US presidents seeking reelection, especially those in a tight race, with various financial and political threats and rewards.  That’s part of the American political game and obviously plenty of other lobbies do it also.

And it pays off. From Truman’s recognition of Israel’s declaration of statehood during his tough reelection fight in 1948 when Chaim Weizmann and other Jewish leaders swarmed the Oval Office to Carter’s Camp David sell-out of American humanitarian values during his Democratic party splitting 1980 re-election challenge from Ted Kennedy.  For more than 60 years the Zionist lobby has used cash, real & fake polls, and tactics ranging from threats of exposing sex-capers and corruption to withholding or delivering Jewish votes in key states like Florida, New york, New Jersey and Pennsylvania to achieve maximum obeisance to Israel’s goals. One might agree that all these tactics are part big leagues American politics.

According to  long time Israeli diplomat, Abba Eban, President Truman would not have supported a Jewish state were it not for  “a crucial $25,000 gift made by Jews to Truman’s vice presidential aspirations in 1944 and that in 1948 American Jews helped Truman again, this time to finance his campaign at a “desperate time”.    According to Eban,”No historian would question the judgment that without the support of, and political pressure from, American Jewry, Israel’s emergence could not have been conceived.” Eban concluded that the Zionist’s lobby’s “extraordinary solidarity and tactics” enlarged Israel’s power beyond the limited dimensions of its space and size.”

Concerned that Truman was too pro-Arab, Zionists enlisted Eddy Jacobson, a friend of Truman’s to sway the President to see Ezer Weizmann once again, despite Truman’s earlier ban on Zionists due to their “harassments.” Truman at first refused. He wrote on February 27, 1948, to Jacobson,  just as the Nakba was ethnically cleansing  nearly 800,00  Palestinians from their homes and lands, that he would not learn anything new from Weizmann, and added: “The Jews are so emotional, and the Arabs are so difficult to talk with that it is almost impossible to get anything done.”  Nonetheless, after considerable persuasion which Jabonson claimed involved large amounts of campaign donations, Truman wrote Jacobson, “You win, you baldheaded SOB. I will see him.”

Concerning Camp David, Jimmy Carter explained a couple of years ago during a  question and answer period following a lecture at the American University of Beirut that “the Jewish lobby was relentless with pressure tactics of various sorts and Begin lied to me about Israel’s willingness to make peace with the Palestinians. I regret to have to admit to you that we caved to their political pressure.”

One could perhaps feel for Obama and his campaign staff given what they are reportedly experiencing today, especially since America’s most powerful lobby has become even stronger since the 1980’s. Their tactics are many and aimed at sapping Obama’s will to do what American national interests require. One is Bill Clinton’s reported deal, being talked about on Capitol Hill, with Israeli officials to assure that if Obama is defeated Hillary will make his/her move and lock up the 2016 Democratic primaries and the general election with plenty of attendant joy for Tel Aviv.

The power to make credible demands on Obama involve much more that Jewish votes since they make up a bit less than 2% of the American electorate. Yet, even the smallest group can make an electoral dent if they move in unison and that may happen regarding Obama among those Jewish voters and Christian Zionists who put Israel first. Obama’s fate, though, is more closely tied to the Jewish vote in states Florida and Pennsylvania where they made up 4% of the 2008 electorate in both of these states.

Statistics being used by the Zionist lobby to pressure the increasingly jittery Obama campaign include recent polls. The Republican Jewish Coalition claims that 30% of Jewish voters who support Romney, represents the “highest level of Jewish support for a Republican presidential candidate in 24 years.” RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks recently stated that if the Jewish vote poll numbers hold in November, they will spell “a disaster” for Obama.

In the 2008 election, Jews supported Obama by a 57 percentage point margin 2008 1.1 points (57 x 0.02) of his popular vote margin. A recent Gallup poll has Jewish voters still in Obama’s camp, but only by barely 35 percentage points. That is the lowest percentage for a Democratic presidential candidate among the Jewish electorate since 1988. A recent Gallup polls reveals a 10-point drop in Jewish voter support (22% in New York) or five points worse than Obama’s shrinkage among all registered voters compared with 2008.

The Israel lobby knows, and they know that Obama’s campaign staff knows, that any diminution in his support from Jewish voters will have a major impact in a very tight election. They both realize that Obama needs to retain his 2008 Jewish vote levels and campaign cash – or risk defeat. . In a close election, one point either way could make the difference as it did in Florida’s 2000 election.

So what price is being demanded of the Obama campaign for Zionist lobby support between now and November 6^th?

They include, but are not limited to the following:

-Obama must freeze Israeli-Palestinian “peace talks” and block European Union pressures on Israel over the settlement and human rights issues;

-Israel wants Obama to pressure the government of Turkey to cancel the 5/28/12 indictment of four senior Israeli military commanders, who have been charged in a Turkish court in connection with the killing of nine Turkish citizens in 2010 on broad the Mari Marmara, one of the ships of the Freedom Flotilla.  Warrants have been issued for the arrest of former Israeli military chief of staff, Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi, the former head of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, head of the navy, Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom, and head of the air force, Brigadier General Avishai Lev. Israel wants them withdrawn.  According to an aid of Senator John Kerrey, the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO) of the US State Department has advised the US Senate Foreign Relations committee that the Israeli attack on the Mari Marmara constituted an international crime which involved lethal and excessive force and resulted in the killing of nine civilians and the wounding of at least 50 others.  The State Department further advised Congress that while Israel carried out an inquiry into the attack, that inquiry failed to meet the requirements of international law. Israel has not prosecuted anyone who killed those on board the Mari Marmara;

-A green light to attack Iran in case the Zionist leadership decides to do it;

-An unequivocal White House commitment that the 2012 Democratic Convention Party Platform will back the 5/17/12 passed resolution (H. Res. 568 adopted by vote of 401-11) affirming that it is U.S. policy to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and opposing any reliance on a policy seeking to contain a nuclear-capable Iran;

-That the White House force US Senator John Kerrey, Chairman of the Foreign Relation Committee to expedite a vote on a similar resolution in the Senate (S. J. Res. 41) which remains on hold in Kerrey’s committee.

– That the White House publicly endorse the 5/23/12 Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Human Rights Act (S. 2101), which would dramatically escalate the level of sanctions against Iran and sharply tighten the enforcement of existing sanctions law.

-A public pledge by Obama that the US will attack Iran and Hezbollah if either retaliates against Israel for its bombing of the Islamic republic.

-More money for fourteen new Research & Development projects for the Israeli military;

– Free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard,

-More visible White House support for various congressional resolutions supported by Israel, ranging from those targeting Iran, Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians.

-Regime change is Syria,

-Instruct Egypt that the price for continued US military and economic aid is to embrace the Camp ‘David accords and all its provisions requiring Egypt to “cooperate with Israel”

-Arrange for Israeli Embassy space in Cairo given that to date no one is willing to rent it any, and damp down Muslim Brotherhood calls for the recovery of Palestine;

– Support for the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 (H.R. 4133 and S. 2165), which recommends several ways to strengthen U.S.-Israel strategic cooperation in such fields as missile defense, homeland security, energy, intelligence and cyber-security. The House bill, which passed on May 8 by a vote of 411-2, led by Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD).

-That the 2012 Democratic Platform and candidate Obama emphasize over the next five months the need for America to guarantee Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge over any and all combinations of adversaries on the battlefield.

Obama election year groveling to Israel was perhaps symbolized by the June, 13 2012  White House spectacle of bestowal on Israel’s President Shimon Peres of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States. The PMF recognizes those individuals who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”  Peres, father of Israel’s colonial settlements, has committed myriad international crimes against the Lebanese people and Palestinian refugees, including the April 18, 1996 Qana Massacre  that  killed 106 Lebanese and Palestinians and wounded approximately 120 including four Fijian UNIFIL soldiers who were among the 800  civilians who had taken refuge in the compound. Peres sanctioned countless other attacks on civilians killing more than 14,000 civil and wounding more than 25,000 as part of various Israel aggression during his time as Prime Minister, meaning that he belongs on trial at the International Criminal Court at the Hague not at a White House dinner even in an election year. Despite knowing this, Obama caved to AIPAC and Congressional campaign pressure and sullied the PMF, his office and claimed American valves.

In an email from one Congressional staffer, she explained that the lobby wanted Peres to receive this honor which disgusted many on Capitol Hill and internationally,  hoping to deflect some of the increasing condemnations  the Apartheid regime has been receiving including the recent British government’s Foreign Office in its report, Children in Military Custody has accused Israel of illegal mistreatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding, solitary confinement and the use of leg irons. found that “undisputed facts” pointed to at least six violations of the UN convention on the rights of the child, to which Israel is a signatory.

The report claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehicles. The children are held in conditions that amount to torture, such as solitary confinement and no access to their parents.

In a damning conclusion, the report points out repeated breaches of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

In addition, Israel is a party to the Geneva Conventions, and bound by its obligations, yet Articles 76 and 65 of the 4th Geneva Convention were also found to have been breached, according to the report.

Article 76 prohibits detainees from being transported to the country of the authority which has detained them. In this case, Palestinian children were found to have been transported from the West Bank into Israel.

Article 65 states that any penal laws applied to prisoners in an occupied land must be translated into their own language. The lawyers said the Israeli authorities failed to translate Military Order 1676 from Hebrew into Arabic.

To the extent Obama convinces the Israel lobby between now and Tuesday November 6th may determine whether he is a one term President or returns for a second term with its uncertainties regarding traditional US Presidential support for Israel given that during his second term, as he has stated publicly thanks to a live media mike, he will have much more flexibility.

It is too early to know what boast Obama’s campaign might receive from the US Supreme Court’s 6/29/12 decision upholding his truly historic achievement of reforming the American health system which will provide quality health care for more than 30 million uninsured Americans.  Widespread public approval of Obamacare may significantly weaken Zionist lobby plans to control the White House as it has the Congress and how high President Obama needs to jump.

10 Things That Will Happen If Barack Obama Continues To Systematically Legalize Illegal Immigration

Barack Obama seems completely obsessed with systematically legalizing illegal immigration.  The United States borders a failed narco-state that is one of the most crime-ridden nations on the entire planet, but Barack Obama refuses to secure the border and the consequences for the American people have been absolutely catastrophic.  Right now it is already costing us tens of billions of dollars a year to provide welfare for illegal immigrants and to educate their children in our public schools.  Right now illegal immigrants are already working millions of jobs that should belong to American workers.  Right now Mexican drug cartels are already active in more than 1,000 U.S. cities.  But apparently that is not good enough for Barack Obama.  He wants to roll out the red carpet and give the green light to tens of millions more illegal immigrants.  Last year, Obama issued a list of 19 factors for government officials to use when deciding whether to use “prosecutorial discretion” in deportation cases.  In essence, under that new set of rules criminals and “national security threats” were to be deported and virtually everyone else was to be allowed to stay.  But now Barack Obama has taken things to a whole new level.  Now, if you are under the age of 30, came to the United States under the age of 16 and have lived here for at least five years you will be able to apply for legal status and a work permit.  With the election less than 6 months away it is obvious that Barack Obama is pandering for votes.   But this kind of “banana republic politics” is only going to divide America even more deeply and is going to result in some very serious pain for this nation in the years ahead.

How close do you think officials are going to check to see if people applying for this new amnesty are really under the age of 30 or really have been in this country for at least five years?

As I have written about previously, illegal immigrants lie to the IRS all the time.  Every year they file hordes of fraudulent tax returns that result in them receiving 4 billion dollars in tax refunds that they are not entitled to.

So if they are willing to even lie to the IRS, then why wouldn’t they lie about when they came to the U.S. or about how long they have been here?

For a long time Barack Obama has supported “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants, but now he has essentially turned the entire country into a “sanctuary city”.  Our immigration laws are still on the books, but everyone knows that Obama is not going to enforce the vast majority of them.

And that is really sad.  The United States will always need immigration, but the way that we do things today is really stupid.  We make legal immigration an absolute nightmare, but we leave the back door completely wide open for anyone that wants to break the rules and come in illegally.  So those that would like to come in legally and do things the right way are greatly discouraged from doing so while criminals, drug dealers, gang members, welfare parasites and those willing to survive in the underground economy are given the green light to come on over any time they would like.

Our immigration system makes no sense whatsoever and now Obama has just made things a whole lot worse.

The following are 10 things that will happen if Barack Obama continues to systematically legalize illegal immigration….

#1 There Will Be Fewer Jobs For American Workers

In the United States today, 53 percent of all college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.  Many of them are absolutely desperate for work.

Overall, there are more than 100 million working age Americans that do not have jobs right now.

Meanwhile, millions of illegal immigrants are occupying jobs that could otherwise be held by American citizens.  Many employers prefer to hire illegals because they work for a lot less money.

Sadly, many prominent politicians actually support the “right” of these “undocumented workers” to steal our jobs as a recent article by Devvy Kidd pointed out….

In April 2008, the very popular, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, prostituted himself during a speech for votes at an event sponsored by the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey by assuring his audience illegal aliens were not really here illegally, but were simply “undocumented.”

The ‘unofficial’ number of unemployed Americans is close to 25 MILLION. Those “undocumented” criminals Gov. Christie refers to are illegally holding 11.5 MILLION jobs that belong to Americans and naturalized citizens. Shame on you, Gov. Christie for thumbing your nose at our federal immigration laws and encouraging even more criminals to break into our country. Roll out the welcome mat. Unemployment in New Jersey is holding at a steady 9.3%. Gov. Christie apparently doesn’t care if jobs go to illegal aliens instead of legal citizens in his state. After all, they’re simply “undocumented”.

#2 Wages For American Workers Will Continue To Decline

When you have a lot more workers competing for the same number of jobs, what happens?

That is right – wages go down.

We are seeing this happen in industry after industry.

For example, several decades ago a roofer could live a nice middle class lifestyle and support an entire family on one income.

But today that is no longer the case.

So what has changed?

A flood of illegal labor has entered the marketplace.

#3 Illegal Immigrants Will Overwhelm Our Welfare System

Every year, illegal immigrants receive tens of billions of dollars in welfare payments.  They get free food assistance, free housing assistance, free health care benefits and free education for their children.  Life is good if you are an illegal immigrant and you know how to game the system.

In fact, many cities in United States now openly advertise that they will help illegal immigrants with these things.

Unfortunately, according to Devvy Kidd the cost to taxpayers is getting to be astronomical….

Last year alone, the cost to taxpayers of LA County was whopping $600 MILLION dollars in welfare for children of illegal aliens. I guess it doesn’t bother the people there getting fleeced in taxes to pay for all that welfare because they continue to elect governors who refuse to lock down the border and sympathizers of the invasion across the southern border of California to their legislature.

Overall, it has been estimated that U.S. taxpayers spend  on primary and secondary school education for the children of illegal immigrants.

#4 Mexican Drug Cartels Will Establish A Presence In Nearly Every City In The United States

Mexican drug cartels continue to expand their influence inside the United States at a frightening pace.  They are slowly taking over our communities.  How far do things have to go before we say enough is enough?

The amount of money that Mexican drug cartels bring in from selling drugs inside the United States is absolutely staggering….

In the sober reckoning of the RAND Corporation, for instance, the gross revenue that all Mexican cartels derive from exporting drugs to the United States amounts to only $6.6 billion. By most estimates, though, Sinaloa has achieved a market share of at least 40 percent and perhaps as much as 60 percent, which means that Chapo Guzmán’s organization would appear to enjoy annual revenues of some $3 billion — comparable in terms of earnings to Netflix or, for that matter, to Facebook.

Can you imagine that?

We are talking about serious money.

And Mexican drug cartels are not just operating in huge cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.  The truth is that they have become deeply embedded in many rural communities as well….

News of cartel machinations are common in cities near the border, such as Phoenix, and the far-flung drug hubs of New York, Chicago or Atlanta, but smaller towns bring business, too. In unsuspecting suburbs and rural areas, police are increasingly finding drugs, guns and money they can trace back to Mexican drug organizations.

The numbers could rise in coming years. The Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center estimates Mexican cartels control distribution of most of the methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana coming into the country, and they’re increasingly producing the drugs themselves.

In 2009 and 2010, the center reported, cartels operated in 1,286 U.S. cities, more than five times the number reported in 2008. The center named only 50 cities in 2006.

#5 There Will Be Increasing “Anti-American Violence” Inside The United States

These days a lot of Americans are being attacked (and sometimes killed) down in Mexico.

The following is from a recent ABC News article….

American travelers to Mexico should beware of possible violent retaliation for this week’s arrest of alleged Zetas drug cartel associates and family members inside the U.S., the U.S. State Department has warned.

Though the warning does not specify which “Transnational Criminal Organization” might engage in “anti-American” violence, on Tuesday federal authorities arrested seven alleged associates of the powerful Zetas drug cartel in New Mexico and Oklahoma for allegedly laundering millions in drug profits through breeding and racing quarterhorses in the U.S. Those arrested included Jose Trevino Morales, the brother of Zetas leaders Miguel Angel and Oscar Omar Trevino Morales, who were also indicted but remain at large in Mexico.

As Mexican drug cartels and criminal gangs expand north, it is inevitable that “anti-American violence” will spread deeper and deeper into the U.S. itself.

The level of violence that we are seeing down in Mexico right now is absolutely frightening.  These drug cartels can beabsolutely brutal….

Fourteen dismembered bodies were found in a truck in the center of a town in northern Mexico on Thursday in what appeared to be the latest atrocity committed by rival gangs battling over drug-smuggling routes, local media said.

The bodies of 11 men and three women were discovered in the sugar-cane farming town of Ciudad Mante in the south of Tamaulipas state, which borders on Texas, daily Milenio reported on its website.

Overall, more than 55,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since 2006.

Is that the kind of violence we want in this country?

Already the region along the U.S./Mexico border is an open war zone.

Just across the U.S. border, the city of Juarez, Mexico is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the face of the earth.  In fact, Juarez is now the murder capital of the western hemisphere.

But instead of strengthening security along the border, Barack Obama wants to make the border meaningless.

#6 Massive Bribes Will Corrupt Our Judicial System

When there are billions of dollars involved, it is inevitable that some members of the police and some members of the judiciary will take bribes.

Just look at what has happened down in Mexico.  The following is from a recent article in the New York Times….

When you tally it all up, bribery may be the single largest line item on a cartel’s balance sheet. In 2008, President Felipe Calderón’s own drug czar, Noe Ramirez, was charged with accepting $450,000 each month. Presumably, such gargantuan bribes to senior officials cascade down, securing the allegiance of their subordinates. “You have to recruit the high commands, so they can issue the information to lower ranks and order whatever they want,” the corrupt cop, Fierro Méndez, testified. But in key jurisdictions, the cartel most likely makes payments up and down the chain of command. In a 2010 speech, Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s secretary of public security, speculated that together, the cartels spend more than a billion dollars each year just to bribe the municipal police.

What would you do if you were offered a bribe of $450,000 a month?

Don’t assume that Americans are so much more “moral” than the Mexicans are.

#7 Gang Activity Will Continue To Grow In The United States By Leaps And Bounds

Gang activity is absolutely exploding inside the United States.

According to the FBI, there are now 1.4 million gang members involved in the 33,000 different gangs that are active inside the United States.

The number of gang members in America has increased by 40 percent since 2009.

Those stats should be very alarming to all of us.

What are we going to do if gangs keep growing at this rate?

According to federal statistics, gang members are responsible for up to 80 percent of all violent crimes committed in the United States every year.

A very large percentage of these gang members have entered the United States from Mexico, but the federal government refuses to do anything to stop it.

#8 The Decline Of Our Health Care System Will Continue To Accelerate

Illegal immigrants are overwhelming emergency rooms all over the country.  They walk in, receive high quality treatment and often never pay after they leave.

Things have gotten so bad in many areas of the nation that it is causing entire hospitals to go bankrupt and shut down.

In a previous article, I described what unchecked illegal immigration is doing to the health care system in California….

Thanks to illegal immigration, California’s overstretched health care system is on the verge of collapse.  Dozens of California hospitals and emergency rooms have shut down over the last decade because they could not afford to stay open after being endlessly swamped by illegal immigrants who were simply not able to pay for the services that they were receiving.  As a result, the remainder of the health care system in the state of California is now beyond overloaded.  This had led to brutally long waits, diverted ambulances and even unnecessary patient deaths.  Sadly, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.

#9 Legalizing Illegal Immigrants Will Cause A Huge Shift In Voting Patterns

Instead of looking out for the American people, many Democrats support legalizing illegal immigration because it will give the Democratic Party more support at the polls.

This is incredibly selfish and self-serving, but this is the way that the political game is played in 2012.

#10 There Will Be A Flood Of New Illegal Immigrants

Amazingly, far more people  than come in through the legal immigration process.

As word spreads of the “Obama amnesty”, millions more will come on over.  After all, what would they have to lose?  If they get caught crossing over they will just get nicely sent back and can try again in a few days.

If they make it they can take advantage of all the free goodies here in the United States.  Thanks to Obama, the odds of deportation are now very slim.  And they can often make significantly more money in the “underground economy” in the U.S. than they can back home.

So what is the downside for illegal immigrants?

Where is the pain?

If you do get deported, you can always sneak back in.  Security along the U.S. border with Mexico is a total joke.

Sadly, many politicians on both sides of the border seem very pleased that the United States and Mexico are slowly but surely being integrated through illegal immigration.

In fact, one gets the impression that Barack Obama would be quite pleased if the border between the United States and Mexico were to disappear completely.

Politicians like Barack Obama don’t seem to care about the catastrophic impact that illegal immigration is having on this country.  They are absolutely obsessed with their social and political agendas and they aren’t going to allow a few inconvenient “details” to derail them.

Unfortunately, there is not much hope for significant change any time soon.  Mexico is already a “failed state” and we are freely allowing millions of their bad guys to pour into our country.

In the end, we will pay a very great price for our foolishness.

Source: The American Dream

The Un-American Sin of Property Taxes

When North Dakotanswent to the polls on Tuesday, they had a chance to strike a blow for freedom and make their state the first in the nation to ban all property taxes.  Unfortunately, though, the referendum was defeated soundly.  With such levies having become a fixture on the American landscape, the proposal was seen as just being too radical.  But was it, really?

I say it is property taxes themselves that are radical.

I’ve always objected to property taxes because they do violence to the concept of property ownership.  After all, what am I describing when saying the following: I have to pay a fee on a regular basis to stay in a home or apartment, and if I don’t I will be evicted from it?

That is the status of a renter—not a landowner.

Any which way you slice it, property tax is rent you pay to the government.  Sure, we don’t call it that.  But if the effect is the same, what’s the difference?  And government, with its “surcharges” and “assessments,” is infamous for conjuring up euphemisms for its excessive and unjust taxes.

Note that in my fourth-paragraph question I wrote, “I have to pay a fee on a regular basis to stay in a home or apartment….”  There’s a good reason why I didn’t write “my home or apartment.”  After all, if I can be evicted for not paying rent-by-another name, do I truly own it?

In reality, our property-tax system smacks of Old World Manorialism, which became “patroonship” in colonial New York and New Jersey—only Big Brother is now the Lord of the Manor.  And woe betide the peasant who can’t pay his rent.

Just consider the plight of a responsible American family that, due to illness, our poor economy or the death of a breadwinner, can no longer afford to pay rent to the Big Brother of the Manor.  Their home may be paid off; they may have lived in it for 20 years.  But none of that matters when you don’t really own it but are just a renter.  They’ll be out of luck and perhaps out on the streets, joining the ranks of the homeless.

Despite all this, many find it unfathomable that we should end our modern-day manorial system.  As The New York Times wrote prior to the vote on the ND proposal:

An unusual coalition of forces, including the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce and the state’s largest public employees’ unions, vehemently oppose the idea, arguing that such a ban would upend this quiet capital [Bismarck].  Some big unanswered questions, the opponents say, include precisely how lawmakers would make up some $812 million in annual property tax revenue; what effect the change would have on hundreds of other state laws and regulations that allude to the more than century-old property tax; and what decisions would be left for North Dakota’s cities, counties and other governing boards if, say, they wanted to build a new school, hire more police, open a new park.

Ah, the old “where will the government get the money?” line.  Frankly, I don’t worry about such things because that should never be the first question when pondering tax issues.  It should be: where will the people get the money?  It is, after all, theirs, and isn’t this supposed to be a government of, by and for the people?

Of course, the elimination of property taxes would mean that governments would have to adjust their tax structure.  But so what?  Doesn’t the citizen who falls on hard times (often due to bad government policy, mind you) and whose home is seized by Big Brother of the Manor have to adjust?  Does government worry how the people will adjust when making some sweeping policy change (e.g., ObamaCare)?  It’s time for the government to do some adjusting for a while.

Unfortunately, the elimination of modern-day Manorialism is a tough sell even among many conservatives.  To be “conservative,” after all, is to oppose big changes and preserve the status quo.  As an example, the Times wrote, “For his part, Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a Republican, said he opposed the property tax ban.  ‘It’s mind-boggling, really,’ he said, in an interview, of the effects of such a ban.  ‘We’d be changing everything, frankly.’

All I can say is that were it not for a willingness to change “everything,” our nation would never have been founded (see Washington, Hamilton, Paine, Madison, Adams, Henry et al.).

The First Continental Congress’s Declaration on Colonial Rights stated that by “the immutable laws of nature” we are “entitled to life, liberty and property: and… have never ceded to any foreign power whatever, a right to dispose of either without…consent.”  Shouldn’t the same apply to a domestic power?

And then we have to ask: how foreign have our domestic powers become?

Zombies And Our Thirst For Gore

Zombies have shuffled their way into a resurgence in pop culture over the last decade, but nothing has come close to the fever pitch produced in the news over recent weeks.

First, there was the frightening yet strange ’zombie’ case in Miami, Florida, where Rudy Eugene was shot and killed by police when they found him gnawing the face off another man. The particulars of the case are still somewhat unclear, although that hasn’t stopped mainstream news from being ’apocalyptic’ in their reporting.

Eugene was reportedly acting as if he was on drugs prior to the horrific attack, although the exact drug has not been verified (so the press has been cycling through them all). His girlfriend and mother claim he would never have voluntarily done such a thing, and thus he must have been drugged by persons unknown, or was a victim of a voodoo curse.

“Everybody says that he was a zombie, but I know he’s not a zombie; he’s my son,” she said.
She said the man who ate another human being’s face was just not the son she knew.
“I don’t know what they injected in him to turn him into the person who did what he did,” she said, making the motion of someone putting a syringe into the crook of her arm.

A grieving mother’s denial? Probably. But it’s not outside the realm of possibility, as it’s well documented that government agencies publicly, and secretly, test biological agents against unsuspecting civilians, without public consent or knowledge. The US military has engaged in dark medical experiments as well:

Experiments included administering LSD to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors, other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients, and members of the general public in order to study their reactions. LSD and other drugs were usually administered without the subject’s knowledge and informed consent, a violation of the Nuremberg Code that the U.S. agreed to follow after WWII.

Source

Next came a story from Maryland, where a college student was arrested for killing a man, dismembering him, and eating his heart and part of his brain. More cannibalism.

Then an incident in New Jersey, where a man stabbed himself 50 times and threw bits of his own intestines at police. Police tasered him, but he was allegedly not subdued easily. ’Zombie-like’ strength and disassociation.

All on the back of this, was an international incident that seemed to heighten the ’zombie/cannibal’ phenomenon.

A man hunt just ended last week after authorities in Germany arrested a young Canadian man, Luka Rocco Magnotta, who is accused of killing and dismembering Jun Lin, a 33-year-old undergraduate student at Montreal’s Concordia University. Magnotta was dubbed the “Canadian Psycho” by international press.

Not only was much of the horror of the killing and dismemberment filmed and uploaded to the internet, but Magnotta then allegedly, after eating parts of his victim, packaged up the various body parts and sent them through the post to conservative and liberal Canadian political party offices, as well as two elementary schools.
Jun Lin’s head and several limbs are still unaccounted for.

These cases, which would have traditionally been attributed to severe mental illness, are now being completely sensationalized, and described as zombie killings. The public has become very used to violence. We’re almost completely desensitized to violence. But cannibalism seems to strike at something different within us. For some, it’s compelling – for others, it’s a sign of end-times.

For all that they bemoan the tragedy, the media also embraces this sort of story to fuel their sales and ratings, and the public tunes in.

And why wouldn’t they? The very authority figures that the public look to for guidance and a voice of reason, like the Center for Disease Control (CDC), ran a campaign in 2011 to heighten awareness of the inevitable zombie apocalypse!

In a May 16th blog entry on the CDC.gov website called: Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse, author Ali S. Khan asks the question, “Where do zombies come from and why do they love eating brains so much?” The article then goes on to suppose that “zombies would take over entire countries, roaming city streets eating anything living that got in their way. The proliferation of this idea has led many people to wonder – How do I prepare for a zombie apocalypse?”

CDC would provide technical assistance to cities, states, or international partners dealing with a zombie infestation. This assistance might include consultation, lab testing and analysis, patient management and care, tracking of contacts, and infection control (including isolation and quarantine).

Source

But now the CDC is reversing its stance on an undead holocaust, and has denied the existence of zombies. 

With the media hyping zombies, government agencies considering zombies, and corporations pushing any products they can associate with zombies, it should come as no surprise that scammers now are getting in on the action.

Whatever the cause of the macabre and grisly cannibalism of these recent reports, there was no doubt that although viewers were sickened, they were also intrigued. To many, it felt like the unfolding plot of a horror movie, and the media seemed all too willing to provide all the gory details.

…there is surveillance footage of Eugene’s May 26 attack, but the 18-minute video, embedded in articles from local Miami news sources including the Miami Herald, is partially obscured by a bridge. There is no other video, no “exclusive” footage or “never-before-seen” angle. This is important to remember, as online scammers, in a plea to get you to click on possibly harmful links, often promise to show you the “real” videos or photos you haven’t seen.

Source

The audience’s “thirst for gore” is what makes the scammers successful. It’s what drives the press to publish continuous updates (even the irrelevant minutiae) on these horrific, real life tragedies. The gruesome ’infotainment’ stretches the boundaries of credulity and traps the viewer in a dissonance, a mental conflict where it’s necessary to sort out what is real and what is unreal from a source that is supposed to tell the truth but seldom does.

——

Zombies and ghoulish creatures might be mainstream fare right now, but like many myths they have a history that stretches back through the ages. Before you become convinced that the ’zombie apocalypse’ is upon us because the reporting is reaching saturation, keep in mind:

Though many people treat the current “zombie apocalypse” as a fun pop culture meme, it’s important to realize that some people believe zombies are very real. Haitian culture — like many African cultures — is heavily steeped in belief in magic and witchcraft. Belief in zombies is related to the Voodoo religion, and has been widespread throughout Haiti for decades. The existence of zombies is not questioned, though believers would not recognize the sensational, Hollywood brain-eating version that most Americans are familiar with.

Unlike today’s malevolent movie zombies, the original Haitian zombies were not villains but victims. They are corpses who have been re-animated and controlled by magical means for some specific purpose (usually labor). Historically, fear of zombies was used as a method of political and social control in Haiti. Those people believed to have the magical power to zombify a person — mainly witch doctors called bokors — were widely feared and respected.

For a ’History of Zombies’, visit Discovery.com

Source: Elizabeth Leafloor | RedIceCreations.com

The Man Who Fired The Shot Heard ’Round The World

April 19, 1775, should be regarded as important a date to Americans as July 4, 1776. It’s a shame that we don’t celebrate it as enthusiastically as we do Independence Day. It’s even more shameful that many Americans don’t even remember what happened on this day back in 1775. For the record, historians call this day, “Patriot’s Day.” More specifically, it was the day that the shot was fired that was heard ’round the world. It was the day America’s War for Independence began.

Being warned of approaching British troops by Dr. Joseph Warren, Pastor Jonas Clark and his male congregants of the Church of Lexington (numbering 60-70) were the ones that stood with their muskets in front of the Crown’s troops (numbering over 800), who were on orders to seize a cache of arms which were stored at Concord and to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock (who were known to be in the area, and who had actually taken refuge in Pastor Clark’s home).

According to eyewitnesses, the king’s troops opened fire on the militiamen almost without warning, immediately killing eight of Pastor Clark’s parishioners. In self defense, the Minutemen returned fire. These were the first shots of the Revolutionary War. This took place on Lexington Green, which was located directly beside the church-house where those men worshipped each Sunday. Adams and Hancock were not taken. They owed their lives to Pastor Clark and his brave Minutemen–albeit eight of those men gave their lives protecting Adams and Hancock.

According to Pastor Clark, these are the names of the eight men who died on Lexington Green: Robert Munroe, Jonas Parker, Samuel Hadley, Jonathan Harrington, Jr., Isaac Muzzy, Caleb Harrington, and John Brown, all of Lexington, and one Mr. Porter of Woburn.

By the time the British troops arrived at the Concord Bridge, hundreds of colonists had amassed a defense of the bridge. A horrific battle took place, and the British troops were routed and soon retreated back to Boston. America’s War for Independence had begun!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two elements of American history are lost to the vast majority of historians today: 1) it was attempted gun confiscation by the British troops that ignited America’s War for Independence, and 2) it was a pastor and his flock that mostly comprised the “Minutemen” who fired the shots that started our great Revolution.

With that thought in mind, I want to devote today’s column to honoring the brave preachers of Colonial America–these “children of the Pilgrims,” as one Colonial pastor’s descendent put it.

It really wasn’t that long ago. However, with the way America’s clergymen act today, one would think that preachers such as James Caldwell, John Peter Muhlenberg, Joab Houghton, and Jonas Clark never existed. But they did exist; and without them, this country we call the United States of America that would not exist.

Caldwell was a Presbyterian; Muhlenberg was a Lutheran; Houghton was a Baptist; and no one really seems to know what denomination (if any) Jonas Clark claimed, although one historian referred to Clark as a Trinitarian and a Calvinist. But these men had one thing in common (besides their faith in Jesus Christ): they were all ardent patriots who participated in America’s War for Independence, and in the case of Jonas Clark, actually ignited it.

James Caldwell

James Caldwell was called “The Rebel High Priest” or “The Fighting Chaplain.” Caldwell is most famous for the “Give ’em Watts!” story.

During the Springfield (New Jersey) engagement, the colonial militia ran out of wadding for their muskets. Quickly, Caldwell galloped to the Presbyterian church, and returning with an armload of hymnals, threw them to the ground, and hollered, “Now, boys, give ’em Watts!” He was referring to the famous hymn writer, Isaac Watts, of course.

The British hated Caldwell so much, they murdered his wife, Hannah, in her own home, as she sat with her children on her bed. Later, a fellow American was bribed by the British to assassinate Pastor Caldwell–which is exactly what he did. Americans loyal to the Crown burned both his house and church. No less than three cities and two public schools in the State of New Jersey bear his name.

John Peter Muhlenberg

John Peter Muhlenberg was pastor of a Lutheran church in Woodstock, Virginia, when hostilities erupted between Great Britain and the American colonies. When news of Bunker Hill reached Virginia, Muhlenberg preached a sermon from Ecclesiastes 3 to his congregation He reminded his parishioners that there was a time to preach and a time to fight. He said that, for him, the time to preach was past and it was time to fight. He then threw off his vestments and stood before his congregants in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.

Muhlenberg later was promoted to brigadier-general in the Continental Army, and later, major general. He participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, and Yorktown. He went on to serve in both the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Joab Houghton

Joab Houghton was in the Hopewell (New Jersey) Baptist Meeting House at worship when he received the first information regarding the battles at Lexington and Concord. His great-grandson gives the following eloquent description of the way he treated the tidings:

“[M]ounting the great stone block in front of the meeting-house, he beckoned the people to stop. Men and women paused to hear, curious to know what so unusual a sequel to the service of the day could mean. At the first, words a silence, stern as death, fell over all. The Sabbath quiet of the hour and of the place was deepened into a terrible solemnity. He told them all the story of the cowardly murder at Lexington by the royal troops; the heroic vengeance following hard upon it; the retreat of Percy; the gathering of the children of the Pilgrims round the beleaguered hills of Boston; then pausing, and looking over the silent throng, he said slowly, ‘Men of New Jersey, the red coats are murdering our brethren of New England! Who follows me to Boston?’ And every man in that audience stepped out of line, and answered, ‘I!’ There was not a coward or a traitor in old Hopewell Baptist Meeting-House that day.” (Cathcart, William. Baptists and the American Revolution. Philadelphia: S.A. George, 1876, rev. 1976. Print.)

Jonas Clark

As I said at the beginning of this column, Jonas Clark was pastor of the Church of Lexington, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775, the day that British troops marched on Concord with orders to arrest Sam Adams and John Hancock, and to seize a cache of firearms. It was Pastor Clark’s male congregants who were the first ones to face-off against the British troops as they marched through Lexington. When you hear the story of the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington, remember those Minutemen were Pastor Jonas Clark and the men of his congregation.

On the One Year Anniversary of the Battle of Lexington, Clark preached a sermon based upon his eyewitness testimony of the event. He called his sermon, “The Fate of Blood-Thirsty Oppressors and God’s Tender Care of His Distressed People.” His sermon has been republished by Nordskog Publishing under the title, “The Battle of Lexington, A Sermon and Eyewitness Narrative, Jonas Clark, Pastor, Church of Lexington.”

Order the book containing Clark’s sermon at:

www.NordskogPublishing.com

Of course, these four brave preachers were not the only ones to participate in America’s fight for independence. There were Episcopalian ministers such as Dr. Samuel Provost of New York, Dr. John Croes of New Jersey, and Robert Smith of South Carolina. Presbyterian ministers such as Adam Boyd of North Carolina and James Armstrong of Maryland, along with many others, also took part.

So many Baptist preachers participated in America’s War for Independence that, at the conclusion of the war, President George Washington wrote a personal letter to the Baptist people saying, “I recollect with satisfaction that the religious societies of which you are a member have been, throughout America, uniformly and almost unanimously, the firm friends to civil liberty, and the preserving promoters of our glorious Revolution.” It also explains how Thomas Jefferson could write to a Baptist congregation and say, “We have acted together from the origin to the end of a memorable Revolution.” (McDaniel, George White. The People Called Baptists. The Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, 1918. Print.)

And although not every pastor was able to actively participate in our fight for independence, so many pastors throughout colonial America preached the principles of liberty and independence from their pulpits that the Crown created a moniker for them: The Black Regiment (referring to the long, black robes that so many colonial clergymen wore in the pulpit). Without question, the courageous preaching and example of colonial America’s patriot-pastors provided the colonists with the inspiration and resolve to resist the tyranny of the Crown and win America’s freedom and independence.

25 Signs That America Is A Seething Cesspool Of Corruption

Do you believe that America is a seething cesspool of filth and corruption?  If not, you might change your mind after reading this article.  Sadly, the truth is that the United States is absolutely corrupt to the core.  This is true from the very top of our society all the way to the very bottom.  The current occupant of the White House will likely go down in history as the most corrupt president in history, and that is really saying something.  Almost every single day he adds something new to his list of corrupt deeds.  He is a con man that deserves to be impeached for a whole host of reasons, but that will never happen because we have a Congress that is also deeply corrupt.  But it is not just our politicians that are corrupt.  Even the men that are supposed to be in charge of protecting the president are corrupt.  A whole bunch of them were recently discovered sleeping with prostitutes in Colombia.  We also find very deep and very pervasive corruption in our financial institutions, in our judicial system, in our police departments and in our religious institutions.  It is almost as if nearly the entire nation is saturated with filth and depravity.  It is becoming harder and harder to find men and women of integrity, and our young people have very few positive role models to look up to.  How long is our society going to be able to continue to function normally if all of this corruption gets even worse?

The following are 25 signs that America is a seething cesspool of filth and corruption….

#1 The men and women of the Secret Service are supposed to be the best of the best.  Instead, they have become a national embarrassment.  11 members of the U.S. Secret Service are under investigation for consorting with prostitutes in Colombia.  Reportedly, several of the Secret Service agents that hired prostitutes were married.

#2 Our financial institutions are filled with cheats and liars.  2011 and 2012 have been absolutely horrible years for natural disasters in the United States.  At a time when homeowners need their insurance companies more than ever, many insurance companies are systematically trying to weasel out of payouts and are trying to shift as much liability over to homeowners as possible.  The following is from a recent Reuters article….

Insurance companies are raising rates, cutting coverage, balking at some payouts and generally shifting more expense and liability to homeowners, according to reports from the industry and its critics.

“Insurance companies have significantly and methodically decreased their financial responsibility for weather catastrophes like hurricanes, tornados and floods in recent years,” the Consumer Federation of America said in a statement after studying industry data.

The industry concedes that it is trying to avoid getting trounced by those same punishing weather patterns.

#3 Identity theft for the purpose of stealing tax refunds has reached epidemic proportions in America.  The following is one shocking example that made the news recently up in New York….

Authorities say a former manager at a nonprofit Long Island health agency stole the IDs of more than 50 brain injury patients to get their tax refunds.

#4 The filth on television continues to get worse and worse.  As WorldNetDaily recently reported, one new HBO series is going way over the line….

HBO’s irreverent mockumentary “Angry Boys” is under fire for combining child actors and phallic humor, including one scene in the series’ 12th episode, where a little girl drinks from a water bottle shaped like a giant, pink penis.

#5 All over the country, violent crime is getting worse.  For example, there were  more homicides in Chicago during the first three months of 2012 than there were during the first three months of 2011.

#6 Some of the violent crimes committed recently in cities such as Chicago appear to be absolutely senseless.  The following is one recent example ….

A woman was shot in the face while driving in the Gresham neighborhood on the Far South Side late Wednesday.

The woman, 38, was driving west in the 2000 block of West 84^th Street about 11:30 p.m. when a light colored car pulled alongside her and someone inside fired shots, according to police News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro.

#7 It isn’t just in the big cities where these kinds of senseless crimes are being committed either.  One crime that happened in Tulsa, Oklahoma recently is almost too horrifying to describe.  The following is from a recent Daily Mail report….

An 85-year-old woman was sexually assaulted and battered to death by a home invader who also shot her 90-year-old husband in the face with a BB gun.

Nancy and Bob Strait, who had celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary in December, were discovered by their daughter at their home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Both the pensioners were rushed to hospital where Mrs Strait, who was nearly blind, died from her injuries.

#8 The flash mob epidemic that made headlines all over the nation last year is continuing in 2012.  For example, several dozen young people recently stormed into a gas station in the Portland, Oregon area and took off with whatever they could carry.

#9 Thieves all over the nation are becoming incredibly bold.  Up in New York, thieves recently stole brass plaques and bronze vases from a cemetery.

How desperate and corrupt do you have to be to desecrate the graves of the dead?

#10 These days thieves will steal anything that they can sell easily on the streets.  For example, Tide detergent has become extremely popular to steal because it is being used as an alternative form of currency on the streets of many American cities.  The following is from a recent article in The Daily….

Theft of Tide detergent has become so rampant that authorities from New York to Oregon are keeping tabs on the soap spree, and some cities are setting up special task forces to stop it. And retailers like CVS are taking special security precautions to lock down the liquid. 

One Tide taker in West St. Paul, Minn., made off with $25,000 in the product over 15 months before he was busted last year.

“That was unique that he stole so much soap,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Bud Shaver. “The name brand is [all] Tide. Amazing, huh?”

Tide has become a form of currency on the streets. The retail price is steadily high — roughly $10 to $20 a bottle — and it’s a staple in households across socioeconomic classes.

#11 In Baltimore, a man was recently knocked to the ground, stripped naked and had his car keys, watch, money and cell phone taken.  In itself, that is not much of a story.  But what made it a story was that instead of helping the man, the crowd of onlookers watching all of this happen laughed hysterically while recording the incident with their cell phone cameras for YouTube.

#12 The number of Americans that are willing to become permanently dependent on the government is absolutely astounding.  At this point, there are approximately 67 million Americans that get some form of financial assistance from the federal government.

#13 Government dependence is increasingly being glamorized in popular culture.  For example, one nightclub down in Alabama recently held a “Food Stamp Friday” party.

#14 As I have written about previously, employees of the federal government are living the high life at the expense of hard working American taxpayers.  In fact, one federal employee recently made an  about it.

#15 Recently, I reported on the “Obama flag” that was flying above a Democratic Party headquarters down in Florida.  Well, now another one has been spotted flying above a home .  During the 2012 election season will we see American flags that have had the stars replaced with the face of Barack Obama flying over homes and businesses from coast to coast?

#16 In the United States today, the use of sexual humiliation by security officials has become normalized.  If you are not convinced of this yet, you should check out  of a woman sobbing as the TSA touches her private areas as they pat her down.

#17 Sadly, TSA officials have shown over and over that they are deeply corrupt and cannot be trusted.  For example, one TSA manager at Dulles International Airport was recently discovered to be running a prostitution ring out of a local hotel room.

#18 According to the U.S. Supreme Court, police in the United States can now strip search you any time that they want.  All they need to do is to make up some reason to arrest you.  Needless to say, police all over the country are now going to be looking for any reason that they can think of to arrest very attractive women.

#19 In the United States, it has become regular practice for young couples to “live together” before marriage.  In fact, in America today more than half of all couples now move in together before they get married.  Sadly, the divorce rate for couples that live together first is also significantly higher than for those that do not.  At this point, America has thehighest divorce rate on the globe by a wide margin.

#20 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by far.  In fact, the United States has a teen pregnancy rate that is more than twice as high as Canada, more than three times as high as France and more than seven times as high as Japan.

#21 Unfortunately, there are dramatic consequences for all of the loose sexuality going on in America.  The CDC says that there are approximately 19 million new cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia in America every single year.

#22 Most Americans have no idea this is happening, but the truth is that abortion clinics all over the country are sellingaborted baby parts to scientists for medical research.  If we keep cheapening human life like this, eventually it will mean next to nothing to us.

#23 According to the results of one recent investigation, an astounding 30 percent of all Internet traffic goes to pornography websites.  A different survey found that 25 percent of all employees that have Internet access in the United States visit pornography websites while they are at work.

#24 There is a right way and a wrong way to do things.  This is especially true when it comes to notifying military wives that their husbands are dead.  Sadly, some women are now being notified about the deaths of their husbands in the militarythrough Facebook.

#25 Our politicians are stealing 150 million dollars an hour from future generations so that we can live more comfortably right now.  The American people participate in this theft by voting these politicians back into office over and over again.  The crime that we are committing against future generations is almost too horrible for words.

So what is causing all of this filth and corruption?

Why has America become such a cesspool?

Source: The American Dream

The 9/11 Passenger Paradox: What happened To Flight 93?

Once the fabrication of all four of  the alleged 9/11 crash sites (which I have documented in “9/11: Planes/No Planes and ‘Video Fakery”) begins to sink in, the question which invariably arises is, “But what happened to the passengers?”  Since Flights 11 and 77 were not even in the air that day, it seems no stretch to infer that the identities of the passengers on non-existent flights were just as phony as the flights themselves:  no planes, no passengers.  But we also know that Flights 93 and 175 were in the air that day, even though–astonishingly enough, for those who have never taken a close look at the evidence–they were not de-registered by the FAA until  28 September 2005, which raises the double-questions of how planes that were not in the air could have crashed or how planes that crashed could still have been in the air four years later?

Pilots for 9/11 Truth has confirmed that Flight 93 was in the air, but over Urbana, IL, far from the location of its alleged “crash” in Shanksville, PA; just as Flight 175 was also in the air, but over Pittsburgh, PA, removed from the South Tower at the time it was purportedly entering the building, which–unless the same plane can be in two places at the same time–established that some kind of “video fakery” was taking place in New York, as I have explained in many places. As a complement to the new study of the Pentagon attack by Dennis Cimino, “9/11: The official account of the Pentagon attack is a fantasy”, Dean Hartwell, J.D., has considerably expanded our understanding of questions about the passengers, where the manifests may include a mix of the dead and the non-existent, as well as some who may have been killed by the government to make their Hollywood-style event a bit more realistic and emotional. In the methodical fashion of an attorney presenting his case, Dean outlines the crucial questions and the most likely answers, where problems nevertheless abound.  My opinion is that these three studies constitute a “one-two-three punch” from which the “official account” can never recover.  From beginning to end, 9/11 was a fabricated event.

And, in case anyone entertains any lingering doubts, two of the most powerful indications of fakery and fraud are to be found in the punishment trial of Zacharias Moussaoui, the alleged “20th hijacker”, in Arlington, VA, in April 2006, which Scholars wrote about at the time.  He was convicted in April 2005 of having been involved in the 1993 attack on the Twin Towers, but in April 2006 he was being punished for having been involved in the 2001 attack–a federal judicial “shell game” of immense proportions.  The trial was used to introduce emotional testimony about the passengers aboard Flight 93 plotting to use a drink cart to break through the cabin door, which was picked up by the Cockpit Voice Recorder.  But, as Allan Green, a member of Scholars, noted, CVRs do not record voices in the passenger compartment.  A second blunder was noticed by a Muslim member of Scholars, Muhammad Columbo.  The last words the “hijackers” on the tape are recorded as having said are “Allah akbar!  Allah akbar!” (“God is great! God is great!”).  But as he explained, “The last words of a Muslim cannot be these!  They are used in the call to prayer or in an attack at war.  On the moment of death, a Muslim must confirm that ‘There is but one God, Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet!”  Which means that those who were composing this script did not know enough to get it right.

The most telling indication that the Shanksville crash site was faked, in my opinion, is what was not done as opposed to what was. Flight 93 is supposed to have completely disappeared because the ground was very soft from past mining operations.  Indeed, on some versions, the plane completely disappeared into an abandoned mine shaft.  But we know what to do with miners who are trapped in mine shafts.  We bring out the bright lights and heavy equipment and dig, 24/7, in the hope that, by some miracle, someone might have survived.  That it was not done in this instance tells us that there was no point in even faking such an op, which would have exposed that there was no plane there and no passengers to rescue. Think of the spectacular television coverage had such a “rescue attempt” been undertaken.  They even trimmed the burnt trees and shrubs to make sure that they could not be subjected to chemical analysis to determine whether the damage had been caused by jet-fuel based fires.  Such were the efforts of the “first responders” to save the lives or recover the bodies of the passengers.  Subsequent studies by the EPA of the crash site have confirmed that there was no residue from the jet fuel that would have been pervasive had a Boeing 757 actually crashed there.  Research on the “crash sites” thus appears to be pure dynamite in blowing the “official account” of 9/11 out of the water.

DEAN HARTWELL: The 9/11 Passenger Paradox

According to the official version of events, forty-three people, including the crew members, boarded United 93 on the morning of September 11, 2001.  The flight took off from Newark airport with San Francisco as its destination.

During the flight, four hijackers took over the aircraft.  After making calls from the airplane to relatives, several passengers rushed the hijackers in an attempt to wrest control of the plane back.  Ultimately, the plane crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

Investigators found human remains in Shanksville and declared that the remains matched DNA samples given by the passengers’ families.  Copies of the manifest and boarding passes show the names of passengers who took the flight.

Facts That Contradict the Official Story

The flight was airborne over the Midwest after the alleged crash in Shanksville (see below).

Wallace Miller, Coroner of Somerset County (which includes Shanksville) and one of the first to arrive at the “crash” scene, said of the area, “This is the most eerie thing,” he says. “I have not, to this day, seen a single drop of blood. Not a drop.”

Miller also reportedly said that it “looked like someone took a scrap truck, dug a 10-foot ditch and dumped all this trash into it…I stopped being coroner after about 20 minutes, because there were no bodies there. It became like a giant funeral service.”

No independent source has identified remains of any of the flight’s passengers.

Did the alleged hijackers use their real names?

David Ray Griffin speaks of the “hijackers” (whose names appear on the manifest available) in his first point in his book .  He states that at least six of the hijackers showed up alive and well after 9/11!  Do we need any further reason to believe that anyone took over planes and used them in suicidal attacks that day?

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  The fact that several of the “hijackers” turned up alive makes it obvious that some passengers boarded using the “hijacker” names.  Instead of relatives saying that the “hijackers” called them, some of them said their relative was alive!

How Do We Know Who Boarded This Plane?  

Jack White quotes expert pilot John Lear, who shared information that calls into question whether the manifest available for Flight 93 is the final one.  He says that passenger flights have, as required by the Federal Aviation Administration, what is called “The Envelope.”  The Envelope contains “the final passenger manifest, the destination, the amount of fuel on board, the names of the pilot and flight attendants, etc., and the time the DOOR OF THE AIRCRAFT WAS CLOSED.”  According to Lear, the chief pilot signs the document.

Could changes in the flight manifest have been made between the time of the generation of the publicly available manifest, noted above, and the time of the aircraft door’s final closing?

White continues his recitation of Lear’s words:

The passenger manifest (a printout of pre-ticketed passengers) may be augmented by the chief flight attendant if passengers do not show up, or late arrivals are added. The manifest in THE ENVELOPE would include the names of hijackers, if pre-ticketed, or their written in aliases if added at the last moment by hand. In any event, every person on board would be accounted for.

Was there a second boarding or deplaning of any passengers before take-off?

This becomes a realistic possibility because there were two departure times for the flight – 8:28 AM (ACARS) and 8:42 AM (BTS).  Phil Jayhan of the Internet forum, Let’s Roll Forums, explains why the BTS, the official record, only shows one:

“Why not two different times in the BTS database? We have two separate groups of passengers. One group of people that boarded flight 93 at the terminal boarding ramp. And another group of people which boarded on the tarmac. The way that the **ACARS system works in an airplane is that when the brake is released, whether there is movement to the aircraft or not, it records an away time. The morning of 9/11, there were two of these recorded for flight 93, which might simply be another confirmation that flight 93 picked up two groups of people on 9/11 at two separate locations at Newark International Airport.”

Hypothesis:  After the passengers boarded the plane at the terminal (gate 17), the plane moved forward a short distance and then stopped at the tarmac.  The passengers who would make calls deplaned at the tarmac.  The pilot then released the brake at 8:28 AM (setting the departure time under ACARS) and moved to taxi, taking off (aka “wheels off”) at 8:42 AM, setting the BTS departure time then.  The people remaining on the plane continued in flight after the “crash” in Shanksville.

The callers used cell phones from a ground location, which had a much greater chance of working than calls from the airplane.  Some of these calls were recorded and provide proof that calls were made.  Alternatively, the calls could have been recorded prior to the flight and played to relatives.

This hypothesis explains the long gap in time between the scheduled departure time of 8:01 AM and the BTS departure time of 8:42 AM.  It also explains the other departure time frequently given for this departure (8:28 AM).  The passengers likely boarded in anticipation of an 8:01 take-off.  The callers then likely got up to leave.

The usual boarding issues and their explanation for leaving (perhaps illness) and the resulting shuffle to get them out the door on the tarmac stalled some of the time.  According to media reports, a witness (NY Giant football player Clayton White who took flight to New Jersey after Monday Night Football in Denver the prior night), saw passengers on the tarmac during this time.

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  Passengers boarded the plane but some of them deplaned from United 93 at 8:28 AM.  The manifest and copies of boarding passes show the names passengers gave to the airline.  Lear’s assertions on manifests and flight policy show the opportunity of how passengers could have boarded under false names and how names could have been altered.

Who allegedly made phone calls, what types of phones were used and were the calls recorded?

Todd Beamer (air phone)

Mark Bingham (cell to aunt and air phone to mother)

Sandy Bradshaw (cell)

Marion Britton (cell)

Thomas Burnett (cell, recorded?)

Joseph DeLuca (?)

Edward Felt (cell)

Jeremy Glick (recorded?)

Lauren Grandcolas (air phone, recorded)

Linda Grunland (?)

Cee Cee Lyles (cell, recorded)

Honor Wainio (?)

Were Calls Possible from United 93?

David Ray Griffin explains the utter lack of consistency in the official explanations of phone calls on the planes associated with 9/11.  He does a great job explaining how the FBI at first remained silent as to what phones were used from the planes.

He then shows the chronology of A.K. Dewdney’s report (which made it clear that cell phone calls at that time in history were only reasonably possible at altitudes of less than 2,000 feet) to the subsequent FBI report which changed many of the calls from cell to air phone.

From Griffin’s analysis of the work of researchers like Dewdney, we can easily surmise that the official story on the number of cell phones (now given by the FBI as mostly air phone) changed drastically after it became known publicly the difficulty in getting cell phones to work at typical airplane altitudes.

More issues about the alleged phone calls from United 93 arise upon inspection of information provided by the government at the Moussaoui trial in 2006:

(1) One call allegedly went past the time of the Shanksville “crash”, Todd Beamer’s last call on United 93.  Furthermore, Beamer’s call could not have happened when it purportedly did because the government’s own records show him making this call and another call from the same phone AT THE SAME SECOND!

(2) No records of calls are sourced to the companies that provided them.  This fact calls into question the authenticity of the calls.

(3) Lisa Jefferson, who reportedly took Beamer’s call, failed to mention the phrase “Let’s roll” in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette which introduced the heroics of Beamer and others on the flight.  She also had never before heard Beamer’s voice.

(4) In fact, the FBI delayed bringing out the story of “Let’s Roll” and the passengers “fighting back” and apparently only did so to stop the story of a flight shoot-down from gaining momentum.

(5) The government, without saying as much, switched several calls in the official account from cell to air.

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO: There were no cell phone calls from the airplane of United 93.  And air phones were not available on Boeing 757s in 2001. The additional consideration, even if one were to believe those calls were possible, regardless of type or where they came from, is in the substance of the statements alleged and their inconsistencies.  The callers, whoever they were, whatever phones they used and wherever they called from, gave false information to passenger relatives at the behest of the plotters.  No reliable records show any calls having gone to Lisa Jefferson.  It is likely that Jefferson was persuaded or coerced to give false reports to the media.

Who are the Relatives?

The reaction of the relatives of the passengers to the news of the plane crashes can best be described as perplexing.  None of the passenger’s relatives arrived at San Francisco airport, as is common when plane crashes take place. In an accident that took place in Taipei involving a plane that was destined for Los Angeles, the airport set up a Counseling Center for the relatives of the victims.

What then were the relatives’ roles?

If the passengers used real names and made calls, they had to:

a)    deceive the relatives OR

b)   participate in a simulation or otherwise work with the relatives in holding conversations under false pretenses

Deception of the relatives could have taken place.  However, with all of the information out about the details of the phone calls, it would seem likely that at least one of the deceived relatives would question the 9/11 matter publicly.  If the relatives had been deceived, they would have believed the passenger calls were real.  Under this scenario, it is hard to believe that none of the relatives in the San Francisco area would show up as bereaved relatives usually do.

As there were many simulations on 9/11, the plotters may well have planned one for United 93 passengers.  Knowledge on the part of the relatives of the plot could explain how this part of the plot worked easily (none of the relatives apparently questioned what they said or who they were).  Of course, it adds to the number of people who must be paid off or killed.

The callers may have been asked to participate in a simulation of a plane hijacking.  It would have required some acting skills.  This challenge would explain several questionable statements allegedly made by some of them.  Here are some examples that do not by themselves prove the calls were fraudulent, but certainly suggest it:

A caller claiming to be passenger Mark Bingham said:

Caller: “Mom? This is Mark Bingham.  I want you to know that I love you. I’m on a flight from Newark to San Francisco and there are three guys who have taken over the plane and they say they have a bomb.”

Alice: “Who are these guys?

Caller: (after a pause) “You believe me, don’t you?

Alice: “Yes, Mark. I believe you. But who are these guys?

Another supposed caller, Jeremy Glick said, when asked if he and others were going to fight back against the hijackers, “I have my butter knife from breakfast.”  According to Dewdney:

“This is strange because it implies that the caller had already finished breakfast, whereas meals are not normally served until the aircraft reaches cruising altitude, about the time that the alleged hijacking began.”

A caller who said he was Todd Beamer talked to a Verizon operator, Lisa Jefferson, for fifteen minutes instead of preparing to take on the “terrorists” with other passengers.

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  The callers more likely made the calls as part of a simulation than as a flat-out deception of relatives.  To believe in the theory of the use of deception, one would have to believe that (a) none of the relatives discovered they had been lied to and (b) the same relatives would agree to keep silent about the deception.

Why were the calls so important?

If the hijackings and plane crashes never happened, then what were the phone calls all about?

The calls were used to advance the “fact” that the hijackings and crashes happened.  Of secondary importance are what phones were used and where the calls were made from.

These calls are part of what holds the official theory together.  The plotters needed to make sure the calls got through and the information about hijackers was conveyed.

Whose Remains Were at Shanksville?

Here are the most relevant facts about the “crash scene” : There were no traces of the United 93 plane at that location.

Officials claimed there were sufficient human remains to match with DNA samples even though UA93 and UA175 were airborne after the times of their alleged “crashes”.

Several news articles report human remains identified at the scene of Shanksville.

We also know that the FBI was in charge of the area, giving the agency the authority to declare who could and who could not either approach or photograph the “crash scene”.

How were the victims at the Shanksville “crash” scene “identified”?

DNA testing requires a sample from a victim at the “scene” and a sample from the victim or a close relative from somewhere else (usually given by family).

An agent (of the plot) would likely retrieve sample from the “scene” of the victim’s death.

The Agent would give samples to the tester.  (The tester, as one who would follow standard procedures, would not have any reason to go to the scene nor to question the Agent).

The agent would also go to the family to ask for samples (ex: hair, toothbrush, etc.)

The agent would then give the family sample to the tester.

If the tester were in on plot, the tests could be easily rigged.  But the tester’s statements to the media are needed.  If something “happened” to the tester, it would cause too much suspicion.  The tester would be suspicious if “scene” samples did not have appearance of involvement in plane crash.

Elias Davidsson points to a lack of a “chain of custody.” This is a legal principle which directs those who investigate a crime to document (1) how and where they find evidence and (2) how the evidence got to the point of the hearing.

He states that “there is no indication that a proper chain of custody between the crash sites and the final disposition of bodily remains had been established by the FBI, as required in criminal cases. The 9/11 Commission did not refer to any such documentation.”

With no solid chain of custody, a prosecutor (the state) can conceivably bring just about any piece of evidence to the attention of the jury.  And when the public is the jury with no judge to referee, the state can use this opportunity to perpetuate a false story.

Davidsson names the evidence that the government should have shown to us if it really had a case that could be proven as to the people that boarded the planes:

In order to prove that particular individuals actually boarded the aircraft and died at the known crash sites, at least three types of evidence could and should have been produced: Authenticated passenger lists (or flight manifests) displaying their names, identification of the suspects as they boarded the aircraft and identification of their bodily remains from the crash sites.

What appearance did the remains at Shanksville have?

Miller said it took several days to get good samples (i.e. body parts not recognizable) and that the passengers were “essentially cremated upon impact.”

The cremated remains could have been distributed around the Shanksville site with some FBI agents allowing the plotters onto the land.

Could the United 93 passengers have been killed and cremated for this purpose?

Probably not.  Cremation by law must be done one body at a time and each body takes several hours.  Even an unofficial “cremation” would take too long for the plotters, considering the number of bodies (43) needed.

Hypothesis:  The plotters used cremation remains of those who died before 9/11.

Issue:  How would plotters get the DNA ”samples” of the same deceased persons?

Answer:  The plotters could have run a phony company that provides or cleans ceremonial caskets for the deceased prior to cremation.  The company could have collected “hair samples” that would match those recently cremated:

“Many funeral homes offer a hardwood ceremonial casket for viewing or funeral services prior to cremation. The ceremonial (or rental) casket is specifically designed to provide a very aesthetically pleasing, affordable and environmentally prudent alternative to purchasing a casket for a cremation service.”

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  The remains were planted at Shanksville.  The remains could not have been those of the passengers.  No plane with passengers crashed at Shanksville.  It would also be hard to deceive the DNA testers.

What happened to United 93?

What if we could find out if messages were sent to the planes that flew and pinpoint when they were sent?  What if we could ascertain whether the plane corresponding to this flight received any of these messages?  What if any of the messages were AFTER the time the plane allegedly crashed?

We can do that!  There is a device used to send messages to and from an aircraft.  It is called ACARS, the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.

Thanks to the work of Pilots for 9/11 Truth and others, we know that the ACARS messages sent to Flight 93 indicate that the plane was heading west over Illinois several minutes after it supposedly “crashed” in Pennsylvania!  Pilots for 9/11 Truth found that messages sent after the time of the crash were received by United 93 at ground stations far away from Shanksville.  They said that the aircraft would not have had messages routed through the ground stations that were actually used “if it were en route to crash in Shanksville, PA.”

For that reason alone, we know that United 93 did not crash in Pennsylvania.  For that reason alone, we know that  43 people were not killed in a Shanksville crash.  For that reason alone, we can call off the official story and continue our search for the real history of this day’s event.

There are other reasons to disbelieve the crash story.  In the words of Col. George Nelson, USAF (ret.), had United 93 crashed in Shanksville “there would have [been] literally hundreds of serially-controlled time-change parts within the hole that would have proved beyond any shadow of doubt the precise tail-number or identity of the aircraft.”  Yet, as with identification of the passengers, our government has not shown what would be easily understood and conclusive evidence.

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  The evidence proves that United 93 flew to the Midwest and was last positively traced over Illinois minutes after the “crash” in Shanksville.  The “footprints” of the plane and passenger ends here.

Where did United 93 and its passengers land?

From here on it is speculation.  The best guess is Cleveland due to its proximity to United 93’s last known position and evidence of irregular activity there.

What happened?  Plotters needed to make sure about 30 people did not get away.  The passengers may not have been aware of what had happened during the time of the flight as they did not make calls.

They would have left the plane about 11:00 AM and may have been led to a NASA building.  The plotters had to keep them away from their cell phones and the news for as long as possible.  The plotters knew that the passengers would eventually find out that they had traveled on a flight that would be tied to the official story.  At that point, the passengers would no longer have felt safe.

Can anyone tell us what happened to the passengers?

The passengers have not spoken and the plotters will not speak.  That leaves the relatives as the only group of people who may know what happened.

Hypothesis I:  The relatives received no notice before receiving the calls from the passengers.

If that is the case, then the relatives were left out of the plan and thus had no leverage as to the fate of the passengers.  Most likely, the passengers are dead.

Hypothesis II: The relatives received notice about the calls before receiving them.

If that is the case, then the relatives may have been (coerced?) into a deal: for their silence, they would receive assurances that the passengers would not be harmed.

MOST LIKELY SCENARIO:  Unknown.  Only the relatives can tell us anything about this topic.

Conclusion: The Passenger Paradox

IF the passengers took the flights under their true identities, THEN: a) they were killed in Cleveland or b) they received new identities.

Problem with a) The relatives would be furious that the government lied to them about what happened and would be responsible for the deaths of the passengers.  But the families appear to stand with the government.

Problem with b) The relatives would demand contact with the passengers, which could create difficulties in keeping what would be a secret.  It would only take one “outed” passenger to ruin the whole cover story.

IF the passengers took the flights under assumed identities, THEN they could return to society in their old or different identities.

Problem: Close friends and family would know the old identities.  In an era of the Internet and the availability of records, this might not be too hard for the public to discover.

IF the passengers deplaned United 93 at the tarmac, THEN they could return to society quickly provided that their identity as a passenger be different than their commonly used name AND the pictures shown of them are faked.

Problem: This would mean a lot of false passenger names and a lot of false relatives, though it does not foreclose the possibility of some real passengers who go to Cleveland (see the first paradox).  The key for the plotters would be to make sure the fake pictures of “passengers” get to the public quickly to create images of people who do not exist.  So the public would look in all the wrong places.

Jim Fetzer, a former Marine Corps officer, is the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and McKnight Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

Dean Hartwell, J.D., is the author of (2011) and  (2009) on JFK, RFK and 9/11.

Source: Veterans Today

An Advocate For The Deprived

Honoring Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah…

Dahiyeh, South Beirut – Rushing to an appointment last Saturday I passed the Mohammad Hussein Fadallah Hassaniyeh (Mosque), which for many in my immediate Dahiyeh neighborhood is the religious institution we feel most connected to because of its long and continuing history of social and religious work in our community.

Nearly 18 months after the July 4th, 2010 death of Lebanon’s preeminent Islamic scholar, the Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, but seeming more like three months ago, the ‘Fadlallah Hassaniyeh’ is an ever active beehive of social work and religious study and truly a working people’s institution.

It is also the manifestation of Sayed Fadlallah’s achievement’s for and commitments to all in our community, Shia, Sunni, Christians and non-believers.

Unaware that it was the 12th day of the lunar month of Rabih el Awwal, the Prophet Mohammad bin Abdillah’s birthday, I was surprised by all the activity saturating the surrounding streets and the hundreds of school children in celebratory clothes doing various activities enjoying the festivity with their families.

Suddenly a gaggle of pre-teen friends from our neighborhood ran up to me and pulled me to the front of the vast ornate Fadlallah Mosque and to the tables in front where children were distributing small cloth wrapped candies in celebration. When night descends, which is early these days, the children might be given fireworks by their parents as was common in the past. Yet given so much uncertainly these days in the region and in Lebanon, even relatively mild explosive noises cause my neighbors to hustle their flocks inside and avoid balconies and windows until they understand what the noise was all about.

By then too late for my appointment, I postponed it and entered the Mosque and sat on a bench near the burial chamber (Maqam) of Ayatollah Fadlallah. I reflected on what he meant to Muslims and Christians in Lebanon and to all people of good will around the world and to me personally. I had the honor to meet with him several times and count his son Ali, who has succeeded him in much of his work, as my friend. As I sat close to the Maqam, I was surprised to see members of our community still arriving to his resting place, lean forward and speak privately to him and pledge to follow his progressive teachings, fatwas, and examples. Some, inspired by his life’s work took vows to become better people in their relations with others.

I also still recall vividly his funeral and the untold thousands who came to our neighborhood to join his funeral procession on July 6, 2010.

Friends carried his body around our neighborhood. They then marched to the spot of the 1985 CIA-Saudi assassination attempt, which killed 90 mainly school children and women and wounded more than 250, before returning to Imam Rida Mosque where he was laid to rest. Tens of thousands of mourners gathered at the mosque for prayer services before the funeral procession.

From all across the region delegations arrived and every Lebanese political and religious leader attended except the small minded Maronite Cardinal Patriarch Sfeir who took umbrage at Fadallah’s positive views about one person-one vote democracy. Sayeed Fadlallah did not favor Lebanon being ruled by the current archaic French colonial legacy of parceling out political power based on the undemocratic confessional formulae of the 1943 Paris installed National Pact.

His passing shocked and saddened the region and the loss of his advocacy of dialogue, respect and unity among all religions is incalculable. Justice for Palestine and ending the Zionist occupation was part of his unwavering lifelong work. Some media outlets, reported that shortly before he died, and upon being asked by a medical attendant a few days ago if he needed anything, he replied, “Only the end of the Zionist occupation of Palestine.”

I recalled the morning of July 4, Zeinab, the nurse on duty at the blood donor’s clinic at Bahman Hospital, a block from my home in Haret Hreik, had just instructed me to remain sitting for five minutes and to drink the juice she gave me before I returned to south Beirut’s blazing sun.
A companion and I had each just donated a pint of blood in response to an appeal from friends who worked in the Translation Office of Fadlallah. He had been hospitalized for the past 12 days but on Friday his stomach bleeding had increased dramatically, related to complications from a liver problem he had been treated for over the past several years. Sayeed Fadallah also suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.

As we waited, Zeinab returned, tears in her eyes, and simply said, “The Sayeed has passed away.” And she disappeared. So did my Shia hijabed companion, and as it seemed, everyone from the floor.

I decided to walk down the stairs to the main level and could hear sobs from hospital staff on each floor, now seemingly darkened with each level eerier than the preceding one as I descended.

As I left the main entrance of Bahman hospital, I was thinking about some of the more than a dozen meetings I had the honor to attend with Grand Ayatolah Fadlallah and some of his staff over the past three years. Such as those who regularly visited him from the Washington DC based Council for the National Interest and one visit that I had arranged for former President Jimmy Carter.

Suddenly there was movement for two blocks in front and along the side streets adjacent to Bahman, a state of the art and science Hospital operated by Fadlallah’s Al Marbarrat Charity. This hospital was among hundreds of civil buildings in Haret Hreik and South Beirut, that Israel had bombed in July of 2006. The Fadlallah home was also reduced to rubble.

“How did these guys get here so fast” I wondered, for it was only minutes since the Majaa (religious guide) to millions in the Middle East had died. Some security units, dressed in black shirts, caps and trousers, walkie talkies in their left hands, others in civilian clothes, quickly placed traffic barriers in the area. They politely asked that all vehicles including motorcycles be relocated a least two blocks away.

Some, from their appearance, obviously war toughened fighters, wept and consoled men and women who began arriving at the hospital to pay their respects, first in two and three’s and then streams.

The loudspeakers from the Hassanayn Mosque, where every Friday Fadlallah for the past nearly 20 years, delivered sermons to tens of thousands of faithful, Muslim and Christian alike, began broadcasting religious music and Koranic verses to our shocked and grief stricken neighborhood. During the night of the 27th day of Ramadan, known as Laylat al-Kadr, (according to the Al Kadar Sura in the Koran, this is the day that the Angel Gabriel came down from heaven and the beginning of the revelation of the Koran) more than 50,000 filled Fadlallah’s Mosque and surrounding streets.

“The father, the leader, the marjaa, the guide, the human being is gone.” Sayyed Fadlallah has died this morning,” senior aide Ayatollah Abdullah al-Ghurayfi told a hastily called news conference, at the hospital, joined by the late cleric’s sons, Sayyed Ali Fadlallah and Jaafar, who, like nearly everyone else in attendance, could not hold back tears.

The sweltering evening of July 5th, an American delegation was given by his family and Hezbollah security the rare honor of viewing the body of Lebanon’s senior Shia cleric inside his Mosque near where he would be buried at 1:30 p.m. the following afternoon. The group met a wide spectrum of Lebanon’s political and resistance leadership but were not joined by anyone from the US Embassy since their government would boycott Lebanon’s national day of mourning and the burial of this Washington branded “Terrorist.” It was in 1995, that then President Bill Clinton, at the urging of AIPAC and facing a re-election campaign, so designated him. Former President Carter promised during a visit in June of 2009 that he would contact President Obama immediately about this travesty but was unable to have his name removed before the Sayeed’s death.

The American delegation paying their respects included residents of New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Hawaii and Oregon, a Catholic Priest and two nuns, some of whom were in Beirut as participants in the delayed Lebanon flotilla to help break the siege of Gaza. They felt they were the true representatives of their country, not their Embassy. Ever misleading the public with respect to the Middle East, the main stream western media began a thousand reports with the words, “A fiery anti-American critic died.” It is nonsense of course. Fadallah was very pro-American in the sense that he often extolled the founding American principles and his relationship with the American people was valued by both. Barely two weeks before his death he left his sick bed to meet with a group of Americans from Washington DC, against the advice of his doctors, and he urged them to work to preserve the founding principles on which their country was founded and to encourage dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews and to end the occupations of this region.

Like the rapidly growing number of American critics of US policy in the Middle East, many of Fadlallah’s Friday prayer sermons denounced arming and supporting serial Israelis aggressions.

For more than 50 years, he worked at “modernizing” the Shari’a and rendering it accessible to modern day youth, addressing their concerns, expectations and fears in a fast-changing world. He was truly the Mufti of the youth and of women, their guide who never oppressed their dreams and always simplified rulings. He was available for questions regarding the most taboo of social and political subjects. He was also the enemy of stalemate and a rejecter of tradition in its inflexible sense. He insisted on subjecting all ideas to discussions, debates and reassessments and was much more interested in human beings than doctrines.

His followers revered him for his moderate social views, openness and pragmatism. Fadlallah issued religious edicts forbidding female circumcision, condemning domestic violence-even allowing women to wear cosmetics and finger nail polish which some clerics opposed, and insisting that women could physically resist abusive husbands. He strongly supported female-male equality. He rejected the blood-letting at Ashoura events and like Hezbollah encouraged his followers to donate blood to the Red Crescent Society instead of cutting themselves. He also opposed the call to “jihad,” or holy war, by Osama bin Laden and he was among the first to condemn the 9/11 attacks. Fadlallah opposed ‘suicide attacks” but distinguished the right of an individual to sacrifice himself as a weapon during asymmetrical warfare by aggressors.

Fadlallah supported the Islamic revolution in Shiite Iran, and advocated armed resistance to Israel. In 2009, again during a meeting with Americans, including Jews, Fadlallah, whose family came from the southern Lebanese village of Ainata, reiterated his call for a Muslim-Jewish dialogue as part of interfaith efforts aimed at bridging the gap among various religious, rejecting any offensive against Jews or Christians in any Arab or Muslim country. But he emphasized to the delegation the importance of a Muslim-Jewish dialogue away from Zionist influence, stressing that Jews need to be freed from the cycle of world Zionism and Israel should be confronted because of its occupation of Arab lands.

He welcomed the election of Barack Obama in the US, telling the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that “some of Obama’s statements show that he believes in the method of dialogue”. He added: We don’t have a problem with any American president, but our problem is with his policy that might affect our strategic interest.” He later told visitors of his disappointment at President Obama’s Middle East policy, accusing him of being “under pressure” from Israeli supporters and “not a man who has a plan for peace”.

Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah had a widespread reputation for piety and scholarship through his teaching and the more than 40 books and treatises he wrote. He established religious schools and foundations, clinics and libraries as part of the charitable Al Marrarat Foundation.

In summary, Mohammad Hussein Fadallah was too moderate, progressive and too effective a spokesman advocating for the deprived to be tolerated by the US administration and Israel. Both required more stereotypical radical Muslim clerics to smear the region. The Mossad is believed to have targeted him more than half a dozen times including during the July 2006 Israeli attack.

A generation was inspired by Sayeed Fadallah and listened to him and studied his voluminous writings. Two generations feel the emptiness of his passing away.

Mohammad Hussein Fadallah was a rare man of an angel’s wit, mirth and singular learning. A marvelous man of gentleness, humbleness and affability. Sometimes when defending the rights of Muslims,Christians, Jews and all people of faith or non-believers of good will, his countenance was changed by a sad gravity and his smiling eyes darkened. For to his core, Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah believed in the right and responsibility to resist injustice and occupation.

He was a man for all seasons whose conscience and piety would not allow him to be idle as long as the poor and downtrodden remained dispossessed and voiceless or his beloved Lebanon and Palestine was occupied. For this, and for no other reason he was placed and kept on the US Political Terrorism list as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT) in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control and his American charitable assets confiscated.

Like Thomas More, Fadlallah rejected offered inducements and bribes including T list removal from Washington if he followed the King’s wishes and stop support to the Lebanese National resistance. He wore his nonsensical Terrorist label as a badge of honor as his daily good works mocked and marked the list keepers with shame and cowardice for squandering American founding principles and for funding, arming and providing diplomatic cover to the Zionist colonial enterprise that stole Palestine.

Each month since Sayed Fadlallah’s passing brings deeper understanding about the greatness of this public servant and the value of his achievements. Following Arbeen, the Muslim 40 day period of mourning for the departed, I visited with two of Fadallah’s close associates who wondered whether the future without his leadership would lead to his social service agency, the Mabarrat, having to cut back on its 30 schools, medical facilities, and social service agencies. They were worried that with his parting, his life’s work might become diminished and growing demands in the community could not be met.

This morning I was advised by a key aide of the late Ayatollah Fadlallah that the Marbarrat, thanks to Fadlallah’s administrative skill, planning and foresight, is strong, expanding and will long serve our community.

May Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah forever rest in Peace.

Is Now The Time To Move Away From Major U.S. Cities?

As the U.S. economy falls apart and as the world becomes increasingly unstable, more Americans than ever are becoming “preppers”.  It is estimated that there are at least two million preppers in the United States today, but nobody really knows.  The truth is that it is hard to take a poll because a lot of preppers simply do not talk about their preparations.  Your neighbor could be storing up food in the garage or in an extra bedroom and you might never even know it.  An increasing number of Americans are convinced that we are on the verge of some really bad things happening.  But will just storing up some extra food and supplies be enough?  What is going to happen if we see widespread rioting in major U.S. cities like George Soros is predicting?  What is going to happen if the economy totally falls to pieces and our city centers descend into anarchy like we saw in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina?  In some major U.S. cities such as Detroit, looting .  There are some sections of Detroit where entire blocks of houses are being slowly dismantled by thieves and stripped of anything valuable.  Sadly, the economy is going to get a lot worse than it is at the moment.  So is now the time to move away from major U.S. cities?  Should preppers be seeking safer locations for themselves and their families?  Those are legitimate questions.

According to a recent Gallup poll, satisfaction with the government is now at an all-time low.  Americans are rapidly losing faith in virtually every major institution in society.

Anger and frustration are rising to very dangerous levels, and we are rapidly approaching a boiling point.

When people feel as though they have lost everything, they get desperate.

And desperate people do desperate things.

In many communities in the United States today, crime has become so terrifying that people are literally sleeping with their guns.

The following is a story from Rancho Cordova, California that one of my readers recently sent me….

When I first moved here, it was not a bad place, it was quiet and clean.

However, over the past three years this place has gone to the dumps there are thugs and unruly people everywhere.

I have prevented two car break-ins by scaring these thugs away.

While I was home on thanksgiving weekend, someone decided to break into my apartment.

They trashed my place stole all my items and even took my law enforcement (LE) vehicle to include my equipment.

I m sure they had been watching me for a while because they did not take items that contained my identification.

Thank god, I had my weapon with me.

In many areas of the country, law enforcement resources are being dramatically cut back due to budget problems at the same time that crime is rapidly rising.

Right now, the city of Detroit is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy.  Officials there recently announced that due to budget constraints, all police stations will be closed to the public for 16 hours a day.  From now on, they will only be open to the public from 8 AM to 4 PM.

But in Detroit the police are needed now more than ever.  The following is what one British reporter found during his visit to Detroit….

Much of Detroit is horribly dangerous for its own residents, who in many cases only stay because they have nowhere else to go. Property crime is double the American average, violent crime triple. The isolated, peeling homes, the flooded roads, the clunky, rusted old cars and the neglected front yards amid trees and groin-high grassland make you think you are in rural Alabama, not in one of the greatest industrial cities that ever existed.

The population of Detroit is less than half of what it used to be.  Over the past few decades people have left in droves, and large sections of the city are in an advanced state of decay.

Not too many people want to buy homes in Detroit now.  At this point, the median price of a home in Detroit is just $6000.

The following video contains some video footage of the “ruins of Detroit” that is hard to believe….

Detroit has become a very scary place.  100 bus drivers in Detroit recently refused to drive their routes out of fear of being attacked on the streets.  The head of the bus drivers union, Henry Gaffney, said that the drivers were literally “scared for their lives“….

“Our drivers are scared, they’re scared for their lives. This has been an ongoing situation about security. I think yesterday kind of just topped it off, when one of my drivers was beat up by some teenagers down in the middle of Rosa Parks and it took the police almost 30 minutes to get there, in downtown Detroit,” said Gaffney.

But it is not just Detroit that is having these kinds of problems.

In Cleveland, over 50 percent of all children are living in poverty and abandoned houses are everywhere.

The city has already demolished about 1,000 homes, and there is a plan to demolish 20,000 more homes.  The following comes from a recent CBS News report by Scott Pelley….

Perfectly good homes, worth 75, 100 thousand dollars or more a couple of years ago, are being ripped to splinters in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. Here, the great recession left one fifth of all houses vacant. The owners walked away because they couldn’t or wouldn’t keep paying on a mortgage debt that can be twice the value of the home. Cleveland waited four years for home values to recover and now they’ve decided to face facts and bury the dead.

Down in St. Louis they have a different problem.  In some of the worst areas of the city, roving packs of wild dogs are a serious threat to children that are walking to school.  A recent report by the local CBS affiliate in St. Louisdescribed the situation this way….

…Lewis Reed is sounding the alarm. “I’ve witnessed packs of dogs, 10 and 15 dogs running together, and I’ve seen all these dogs I’m talking about they don’t have collars, they don’t have tags, these are truly wild dogs,” he said.

Reed says stray dogs are terrorizing the north side. “It’s obscene that parents have to walk their kids to school, in some parts of the city, with a golf club to fend off wild dogs.”

How would you feel if you had to fend off wild packs of dogs as you walked your child to school?

These kinds of conditions can be found out on the west coast as well.

For example, there is an area of San Francisco that is known as “Hunter’s Point” that is an absolute nightmare.  In Hunter’s Point, over half of the population lives in poverty and more than half of all children live in a home where there is no father present.  The following is what one reporter discovered on a visit to Hunter’s Point….

Abernathy and I cut through the complex, tromping over an expanse of dirt and concrete toward the northeast end of the development, where a row of apartments looked down from a grassy hill. We paused next to a vacant, boarded-over unit to take in the scene: A stream of ****, piss, tampons, and toilet paper spewed from a dark hole in the sidewalk, poured down the hill, and formed a sort of **** lagoon next to the street. Weeds, about six inches tall, were growing in the little lagoon.

Raw ****, obviously, is not cool. Beyond the fact that it smells and looks nasty, fecal matter provides a haven for dangerous bacteria, most notably E. coli, a virulent pathogen that can sicken and even kill humans, especially infants.

When conditions like this reign, it is a prime breeding ground for crime.

In major U.S. cities all over the United States, drug dealing, gang activity and prostitution are on the rise.  The following comes from a recent article in the New York Times….

In November, a terrified 13-year-old girl pounded on an apartment door in Brooklyn. When a surprised woman answered, the girl pleaded for a phone. She called her mother, and then dialed 911.

The girl, whom I’ll call Baby Face because of her looks, frantically told police that a violent pimp was selling her for sex. He had taken her to the building and ordered her to go to an apartment where a customer was waiting, she said, and now he was waiting downstairs to make sure she did not escape. She had followed the pimp’s directions and gone upstairs, but then had pounded randomly on this door in hopes of getting help.

In some major U.S. cities, the gangs have virtually taken over.  In an article entitled “City of Ruins“, Chris Hedges described what life is like today in Camden, New Jersey….

There are perhaps a hundred open-air drug markets, most run by gangs like the Bloods, the Latin Kings, Los Nietos and MS-13. Knots of young men in black leather jackets and baggy sweatshirts sell weed and crack to clients, many of whom drive in from the suburbs. The drug trade is one of the city’s few thriving businesses. A weapon, police say, is never more than a few feet away, usually stashed behind a trash can, in the grass or on a porch.

As I wrote about the other day, the FBI says that there are now 1.4 million gang members inside this country.  That number has increased by 40 percent since 2009.

Organized criminal behavior by groups of young people is on the rise all over the nation.  Just check out  which shows a flash mob robbery happening in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

This country is still enjoying a tremendous amount of prosperity.  We still have a very high standard of living compared to most of the rest of the world.

So how nightmarish are things going to get when the economy gets really bad?

The most frightening thing is when these criminals start invading private homes.

The following home invasion story from Sacramento, California was sent to me by one of my readers a while back….

Somebody got into my sister’s house last night while she was out. My mom was upstairs, but didn’t hear anything. Whoever it was, they ate some chips and sorted through a stack of maternity clothes my sister had ready for selling on ebay. He left a dirty pair of boxer shorts and a bottom dentures on the dining room table. Fortunately, he was gone when she got home. I’m amazed, but the police actually came out and collected fingerprints and his boxers and false teeth. Probably a homeless guy. He may have switched his dirty boxers for a clean pair of maternity jeans, so the police just have to look for a guy wearing women’s maternity pants with no lower teeth. 

Because of stuff like this, an increasing number of Americans have decided that it is better to be armed.

The truth is that you never know when you will get jumped.

For example, in Pennsylvania the other day one 65-year-old man was suddenly knocked off his bicycle by three teen thugs.

The 65-year-old man responded by pulling out his gun and shooting two of them.  One of the teens was killed.

Down along the border with Mexico, many ranchers have discovered that a gun battle could potentially erupt on any night.  The federal government has refused to protect the border, and so millions of illegals just keep streaming on in.  The following was recently posted on standwitharizona.com….

Barbed wire fencing doesn’t keep illegal aliens off the property anymore. One Starr County, TX rancher doesn’t have time to worry about the illegals these days. He now worries about the smugglers protecting their loads.

“I don’t think they would have any conscience of taking someone’s life,” the rancher says.

He saw that will to kill firsthand. A smuggler shot at him on his own land.

“One round was fired at me, and it missed my head by about two feet,” says the rancher.

He says there’s only way to react.

“Fire all the rounds you have, reload, and do it again,” says the rancher.

The more stories like this you read, the easier it is to understand why more than 10 million guns were sold in the United States during 2011.

The truth is that you never know when you may need to defend yourself.

This past New Year’s Eve, a single mother named Sarah McKinley was home alone with her three-month old son when she discovered that two armed men were trying to invade her home.  If she had not had a gun, there is no telling what might have happened.  The following is from a news story  about that incident….

An Oklahoma woman was recently home with her 3 month old son when two men tried to break in.  Armed with a shot gun and a pistol she called 9-1-1.

Operator: “Are your doors locked?”

Caller: “Yes, I’ve got two guns in my hand.   Is it ok to shoot him if he comes in this door?”

Operator: “I can’t tell you what you can do but you do what you have to do to protect your baby.”

The mother did shoot killing one of the intruders.  Oklahoma police called the shooting justified.

What would you have done in that situation?

America is rapidly changing, and we all need to adapt to the new reality all around us.

The truth is that America is not the same place it used to be.  In some U.S. cities, authorities are actually dumping dead bodies into mass graves.

Just check out what the Daily Mail says has been going on in Chicago….

It’s a practice more closely associated with third world countries, but in bleak times in a Chicago-area suburb, 30 people were buried in a mass grave on Wednesday.

The pauper’s burial section at Homewood Memorial Gardens was established for those who could not afford to pay for a burial plot.

And it is a problem that’s sweeping America as tough economic times have led to an increase in the number of indigent burials the morgue must perform.

All over the country, major U.S. cities are flat broke and are rapidly decaying.  They are filled with impoverished people that are rapidly becoming angrier and more frustrated.

There simply are not enough jobs for everyone.  Millions of ordinary Americans spend their days agonizing over the fact that they cannot provide even a basic living for themselves and their families.

And as the economy gets even worse, the economic despair in this country is going to grow to unprecedented levels.

So is now the time to move away from major U.S. cities?

In the end, each of us is going to have to answer that question for ourselves.

Jobs are scarce, so if you have a good job right now it may not be wise to give it up.  It can be incredibly challenging to move to a new area when you don’t have a job.

One solution may be to move farther away from your current job so that you are in a more rural setting.  But the rising cost of gasoline can make that a very expensive proposition.

Some families are purchasing second homes that they can “bug out” to in the event of a major disaster or emergency.  But if your financial resources are limited that may not be an option for you.

In the final analysis, you have just got to do the best you can with what you have.

But if you are able to move, it is better to do it while times are relatively stable (like now) than when times are very unstable.

So what do all of you think?

Do you think that now is the time to move away from major U.S. cities?

Source: The American Dream

“I’m Not Going to Plead Guilty to Using My Medicine.”

Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies … those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C.S. Lewis

Fair Haven, a quaint little town of about 6000 residents somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, holds a very special place in my heart and life. Why? Because I grew up there.

It is also the home of my new hero: Eric Hafner. Hafner is real life example #4,479,563 or so of how America’s War on Drugs is incontrovertibly insane. Here are the Cliff Notes on his story.

In 2008, at age 16, the young Hafner had a “horrifying, traumatic” experience that brought on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. He declines to divulge details and this is his prerogative. And how he medicates himself would likewise be his prerogative if this were a free country.

In a free country, people would still suffer traumatic life experiences. However, their choice of medication would be entirely immune from the tentacles of state and federal control.

Doctors prescribed Xanax for Eric. However, he claimed that it “did little to mitigate ‘nightmares, flashbacks and depression,’ and left him feeling ‘like a zombie’ the next day.” However, he claims that marijuana allowed him to function normally.

End of story, right?

No.

This is not a free country.

In 2010, Governor Corzine signed into law the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. This law allows patients who suffer from certain maladies such as AIDS and MS, to obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries. Two years later, though, no dispensaries have opened their doors. And even if they had, PTSD is not among the conditions for which doctors are allowed to recommend marijuana.

On November 27 of last year, Hafner was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for a broken headlight in Locust, four miles from Fair Haven. The police officer said he smelled pot and proceeded to search the vehicle. The search turned up a pipe in Hafner’s sweatshirt and a gram of the forbidden weed in Hafner’s wallet.

Hafner faces up to six months in jail and $1000 in fines if found guilty.

Here comes the hero part.

Hafner states: “I’m not going to plead guilty to using my medicine.”

A guilty plea would carry with it probation and mandatory drug testing.

Hafner cites Article I of the New Jersey state Constitution in his defense. This article states, in part:

“All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”

Hafner goes on to say: “I’m not going to stop what I’m doing, so probation is not an option. I’d be sacrificing my own health and safety, and I’m not going to do that, and the government has no right to tell me to do that.”

Out here near Denver, Colorado, where I live now, a friend recently stated the following on Facebook.

“You know what really gets my knickers in a twist? Aurora. Charging me extra money to buy cold medicine. And my Driver’s License having to be swiped to buy Alka-Seltzer in PILL form. Really? Do I look like I’m gonna OD on Alka-Seltzer??? Unfortunately, my moral indignation lost out to the need to not feel like death walking backwards eating a cracker… but still. I’m pretty ticked.”

To this, I responded: “Yay drug war.”

P.W. chimed in: “No Doug….Yay nanny state.”

Me, again: “2 wings of the same bird of prey.”

I went on to say: “A government that will throw you in jail for possessing, selling, buying or using a plant that probably grows wild in your zip code will not be restrained in the stupid laws and regulations it imposes.”

The mindset that drives the right’s police state is the exact same totalitarian mindset that drives the left’s nanny state. A government that will imprison you for using a plant that was given to us in the eleventh verse of the Bible – and just may well grow wild in Fair Haven – will inevitably also tell us which kind of light bulbs to use and how fast our toilets can flush. And if you have your undies in a bunch over someone medicating themselves with marijuana, then you already believe that the state should nanomanage medical decisions. Don’t moan and groan at me about Obamacare!

The left is at least honest about its belief in big government. The right, on the other hand, is rhetorically pro-liberty, but all too often loves big government when it imprisons people for victimless offenses. (“Victimless crime” is an oxymoron. If there is no victim, there is no crime.) No matter how much evidence you present about the abject failure of the drug war, they simply will not cast off their smelly little politically correct orthodoxies about their menu of favorite unconstitutional federal programs.

All federal laws relating to what you ingest into your body are unconstitutional under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. And while the states may pass their own drug laws, state drug laws are just as odious as the Jim Crow laws of the old South.

But then the objection always arises: “There are prescription drugs for things like PTSD.”Go back and read the quote at the top of this article. Hafner says that Xanax didn’t work. Thousands of other people across the nation also say that marijuana worked where prescription drugs didn’t.

Many who scoff at the notion that cannabis has medicinal properties will insist that they are Christians. Jesus had very harsh words for people like this. “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” – Luke 11:46, KJB

While no one has ever died simply from smoking marijuana, prescription drug fatalities now outnumber deaths from automobile accidents.  And with prescription drugs, it is also the little things. You know, like the multitudinous side effects.

Moreover, it is perfectly legal to do irreparable damage to your body in so many ways.

And, yes, I hear the train a-coming:  “The kid is just looking for an excuse to get stoned.”

Let’s see. Hafner gets his bake on, gets the munchies and veges out for a few hours to some pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd tunes. Who has he harmed?

Not you.

And yet, there are millions of people who wouldn’t care if he were locked in some anal rape cage for years on end. For his own good, of course. 99.99 percent of the time, the legal penalties associated with marijuana possession do far more damage than the actual herb itself. Cruel and unusual, anyone?

And these millions just don’t care that the War on Drugs has, in the last three decades, turned the “land of the free” into the nation with the world’s highest incarceration rate.

And while Hafner faces six months in prison, and while this Oklahoma woman got ten yearsfor a $31 marijuana sale, the children of the elites are not punished anywhere near as severely. Noelle Bush – one of those Bushes – got ten days for possession of crack cocaine. Hence, the War on Drugs is a lot like other wars. The elites sell it and the hoi polloi suffer as a result of it.

The War on Drugs is a war on all of us, whether we do illegal drugs or not. How so?

Imagine yourself suffering from unremitting pain and having exhausted all conventional medical remedies. You are down to one last option: that herb that you have, until now, ridiculed as the Devil’s Lettuce. Will thou, in this moment, still be as holy and pious as thou currently art?

Or will this life experience finally clue you in as to the tyrannical nature of drug prohibition? Will you finally realize that the real-world implications of your favorite social policy are no laughing matter? And when you find yourself in the cross hairs of the authorities, will you boldly and defiantly proclaim, like Eric Hafner: “I’m not going to plead guilty to using my medicine.”

It is always easy to sit there and say that the government should “do something”, as long as they do it to somebody else.

« Previous Page — Next Page »