Former CBS News president Richard Salant (1961 - 64 and 1966 - 79) explained the major media's role: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ...and to this very day most Americans haven't noticed they're being brained washed! ~ N. Hooben
Saturday, July 25, 2009
As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots...
As a nation we are under the thumb of idiots. Not just indoctrinated, or wrong-thinking, or power-hungry, or manipulative, or even malevolent people. No, I mean real lowbrows, people who constantly fall for really stupid ideas. Neanderthals. (Look at the Governor of California just running the state budget into the ground. See what I mean? That's not just incompetence. It takes special stupidity, almost a deliberate, willful absence of real thinking.)
The Federal EPA is about to officially declare carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. That's not just false and unscientific; it's not just an excuse for taxing everything in sight, including breathing. It's not merely wrong. It's idiotic. It marks a low point in our national conversation. Scientists or engineers with a grain of sense shouldn't be taking the EPA seriously for a second. Forget the "climate experts," with their grossly inadequate computer models. Normally intelligent people should boggle at the EPA. They are bizarre. Only the truly ignorant could fall for this level of ignorance. Or those who just can't think.
Or look at Obama's unbelievable spending spree. No sane and sensible taxpayer could possibly believe that spending trillions and trillions of dollars on blue-sky fantasies makes any sense at all; the only reason Americans aren't in open rebellion yet is that half of them can't believe it's happening, and the other half are idiots. We haven't seen the effect (yet) on our pocketbooks. There's food in the stores still, and housing has gotten cheaper. But let Obama's budget affect our wallets directly and just watch the voters explode with rage. Read more here: http://dtrtcybercrew.com/journal/2009/6/26/when-did-the-lowbrows-take-over-the-culture.html
See also: OPEN LETTER TO THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES: YOU ARE BEING DECEIVED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING
"we HAD a dishonest debate" WE can agree on that!
Obama, as a man without a conscience — that is, a sociopath — whose overriding goal in life is to dominate everyone and everything, who does not have the ability to feel empathy and whose cool, calm demeanor is based on the fact that there are very few emotions that sociopaths genuinely have — will tell any lie to get his way. There is no such thing as a lie Obama will not tell — quick, what’s his latest position on Gitmo? on gay rights? Besides his sociopathy, another reason Obama holds so many mutually exclusive positions simultaneously, or in rapid sequence, is that prospective opponents tune out once they hear him say what they want to hear. So a lot of his supporters have no idea that he has made so many promises that are impossible to keep. In addition, Obama does not worry about ever keeping a promise because he is supremely confident in his ability to destroy anyone who insists that he does.It’s really so simple! The Obama Prevarication Predictor Principle is that Obama’s next Big Lie will target any consensus that would thwart one of his objectives. The content of the Big Lie will be to seek to destroy the consensus. So the Big Lie will assert that whatever people are objecting to won’t be proposed, or won’t happen, or is not a “must have.” It will always seem very accommodating.
The actual result will be along the lines of Obama’s recent bamboozling of his gay supporters when they got uppity over all his broken promises about repealing DOMA and DADT and stopped their campaign donations. He quickly arranged a sham accommodation by having his minions trumpet a long list of coveted rights Obama would grant to same-sex partners of federal employees. The gay lobby still really hasn’t caught on that Obama’s presidential memorandum included the stipulation that it would comply with DOMA, which negates almost everything Obama’s initial pronouncements claimed his memorandum would allow. But most gays were only paying attention to the promises and won’t find out Obama’s promises can’t be honored until they try to cash them in. Meanwhile, Obama shattered their consensus and duped them back into the fold.
My prediction for Obama’s Big Lie in his address to the nation tonight is based on House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s statement yesterday that Congress may adjourn on August 7 without having passed Obama’s healthcare reform bill along with signs of doubts from erstwhile Democratic true believers. So I predict Obama’s Big Lie will be that the time for talk is over so healthcare reform bill must be passed in a big hurry, fast, fast, fast, don’t bother to read it, just do it now!
Friday, July 24, 2009
Out in the middle of nowhere and the liberals attack again...It's gotta stop folks, it's just got to stop!
Revolution...Freedom... "It is staring you in the face, daring you to make a move."
Let's be honest, America is facing the same legal, moral and ethical questions that our Founding generation did, especially regarding the issue of "Who Is Sovereign in the United States." For our Founders, they fought, bled and died on the principles that no man or government has the right to rule over others contrary to their agreement (i.e. compact, constitution) and contrary to the principles of natural law as revealed in the Creation of God; that all men are born in nature with the power to govern themselves; and that no Sovereign government, established lawfully by the consent of we the people, can be usurped and controlled by any other entity. Thus, today in America, the question once again comes down to "Who is Sovereign in the United States?"
Today, there are 3 basic options for "Who is Sovereign in the United States": (1) the Federal government, (2) the State governments or (3) We the People. I feel confident in stating that most contemporary Americans believe that the answer to this critical question is the Federal government--especially as it concerns any practical effect on the power of and over government. For years, Americans have been brainwashed though public education, major media networks and politicians that ALL federal laws are the "supreme law of the land" and that no state law or action to the contrary is valid, citing Article 6, paragraph 2 of the US Constitution as their "irrefutable" proof. Of course they are completely wrong: American ideology and legal fact states that sovereignty rests with "we the people." However, the question must be more narrowly defined.
That is, does the sovereign power of we the people rest with all the people in the nation as one body, or does the power rest with the people THROUGH the respective States? The answer to this question cannot be overstated, because if the sovereign power rests with we the people collectively as one body, then the States have absolutely no power and at the ratification of the US Constitution, the States lost all powers originally granted to them by their respective sovereigns (the people of that State). To the contrary, if Sovereignty rests within or through their respective States, then the States conversely have more power than what is being admitted today by the "Centralists" of our day.
Through an honest study of the history and the context of the Articles of Confederation, the US Constitution, the Constitutional Convention and subsequent Ratification debates, the Federalist Papers, the Anti-Federalist Papers, the rulings of subsequent US Supreme Court Rulings and the writings of political philosophers and statesmen of the 1700s and 1800s, the conclusion is undeniable and clear: We the People are the Sovereigns of the States respectively and of the States United through our respective States.
Thus, the issue is not who is Sovereign, because we know that We the People are sovereign in the US and that the Sovereigns of each State have never ceded to the Federal government any power not expressly granted to it by the Compact (the US Constitution). But rather, the issue is one of JURISDICTION: in other words, who has the power to act on behalf of and in compliance with the Sovereign? The issue of jurisdiction is so important because it acknowledges that since the Sovereign has "paramount authority" in government, any powers that are granted from the Sovereign to government are to remain within that grant of authority. Put another way, the States can no more grant authority to the Federal government against the will of the Sovereign--the people--than the Executive branch of the Federal government can give to the Judiciary branch the powers that we the people granted to it alone. To deny that such a grant exists or conversely to ignore the limitations placed on the governments by the Sovereign is to suggest that tyranny is a lawful act and that it must be complied with. America's founders would have considered such a political theory to be treasonous. Do we the people think so seriously of the matter? According to recent events, the answer to this question will likely be answered sooner than later.
As some of you may know, several states have and are passing legislation regarding the independence and sovereignty of the people of their respective states. More specifically, the states of Tennessee and Montana have passed "Firearms Freedom Acts," which have become law and which reaffirm their Sovereignty under the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution. This law states that any firearms that are made, sold and bought in that state are NOT subject to the Federal regulations of firearms, because they are inherently internal affairs, which exempt them from the commerce clause of the US Constitution.
As you would imagine, the Federal government, through its agency, the Department of Justice, did not take too kindly to Tennessee's assertion of jurisdiction over this matter and position that the federal laws did not apply to the subject matter at hand. This federal opposition has become known through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), whereby they informed the firearms licensees in an "open letter" in Tennessee that the recently enacted law (Firearms Freedom Act) does not apply and is void and that they (the firearms licensees) must still obey and submit to the federal laws, regardless of the State's statute. (See here)
This ATF response tells us the following about the federal government's ideology of Sovereignty: (1) the federal government does not recognize the lawful and independent jurisdiction of the Sovereigns of Tennessee to operate their internal affairs as they deem proper and fitting; (2) the Sovereigns of Tennessee do not possess lawful jurisdiction to govern themselves through constitutional means; (3) the federal government has the power and authority to control the internal affairs of all States, as they deem fit. Bottom line, the Federal government is Sovereign. With their theory in mind, however, what commodity, what relationship, what contract, what service, or what molecule in this entire country would not be subject to their control and power?
This issue is the very same reason why the Colonists declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776 and why Great Britain declared the Colonies to be in a state of rebellion against the government. The conflict was in fact the application of their Constitution: whether it be a "living" constitution or whether it be "fundamental laws" based upon the intent and will of the people. The fact is, it was the Great-Britain-view of their constitution verses the American-view of their constitution that caused the conflict between the crown and the colonies. One historian summarizes the conflict this way:
"The contrast cannot be too strongly insisted upon. [The colonists], on the one hand, believed that the British Constitution was fixed by 'the law of God and nature,' and founded in the principles of law and reason so that Parliament could not alter it, but [Great Britain believed] that 'the constitution of this country has been always in a moving state, either gaining or losing something,' and 'there are things even in Magna Charta which are not constitutional now' and others which an act of Parliament might change. Between two such conceptions of the powers of government compromise was difficult to attain . . . Such differences in ideals were as important causes of a breaking-up of the empire [of Great Britain] as more concrete matters like oppressive taxation." (Claude Halstead Van Tyne, The Causes of the War of Independence, Volume 1, [University of Michigan, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1922], 235, 237).
Indeed, the issues of taxation during the 1760s and 1770s were only fruits of the underlying issue, and that is, who is Sovereign in America. According to Great Britain, the government had the power to impose its will on the people of America despite the will of the colonies and despite the natural laws governing the compact between the English people and their government. In other words, the government believed that their constitution was "living," giving the government power to impose its will on the people, without the people's consent. The colonists, however, saw the matter to be a usurpation of their God-given right to be governed by their consent and in compliance with their constitution. The end result: the Sovereigns in each colony seceded from the empire of Great Britain because of Great Britain's refusal to follow their constitution.
Do Sovereigns throughout our States United not see the significance of the issue we are facing today? Are we so blind to history that we cannot compare this scenario to the very scenarios that led to the American Revolution? Are we so ignorant as to the intents and purposes of the US Constitution? Consider that the "supreme laws of the land" were never meant to be carte blanche powers of the Federal government, but instead federal laws were expressly limited by the terms of the compact between and for the States, found in the Constitution. This concept of "supreme law of the land" was expressed by a founding father, whom many would consider to be a "centralist" in belief, Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist Paper #27:
"[T]hat the laws of the Confederacy [meaning, the United States of America--yes, even Hamilton, along with many other founders, such as George Washington, called the US Constitution a Confederacy, because they knew that the nature and character of the compact of the US Constitution did not change from the Articles of Confederation] as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdiction, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land, to the observance . . . in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the respective members, will be incorporated into the operation of the national government AS FAR AS ITS JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY EXTENDS."
Hamilton's legal position concerning the limited power of the federal government and the "supreme law of the land" was the consensus of the founders, the States and we the people. Nowhere in America's founding was there the notion that the supreme laws of the land were anything contrary to the compact FOR the States. The supreme laws of the land are simply those "fundamental laws" that we the people have created and imposed upon the government to follow and uphold.
Of course, the question has been raised over the past 150 years of "who has the power to determine whether or not the Federal government has usurped their constitutional authority?" The popular answer is (wrongfully), the US Supreme Court. God forbid that the Sovereigns of each State must wait and rely on 9 federal judges to make rulings of this nature before a State would have any legal rights or justification to act in accordance with the will of their Sovereigns. Indeed, the ATF interpreted the Constitution unilaterally without the opinion of the US Supreme Court and without opinion or order denied the constitutionality of Tennessee's Firearms Freedom Act. The Sovereigns in each state have the same power, and the historical and legal evidence is plentiful. Consider Thomas Jefferson's position:
"[T]he States should be watchful to note every material usurpation on their rights; denounce them as they occur in the most peremptory terms; to protest against them as wrongs to which our present submission shall be considered, not as acknowledgments or precedents of right, but as a temporary yielding to the lesser evil, until their accumulation shall overweigh that of separation." (Thomas Jefferson and John P. Foley, ed., The Jeffersonian Cyclopedia, A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson, [New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1900], 133)
I will not attempt to persuade the reader at this point on the fallacious position that only the US Supreme Court can make a determination of constitutional actions. However, for those who would argue that the US Supreme Court is in fact the only legal means by which a State can say "no" to the federal government, then I believe that such a person has reached the point of voluntary slavery, and such a person is dangerous to the concepts of federalism, American-sovereignty, and constitutional limits and freedom, as expressed by thousands of the most influential men in our history. And such a person has accepted only those political means of redress whereby the Sovereigns of each State drudge through the treacherous mud of tyranny and get absolutely nowhere.
What we are seeing today, and have seen for over 100 years in America, is the usurpation of the federal government over Sovereignty--we the people--and over Jurisdiction--the States. While this article cannot begin to expound in depth the true character and nature of the US Constitution, a study of history reveals that the US Constitution was an agreement between the Sovereigns of each State whereby they acceded to give up only certain parts of their sovereignty for the "more perfect union" of the people within those States. As with any sovereign people or government, accession may be limited to whatever means and ways necessary to protect the freedom of that society. This is in fact what the Colonists did in 1776 when declaring independence from Great Britain, what the States did in 1781 when ratifying the Articles of Confederation, and what the States did in 1787 when ratifying the US Constitution. It was the Sovereigns, through their respective States, who declared their natural rights under God, who secured their natural rights through independence from governments and who expressed that any act outside of their consent is tyranny.
When this recognition resounds in the hearts and minds of the people, as our Declaration of Independence states, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Do you really think after only 11 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence that those same people who risked everything for independence from those "living-constitutionalists" in Great Britain and who believed in the principles seen in the Articles of Confederation would have completely renounced their understanding of a Confederacy and Federalism and would have resigned the same and delegated all of their powers that they fought and died to secure for each State and for their citizens? If you think so silly a notion, you severely impose injustice upon the intelligence and intentions of our founders.
However, the record is clear that the Sovereigns of each State never ceded to the federal government powers not expressly vested to it and never waived the ability to reclaim that power through their proper channels--the States--the same channels by which the US Constitution was ratified. Consider the Sovereigns' voice in the State of Virginia in 1787:
"We the delegates of the people of Virginia . . . Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby, remains with them and at their will; that therefore no right, of any denomination, can be cancelled, abridged, restrained or modified by the congress, by the senate or house of representatives acting in any capacity, by the president or any department, or officer of the United States, EXCEPT IN THOSE INSTANCES IN WHICH POWER IS GIVEN BY THE CONSTITUTION FOR THOSE PURPOSES." (Emphasis added.)
However, the Federal government today does not recognize the Sovereignty in the people of the respective states; it does not recognize the respective States' jurisdiction over all matters not expressly delegated to the federal government; and it does not seem to acknowledge State Sovereignty under the 10th amendment of the US Constitution. Given their evident intent and purposes to continually grow in power and to continually oppress and suppress the sovereignty of we the people, against our respective states, the question becomes, how will they be made to understand this? It is of course up to the Sovereigns in each state to answer this question. And we see the answers arriving through State laws such as the Firearms Freedom Act.
The time has come in America where to be free necessarily means to resist status quo and federal usurpation and to actively change the course and philosophy being shoved down our throats. There really is no middle ground any more. This is not a matter of politics anymore. This is not a matter of Republican and Democrat. This is a matter of FREEDOM, as much so as were the matters of 1775 and 1776. It is staring you in the face, daring you to make a move. May we never be guilty of causing, whether by our apathy, indifference, laziness or comfort, this nation to lose the freedoms that our founders attempted to secure with infinite pains and labors. We the people must once again reassert our Sovereignty in this country and the States must recognize and act upon their God-ordained role as Freedom protectors and tyranny resisters.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The Only Problem...this is not a game!
Click on picture to enlarge.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Now if we can only get Massachusetts to say, "Just say no!"
The sweetest words that could ever be, would be:
Be it resolved that the Massachusetts State Legislature hereby claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.
Be it further resolved that this resolution serves as Notice and Demand to the federal government to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.
THE SARAH CHRONICLES
Palin to feds: Alaska is sovereign state
Constitutional rights reasserted in growing resistance to Washington
Posted: July 20, 2009
11:08 pm Eastern
By Chelsea Schilling
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
 Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin |
Gov. Sarah Palin has signed a joint resolution declaring Alaska's sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution – and now 36 other states have introduced similar resolutions as part of a growing resistance to the federal government.
Just weeks before she plans to step down from her position as Alaska governor, Palin signed House Joint Resolution 27, sponsored by state Rep. Mike Kelly on July 10, according to a Tenth Amendment Center report. The resolution "claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States."
Alaska's House passed HJR 27 by a vote of 37-0, and the Senate passed it by a vote of 40-0.
According to the report, the joint resolution does not carry with it the force of law, but supporters say it is a significant move toward getting their message out to other lawmakers, the media and grassroots movements.
Alaska's resolution states:
Be it resolved that the Alaska State Legislature hereby claims sovereignty for the state under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States.Be it further resolved that this resolution serves as Notice and Demand to the federal government to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.
While seven states – Tennessee, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska and Louisiana – have had both houses of their legislatures pass similar decrees, Alaska Gov. Palin and Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen are currently the only governors to have signed their states' sovereignty resolutions.
The resolutions all address the Tenth Amendment that says: "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
TheTenth Amendment Center also reported that Florida State Sen. Carey Baker, R-Eustis, introduced a memorial earlier this month urging "Congress to honor the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and United States Supreme Court case law which limit the scope and exercise of federal power."
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"Now more than ever, state governments must exercise their Constitutional right to say no to the expansion of the federal government's reckless deficit spending and abuse of power," Sen. Baker said. "With this resolution, our Legislature can send a message to Washington that our state's rights must be respected."
The full text of Florida's memorial is available on the Tenth Amendment Center website.
As WND reported, South Carolina's proposal, S. 424, is titled: "To affirm South Carolina's sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution over all powers not enumerated and granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution."
Essentially it's a reminder that the United States is made up of individual states; it's not a federal authority broken up into political subdivisions.
In South Carolina, the proposals remains pending in the state Senate, where Sen. Lee Bright said he still hopes that it will be adopted this year.
The proposal there notes specifically that the "federal government was created by the states … to be an agent of the states," and the states currently "are treated as agents of the federal government," many times in violation of the Constitution.
Bright told WND the movement is spreading from state to state as fast as lawmakers discover it.
Michael Boldin, a spokesman for the Tenth Amendment Center, said his organization has created a posting for all such proposals to be tracked.
Among the states where such proposals at least have been considered are Louisiana, Colorado, Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois, West Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Nevada, Oregon, Alabama, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Idaho, New Mexico, South Dakota, Virginia, Kentucky, Alaska, Indiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, Minnesota, South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, Texas, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Missouri, Iowa, Montana, Michigan, Arizona, Washington and Oklahoma.
In Louisiana, it passed the Senate in May and the House in June.
In Idaho, it passed the House in March and the Senate in April.
In North Dakota, it passed the House and Senate both in April, with the House a short time later adopting changes made by the Senate.
In South Dakota, it was approved by both houses of the Legislature and under that state's rules does not need the governor's signature.
In May, Rep. M.J. "Manny" Steele, a Republican in South Dakota, wrote that he believes up to $11 trillion is being wasted in the coming years by Washington's efforts "to duplicate and micromanage our states' affairs."
He said states should manage their own affairs and not be dependent on a federal cash cow to make ends meet. Likewise with industries, he said, citing federal cash dumps on the banking, insurance and automobile industries.
Steele told WND his dollar estimate was based on what President Obama himself has allocated in the coming years to spend on stimulus packages, industry bailouts and the like.
"If we would just let the market take care of these things," he said.
His letter noted that Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina legislatures joined South Dakota's in passing some statement on the Tenth Amendment this year. The results vary based on state procedures, however. In Oklahoma, the governor vetoed the plan and it was launched on its second trip through the legislature and has been passed by the House.
"Over the course of decades, there have been increasing federal mandates and acts designed to effectively step in and legislate the affairs of our various states from Washington D.C.," Steele said. "Federal usurpation into state affairs severely limits the ability of state governments to operate according to their citizens' wishes."
We inherited WHAT from GW Bush? What is the press telling you? Wake up America! (oh, that's right, I said that before)
Maybe reporters Brian Faler or Nicholas Johnston at Bloomberg asked Barack Obama some really challenging questions when they had a chance to interview the President at the White House. Maybe they even did some basic fact-checking. If so, there’s precious little evidence of either in their June 16 report.
They allowed the president to blame most of the current year’s deficit on George W. Bush. They let him speak of “robust” growth when the best guesstimates they quoted for the second half of this calendar year and all of next year are anemic — at least as the press benchmarked growth during the Bush 43 years.
The Bloomberg pair also ignored the alarming deterioration in federal receipts from economic activity that has continued into June, one of the four biggest collections months of the year.
Obama Says ‘Robust’ Growth Will Prevent Tax Increases (Update1)President Barack Obama said he is “confident” that he won’t have to raise taxes on most Americans to close the budget deficit as long as the economy picks up steam.
“One of the biggest variables in this whole thing is economic growth,” the president said in an interview with Bloomberg News at the White House. “If we are growing at a robust rate, then we can pay for the government that we need without having to raise taxes.”
Obama has repeatedly said he would keep his campaign pledge to cut taxes for 95 percent of working Americans while rolling back tax breaks for households making more than $250,000 a year.
“I’m confident that we don’t have to raise taxes on ordinary working families,” he said.
The U.S. economy shrank at a 5.7 percent annual pace in the first quarter, reflecting declines in housing, inventories and business investment. Growth is expected to turn positive in the second half of the year, accelerating 0.5 percent from July through September and 1.9 percent in the final three months of this year, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 62 economists. The median forecast for growth next year is 1.8 percent, according to the survey.
Obama warned that if economic growth remains “anemic” and Congress fails to adopt his plans to hold down the cost of health care, work on alternative energy sources and improve the U.S. education system, “then we’re going to continue to have problems.”
He also repeated his promise to cut the budget deficit, forecast to hit $1.8 trillion this year, in half by the end of his first term. The budget he submitted to Congress in February anticipates that the government will still run what would be, by historic standards, large deficits for the foreseeable future.
….. “If my proposals are adopted, then not only are we cutting the deficit in half compared to where it would be if we didn’t do anything, but we’re also going to be able to raise revenue on people making over $250,000 a year in a modest way,” he said. “That helps close the deficit.”
….. Obama said a large part of the current budget deficit was inherited from the administration of former President George W. Bush, his predecessor, and that extra spending was needed to address the worst global financial crisis since World War II.
First, here are direct responses to the bolded items:
- If the President is looking for “robust” growth as the press defined it from 2001-2008, he’ll have to go to calendar year 2011 to find it, based on the economists Bloomberg surveyed. You can take it to the bank that no establishment media reporter would have let Bush or any of his economic advisers get away with characterizing 1.8% growth as “robust” (nor should they have), and no reporter would have used the word “accelerating” to describe 0.5% quarterly growth (nor should they have; not annualized, it’s only +0.0125%). Yet there’s no hint of a challenge from the duo, and Bloomberg’s editors — if they exist — let their adjective describing pathetic growth stand.
- With tobacco tax increases of up to 2173% that went into effect in April, Obama has already broken his promise to cut taxes for 95% of “working Americans.” The Associated Press’s Calvin Woodward, who is one of the few reporters at the wire service successfully avoiding the Obama Kool-Aid machine, made that point when the increases took effect (”PROMISES, PROMISES: Obama tax pledge up in smoke”). Yet — no challenge.
- The “large deficits” by “historic standards” were called “record deficits” during the Bush 43 years, when they were much lower, and were records by much smaller amounts. Yet — there’s the watered down language.
- The “inherited” line would have some credibility if anyone could cite one meaningful instance where Obama opposed additional spending. The only one I can think of is that he may have voted against funding the war in Iraq. But he has long since signed on to continued spending there, proving that any anti-funding votes he may have made while he was an Illinois senator were postures without significance. More currently relevant, Obama actively supported the blackmail-driven bailout known as TARP, and the black-hole bailouts of General Motors (at least $70 billion and couting by itself) and Chrysler. Yet — no challenge.
Then there’s the matter of the possible need for tax increases, which depends more than a bit on how well tax collections are going.
Collections continue to be in the tank, based on comparing the Monthly Treasury Statement of June 18, 2009, to June 19, 2008 (both Thursdays):
As was the case in April and May, June receipts from economic activity are down from the previous year by over 25%, and seem to be a cinch to trail June 2008 by over $60 billion at month-end. If Treasury is really doing its TARP accounting on a “Net Present Value” basis (discussed in detail at link), the much-heralded TARP loan repayments by major banks amounting to $68 billion, though they will reduce the national debt, will not be treated as receipts.
It will take more than the time-delayed, historically ineffective, mislabeled “stimulus” package that nobody read to restore robust growth such as the annualized 4.8% the Bush economy achieved in the second and third quarters of 2007. It will take something different that is the opposite of tax increases.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Anyone with a Christian, conservative bent fears the reality that the United States is falling headlong off the cliff... Want to know why? Read on...
The Socialization Of America By Dr. David Noebel In retrospect, we might discover that 1883 was a most significant year. We’re familiar with 1848 giving us The Communist Manifesto and 1859 giving us The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. But 1883 gave us three portentous happenings. These seemingly unrelated happenings turned history toward socialism.
Today’s financial events illustrate that America is not exempt from being led toward socialism. Predictions differ, depending on one’s perspective, as to whether this will be a socialistic paradise or a socialistic hell. Time will tell. In the meantime, we’d do well to listen to warnings from the past (Note from Norm: See SCARY 1958 PROPHECY). Russian thinker and author Fyodor Dostoyevsky offered the following take on socialism: “The future kingdom of socialism will be a terrible Arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power; despotic abuse of authority. Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly: "I have sworn . . . eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" (Thomas Jefferson). ', CAPTION, 'Tyranny',BELOW,RIGHT, WIDTH, 300, FGCOLOR, '#CCCCFF', BGCOLOR, '#333399', TEXTCOLOR, '#000000', CAPCOLOR, '#FFFFFF', OFFSETX, 10, OFFSETY, 10);" onmouseout="return nd();" href="javascript:void(0)"> Tyranny of criminals and murderers. It will throw humanity into a true hell of spiritual suffering and poverty.”ocialist George Bernard Shaw added: “You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner.”That’s probably why Margaret Thatcher added that the “problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Today, we can link the U. S. House of Representatives—and its radical, progressive, socialistic societies and caucuses— directly to Karl Marx through Keynes and the Fabians. Before identifying many of the House members caught up in the socialist web, however, let’s first identify the major economic dogma of the early socialists. Socialism is the economic system of both the Marxist-Leninist worldview and the Fabian Society worldview. John Maynard Keynes was a member of the British Fabian Society, whose American counterparts were the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and the League for Industrial Democracy. Their American voices were centered in the ideas of Norman Thomas and John Dewey among others. Dewey, you may remember, was an early signatory of The Humanist Manifesto (1933) and its atheistic, socialist gospel. Socialists are united in their desire to see capitalism destroyed, either forcefully or gradually, and most would rejoice if Christianity were destroyed along with it. Socialists and liberals generally see in Christians “an infallible marker of mental retardation.” (Claremont Review of Books, Winter 2008/09, p. 6) The Christian worldview endorses sound or hard money, fiscal responsibility, saving for a rainy day, deferred gratification, paying off monthly credit card bills, living within one’s means, etc. Keynesian economics, by contrast, argues for consumption, extravagance, and not providing for the future, arguing that “the great vice is saving, thrift, and financial prudence.” (Keynes At Harvard, p. 63) Keynesians love huge national spending, debt, and high inflation—anathema to Christians and conservatives. Socialists see capitalism as an evil economic system founded on the concepts of profit, individualism, private property, private business, freedom to buy and sell products and services, etc. Indeed, a working definition of capitalism is “the peaceful and free exchange of goods and services without theft, fraud, and breech of contract.” Capitalism is tailored to individual initiative rather than groupthink or community initiative. Nearly all inventions that have furthered the capitalistic enterprise and blessed humanity in the process have been the result of individual initiative rather than committee, group, or government activity. Marx advanced the socialist cause by calling for social or public ownership of property and the abolition of private property. He believed that people were best suited to work on state farms, public parks, nationalized banks, or the government bureaucracy rather than for private employers, who would certainly take advantage of their employees, causing them both social and economic harm. Marx was an economic leech on fellow communist Engels, who supported him with his capitalistic father’s monies. George Bernard Shaw represented the Fabian point of view by calling for “the socialization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange” to bring about an equal distribution of goods and services to all members of society and to make the State “the ALL of social well-being.” The State “subsumes all economic life of the nation.” In other words, socialism is an economic system that downplays the individual in favor of the group, social order, or the State. It is a system in which the State directs the economic activity of the social order through central planning and by placing economic activity under the jurisdiction of the State. Socialism is also known as collectivism or Statism and, to Marx, Communism. Today, we call this economic system “interventionism” or Keynesism. Interventionism is a kind of socialism or communism, but without the destruction of the bourgeoisie (which were slaughtered by the millions by Soviet and Chinese communists). Today’s Fabians/Progressives/ Radicals allow their capitalist enemies to create wealth, but acquire it by taxing them instead of slaughtering them (Marx’s “reign of terrorism on the bourgeoisie”). They are then free to distribute the wealth among the economically disadvantaged, the intellectual elites, and the superior governing classes. Such (re)distribution of wealth ensures the favorable vote of the masses being fed, entertained, housed (with sub-prime loans) and doctored. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and socialism fit hand-in-glove just as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fit Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd to a “T.” Most Americans are totally unaware that the U.S. House of Representatives crawls with a large, well-organized assembly of socialist organizations. These organizations are dedicated to (a) bringing about the destruction of the capitalist economic system (portrayed as greedy, conservative, religious, and/or filthy rich) and (b) slowly but surely bringing production, education, food, and health care under the complete control and regulation of the federal government. A prime example of this governmental takeover is the carbon tax currently under discussion. It would punish business and industry’s use of gas and oil products (which according to Al Gore will warm the planet by one degree over the next 100 years) by “allowing] the federal government to ‘control every aspect of our economy,’ according to Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute” (The Weekly Standard, March 16, 2009, p. 17). The legislators involved in this socialistic undertaking belong to one or more radical House organizations: the Progressive Democrats of America (6 House members), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (74 House members), the Congressional Black Caucus (43 House members), and the Democratic Socialists of America. Incidentally, the Democratic Socialists of America do not identify their House members since they consider all members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus part of their membership due to the fact that “they both shared operative social democratic politics.” The most prominent national member of DSA is AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney, who could well be the most powerful influence in the House of Representatives. And for the record, the Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus is Congressional Progressive Caucus member Barbara Lee (CA-9). The interconnections between all these socialist-based organizations is staggering. These organizations and their members quite literally comprise a Socialist Red Army within the very contours of the House of Representatives. According to the Wikipedia article on the organization, “The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is the single largest partisan caucus in the United States House of Representatives and works together to advance progressive [socialist] issues and causes. The CPC was founded in 1991 by independent [socialist] Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who remains a member as Senator. [The CPC] represents about a third of the House Democratic Caucus. Of the twenty standing committees of the House, eleven are chaired by members of the CPC.” When the CPC claimed 64 members in 2006 (now 74 and gaining), the leftist publication The Nation boasted, “The largest ideological caucus in the new House Democratic majority will be the Congressional Progressive Caucus, with a membership that includes New York’s Charles Rangel, Michigan’s John Conyers, Massachusetts’s Barney Frank and at least half the incoming chairs of House standing committees” (The Nation, November 12,2006). These current eleven chairs are CPC members:
As of February 20,2009, the Co-Chairs of the CPC are Raul M. Grijalva (AZ-7) and Lynn Woolsey (CA-6). The Vice Chairs are Diane Watson (CA-33), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18), Mazie Hirono (HI-2), and Dennis Kucinich (OH-10). Incidentally, the CPC website was “hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America” until 1999, a group affiliated with the Socialist International which was founded by Karl Marx, Saint-Simon, and Fourier! The Commission for a Sustainable World Society is one of the Socialist International’s sub-organizations (Note from Norm: See United Nations Division of Sustainable Development). Until President Obama picked Carol M. Browner as his global warming czar, Browner was a member in good standing of the Socialist International. Upon her appointment, her name and biography were removed from its website “though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in Greece was still available” (The Washington Times, January 12,2009, p. 1). We can expect Browner to manipulate and push for every piece of socialist legislation to advance the defeat of capitalism and the imposition of more government on the American people. Oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy represent capitalism, and we can expect Congressional socialists to do everything in their legislative power to thwart their discovery, drilling, usage, and distribution. Socialists promote wind(mill) power because they know it alone cannot meet the energy needs of a capitalist economy and will, therefore, hasten the death of capitalism. Browner will enjoy a great deal of support from the newly appointed Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, who is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And when Browner needs further help, she can rely on the committee chairs, co-chairs, and vice chairs listed above to assist her in using the global warming/climate change scare to bring the United States of America into a socialistic world governing body. She can also count on former CPC member Nancy Pelosi (who is already manifesting dictatorial tendencies) to drive the socialist agenda as fast as humanly possible. Pelosi’s San Francisco district (CA-8) is synonymous with socialism/ progressivism/ collectivism/statism/leftism/radicalism that in turn are synonymous with scientific socialism/communism/ Marxism/Leninism/Maoism. We have yet to address the ideological role played by John Maynard Keynes in the demise of American capitalism and Christian influence. Anyone with a Christian, conservative bent fears the reality that the United States is falling headlong off the cliff into socialism and all that this will entail. It is no secret that the radical left is both anti-capitalist and anti-Christian. Marx would be, no doubt ecstatic, realizing that his life’s work of dethroning God and destroying capitalism are about to be accomplished. Zygmund Dobbs conducted the research for Keynes at Harvard (KeynesatHarvard.org) and summarizes the political, moral, and economic slant of Keynes and his friends at Cambridge University: “Singing the Red Flag, the highborn sons of the British upper-class lay on the carpeted floor spinning out socialist schemes in homosexual intermissions….The attitude in such gatherings was anti-establishmentarian. To them the older generation was horribly out of date, even superfluous. The capitalist system was declared obsolete and revolution was proclaimed as the only solution. Christianity was pronounced an enemy force, and the worst sort of depravities were eulogized as ‘that love which passes all Christian understanding.’ Chief of this ring of homosexual revolutionaries was John Maynard Keynes…Keynes was characterized by his male sweetheart, Lytton Strachey, as ‘a liberal and a sodomite, an atheist and a statistician.’ His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys.” Keynes, like Marx, had a fixation that should have been a clue to his character. Marx practiced phrenology (the study of bumps on one’s head), and Keynes practiced chirognomy (the study of people’s hands). After studying the hands of Charles Darwin’s brother, Sir George, Keynes remarked, “His hands certainly looked as if they might be descended from an ape.” Overall, Keynes despised free or private enterprise, considered homosexuality superior to heterosexuality, sought to replace the gold standard with fiat paper money which was more easily produced by government printing presses, did not believe in the family unit, despised “savings” as a stumbling block against the march of socialism, called on the state to control the number of children per family. The Keynesian economic formula fits all totalitarianisms, including Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Sir Oswald Mosley, for example, was a Fascist leader and a member of the Fabian Society. Lauchlin Currie, a prominent Keynesian advocate, was a Soviet spy and an economic aide to F.D.R. Joan Robinson, a Marxist economist, assisted Keynes in some of his economic writings, arguing, “the differences between Marx and Keynes are only verbal.” (Keynes At Harvard, p. 68; also see Mark Skousen, The Making of Modern Economics, p. 433) Keynes also had a strong relationship with the notorious Soviet spy Harry Dexter White. Keynes considered White to be “the central figure in the Keynesian manipulations in the United States.” Harry Dexter White just happened to be the Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. Even after White was exposed as a Soviet spy, Keynesians to this day “see nothing wrong in White’s Soviet role,” a “typical . . . attitude of Fabian socialist elements toward the whole coterie of spies and Fifth Amendment communists in the United States” (Keynes At Harvard, p. 83). It was Keynes himself who admitted that by “a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but confiscate arbitrarily: and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some [e.g., Al Gore]. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose.” Thus it is astounding that Larry Summers, head of President Obama’s National Economic Council and former president of Harvard University, when asked by Charlie Rose “what idea, what person has most influenced your thinking on how to deal with this [financial] mess?” without hesitation answered “Keynes.” Following the economic advice of Keynes (huge government spending, debt, and inflation) is kissing the American capitalist system goodnight! His advice is what every socialist would give, even though clear-thinking, common sense Americans know that excessive debt and excessive spending are the main ingredients that created this current financial mess (with the help of Congressional Progressives like Barney Frank hatching socialist schemes in the House of Representatives). When Whittaker Chambers took up his sling and aimed his rock at Communism, he admitted that he hit “something else.” What he hit “was the forces of that great socialist revolution, which, in the name of liberalism, spasmodically, incompletely, somewhat formlessly, but always in the same direction, has been inching its ice cap over the nation for two decades.” That inching is fast becoming a rout with national and international socialists alike thinking their best opportunity to strike a deathblow to the greatest, freest economic system in all of human history is now. Because capitalism has raised more human beings out of poverty than all other economic systems combined, we should remember the wisdom of Robert Heilbroner, a former Marxist economist who changed his position before the fall of the Berlin Wall: “The Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe have given us the clearest possible proof that capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism: that however inequitably or irresponsibly the marketplace may distribute goods, it does so better than the queues of a planned economy; however mindless the culture of commercialism, it is more attractive than state moralism; and however deceptive the ideology of a business civilization, it is more believable than that of a socialist one.” Little wonder that Winston Churchill painted socialism as a philosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance, and a gospel of envy whose inherent virtue “is the equal sharing of misery.” ___________ The traitor is the plague......" Marcus Tullius Cicero, speech to the Roman Senate. |