The Invisible Hand

The Agenda Progresses…

“We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it.  The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.”  That was James Paul Warburg speaking before the United States Senate on February 17, 1950, a couple of generations ago.  James Warburg was the son of Paul Montz Warburg nephew of Felix Warburg and Jacob Schiff, both of Kuhn, Loeb & Company.   Max Warburg, James’s brother, was Chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and through his German Bank poured money into the Russian Revolution.

“The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.”  Proverbs 22:7

The Talmudic elite that control our world become wealthier and more powerful by several techniques with debt as the fouindational mechanism.  The great depression of the 1930s allowed the moneychangers to buy solid assets at pennies on the dollar; market crashes that follow the easy money bubbles result in massive transfers of wealth.    In our time, the real estate bubble has put tangible assets on the market at fractions of their real value.  Social programs force governments into debt and result in interest payments on money created from nothing.  The International Monetary Fund loans money to nations and is often repaid with tangible assets. It is almost impossible for nations to wage war without borrowing money.   War is expensive and the moneychangers play no favorites; they finance both sides of the conflict.  Trillions of dollars are now being pilfered through bank debt that is backed by tax-paying citizens.

As our society has deteriorated the meaning of words has changed.  Originally “usury” meant charging interest for the use of money.  Historically, the Catholic Church did not charge interest and ultimately forbade its members as well.  The shunning of usury left an opening for Jewish bankers to lend money at a profit.  As this close knit, shunned group developed contacts and financial expertise wealthy Gentiles began to hire them to oversee their finances.  In the early Seventeenth Century these wealthy Gentiles were called Nobles and their castles Noble Houses.  The Jews who worked for them were known as  Court Jews.  The Court Jews collected taxes, negotiated loans, issued debentures, developed new taxes, financed the armed guards, and provided money for personal extravagances.

It was in this era that the word usury began to lose its original meaning and the Christian tenet of avoiding usury waned.  Charging interest for the use of money is now commonly accepted and usury is now defined as the charging of “excess” interest.

Even though the Court Jews were highly valued and often obtained nobility status they were still preyed upon and regularly robbed of their wealth. In the Eighteenth Century the German Jewish Rothschild family saw banking as a multi-national opportunity and skillfully used their financial acumen to set up an impregnable empire of wealth.    Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812) had five sons which were sent to separate cities:  Amschel Mayer Rothschild (1773-1655) Frankfurt, Germany; Salomon Mayer Rothschild (1774-1855) Vienna, Austria; Nathan Mayer Rothschild (1777-1836) London, England; Calmann Mayer Rothschild (1788-1855) Naples, Italy; Jakob Mayer Rothschild (1792-1868) Paris, France.

Born in a Frankfurt, German ghetto Mayer Amschel Rothschild, like most of his fellows, harbored a hatred for the Gentile Christian population.  Hidden under a deceptive mask this loathing is still common in powerful Jewry.

Respected historian Paul Johnson writes “The Rothschilds are elusive. There is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them… unlike the court Jews of earlier centuries, who had financed and managed European noble houses, but often lost their wealth through violence or expropriation, the new kind of international bank created by the Rothschilds was impervious to local attacks.”  Johnson claims that a major part of the Rothschild fortune was accumulated by Nathan Rothschild in London.  Other historians claim the family wealth was more diverse.

Famous Rothschild quotes are widely believed but tough to corroborate.  Mayer Rothschild is supposed to have claimed “Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes her laws.“  The following statement is attributed to Nathan Rothschild “I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the Empire, the man that controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire. And I control the money supply.”  While it is true that control of the money supply equates to control of the nation it is doubtful that the secretive Rothschilds would have made such a statement.

In one way, Vladimir Putin might be compared to American President Andrew Jackson.  For a time, President Jackson kept the moneychangers out of the United States and Putin has partially blocked the same element from sacking Russia.

In recent times the Rothschild name has been in the news on at least a couple of occasions.  When Putin arrested Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia’s original Jewish oligarchs, his substantial share of Russian oil giant Yukos was ceded to Lord Jacob Rothschild in London

Under the aegis of Privatization Khodokovsky acquired Yukos for $309 million.  The company was valued at $40 billion when Khodokovsky was arrested and 40 percent of its shares (controlling interest) were transferred to Lord Jacob Rockefeller.  The relationship between Khodokovsky and Lord Jacob Rothschild was not described.  It was unusual that the Rothschild name was mentioned at all.

There were six other Oligarchs in Russia.  Putin went after all of them but they have either escaped or evaded prosecution.  The Rothschild name was not mentioned but one wonders if involvement in the case of one oligarch means the others were involved as well.  The potential profits from privatization are enormous.

Now, there is another side to the Russian Oligarch story.  The June 14^th issue of the “New American Magazine” contains an article on the new crop of Russian oligarchs who “have not earned their sudden wealth through entrepreneurial skill and free enterprise” but instead through Communist Party Connections. “ Russia’s super-wealthy oligarchs profiled by Forbes — Alisher Usmanov (steel, telecom, investments), Vladimir Lisin (steel and transport), Alexei Mordashov (steel), Vladimir Potanin (metals, media), Vagit Alekperov (oil), Mikhail Fridman (banking, oil, telecom), Mikhail Prokhorov (metals, energy, investments), Roman Abramovich (steel, investments), et al. — are all tied in to Vladimir Putin’s KGB-run Kremlin power structure.”  Putin chased out the previous vultures but more weeds have sprung up.

In another rather strange event, Evelyn De Rothschild, part of the English family, has reportedly sold his banking business and is providing interviews.  In a curious public display Evelyn De Rothschild is publically expressing his opinions.  See interviews  and .

Rothschild assets have been impenetrable since the dynasty began over two hundred years ago.  Their wealth is never mentioned.  When Forbes Magazine lists the world’s wealthiest people the Rothschild family is never included.  Neither does one see the Rothschild name associated with power conclaves like Bilderberger, the Committee of 300, or the Club of Rome.    Estimates of 500 trillion dollars or more are guesses since the figure cannot be established.  The practice of using scores of men like J. P. Morgan, George Soros, Henry Kissinger, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and institutions like J. P. Morgan Chase & Company, and Goldman Sachs, as surrogates provides control and obscures ownership.

The Rothschild Empire functions above the governments of the world.  The power structure we see and the names we know are subordinate to a name that is never seen nor mentioned.  Using surrogates whose careers they have created and whose lives they own and institutions over which they exert hidden control the Rothschild name never appears on public documents.  The relationship is symbiotic. One source claims that at his death the J. P. Morgan estate had only $19 million in securities, the bulk of the estate was actually owned by the Rothschilds. Their invisible tentacles can grasp the public and private domain whenever and wherever they like and the source of the venture can only be guessed at.  Wealth and power accompany association with the Rothschild Empire.  Their surrogates are carefully selected; they are smart, ambitious, ruthless, and devoted.

The profit margin on the Yukos venture, $309 million to $40 billion, is somewhat comparable to the profit margin on gasoline, $5.00 bbl. to produce, $90.00 a bbl. to purchase.  Monopoly control of essential commodities is very profitable and laden with power over the public domain.  The Rothschilds are actively urging privatization.

It isn’t the military/industrial complex that requires confrontation, it is the surreptitious power that controls the military/industrial complex.

History is replete with tyrants and despots who enslaved nations and built empires.  Today we are faced with tyrants that seek to control the entire world.  The British Empire broke up but the power to control still emanates from that small island.  Wealthy control freaks have sought world hegemony for centuries.  Today it is feasible and quickly progressing.

Money, Power, and Politics

There has been much talk recently about the impact of money on politics, especially in the wake of the Citizens United ruling that has ratcheted up the role of corporate money in political campaigns. Organized labor was quick to blame this ruling for its defeat in Wisconsin. And many have assumed that the relation of money to politics is like a law of nature: the more money one has, the more political power one can wield.

There is some truth to this claim. In a recent editorial (“Money Rules,” April 19, 2012) The New York Times noted that “big donors to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party are far more likely to be welcomed at the White House than those who gave smaller gifts.”

The editorial continued: “And, despite decades of money abuses and scandal, neither presidential candidate [Obama nor Romney] has shown any interest in reforming the system.”

Of course, politicians always deny that there is any connection between campaign donations and their policy decisions, swearing that the strong statistical correlation between the two is entirely coincidental. However, given their fixation on “the bottom line,” it is inconceivable that corporations would continue to donate billions of dollars a year to politicians if they did not expect to get a “return” on their investment.

It should not be surprising that money and power tend to converge. Capitalism is not just an economic system that places profit above all other concerns; it breeds a culture in which money is the “bottom line” in every transaction. Money opens the doors to the best education available, to quality health care and spacious homes in crime-free neighborhoods, not to mention “attractive mates.” Money buys leisure time and can allow people to avoid work altogether. Money commands respect. When Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan appeared before a Congressional committee after having lost billions of dollars in risky investments, he was bombarded by obsequious questions by members of Congress, who probably would have preferred asking him for investing advice. And although not a sufficient condition, money is a necessary condition for winning political elections and is usually the determining factor. Finally, with individuals placed in perennial competition with one another under capitalism, social and community ties are weakened, leaving only money to fill the void.

Within the system of capitalism, the more money and power one has, the easier it is to acquire still more money and power. When the billionaire Warren Buffett recently invested $5 billion dollars with Goldman Sachs, he was guaranteed a 10 percent rate of return, meaning he will make $500 million a year without lifting a finger. Even worse, much of this money is acquired simply by the rich taking from everyone else. In their recent book, “Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class,” political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson argue that much of the new wealth enjoyed by the rich has resulted from their success at lobbying politicians to change the tax laws and business regulations to their advantage. Hence, when left to its own devices, capitalism tends to concentrate money and power in the hands of a few while allowing inequalities in wealth to grow ever greater.

Unions were created to combat these tendencies and to protect workers from their employers’ avid pursuit of money. While employers want to maximize profits, workers want enough to pay their bills and lead a comfortable life. Hence, there is a power struggle between workers and employers over how much of the company’s profits will go to wages and benefits and how much to the owners. Given that the owners have far more money at their disposal than the workers, one might assume that they hold the reins of power in their hands and can dictate the outcome.

But there is a limit to the role that money can play. Unions operate on their own unique principles that provide the potential for a far greater exercise of power than what their employers can command, even with far more money at their disposal. Rejecting competition, workers organized unions on the principle of solidarity. It was a logical course for workers to pursue: while an individual worker is powerless in the face of a domineering employer and while workers who are competing against one another are collectively powerless in relation to the employer, workers quickly learned that power shifts in their direction when they join together and engage in coordinated action. If one person tries to conduct a strike, that person is simply fired. When the entire workforce conducts a strike, they bring the business to a grinding halt and become a force to contend with.

Because of this need to stand together and work for a common goal, unions generate their own culture. When they have successfully struggled together, camaraderie develops among the union members. They take care of one another, cover for each other, and form lifetime friendships in much the same way as soldiers who have endured battles together.

For this reason, union struggles can change the entire political and cultural landscape. When workers decide to take a stand in order to break the cycle of growing inequalities in wealth, when they fight for a decent standard of living that includes a living wage, job security, health care, access to quality education, homeownership, and retirement with dignity, not just for themselves but for everyone, they inspire all working people and create the possibility of a massive social movement that has the potential to forge historic changes, as was done in the 1930s. People are inspired by movements that aim at creating a better world for everyone, where those who need help are given what they need, where people contribute according to their ability, and where no one advances at the expense of others. This more ennobled sense of humanity engenders inspiration in a way that money never can. And people are inspired when workers wage a real fight, as opposed to the current ever so prevalent practice of organizing fake fights that involve porous picket lines that no one takes seriously or demonstrations of several hundred workers when the workforce includes thousands.

When these social movements achieve momentum, money no longer plays the deciding role. People shed their disconnected isolation, become engaged and talk with one another, become knowledgeable of the issues, and derive strength in their numbers. And massive numbers of people demonstrating for a common goal has proved time and again to be the prevailing factor.

At this time in history, organized labor, however, seems content to rely on money for power. Unions spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to elect Democrats to office, leaving the vast reservoir of power of their membership untapped. Of course, corporations have even more money at their disposal and give generously to both political parties to hedge their bets, easily outspending labor in the process. When it comes to money, simple arithmetic is all that counts: because corporations give far more than labor, they get far more than labor, and the inequalities in wealth continue to grow.

As a result of the unions’ current orientation toward the Democratic Party, one must look long and hard for compelling examples, aside from the 1930s, when unions put up a valiant struggle. But in 1958 the unions relied on themselves instead of the Democrats, mobilized their members to defeat a right to work law, and won a stunning victory. The local newspaper reported: “Ohio voters rejected the ‘right-to-work’ proposal by the biggest margin ever recorded on an issue on the ballot in the state’s history.”

More recently, United Electrical workers conducted a sit-down strike in a Chicago windows and doors factory, demanding their severance pay from the Bank of America. Because of the outpouring of public support from across the country, Bank of America, one of the most powerful corporations in the world, backed down, and the workers won their demands.

When it is a question of the efficacy of money in politics and workers fail to put up a fight, money prevails. The moral is: money counts – but only if we let it.

America In Decline

The Soul Crushing Despair of Lowered Expectations…

All over America tonight there are people that believe that their lives are over.  When you do everything that you know how to do to get a job and you still can’t get one it can be absolutely soul crushing.  If you have ever been unemployed for an extended period of time you know exactly what I am talking about.  When you have been unemployed for month after month it can be very tempting to totally cut yourself off from society.  Those that are kind will look at you with pity and those that are cruel will treat you as though you are a total loser.  It doesn’t matter that America is in decline and that our economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for everyone anymore.  In our society, one of the primary things that defines our lives is what we do for a living.  Just think about it.  When you are out in a social situation, what is one of the very first things that people ask?  They want to know what you “do”.  Well, if you don’t “do” anything, then you are not part of the club.  But the worst part of being unemployed for many Americans is the relentless pressure from family and friends.  Often they have no idea how hard it is to find a job in this economy – especially if they still have jobs.  Sometimes the pressure becomes too great.  Sadly, we are seeing unemployment break up a lot of marriages in America today.  Things are really hard out there right now.  A very large number of highly educated Americans have taken very low paying service jobs in recent years just so that they can have some money coming in even as they “look for something else”.  Unfortunately, in many cases that “something else” never materializes.  In the past, America was “the land of opportunity” where anything was possible.  But today America has become “the land of lowered expectations” and the worst is yet to come.

We live during a time when “the American Dream” is literally being redefined.  In the old days, just about anyone could get a good job that would pay enough to make it possible to buy a house, buy a nice car and raise a family.

Unfortunately, those days are long gone.  The following is from a recent NPR article….

The town of Lorain, Ohio, used to embody this dream. It was a place where you could get a good job, raise a family and comfortably retire.

“Now you can see what it is. Nothing,” says John Beribak. “The shipyards are gone, the Ford plant is gone, the steel plant is gone.” His voice cracks as he describes the town he’s lived in his whole life.

“I mean, I grew up across the street from the steel plant when there was 15,000 people working there,” he says. “My dad worked there. I worked there when I got out of the Air Force. It’s just sad.”

We live in an economy that is in serious decline.  In this environment no job is safe.  In fact, even Goldman Sachs is laying off workers these days.

Millions of Americans are suffering from deep depression because they can’t find jobs.  Many of them are sitting at home right now blankly starting at their television screens as they wonder why nobody wants to hire them.  Some have been unemployed for years and have sent out thousands upon thousands of resumes.  The following is from a recent article by J.D. Hicks….

I have a brilliant cousin with a $180K Syracuse education working part-time at a department store. She has literally sent out 38,000 resumes in the span of a year to no avail. I have another very bright friend with the kindest heart who is so desperate he has applied for dishwashing jobs and didn’t get them, sending him deeper into depression. I’m sure we all know people like this, or perhaps have even been there ourselves.

Society has trained us to believe that we are worthless without a job. Indeed, we feel worthless when we are unemployed with few prospects of making money. Family, friends, and peers constantly remind us in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that we “need” a job.

Have you ever been unemployed?

How did it make you feel?

How were you treated by your family and friends?

In the old days, a college education was almost a guaranteed ticket to the middle class.

But these days, a college education guarantees you absolutely nothing.

As a recent article by Jed Graham detailed, most young unemployed workers in America today have at least some college education….

For the first time in history, the number of jobless workers age 25 and up who have attended some college now exceeds the ranks of those who settled for a high school diploma or less.

Out of 9 million unemployed in April, 4.7 million had gone to college or graduated and 4.3 million had not, seasonally adjusted Labor Department data show.

Overall, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.

It is tough to tell young college graduates with their whole lives ahead of them that they need to lower their expectations because America is in decline.

So where did all the jobs go?

Well, one place they went is overseas.  Over the past couple of decades, millions upon millions of good jobs have left the United States and have gone over to the other side of the world.

That is why you see gleaming new factories going up all over China even while our once great manufacturing cities are turning into crime-infested warzones.

But as a recent WND article reported, the WTO has a solution.  They plan to replace “Made in China” labels with “Made in the World” labels so that we don’t feel so bad about losing our jobs and our economic infrastructure…

The World Trade Organization is moving closer to eliminating country-of-origin labels and replacing them with “Made in the World” initiative labels because they say we need to “reduce public opposition to free trade” and “re-engineer global governance.”

As the number of middle class jobs has steadily declined in recent years, the number of low paying service jobs has increased.

In a previous article, I discussed how approximately one out of every four U.S. workers now makes $10 an hour or less.

Could your family survive on 10 dollars an hour?

Today, you can find hordes of very smart, very talented Americans flipping burgers, waiting tables and welcoming people to Wal-Mart.

Sadly, the United States now has a higher percentage of workers doing low wage work than any other major industrialized nation does.

Perhaps we should applaud our leaders for doing such a great job of destroying the American Dream.

Because so many Americans are working crappy jobs, a very large percentage of them have absolutely no savings to speak of.

According to one survey, 42 percent of all American workers live paycheck to paycheck.

I am constantly encouraging people to save up an “emergency fund” that will enable them to pay their bills for at least 6 months if they suddenly become unemployed.

Unfortunately, for many Americans that is simply not possible.  Way too many families are just barely scraping by from month to month.

Another area of the economy where Americans are facing lowered expectations is in housing.

In the old days, most Americans dreamed of owning their own homes.

But today we are being told that things have changed.  For example, a recent USA Today article was entitled “Home rentals — the new American Dream?“….

Steve and Jodi Jacobson bought their Phoenix-area “dream home” in 2005. They built flagstone steps to the front door. They tiled the kitchen and bathroom. They entertained often, enjoying their mountain views.

“We put our soul into that house,” says Steve Jacobson, 37.

Then, home prices tanked more than 50%. Steve, a software quality assurance engineer, suffered pay cuts. In 2010, foreclosure claimed the home and their $100,000 down payment.

The Jacobsons didn’t lose their desire to live in a single-family home, however. They now rent one, like many other former homeowners displaced by foreclosure.

Is that what we are supposed to tell future generations of Americans?

“Listen Johnny and Suzie, if you work really, really hard at your minimum wage jobs perhaps someday you will be able to rent a home that has been foreclosed by a big, greedy bank”.

It is so sad to watch what is happening to this country.

These days many Americans are scratching and clawing and doing everything that they can to make it, but they still find themselves short on money at the end of the month.

Many are turning to debt in an attempt to bridge the gap.  According to CNN, 40 percent of “low- and middle-income households” are using credit cards to pay for basic living expenses.

Overall, U.S. consumers have more than 11 trillion dollars in debt right now.

That is an incredible number.

As the economy has declined, a lot of families have completely given up trying to make it on their own and have turned to the U.S. government for financial help.  Today, an astounding 49.1 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives government benefits.

Just think about that number for a while.  It is one of the clearest signs that America is in deep, deep decline.

Unfortunately, things are about to get even worse.  The next wave of the financial crisis is unfolding in Europe and we will all be talking about another “major global recession” very soon.

That means that unemployment in the United States is going to get a lot worse.

For the millions upon millions of Americans that are already suffering through the horror of unemployment, that is really bad news.

Posted below is a trailer for a new HBO documentary entitled “Hard Times: Lost on Long Island”.  Please take a few minutes to watch , because I think it does a good job of showing the soul crushing despair that many unemployed Americans are going through right now.

Source: The Economic Collapse

Why The Health Nazis Are On The March

They say “Jolly is the fat man,” but perhaps not when he’s being chased (and, I’m sure, caught) like a Frankenstein monster by the Body Cult crazies.  And that is the case today, as it has become fashionable to affront the friendly-fronted.

It seems most anything goes now: bloated houses, bloated egos, bloated libidos, bloated bureaucracies, bloated government – except bloated bellies.  And a perusal of the news makes this clear, with a never-ending stream of stories about obesity this and obesity that.  For example, headlining Drudge the other day was a piece about how fathead officials in Massachusetts propose to ban school bake sales – even before and after school hours – to combat obesity.  This, of course, is just the next step in a progression that has seen localities purge schools of cookies and sodas along with the faith and patriotism that was deemed unhealthful long before.

We also had the San Francisco Stupidvisors, who run the city (into the ground), who banned toys in McDonald’s Happy Meals. Deliciously, the restaurant chain circumvented the law by charging an extra ten cents for those who want the toy.  I would’ve really rubbed the health Nazis’ noses in it and made it a penny.

Then there was the 2008 proposal by three legislators in Mississippi – said to be the fattest state in the nation – to prohibit portly people from dining in restaurants.  The politicians said they were just trying to make a point with their measure.  I wonder, though, given that the vast majority of gun crime (98% in New York City) is committed by blacks and Hispanics, would these bold statesmen seek to “make a point” by proposing to ban those groups from gun stores?  Oh, that would be discriminatory?  I see.

Although Mississippi Fat Burning never saw its opening day, other Orwellian measures have.  For instance, a Missouri judge was accused of delaying an adoption until the prospective father lost weight, and last year Ohio DCFS seized a boy from his parents because he was obese.  This, despite the fact that if the president ate like his wife does, the boy would look like Obama’s son.

The irony here is that the health Nazis would have had the over indulgent Ohio mother’s back if she’d ended her boy’s life in the womb.  But merely increase the chances of shortening his life by feeding him too many Twinkies?  You’re a derelict mother!

You see, when it’s the matter of a body within a body, it’s the bigger body’s “choice.”  But when it’s a matter of just a bigger body, you have no choice.  My, how the scales of justice tip when you tip the scales.

As for the busybodies – the politicians, gubmint bureaucrats and “public-interest” groups – how do we explain their interest in our health?  They really must care, right?  About you, about me, about all and sundry.  Well, I’d say so but qualify it with a paraphrased Rodney Dangerfield line: “They really care….

About what, I have no idea.”

Of course, there is the “Obesity hurts society” pretext.  The argument is that you fatties are burying our healthcare system with a knife and fork, as you cost it more money with your increased health problems.

Except that this is nonsense.

A 2011 study found that the obese and smokers actually cost the healthcare system less because they don’t live as long.  And while study leader Pieter Van Baal called the finding a “small surprise,” it’s thoroughly logical.  It’s the nonagenarian requiring frequent hospitalization and nursing-home care who rings up the bills, not the epicurean who collapses on his plate of chicken fried steak and cheese-filled French fries at age 61.  So you want to save ObamaCare?  Get all the different fat groups, copious amounts of sugar and salt and smoke one Al Gore tobacco farm a week.

So are we now left with the notion that the health Nazis really do care?  Well, they do, and about what I do have some idea.  And I’m going to delve into one little understood phenomenon that drives today’s obsession with health.

You’ll note that the people behind control-freak health measures are never Opus Dei or Southern Baptist Conference types; heck, unless it’s a prohibition against pork, they’re not even Muslims.  They are, I’d wager, secularists virtually one and all.

This is no coincidence, but a result of subordinating spiritual health to physical health.  A person of faith may believe that he’s enjoined to treat the temple of the soul well, but he will never elevate that imperative over that of caring for the soul itself.  He realizes that this life, relative to eternity, is as a drop of water in an ocean – and it is that ocean voyage for which he is mainly preparing.  Thus, recognizing the reality of God’s law (morality), he understands that of primary importance is avoiding what has traditionally been labeled sin.

But what about when you don’t believe in an afterlife?  This temporal life is then all you see.

And then staying in it for as long as possible can become the most important thing to you.

In fact, it can become obsession.

For where the believer may be mindful of Jesus’ words (I’m paraphrasing) “Do not fear that which just destroys the body; fear that which destroys the soul,” the secularist may believe the body is all there is.  This is, I believe, what has bred the Cult of the Body, with all its newly-minted “sins,” such as overeating, failure to exercise, smoking and drinking.  Why, we even call taxes on the last two “sin taxes.”

So my answer to those who warn of increasing obesity is, “So?”  “But, Duke, don’t you understand?  These people will die younger!”  Other than mentioning that they won’t die nearly as young as aborted babies, again I say, “So?”  We’re all going to die; it’s just a matter of when and how.  And when you realize that relative to the ocean, small, medium and large water drops are indistinguishable, you’ll understand my response.

Returning to a lighter note, I’ll have to now limit my keyboard intake lest this article get too fat.  Before concluding, however, I’ll say that I do have an idea for putting the health Nazis’ designs on a diet.  Since obesity is most prevalent among black women – with 48 percent having, uh, let’s say, generous proportions – cast any and all attacks upon the condition as “racist.”  If this tactic works when the matter is police tests, voter ID, immigration and school suspension, perhaps it’ll work with abdominal distension.

Top 10 Corporate Tax Dodgers & Their Paid Politicians

Between 2008 and 2011, 26 major American corporations paid no net federal income taxes despite bringing in billions in profits, according to a new report (PDF) from the nonprofit research group Citizens for Tax Justice. CTJ calculates that if the companies had paid the full 35 percent corporate tax rate, they would have put more than $78 billion into government coffers.

Here’s a look at the 10 most profitable tax evaders and the politicians their CEOs, employees, and PACs give the most money to.

Verizon Communications
Profits: $19.8 billion    Effective tax rate: -3.8%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
President Barack Obama: $51,493
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.): $24,450
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): $23,700
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio): $22,500
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.): $15,000

General Electric
Profits: $19.6 billion    Effective tax rate: -18.9%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
Mitt Romney: $53,750
President Barack Obama (D): $30,493
Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.): $23,900
Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.): $21,860
Rep. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.): $19,750

Boeing
Profits: $14.8 billion    Effective tax rate:-5.5%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
Rep. Buck McKeon (R-Calif.): $31,750
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.): $25,000
Former Sen. George Allen (R-Va.): $23,500
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.): $23,125
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas): $20,986

NextEra Energy: North America’s largest solar and wind power operator, based in Florida
Profits: $8.8 billion    Effective tax rate:-2%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
George LeMieux (R-Fla.): $9,500
Mike Haridopolos (R-Fla.): $4,800
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.): $2,000
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas): $2,000
Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.): $2,000

American Electric Power: Electric utility based in Columbus, Ohio
Profits: $8.2 billion    Effective tax rate: -6.4%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio): $34,750
Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio): $34,050
Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio): $21,700
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.): $19,750
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio): $18,450

Pacific Gas & Electric: California electrical utility
Profits: $6 billion    Effective tax rate: -8.4%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
President Barack Obama (D): $6,250
Rep. Jim Costa (D-Calif.): $5,000
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.): $5,500
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.): $5,000
Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.): $3,500

Apache: Houston-based oil and gas company
Profits: $6 billion    Effective tax rate: -0.3%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
David Dewhurst (R-Texas): $25,000
Rep. Connie Mack (R-Fla.): $5,000
Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.): $2,500
Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas): $2,500
Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas): $2,500
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): $2,500
Brendan Doherty (R-R.I.): $2,500

Consolidated Edison: New York energy company
Profits: $5.9 billion    Effective tax rate: -1.3%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.): $15,050
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.): $8,000
Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.): $6,650
Then-Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.): $2,500
Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.): $1,500
Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.): $1,500
Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.): $1,500

El Paso: Houston-based energy company that operates the country’s largest natural gas pipeline
Profits: $4.6 billion    Effective tax rate: -0.9%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
David Dewhurst (R-Texas): $7,500
Mitt Romney (R): $5,000
Rep. John Barrow (D-Ga.): $3,000
Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.): $2,750
Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.): $2,500
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.): $2,500
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): $2,500
Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas): $2,500
Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.): $2,500
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.): $2,500

CenterPoint Energy: Electric and gas utility company based in Houston
Profits: $3.1 billion    Effective tax rate: -11.3%
Top recipients, 2011-2012
David Dewhurst (R-Texas): $22,050
Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas): $13,458
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): $10,299
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.): $7,000
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas): $4,000

Giving data from the Center for Responsive Politics. Includes all 2011-12 campaign donations from each company’s employees and corporate PACs.

Source:

AIPAC Works For The 1 Percent

The battle for justice in the Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is about living rather than dying. It is about communicating rather than killing. It is about love rather than hate. It is part of the great battle against the corporate forces of death that reign over us—the fossil fuel industry, the weapons manufacturers, the security and surveillance state, the speculators on Wall Street, the oligarchic elites who assault our poor, our working men and women, our children, one in four of whom depend on food stamps to eat, the elites who are destroying our ecosystem with its trees, its air and its water and throwing into doubt our survival as a species.

What is being done in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, is a pale reflection of what is slowly happening to the rest of us. It is a window into the rise of the global security state, our new governing system that the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” It is a reflection of a world where the powerful are not bound by law, either on Wall Street or in the shattered remains of the countries we invade and occupy, including Iraq with its hundreds of thousands of dead. And one of the greatest purveyors of this demented ideology of violence for the sake of violence, this flagrant disregard for the rule of domestic and international law, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

I spent seven years in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I lived for two of those seven years in Jerusalem. AIPAC does not speak for Jews or for Israel. It is a mouthpiece for right-wing ideologues, some of whom hold power in Israel and some of whom hold power in Washington, who believe that because they have the capacity to war wage they have a right to wage war, whose loyalty, in the end, is not to the citizens of Israel or Palestine or the United States but the corporate elites, the defense contractors, those who make war a business, those who have turned ordinary Palestinians, Israelis and Americans, along with hundreds of millions of the world’s poor, into commodities to exploit, repress and control.

We have not brought freedom, democracy and the virtues of Western civilization to the Muslim world. We have brought state terrorism, massive destruction, war and death. There is no moral distinction between a drone strike and the explosion of the improvised explosive device, between a suicide bombing and a targeted assassination. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the Muslim world remains submissive and compliant. We have supported a government in Israel that has carried out egregious war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza and is daily stealing larger and larger portions of Palestinian land. We have established a network of military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and we have secured basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We have expanded our military operations to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And no one believes, except perhaps us, that we have any intention of leaving.

And let us not forget that deep inside our secret world of offshore penal colonies, black sites, and torture and interrogation centers, we practice the cruelty and barbarity that always accompanies unchecked imperial power. There were scores of graphic pictures and videos from the prison in Abu Ghraib that were swiftly classified and hidden from public view. And in these videos, as Seymour Hersh reported, mothers who were arrested with their young sons, often children, watched in horror as their boys were repeatedly sodomized. This was filmed. And on the soundtrack you hear the boys shrieking. And the mothers were smuggling notes out to their families saying, “Come and kill us because of what is happening.”

We are the biggest problem in the Middle East. It is we who legitimize the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads, suicide bombers and radical jihadists. The longer we drop iron fragmentation bombs and seize Muslim land, the longer we kill with impunity, the more these monsters, reflections of our own distorted image, will proliferate.

“If you gaze into the abyss,” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “the abyss gazes into you.”

I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance, and uses its power to deny popular will. And yes, it is a regime that appears determined to build a nuclear weapon, although I would stress that no one has offered any proof this is occurring. I have spent time in Iranian jails. I was once deported from Tehran in handcuffs. But I do not remember Iran orchestrating a coup in the United States to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists. I do not remember Iran arming and funding a neighboring state to wage war against our country. Iran never shot down one of our passenger jets, as did the USS Vincennes—nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels—when in June 1988 it fired missiles at an Airbus filled with Iranian civilians, killing everyone on board. Iran is not sponsoring terrorist strikes within the United States, as our intelligence services and the Israeli intelligence services currently do in Iran. We have not seen five of our top nuclear scientists since 2007 murdered on American soil. The attacks in Iran include suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations” of government officials and other Iranian leaders. What would we do if the situation were reversed? How would we react if Iran carried out similar acts of terrorism against us?

We are, and have long been, the primary engine for radicalism in the Middle East. The greatest favor we can do for democracy activists in Iran, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and the states that dot North Africa, is to withdraw our troops from the region and begin to speak to Iranians and the rest of the Muslim world in the civilized language of diplomacy, respect and mutual interests. The longer we cling to the doomed doctrine of permanent war the more we give credibility to the extremists who need, indeed yearn for, an enemy that speaks in the same crude slogans of nationalist cant and violence that they do. The louder the Israelis and their idiot allies in Washington call for the bombing of Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, the happier are the morally bankrupt clerics who are ordering the beating and murder of demonstrators. We may laugh when crowds supporting [President] Ahmadinejad call us “the Great Satan,” but there is a very palpable reality that informs the terrible algebra of their hatred. And since even the most optimistic scenarios say that any strike on Iranian nuclear installations will at best set back Iran’s alleged weapons program by [only] three or four years, we can be sure that violence will beget violence, just as fanaticism begets fanaticism.

The hypocrisy of this vaunted moral crusade is not lost on those in the Middle East. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan, India and Israel did not and developed nuclear weapons programs in secret. Israel now has an estimated 400 to 600 nuclear weapons. The word “Dimona,” the name of the city where the nuclear facilities are located in Israel, is shorthand in the Muslim world for the deadly Israeli threat to Muslims’ existence.

What lessons did the Iranians learn from our Israeli, Pakistani and Indian allies?

Given that we are actively engaged in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime, given that we use apocalyptic rhetoric to describe what must be done to the Iranian regime, and given that Israel could obliterate Iran many times over, what do we expect from the Iranians? On top of this, the Iranian regime grasps that the doctrine of permanent war entails making “pre-emptive” and unprovoked strikes. And they know that if Iraq, like North Korea, had had a bomb they would have never suffered American invasion and occupation.

Those in Washington who advocate attacking Iran, knowing as little about the limitations and chaos of war as they do about the Middle East, believe they can cripple nuclear production and neutralize the 850,000-man Iranian army. They should look closely at the 2006 Israeli air campaign in southern Lebanon, which saw Hezbollah victorious and united most Lebanese behind the militant Islamic group. If the massive Israeli bombing of Lebanon failed to pacify 4 million Lebanese, how can we expect to pacify a country of 70 million people? But reality never seems to impinge on the neoconservative universe or the efficacy of its doctrine of permanent war.

I have watched over the years as these neoconservatives have meddled disastrously in the Middle East. The support by neoconservatives of the Israeli right wing—and I covered Yitzhak Rabin’s 1992 campaign for prime minister when prominent AIPAC donors poured money and resources into Likud to defeat Rabin—is not about Israel. It is about advancing this perverted ideology. Rabin detested these neoconservatives. When he made his first visit to Washington after being elected prime minister he dismissed requests from the lobby for a meeting by telling aides: “I don’t speak to scumbags.”

These neoconservatives, who like our own neoconservatives hide behind the rhetoric of patriotism, national security and religious piety, are not wedded to any discernable doctrine other than force. They, like all rabid nationalists, are stunted and deformed individuals, only able to communicate in the language of self-exaltation and violence.

“The nationalist is by definition an ignoramus,” the Yugoslav writer Danilo Kiš wrote. “Nationalism is the line of least resistance, the easy way. The nationalist is untroubled, he knows or thinks he knows what his values are, his, that’s to say national, that’s to say the values of the nation he belongs to, ethical and political; he is not interested in others, they are no concern of his, hell—it’s other people (other nations, another tribe). They don’t even need investigating. The nationalist sees other people in his own images—as nationalists.”

AIPAC does not drive Middle Eastern policy in the United States. I am afraid it is worse than that. AIPAC is one of an array of powerful and well-funded neoconservative institutions that worship force and drive our relations with the rest of the world. These neoconservatives choose an enemy and then our compliant class of journalists, specialists, military analysts, columnists and television commentators line up to serve as giddy cheerleaders for war. Moments like these always make me embarrassed to be a reporter. Our political elite, Republican and Democrat, finds in this ideology a simple, childish allure. This ideology does not require cultural, historical or linguistic literacy. It reduces the world to black and white, good and evil. The drumbeat for war with Iran sounded by AIPAC is part of this broad, sick, binary vision of a world that can be subjugated by force, a world where all will be made to kneel before these corporate and neoconservative elites, where none, including finally us, will be permitted to whisper dissent.

Pre-emptive war, under post-Nuremberg law, is defined as a criminal act of aggression. George W. Bush, whose disregard for the rule of law was legend, went to the U.N. for a resolution to attack Iraq, although his interpretation of the U.N. resolution as justifying the invasion of Iraq had dubious legal merit. But in this current debate over war with Iran, that pretense of legality is ignored. Where is Israel’s U.N. resolution authorizing it to strike Iran? Why isn’t anyone demanding that Israel seek one? Why does the only discussion in the media and among political elites center around the questions of “Will Israel attack Iran?” “Can it successfully carry out an attack?” “What will happen if there is an attack?” The essential question is left unasked. Does Israel have the right to attack Iran? And here the answer is very, very clear. It does not.

These neoconservatives were too blind and too enamored of their own power to see what invading Afghanistan and Iraq would trigger; so too are they unable to comprehend the regional conflagration that would be unleashed by attacking Iran, what it would mean for us, for Israel, for our allies and for tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocents.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” the Bible warns.

And since our elites have no vision it is up to us. The uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Occupy Wall Street to our gathering outside AIPAC’s doors in Washington are the same primal struggle for sanity, peace and justice, for a world wrenched free from the grip of those who would destroy it. And the abject fawning of our political elite, including Barack Obama, before AIPAC and its bank account is yet another window into the moral bankruptcy of our political class, another sign that the formal mechanisms of power are useless and broken. Civil disobedience is all we have left. It is our patriotic duty. We are called to make the cries of mothers, fathers and children in the squalid refugee camps in Gaza, in the suburbs of Tehran and in the bleak industrial wastelands in Ohio heard. We are called to stand up before these forces of death, the purveyors of violence, those whose hearts have grown cold with hatred. We are called to embrace and defend life with intensity and passion if we are to survive as a species, if we are to save our planet from the ravages of corporate greed and the specter of endless and futile war.

The Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, in his poem “Rypin,” translated by Peter Cole, examined what power, force and self-worship do to compassion, justice and human decency. Rypin was the Polish town his father escaped from during the pogroms.

These creatures in helmets and khakis,
I say to myself, aren’t Jews,
In the truest sense of the word. A Jew
Doesn’t dress himself up with weapons like jewelry,
Doesn’t believe in the barrel of a gun aimed at a target,
But in the thumb of the child who was shot at—
In the house through which he comes and goes,
Not in the charge that blows it apart.
The coarse soul and iron first
He scorns by nature.
He lifts his eyes not to the officer, or the soldier
With his finger on the trigger—but to justice,
And he cries out for compassion.
Therefore, he won’t steal land from its people
And will not starve them in camps.
The voice calling for expulsion
Is heard from the hoarse throat of the oppressor—
A sure sign that the Jew has entered a foreign country
And, like Umberto Saba, gone into hiding within his own city.
Because of voices like these, father
At age sixteen, with your family, you fled Rypin;
Now here Rypin is your son.

Chris Hedges gave this talk Saturday night in Washington, D.C., at the Occupy AIPAC protest, organized by CODEPINK Women for Peace and other peace, faith and solidarity groups.

Source: Chris Hedges | Truthdig.com

Walnuts for Prostate Cancer, Osteoporosis and CHD

Americans are being kept in the dark about a natural cure for prostate cancer and osteoporosis by none other than the US Food and Drug Administration. [Image]

More scientific evidence confirms that walnuts have some amazing properties: not only did they reduce tumor size in mice, but they also lowered LDL, the “bad” kind of cholesterol that leads to heart disease, according to a new study published in the British Journal of Nutrition last week.

“If additional research determines that walnuts have the same effect in men as they do in mice, adhering to a diet that excludes walnuts to lower fat would mean that prostate cancer patients could miss out on the beneficial effects of walnuts,” said lead researcher Paul Davis.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in American men. One in six men will be diagnosed with it, but only one in 36 will die from the disease because most tumors do not spread beyond the local site, reports the National Cancer Institute.

“These characteristics of prostate cancer make adding walnuts to a diet attractive as part of prostate cancer prevention,” Davis added.

Walnuts have also been shown to reduce bone loss, a serious issue especially for post-menopausal women. But food packages cannot contain such information per the FDA.

Chronic heart disease (CHD) is a growing problem for the elderly.  Because walnuts have a high level of linoleic and linolenic acid, they reduce the risk of heart disease by decreasing LDL-cholesterol and increasing HDL-cholesterol, research has shown several times, even as far back as 1993.

Adding further support to the benefits of a whole food diet, the 2012 study also led researchers to conclude, “The walnut diet’s beneficial effects probably represent the effects of whole walnuts’ multiple constituents and not via a specific fatty acid or tocopherols.”

The California Walnut Board funded the research, and is also funding a follow-up mouse study (co-funded by the American Institute for Cancer Research), to validate the findings and explore possible reasons for the beneficial effects of walnuts.

Not one to allow the American public alternatives to deadly cancer treatments (basically, cut, poison and burn), in 2010 the FDA required Diamond Food to remove all links to scientific studies that support claims that walnuts lower cholesterol and reduce tumor growth.

The FDA also bans cherry sellers from making the claim that they may act as an anti-inflammatory and reduce pain, along with reducing tumor size, even though several studies have shown this likelihood.

You have to wonder why a governmental agency whose primary mission is to protect the public would ban scientific evidence showing beneficial effects of natural, unprocessed foods. The FDA bizarrely asserts that because natural foods have been scientifically shown to prevent or ameliorate disease, those foods are thus classified as drugs.

Please support my work by reading the full piece at Activist Post. Thanks!

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

Obama Administration “Rigging” US Census By Counting Illegal Aliens

The Barack Obama administration is quietly in the process of rigging use of the US Census of 2010, which deliberately counted millions of illegal aliens, for the purpose of restructuring the apportionment of the US House of Representatives. Accordingly, as candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of one of the negatively affected states (Montana), Mr. Bob Fanning and I have joined with several others in becoming amici curiae in a pending federal lawsuit brought by the State of Louisiana against the US Secretary of Commerce, et al., which was filed January, 13, 2012 in the United States Supreme Court.

What has happened is, the US Census Bureau erroneously claims that it “‘is required by the U.S. Constitution count everyone living in this country, regardless of immigration or citizenship status.’” Accordingly, they have counted millions of illegal aliens in the 2010 Census and are using those figures to apportion the US House of Representatives. If this egregious misinterpretation of the US Constitution is allowed to stand, five states (Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Ohio) will lose representation in the US Congress to which they are lawfully entitled, while three states (California, Texas, and Florida) will be awarded additional representation in the US Congress to which they are not lawfully entitled. And, of course, this will also directly impact the makeup of the Electoral College, which ultimately elects the President of the United States.

Of course, this manipulation of the 2010 US Census also impacts the election of the US President, as those states that are granted more seats in the US Congress are also granted more votes in the Electoral College as the Electoral College is composed of a “Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. . . .” (Article. II. Section. I. Clause. 2. US Constitution). And, as everyone knows, under the US Constitution, it is the Electoral College that ultimately elects the President of the United States. Thus, the states of Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Ohio, will be unjustly denied their lawful votes in the Electoral College, while California, Texas, and Florida, are being unjustly granted unlawful votes in the Electoral College. Would it not be extraordinary if the margin by which President Obama is re-elected in the Electoral College would be provided by the manipulation of the census data under his control? Again, this would be an outrage!

In essence, the Obama administration is rigging the US Census to steal a congressional seat from the State of Montana. This rigging will keep Montana from having a second congressional representative. If the illegals in California, Texas, and Florida are not included, then Montana will receive two congressional seats and four electoral votes. Under Obama’s rigging plan, Montana will continue to have only one congressional seat and three electoral votes.

Considering the major media and even most “conservative” talking heads have said virtually nothing about this monstrous misallocation of constitutional government is just the latest example of how truly out of touch the people who are entrusted to inform the American people really are.

The plaintiff in this case is the State of Louisiana, which has now been joined and supported by amici U.S. Border Control, U.S. Border Control Foundation, U.S. Justice Foundation, Institute on the Constitution, Gun Owners of America, Inc., Gun Owners Foundation, English First, English First Foundation, Conservative Legal Defense and Education Fund, The Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, Public Advocate of the United States, Policy Analysis Center, Virginia Del. Bob Marshall, Oklahoma Rep. Charles Key, Maryland Del. Don Dwyer, Washington Rep. Matt Shea, Wyoming Sen. Kit Jennings, as well as Candidate for Governor of Montana, Bob Fanning, and Candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Montana, Chuck Baldwin.

Attorneys filing this brief before the US Supreme Court are Herbert W. Titus, William J. Olson, John S. Miles, Jeremiah L. Morgan (of the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C. of Vienna, Virginia) and Gary G. Kreep (of the U.S. Justice Foundation).

As citizens of the State of Montana, and as candidates for Governor and Lieutenant Governor of the State of Montana, Bob Fanning and I are outraged at this unconstitutional manipulation of the 2010 US Census, and the subsequent unconstitutional and unlawful misapportionment of the US House of Representatives. We are further outraged that our own governor, Brian Schweitzer (the incumbent Democrat governor who is term-limited out of office after the completion of his current term) has done nothing to prevent the people of the State of Montana from being denied the rightful seating of an additional US House member from the Montana delegation to Washington, D.C. He has not served as Montana’s watchman, to make certain that our State is being treated fairly by the Obama administration. Louisiana has been forced to go it alone, as the only State willing to bring this challenge. By not joining the lawsuit against the Obama administration, what Governor Schweitzer in essence is doing is allowing illegal aliens to deny the due representation of the citizens of Montana in Washington, D.C. This is an outrage!

It is a gross misinterpretation of the US Constitution to claim that the US Census is supposed to “count everyone living in this country.” Article. I. Section. I. Clause 3. as amended by Section. 2. of the 14th Amendment authorizes “a targeted decennial census of the ‘respective numbers’ of ‘the People’ of the several States, not a wholesale count of the numbers of persons found ‘living’ in the United States.” The term “the People” is a technical term used in the U.S. Constitution to refer to the polity, that is, the people who constituted the government and who are legal citizens of the nation. Only by such a tailored count can the constitutionally-authorized decennial census serve the purpose for which that census has been required–the apportionment of representation of the people of the several states in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“It is manifestly untrue that the decennial census ordained by the Constitution is to be taken without regard to a person’s ‘immigration or citizenship status.’ The decennial census is conducted for the apportionment of representation in the House of Representatives, the members of which are ‘chosen every second Year by the People of the several States.’ (Article. I. Section. 2. Clause. 1. US Constitution). The first sentence of the 14th Amendment establishes a symbiotic relationship between a person’s United States citizenship and that person’s State citizenship. Thus, whether a person is part of ‘the People’ of a State is largely, if not exclusively, dictated by a person’s ‘immigration or citizenship status.’ Any census that ignores that connection is fatally flawed.”

In the afore-mentioned lawsuit, we are asking the US Supreme Court to preserve the integrity of the US House of Representatives and Electoral College.

I can tell you that the people who want to disassemble constitutional government in this country are hoping that no one notices what the Obama administration is doing to manipulate the 2010 US Census to unlawfully reconstruct the US House of Representatives and Electoral College. Well, I can tell you, Bob Fanning and I (along with the other amici curiae supporting Louisiana in this lawsuit) are not going to let that happen!

I will be holding a press conference to blow the whistle on what is taking place to deny the people of the State of Montana (along with the people of the states of Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio) their lawful representation in Washington, D.C. I am also using the influence and outreach of this column to alert the American people as to how the Obama administration is attempting to manipulate the US House of Representatives and Electoral College.

It is more than interesting also that the “anointed” establishment neocon Republican Montana gubernatorial candidate, Rick Hill, has, himself, not even bothered to alert the people of Montana to this travesty. Why not? Rick is a career politician who once served in the US House of Representatives from Montana. One would think he would want to protect the people of the State of Montana from this outrage. But he has said nothing! Plus, have you heard anything about this from any of the “conservative” talking heads on FOX News? No you haven’t! Why not? Why is it left to this column to alert you to this gross violation of constitutional government?

Therefore, I unashamedly appeal to readers to help Bob and I carry this fight to preserve the integrity of the US House of Representative and the Electoral College to the US Supreme Court. Please go to our web site at:

http://www.fanning-baldwin.com

I also highly encourage readers to visit the web site of the law firm filing this brief. William J. Olson, Herbert Titus, et al., have been at the front lines in helping to defend constitutional government for longer than many of us have been alive. Bill Olson and Herb Titus have defended a sizeable number of patriot organizations and individuals against federal usurpation for decades. I don’t know of another law firm with the credentials and track record of fighting for constitutional government, Second Amendment rights, and individual liberty anywhere in the country than the law firm of William J. Olson, P.C.

To learn more about this lawsuit and the Olson law firm, go to:

http://www.lawandfreedom.com/

In the meantime, each of us should be using our individual and collective sphere of influence to trumpet this attempted travesty as loudly as possible! I especially encourage readers in the states of Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, and Ohio to demand of every elected public office holder in their respective states to use every means possible to defend the lawful rights of their states to proper representation in the US House of Representatives and the Electoral College. The people of America simply must not allow this flagrant manipulation of the 2010 US Census to take place! If the Obama administration gets by with this now, think how the states’ representation in Congress will be abused in the future.

America, Welcome To The Fourth Reich

American Fascism did not start with World War II. Before Operation Paperclip, the codename under which the US intelligence and military services extricated scientists from Germany, during and after the final stages of the conflict, the annals of internal despotism were well established. With the open door policy for German engineering, the political ideology of state worship was bound to travel across the Atlantic.

The Pampas of Argentina or the backwaters of Paraguay were the preferred location for those who openly professed their reprehensible loyalty to the Führer principle. However, do not blame all those ex-Nazis for selecting the shores of the Americas for their new domicile, their seeds were planted long ago in the offices of Wall and Broad Streets. Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will saga shares more, than what one wants to admit, about the dark side of American History.

Do not be confused. National Socialism is an abhorrent notion to most Americans. Nevertheless, the political foundation of that false ideology is based upon pure Fascism forged in a marriage of the Corporate/State that produces this demented offspring. The systematic destruction of the essential purpose and motivation for the American Revolution is undeniable with any objective examination of the regretful legacy of domestic tyranny.

This record of monocracy is one of a criminal class, as opposed to the iron fist of a single man. If you belief this is an erroneous assessment, consider the following chronicle.

From the beginning of the Republic, the Federalists conspired for the illegal passage of their central government constitution in order to form a competing world empire with their British cousins. Their leader was Alexander Hamilton, who championed making individual states subservient to the original crony capitalists. When the Father of our Country, George Washington admonished about the dangers on entangling alliances, the world was warned that the drive towards independent liberty was compromised under this new Federal system.

When Andrew Jackson rallied frontier populism against the establishment elites of his era, you had an opportunity to restore some of the former glory of the Revolution of 1776. The conflict over the abolishment of the National Bank symbolizes the eternal struggle that continues to this very day.

The Manifest Destiny of the U.S.-Mexican War demonstrated just how far the country strayed from the fundamental concept of independence from England. The expansionistic campaign had more in common with the Crown than the Boston Tea Party.

The early 19th century fascists looked to their next defender Abraham Lincoln, the lawyer for the railroad corporatist cabal and the worst of all despotic presidents, to complete the task.

Mark Dankof cites Thomas DiLorenzo’s work in the article, Lincoln in Fort Sumter, False Flags, and The Empire’s Coming Crusade.

Myth #1: Lincoln invaded the South to free the slaves.

Myth #2: Lincoln’s war “saved the Union.”

Myth #3: Lincoln championed equality and natural rights.

Myth #4: Lincoln was a defender of the Constitution.

Myth #5: Lincoln was a “great humanitarian” who had “malice toward none.”

Myth #6: War was necessary to end slavery.

The significance of the War of Northern Aggression is that the principle of independent sovereign states under the precepts of constitutional law died. With the prevention of secession, the liberty of a voluntary union was betrayed for the rule, under a loyalty oath, to an Amerikan Reich.

The next False Flag excuse was the Spanish-American War and the “Remember the Maine!” slogan that pushed the country into a “Pacific Imperium“. Those NeoCons, like Senator John McCain, who revere Theodore Roosevelt as a model for imperialist jingoism, draw their psychopathic lusts from the same bloodline as Reinhard Heydrich and Heinrich Himmler.

World War I produced the infamous Woodrow Wilson internationalist treason. No longer will America be a society governed by elected representatives. The only coup to come out of his administration was won by the banksters. The fate of a proud people, sealed with the creation of the Federal Reserve, the establishment of the income tax and the permanent foreign military intervention abroad is the basis for the final destruction of the country and the horrors that befell our nation in the last century.

World War II inflicted the Franklin D. Roosevelt curse that guaranteed the imposition of socialism on the American people. How ironic that the Hitler bogyman’s regime, the scourge of Western Civilization and the reason for defending democracy, ultimately lead to similar collectivist policies, now adopted in the United States.

Just look to the ignominious involvement of Prescott Bush’s involvement with the funding of Adolph Hitler. Even FAUX news cannot hide the relationship in Bush’s Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler.

“Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.”

So what can and should a “reasonable man” conclude from these examples from history? The essential lesson is that the pristine fairy tale of the federal government’s noble role as defender of righteousness, that politicians want to accept and often die for, is a fictional myth.

Power politics always serves the interests of the banking elites, who control the political process, own the financial capital and manipulate the media viewpoint of events. This reality is pure fascism. You live under this system, so grow up, and admit it . . . it is the lamentable truth.

Barry Soetoro, aka, Barack Hussein Obama fits the fascist mold to the tee. In the video, , the treachery of his administration is evident. The eradication of States Rights is standard policy coming out of this Federal governance regime. The separation ethnic dictates of the Nazi hooligans seem to contrast with the multicultural amnesty immigration ordinances that the Holder DoJ office fosters. However, if you look closely, both share a parallel distain for the rights of indigenous citizens.

The Third Reich wanted to export their undesirables, while the Fourth Reich wants to destroy the natural citizenry by importing unwanted illegals. A fair read of the State of Arizona SB 1070 Bill indicates that individual states are under attack from a federal tyranny in the same way that the German people were subjugated by the Swastika.

Ian Gurney offers this comparison.

“Now let’s take a quick look at Germany in the 1930’s and 40’s as the Nazis reared their ugly heads. Here was a country that was financially crippled with a massive budget deficit owing billions of dollars to the rest of the world. Just like the USA.

In the 1930’s Germany was a country where the burning of the Reichstag, engineered by Hitler and his henchmen, was used to create external enemies and to exert internal control over the German people. Hitler then used the media to lie, frighten and deceive the population, allowing a bunch of vicious, extreme, right wing megalomaniacs to gain power. Just like the USA.

In the 1930’s Hitler was surrounded by a group of unelected officials whose sole objective was to take control of Germany for their own ends and with the use of their military might, take control of the assets and prosperity of other, weaker countries. Just like the USA.

In 1939 Hitler embarked on a series of pre-emptive attacks on sovereign nations in the name of “freeing the people” of that country. Just like the USA.

In 1940 the German hierarchy started building special “camps” or detention centres in which to incarcerate and eventually execute those people considered to be “against” their regime. Just like the USA.”

The Fourth Reich did not originate with Operation Overcast, the initiate name for Operation Paperclip. The classic book Fourth Reich of the Rich, by Des Griffin deserves another read.

Mr. Griffin states,

“Some 150 years ago, in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln acknowledged the fact that “no foreign power or combination of foreign powers could by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.”At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up from among us, it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die of suicide.”

Are we committing national suicide? Webster’s Dictionary (1828) defines suicide as: “Self murder; the act of designedly destroying one’s own life.” For that to be true on a national scale, the decisions leading up to our national self-destruction would, of necessity, have to be made by those who govern the country Congress, or “the government.”

Much of the German population was captivated by Hitler. The “presstitute” Goebbels’ media holds out Obama as a shining example. His manners are a composition of every tyranny to grace the scorched earth of despotic government. Will the America public come to their senses and make war against this Amerikana version of the Fourth Reich? You need not look for the Boys from Brazil to find today’s Nazi’s. They do their business in New York City, run their international institutes from London and order their bombing from Washington, DC.

Sieg heil! to the New World Order is the modern definition of national suicide.

Mitt Romney Desperate To Hide Truth

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes it is small things which are most telling.

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

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

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

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

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

Can you tell what this means?

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

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

Here is the translation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Even Meow-Meow knows about reality.

Short Platform

• Ratify the ERA

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

Why Iran Doesn’t Scare Me

The screaming meemies in the War Party have their undies in a bunch over the prospect of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

So?

Israel has over 100 nuclear warheads.

The U.S. has thousands of nuclear warheads.

Just one of our Ohio-class submarines can carry 192 nuclear warheads.

Ahmedinejad is a lot of bad things. However, he is not stupid. What do you think the U.S. or Israel would do if he were to attack either of us?

I will let this be a rhetorical question.

And besides, if he were to nuke Israel, the fallout would kill a lot of his Muslim siblings in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, etc.

Does he want that?

I don’t think so.

Hence, Iran doesn’t scare me.

Wikipedia: List of Countries by military expenditure 2010.

Iran is 25th on this list, just behind Singapore. It spent about $7 billion on its military in 2010, or just over 1% of what the U.S. spent.

One more time, Iran doesn’t scare me.

Frito-Lay sued for labeling its GMO-filled snacks as “All Natural”

Less than a year after Frito-Lay announced plans to make half their products without “any artificial or synthetic ingredients,” the $13 billion company was sued last week in federal court for fraudulently marketing the snacks that contain genetically modified ingredients.

Somehow, “artificial” and “synthetic” doesn’t include “genetically modified” in Frito’s mind.

In its April 2011 “Seed-to-Shelf” disclosure campaign, Frito-Lay promised to inform consumers about each individual snack’s ingredients, even setting up an app for smartphone users to swipe the product’s barcode and read about it. Ann Mukherjee, Frito-Lay’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, gushed:

“What better way to share the story behind Frito-Lay snacks than by giving consumers a look inside our Flavor Kitchen to see first-hand the all natural ingredients and real foods that inspire the products we make?”

Real foods?  All natural?  Even Monsanto defines genetically modified organisms as unnatural, which the lawsuit quoted: “Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) – Plants or animals that have had their genetic makeup altered to exhibit traits that are not naturally theirs.”

The World Health Organization agrees, defining GMOs as “organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.”

The lawsuit names only one plaintiff, Julie Gengo of Richmond, California, but includes all those who purchased Frito’s products which bear the “ALL NATURAL” label.  Last August, the law firm Milberg LLP invited potential litigants to contact them.

Though Gengo holds a BS in Electrical Engineering, she earns a living as an independent marketer for such organizations as Berkeley Playhouse/Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Vital Systems, Bay Area Green Tours, Oxfam America and Slow Money Northern California. She  herself as “an ongoing environmental, and healthy foods advocate.”

In early 2009, she wrote Genetically Modified (GM) Foods – Another Reason to Buy Organic, warning people that Frito-Lay uses GMOs.  According to the complaint, since 2007, she regularly bought the company’s Tostitos and Sun Chips believing they were “all natural” as indicated in advertising and on the package.

On Dec. 20, Frito’s “Naturally Delicious” webpage still boasts: “All Frito-Lay snack chips made with natural ingredients start with all-natural corn or potatoes and healthier oils. For our flavored LAY’S®, TOSTITOS® and SUNCHIPS® products, we are using all natural seasonings that don’t have artificial or synthetic ingredients.”

But because they contain GMOs from genetically modified corn and genetically modified soy, in five separate counts, plaintiff charges Frito-Lay with fraud, deception, unfair competition and false warrants under several laws including the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act.

Based in New York City and specializing in class-action lawsuits on behalf of investors and consumers, Milberg LLP also has offices in Los Angeles, Tampa and Detroit. Founded in 1965, the firm now employs about 75 attorneys.

After two successful class action suits against military contractors Raytheon and General Electric, in 2006 Milberg was the target of a criminal probe by the US Dept of Justice. The firm and some of its partners were indicted on 20 criminal counts including bribery, racketeering and fraud. The DOJ press release alleges the firm participated “in a scheme in which several individuals were paid millions of dollars in secret kickbacks in exchange for serving as named plaintiffs in more than 150 class-action and shareholder derivative-action lawsuits.”

Four of Milberg LLP’s partners served time in prison, and the firm paid $75 million in fines before the DOJ dropped the matter, reports Wikipedia.

Frito-Lay North America is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc. Though Pepsi uses genetically modified sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup) in its soft drinks, it does not label them for U.S. consumers, adhering to the US regulator policy of hiding GMOs from the public.

In 2009, the US Food and Drug Administration proposed rules banning GMO labels. Despite government policy of keeping GMO food ingredients secret from the public, citizens are advancing toward requiring full disclosure.

• House Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) recently introduced H.R. 3553, the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act and H.R. 3554, The Genetically Engineered Safety Act, which would prohibit the open-air cultivation of genetically engineered pharmaceutical and industrial crops.

• The Frito-Lay lawsuit was initiated in California where a GMO-label law has been proposed for vote in the November 2012 election.

• In Ohio, a district court overturned the ban on labeling milk as free from artificial hormones last year.  The FDA approves the genetically modified additive, which has been linked to cancer and lower milk quality. Developed by Monsanto, rBGH is banned in Canada, the European Union, Japan and Australia.

I have to admit I still enjoy a bag of Fritos every now and then, a victim of high school euphoric recall when we would smoke a bowl and then eat Fritos, washing them down with cold chocolate milk.  (What a body rush.)  Still, I want the packages labeled.  A better snack is hand-made eggrolls, with completely organic ingredients and sauce. You can find that recipe in Cooking Close to Home.  I even found a package of eggroll wraps (at Whole Foods Market) that advised the product was made without GMOs.  Na na na to the FDA.

Hollywood Unraveling the Fabric of Society

Liberal Hollywood is intentionally corrupting children’s morals via the movies and TV programs they produce for public consumption.  Dictionary.com defines the word intentional in this way: done with intention or on purpose.  In my opinion the harm Hollywood is doing to the minds and hearts of the next generation, which includes people of faith, is on purpose — and it’s criminal.

In my last article, Kids are being exposed to shocking levels of sexual content, I alerted parents to one of the plot lines in the popular TV show ‘Glee.’:

Fox Entertainment’s prime time Emmy nominated musical series ‘Glee’ is viewed by tens of thousands of teens, especially girls.  On November 8 the hit show featured two high school age couples losing their virginity.  One couple was heterosexual, the other homosexual.  Not surprisingly the ‘gay’ couple was featured on the cover of Entertainment Weekly with the headline: Gay Teens On TV – How a bold new class of young gay characters on shows like ‘Glee’ is changing hearts, minds and Hollywood.” The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) nominated ‘Glee’ for best TV comedy series that promotes homosexuality. 

The Parents TV Council recently alerted the public to the Worst TV Show of the Week. Guess which TV show they picked?  Yep, ‘Glee.’  Here’s why:

In a previous episode, Puck expressed his infatuation for Shelby in a fantasy-musical number of Van Halen’s “Hot for the Teacher.” In this episode, he basically serenades her with his classroom rendition of Melissa Etheridge’s “I’m the Only One.” Shelby rebuffs his advances until a medical emergency sends her reeling. Puck comes to her rescue, comforting her at the hospital after her adopted daughter (Puck and Quinn’s child) needs stitches due to an accidental fall. Suddenly, in Shelby’s vulnerable state, Puck ends up in her bed. Post coitus, Puck tells her, “You know, the advantage of a relationship with a younger dude is that I still got four more rounds in me before I need a steak sandwich and a Coke Zero.” Shelby immediately regrets what they’ve done and ushers him out.

Student-teacher sexual abuse has been spotlighted in the news lately due to recent legislation passed in Missouri designed to curtail contact between students and teachers via social networking. The Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, named after a student who was repeatedly assaulted by a middle school teacher, was signed into law in July, and has prompted school districts across the country to reconsider their social networking policies amid a rash of high-profile allegations of sexual misconduct between teachers and students. Just this past October an Ohio gym teacher, Stacy Schuler, was convicted of sexual battery for having sex with five male students.

Against this backdrop, the Puck-Shelby storyline is the height of irresponsibility. The show tries to skirt the legal issues by stating that Puck is 18 years old. But the show glosses over the inherent power imbalance of a student-teacher relationship. Regardless of who is the aggressor, any sexual relationship between a high-school student and a teacher is exploitative. (Online source) 

You ask, why would the producers/writers of ‘Glee’ make light of a teacher and a student having casual sex?  The answer is obvious.  These people have no scruples!  They couldn’t care less if young people in middle school have sex.  The producers/writers simply lack a moral compass.  You’d think adults would be aware of the downside of immature teens engaging in sexual relations.  Does it not occur to them that market share and advertising revenue isn’t worth a story line that potentially will result in girls 15 and younger becoming pregnant?

At a very young age an unwed pregnant girl whose lover wants no part of the mess they’re in is forced to make some life changing decisions that require maturity beyond her years.  Decisions such as: 1) Should I abort my baby; 2) Should I go through with the pregnancy; 3) If I go through with the pregnancy should I then allow a couple to adopt my baby;  4) Should I keep my baby and raise it myself; 5) Should I drop out of school.

Is it possible that this actually does occur to Hollywood elites but for them it’s all about pushing the envelope, making oodles of money, receiving awards — and most importantly, becoming famous.  After all, it’s famous faces that get splashed across the covers of magazines, right?

There are other ramifications when teens engage in casual sex.  For example, the ones who have loose morals are far more likely to contract diseases such as HIV/AIDS, human papillomavirus (genital warts or HPV), genital herpes, Chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis.

Instead of encouraging young people to abstain from having sex, Tinseltown’s message to them is to practice ‘safe sex.’  In other words, use a condom.  Problem is most teens (and a large number of adults) are unaware that condoms do not provide 100% effectiveness against some STDs.

So – is it any wonder that 25% of American teenage girls ages 14-19 have at least one STD?  Currently there’s no cure for HPV.  Moreover, this dreadful virus can lead to cervical cancer!  Girls who have sexual intercourse before the age of 18 are unaware that they have an increased risk for developing cervical dysplasia which can lead to cervical cancer.  That’s not all.  Giving birth before the age of 16 increases the risk of developing cervical dysplasia.  And for all you Gardasil fans, the vaccine protects against the types of HPV infection that cause most cervical cancers but it does not protect against all infections.  Here’s more bad news.  Many STDs have vague or no symptoms.

As if the health risks aren’t bad enough a recent study conducted by Ohio State University College of Medicine reports that teen sex may impair brain development!   The study reveals, how social experiences during adolescence when the brain is still developing can have broad consequences. … Specifically, the animals that mated earlier in life had higher levels of depressive behaviors, changes to the brain and smaller reproductive tissues compared to those that had intercourse later or not at all.

“Having a sexual experience during this time point, early in life, is not without consequence,” study co-author John Morris, a doctoral student in psychology at Ohio State, said in a statement. (Online source)

Those who work in the entertainment industry are most responsible for sexualizing young people so I find it ironic that they promote safe sex!  Earth to Tinseltown !  The so-called safety measures are not all that safe. And we now learn that teen sex may affect brain development!

Brent Bozell wrote a piece titled Hollywood’s Soda-Pop Statism.  Bozell informs us that on a far left blog, former entertainment executive Laurie David offered this pre-holiday piece of encouragement:

“Thanksgiving Conversation Starter: Is It Time to Ban Soda Ads on Prime Time Television?”At the same time that the broadcast networks are allowing – even advocating – the removal of all limitations on nudity or profanity on TV, at any hour of the day, David is most upset about those old polar bear ads for Coca-Cola:

“Knowing what I know now about the effects of sugary drinks on children, the image of kids chugging down a Coke (or in this case polar bear cubs) evokes the same feelings I’d get if they were taking a deep drag on cigarettes.”

One wonders if a high school student engaging in sex with his/her history teacher would evoke a raised eyebrow from Laurie David.  One also wonders if she’s concerned that students are learning about ‘gay’ sex despite the fact that sodomy is a high risk behavior.

Instead of children learning reading, writing and arithmetic in our tax funded public schools, teachers all across America are mandated to teach children that sodomy is “normal and natural.”  Many Students graduate from high school unable to spell simple words or write a basic sentence, yet valuable class time is taken up to teach them the ends and outs of oral and anal sex?

Borrowing again from my last article, some of the health risks I pointed out inherent in ‘gay’ sex bear repeating.  For one thing, the homosexual community is the most severely affected by HIV/AIDS and are the only risk group in which new HIV infections have been steadily increasing since the early 1990s.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report titled HIV among Gay, Bisexual and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men, in 2006 homosexuals accounted for 53% of all new HIV infections in the U.S.  And Lorie David worries about youngsters imbibing soft drinks?

Getting back to ‘Glee’ the executives and sponsors of the show need to tune into the news once in a while. The program that spotlighted a teenage student having sex with his adult teacher was aired about the time that the story of former football coach Jerry Sandusky’s arrest for alleged child rape was making headlines.   Which begs the question: Why is ‘Glee’ playing with fire by showing teacher-student sex?  Okay, the student was 18. But a senior in high school nonetheless.

Hollywood…pushing the envelope…breaking taboos… desensitizing the public…tearing down the moral construct this country was built on…mocking the traditional family…rewriting history…disrespecting Judeo-Christian values…even blaspheming God.  Where do they plan to go next?  Could it be the normalization of pedophilia?   No, they wouldn’t go that far, would they?  Former child star Cory Feldman told CBS that pedophilia is Hollywood’s biggest problem.   (Online source)

The larger question is why do people, especially those who self-identify as Christians, allow the entertainment industry and product advertiser’s filth into their homes?   I believe it is because many parents are clueless as to what their children are being exposed to.

The apostle Paul wrote, And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. (Rom 12:2)

There’s not enough space to cover what perverts are doing behind the scenes to normalize pedophilia.  For those who want to know more about what the pervs are up to read Janet Shaw Crowse’s article Normalizing Penn State Pedophilia.

Being an outspoken Bible-believing Christian I’m bound to receive a flood of emails from pedophiles who feel the need to point out that Jesus Christ never mentioned the sick twisted perversion of man-boy sex (homosexuals use this argument too) so I’ll address what the Bible says here.

First off, the Apostle John states that Jesus said many things that were not written down (John 21:25).  For example, our Lord didn’t mention abortion, homosexuality, rape, incest, or cannibalism.  However, just because he didn’t address every sin throughout the Bible doesn’t mean He would approve.  Secondly, Jesus considered the writings of the Old Testament to be both trustworthy and authoritative.  Thirdly, Jesus addressed sex outside of marriage in Matthew 19:4-6.  He said marriage is between one man, the husband and one woman, the wife.  The bottom line is that the Bible condemns sex outside of marriage.

That said, anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that adult-child sex is an egregious sin.  Men and women who rob children of their innocence for their deviant self gratification should not be free to prowl school yards for innocent victims.  Moreover, anyone with an ounce of common sense will acknowledge that child rapists must be incarcerated.

I’ll close with some sage advice from Sam Blumenfeld in ‘Does God Exist?’:

“Imagine an America in which every child has a Bible and can study it in school! Do you think we’d have the moral chaos among teens we have today? That ought to be the great task of Christian missionaries today: to put a Bible in the hands of every child in America. Some won’t read it. But many others will.”

Recommended Reading:

The Feds Knew: 50 years of Fracking-Induced Earthquakes

Washington’s Blog posted some info last August confirming that the US federal government has long known of the link between fracking and earthquakes, as well as the link between deep well fluids contaminating shallow drinking wells. As more info keeps coming out, this collection should serve as a handy resource for those confronting (or occupying) well sites or state regulatory agencies.

At a recent oil & gas conference, frackers urged colleagues to engage in psyops to con Americans into accepting carcinogenic drinking water and earthquakes as the price to pay for oil and gas. The Oil & Gas Accountability Project taped the speakers and turned it over to CNBC which posted the audio.

Business Insider recently posted 10 Counterinsurgency And ‘Psy-Ops’ Tactics Companies Use Against Protesters, based on the recommended Army’s counterinsurgency manual.

In Fracking May Have Caused 50 Earthquakes in Oklahoma, Brian Merchant writes:

In a surprising turn of events, Cuadrilla Resources, a British energy company, recently admitted that its hydraulic fracturing operations “likely” caused an earthquake in England….

Right on the heels of Cuadrilla’s announcement, news is spreading that theUnited States Geological Survey has released a report (pdf) that links a series of earthquakes in Oklahoma last January to a fracking operation underway there….

The U.S.G.S. determined that “from the character of the seismic recordings indicate that they are both shallow and unique.”

From the report:

Our analysis showed that shortly after hydraulic fracturing began small earthquakes started occurring, and more than 50 were identified, of which 43 were large enough to be located. Most of these earthquakes occurred within a 24 hour period after hydraulic fracturing operations had ceased. There have been previous cases where seismologists have suggested a link between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes, but data was limited, so drawing a definitive conclusion was not possible for these cases.

The report is still under peer-review, and even then, the correlation between fracking and the quakes is inconclusive. The U.S.G.S. notes that region has historically been seismically active, though the summary states that the “strong correlation in time and space as well as a reasonable fit to a physical model suggest that there is a possibility these earthquakes were induced by hydraulic fracturing.”

While Merchant tiptoes around the issue, it’s clear to many that fracking is more than correlated; it’s causative.

The US Geological Survey confirms that “the link between fracking fluid injection and the earlier series of earthquakes was established” in 1990 at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal by Craig Nicholson and R.I. Wesson in “Earthquake Hazard Associated with Deep Well Injection” (1990).

In 2001, the EPA also confirmed the link between deep injection fluids and toxic contamination of shallow water wells near Boulder, Colorado. (See Underground Injection Control Regulations 2001.)

Fracking in the New Madrid Fault zone has generated hundreds of earthquakes each year, far exceeding the previous annual earthquake history prior to the advent of mass drilling. (SeeFracking the life out of Arkansas and beyond.)

On Jan. 31, 1986, I stood in my office on the 13th floor in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, when we experienced a 30-second earthquake measuring 5.0 on the Richter Scale. () The quake rumbled 11 states and Ontario, Canada. Researchers Nicholson and Wesson questioned if the quake was induced by fracking, writing in 1988:

“Three deep waste disposal wells are currently operating within 15 km of the epicentral region and have been responsible for the injection of nearly 1.2 billion liters of fluid at pressures reaching 112 bars above ambient at a nominal depth of 1.8 km. Estimates of stress inferred from commercial hydrofracturing measurements suggest that the state of stress in northeastern Ohio is close to the theoretical threshold for failure along favorably oriented, preexisting fractures.”

Daneen Peterson collected the following videos and reports:

Fracking Hell: The Untold Story (17:53)
This video is an original investigative report by Earth Focus and UK’s Ecologist Film Unit looks at the risks of natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale deposits. It covers the introduction of toxic chemicals that end up in the drinking water, the unregulated interstate dumping of radioactive waste and that the wells leak radioactive radium.

The following video reveals that a “Halliburton loophole [in a] 2005 energy bill completely exempted natural gas industry and gas fracking from any regulation under the Safe Water Act.” That fact is PROOF, like the vaccine exemptions given, that “they” know full well that what they are doing is extremely harmful.

If that ONE ‘loophole’ were eliminated . . . the OVERWHELMING revelations would KILL ALL FUTURE FRACKING!

60 Minutes Video Piece on Dangers of Natural Gas Fracking

Pittsburgh’s drinking water is radioactive, thanks to fracking. Only question is, how much?

Residents of Pittsburgh — as well as potentially tens of millions of other everyday citizens in the Northeast corridor who rely on their taps to deliver safe water — are consuming unknown and potentially dangerous amounts of radium in every glass of water. That’s the buried lede in the Sunday New York Times‘ massive exposé on fracking, the relatively new process for extracting natural gas from the massive shale formation that stretches from Virginia to New York state.

Even frackers admit that the Marcellus Shale formation “is mildly radioactive since it contains a small amount of uranium and produces gamma radiation from decaying organic matter.” But, of course, it denies that any “significant amount of this radioactivity is released in the natural gas produced from the shale.”

Gasland‘s reach and Oscar nomination brought enough attention to the issue to warrant apparent censorship of industry concessions that the documentary got things right:

“We have to stop blaming documentaries and take a look in the mirror,” Matt Pitzarella, a spokesman for gas producer Range Resources Corp., was quoted as saying in [The Wall Street Journal].

However, if you go to the article, you won’t find Pitzarella’s statement because within the hour the quote disappeared, say citizen journalists, whoscreen captured it and posted it on Twitter.

Toxic Contamination From Natural Gas Wells
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-map.html?ref=us
This shows an interactive map of the types and areas that are contaminated in Pennsylvania.

Water Problems From Drilling Are More Frequent Than PA Officials Said
http://www.propublica.org/article/water-problems-from-drilling-are-more-frequent-than-officials-said-731

When methane began bubbling out of kitchen taps near a gas drilling site in Pennsylvania last winter, a state regulator described the problem as “an anomaly.” But at the time he made that statement to ProPublica, that same official was investigating a similar case affecting more than a dozen homes near gas wells halfway across the state.

In fact, methane related to the natural gas industry has contaminated water wells in at least seven Pennsylvania counties since 2004 and is common enough that the state hired a full-time inspector dedicated to the issue in 2006. In one case, methane was detected in water sampled over 15 square miles.

In another, a methane leak led to an explosion that killed a couple and their 17-month-old grandson.

The Tyee: Fracking and Quaking: They’re Linked

The number of mini-quakes in highly drilled Alberta alone has increased so demonstrably in recent decades (from 60 to more than 200 a decade) that the government launched a project “to document and understand their relationship to oil and gas production.” Concluded researchers in the Canadian Journal of Exploration Geophysics in 1994: “there do appear to be spatial and temporal correlations between the earthquakes and oil production in the Eagle West and Eagle fields [in Fort St. John, B.C. ]. Fluid injection in particular must be considered as a possible cause.”

“Stage Two” of the BP Gulf of Mexico Environmental Disaster

Since BP’s catastrophic Macondo Blowout in the Gulf of Mexico last year, the Obama Administration has granted nearly 300 new drilling permits [1] and shirked plans to plug 3,600 of more than 28,000 abandoned wells, which pose significant threats to the severely damaged sea.

Among those granted new permits for drilling in the Gulf, on Friday Obama granted BP permission to explore for oil in the Gulf, allowing it to bid on new leases that will be sold at auction in December.

Reports Dow Jones:

“The upcoming lease sale, scheduled for Dec. 14 in New Orleans, involves leases in the western Gulf of Mexico. The leases cover about 21 million acres, in water depths of up to 11,000 feet. It will be the first lease auction since the Deepwater Horizon spill.” [2]

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey objected to BP’s participation in the upcoming lease sale, pointing out that:

“Comprehensive safety legislation hasn’t passed Congress, and BP hasn’t paid the fines they owe for their spill, yet BP is being given back the keys to drill in the Gulf.”

Environmental watchdog, Oceana, added its objection to the new permits, saying that none of the new rules implemented since April 2010 would have prevented the BP disaster.

“Our analysis shows that while the new rules may increase safety to some degree, they likely would not have prevented the last major oil spill, and similarly do not adequately protect against future ones.” [3]

Detailing the failure of the Dept. of Interior’s safety management systems, Oceana summarizes:

• Regulation exemptions (“departures”) are often granted, including one that arguably led to the BP blowout;
• Economic incentives make violating rules lucrative because penalties are ridiculously small;
• Blowout preventers continue to have critical deficiencies; and
• Oversight and inspection levels are paltry relative to the scale of drilling operation.

Nor have any drilling permits been denied [4] since the BP catastrophe on April 20, 2010, which still spews oil today [5].

28,079 Abandoned Wells in Gulf of Mexico

In an explosive report at Sky Truth, John Amos reveals from government data that “there are currently 24,486 known permanently abandoned wells in the Gulf of Mexico,and 3,593 ‘temporarily’ abandoned wells, as of October 2011.” [6]

TA wells are those temporarily sealed so that future drilling can be re-started. Both TA wells and “permanently abandoned” (PA) wells endure no inspections.

Over a year ago, the Dept. of Interior promised to plug the “temporarily abandoned” (TA) wells, and dismantle another 650 production platforms no longer in use. [7] At an estimated decommissioning cost of $1-3 billion [8], none of this work has been started, though Feds have approved 912 permanent abandonment plans and 214 temporary abandonment plans submitted since its September 2010 rule. [9]

Over 600 of those abandoned wells belong to BP, reported the Associated Press last year, adding that some of the permanently abandoned wells date back to the 1940s [10]. Amos advises that some of the “temporarily abandoned” wells date back to the 1950s.

“Experts say abandoned wells can repressurize, much like a dormant volcano can awaken. And years of exposure to sea water and underground pressure can cause cementing and piping to corrode and weaken,” reports AP.

Leaking abandoned wells pose a significant environmental and economic threat. A three-month EcoHearth investigation revealed that a minimum of 2.5 million abandoned wells in the US and 20-30 million worldwide receive no follow up inspections to ensure they are not leaking. Worse:

“There is no known technology for securely sealing these tens of millions of abandoned wells. Many—likely hundreds of thousands—are already hemorrhaging oil, brine and greenhouse gases into the environment. Habitats are being fundamentally altered. Aquifers are being destroyed. Some of these abandoned wells are explosive, capable of building-leveling, toxin-spreading detonations. And thanks to primitive capping technologies, virtually all are leaking now—or will be.” [11]

Sealed with cement, adds EcoHearth, “Each abandoned well is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. The triggers include accidents, earthquakes, natural erosion, re-pressurization (either spontaneous or precipitated by fracking) and, simply, time.”

As far back as 1994, the Government Accountability Office warned that there was no effective strategy in place to inspect abandoned wells, nor were bonds sufficient to cover the cost of abandonment. Lease abandonment costs estimated at “$4.4 billion in current dollars … were covered by only $68 million in bonds.” [12]

The GAO concluded that “leaks can occur… causing serious damage to the environment and marine life,” adding that “MMS has not encouraged the development of nonexplosive structure removal technologies that would eliminate or minimize environmental damage.”

Not only cement, but seals, valves and gaskets can deteriorate over time. A 2000 report by C-FER Technologies to the Dept. of Interior identified several different points where well leaks can occur, as this image (p. 26) reveals. To date, no regulations prescribe a maximum time wells may remain inactive before being permanently abandoned. [13]

“The most common failure mechanisms (corrosion, deterioration, and malfunction) cause mainly small leaks [up to 49 barrels, or 2,058 gallons]. Corrosion is historically known to cause 85% to 90% of small leaks.”

Depending on various factors, C-FER concludes that “Shut-In” wells reach an environmental risk threshhold in six months, TA wells in about 10-12 years, and PA wells in 25 years. Some of these abandoned wells are 63 years old.

The AP noted that none of the 1994 GAO recommendations have been implemented. Abandoned wells remain uninspected and pose a threat which the government continues to ignore.

Agency Reorganization

The Minerals Management Service (MMS) was renamed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE) last May after MMS drew heavy fire for malfeasance, including allowing exemptions to safety rules it granted to BP. An Office of Inspector General investigation revealed that MMS employees accepted gifts from the oil and gas industry, including sex, drugs and trips, and falsified inspection reports. [14]

Not only was nothing was done with the 1994 GAO recommendations to protect the environment from abandoned wells, its 2003 reorganization recommendations [15] were likewise ignored. In a June 2011 report on agency reorganization in the aftermath of the Gulf oil spill, the GAO reports that “as of December 2010,” the DOI “had not implemented many recommendations we made to address numerous weaknesses and challenges.” [16]

Reorganization proceeded. Effective October 1, 2011, the Dept. of the Interior split BOEMRE into three new federal agencies: the Office of Natural Resources Revenue to collect mineral leasing fees, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) “to carry out the offshore energy management and safety and environmental oversight missions.” The DOI admits:

“The Deepwater Horizon blowout and resulting oil spill shed light on weaknesses in the federal offshore energy regulatory system, including the overly broad mandate and inherently conflicted missions of MMS which was charged with resource management, safety and environmental protection, and revenue collection.” [17]

BOEM essentially manages the development of offshore drilling, while BSEE oversees environmental protection, with some eco-protection overlap between the two agencies. [18]

Early this month, BSEE Director Michael R. Bromwich spoke at the Global Offshore Safety Summit Conference in Stavanger, Norway, sponsored by the International Regulators Forum. He announced a new position, Chief Environmental Officer of the BOEM:

“This person will be empowered, at the national level, to make decisions and final recommendations when leasing and environmental program heads cannot reach agreement. This individual will also be a major participant in setting the scientific agenda for the United States’ oceans.” [19]

Bromwich failed to mention anything about the abandoned wells under his purview. Out of sight, out of mind.

Cost of the Macondo Blowout

On Monday, the GAO published its final report of a three-part series on the Gulf oil disaster. [20] Focused on federal financial exposure to oil spill claims, the accountants nevertheless point out that, as of May 2011, BP paid $700 million toward those spill claims out of its $20 billion Trust established to cover that deadly accident. BP and Oxford Economics estimate the total cost for eco-cleanup and compensatory economic damages will run to the “tens of billions of dollars.” [21]

On the taxpayer side, the GAO estimates the federal government’s costs will exceed the billion dollar incident cap set by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (as amended). As of May 2011, agency costs reached past $626 million.

The Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund’s income is generated from an oil barrel tax that is set to expire in 2017, notes GAO.

With Monday’s District Court decision in Louisiana, BP also faces punitive damages on “thousands of thousands of thousands of claims.” U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier denied BP’s appeal that might have killed several hundred thousand claims, among them that clean up workers have still not been fully paid by BP. [22]

Meanwhile, destroying the planet for profit continues unabated. It’s time to Occupy the Gulf of Mexico: No more oil drilling in our food source.

Notes:

[1] U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, “Status of Gulf of Mexico Well Permits,” n.d. http://www.bsee.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Permits/Status-of-Gulf-of-Mexico-Well-Permits.aspx

[2] Tennille Tracy, “US Govt Approves First BP Deepwater Exploration Plan in US Gulf Under New Rules,” Dow Jones News Wire, 24 Oct. 2011. Reproduced athttp://www.firstenercastfinancial.com/news/story/45441-us-govt-approves-first-bp-deepwater-exploration-plan-us-gulf-under-new-rules

[3] Michael Craig and Jacqueline Savitz, “False Sense of Safety: Safety Measures Will Not Make Offshore Drilling Safe,” Oceana, 20 Oct. 2011http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/reports/OffshoreSafetyReport_Oceana_10-18-11.pdf

Also see Oceana’s online appendix showing an analysis of each new safety measure’s effect on safety.http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/OnlineAppendix_SafetyReport_Oceana_10-19-11.pdf

[4] U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, “Application for Permit to Drill (APD) Approval Process and Definitions,” n.d.http://www.bsee.gov/uploadedFiles/APD_Facts_and_Definitions_BSEE.pdf

[5] See, e.g.:

David Edwards, “New evidence of a massive oil slick near Deepwater Horizon site,” Raw Story, 1 Sept. 2011. http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/09/new-evidence-of-a-massive-oil-slick-near-deepwater-horizon-site/

Frank Whalen, “Oil Still Gushing from Bp Well in Gulf,” American Free Press, 2 Sept. 2011. http://americanfreepress.net/?p=341

Dahr Jamail, “Environmental Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico: The Escalation of BP’s Liability,” Global Research, 5 Oct. 2011.http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26947

Luis R. Miranda, “Gulf of Mexico Sea Floor Unstable, Fractured, Spilling Hydrocarbons,” The Real Agenda, 10 Oct. 2011. http://real-agenda.com/2011/10/10/gulf-of-mexico-sea-floor-unstable-fractured-spilling-hydrocarbons/

[6] John Amos, “Over 28,000 Abandoned Wells in the Gulf of Mexico,” 18 Oct. 2011.http://blog.skytruth.org/2011/10/abandoned-wells-in-gulf-of-mexico.html

[7] U.S. Dept. of the Interior, “Interior Department Issues ‘Idle Iron’ Guidance,” 15 Sept. 2010. http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/Interior-Department-Issues-Idle-Iron-Guidance.cfm

[8] Siobhan Hughes, “Plugs Ordered on Idle Wells: Move to Permanently Seal Sites in Gulf Could Cost Billions but Create New Work,” Wall Street Journal, 16 Sept. 2010.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703743504575493782591743858.html

[9] U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, “Idle Iron Update,” n.d. (pp. 9-16) https://www.noia.org/website/download.asp?id=47290

[10] Jeff Donn and Mitch Weiss, “Gulf of Mexico hides 27,000 abandoned wells,” Associated Press, 7 July 2010.http://www.dallasnews.com/news/state/headlines/20100707-Gulf-of-Mexico-hides-27-000-1068.ece

[11] Steven Kotler, “Planet Sludge: Millions of Abandoned, Leaking Oil Wells and Natural-Gas Wells Destined to Foul Our Future,” EcoHearth, 17 Aug. 2011.http://ecohearth.com/eco-zine/green-issues/1609-abandoned-leaking-oil-wells-natural-gas-well-leaks-disaster.html

[12] U.S. Government Accounting Office, “Offshore Oil and Gas Resources: Interior Can Improve its Management of Lease Abandonment,” (GAO/RCED-94-82) May 1994.http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat3/151878.pdf

[13] J.R. Nichols and S.N. Kariyawasam, “Risk Assessment of Temporarily Abandoned or Shut-in Wells,” C-FER Technologies, Oct. 2000.http://www.boemre.gov/tarprojects/329/329AA.pdf

[14] U.S. Dept. of the Interior, Office of Inspector General, “Investigative Report – Island Operating Company, et al.,” 31 March 2010.http://www.govexec.com/pdfs/052510ts1.pdf

[15] U.S. Government Accounting Office, “Results-Oriented Cultures: Implementation Steps to Assist Mergers and Organizational Transformations,” (GAO-03-669) 2 July 2003. http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-03-669

[16] U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Oil and Gas: Interior’s Restructuring Challenges in the Aftermath of the Gulf Oil Spill,” (GAO-11-734T) 2 June 2011.http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11734t.pdf

[17] U.S. Dept. of the Interior, “Interior Department Completes Reorganization of the Former MMS,” 30 Sept. 2011. http://www.doi.gov/news/pressreleases/Interior-Department-Completes-Reorganization-of-the-Former-MMS.cfm#

[18] U.S. Dept. of the Interior, untitled document distinguishing the areas of responsibility between the BOEM and the BSEE. n.d.http://www.bsee.gov/uploadedFiles/A%20to%20Z%20Guide%20web%20version%281%29.pdf

[19] U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, “BSEE Director Delivers Remarks at the International Regulators Forum 2011 Global Offshore Safety Summit Conference,” 4 Oct. 2011. http://www.boemre.gov/ooc/press/2011/press1004.htm

[20] U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Actions Needed to Reduce Evolving but Uncertain Federal Financial Risks,” (GAO-12-86), 24 Oct. 2011. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1286.pdf

[21] U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Preliminary Assessment of Federal Financial Risks and Cost Reimbursement and Notification Policies and Procedures,” 9 Nov. 2010. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d1190r.pdf

[22] Sabrina Canfield, “Judge Denies BP Appeal That Might Have Killed Thousands of Claims,” Courthouse News Service, 24 Oct. 2011.http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/10/24/40864.htm

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