Today's Democratic Party...an accurate description

by Norman E. Hooben

There are probably enough descriptions of what the Democrat Party is or pretends to be to fill the pages of a book or two.   The word ‘pretend’ is intentional for the Democratic Party has more Alinskyites (One who promises one thing but does another to promote an agenda that if the truth were known they would never get elected…Pelosi, Reid, Obama, and the Clintons are prime examples.) than any other known political congregation.  Of course the party was not always the party they are today; I think even Andrew Jackson would be appalled…but that’s another story.  I should also point out that there are some Republicans that fit this description, most notably those who we refer to as RHINOs. 

That reminds me…recently I was at a gathering and a friend asked, “Are you still a staunch Republican?”  Where in the world he got that idea is not somewhere I could say, “I have no idea.”  My belief is that he got it from one of my Democrat friends who is woefully uninformed and does not understand nor appreciates the Constitutional Republic for which we are suppose to be…he likes the ‘gimme-what-you-can’ regardless of who’s paying for it.   I don’t think I was ever a ‘staunch’ anything but if I were to take on that label now I would prefer to be called a staunch Constitutional Conservative.

Meanwhile, today I got a book (in a pdf file format) from a friend in Virginia with the question, “Have you read this?”  I took a quick look at it and said to myself, “No.” (I’ll answer him as soon as I finish this commentary.)

The book is relatively short; only 98 pages including covers and title pages.  So I began to read.  Got through the first chapter…and stopped!  (I’ll read the rest later.)

In every paragraph I couldn’t help but see what many of us have been trying to say, “A description of today’s Democratic Party!”  The words just wanted to jump of the pages.

The book’s title is The End of All Evil and there’s no indication who the author is so I decided to take a few excerpts for what I believe is today’s Democratic Party… I’ve summarized them here in jpeg picture format (see below) in case some of you would like to pass it around…maybe my friend in Virginia will start the ball rolling…  Make it go viral Lawrence!

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And if you're still not convinced...

 

And it gets worse...

It may take a moment for video to load.

Post by Lou Dobbs.

Brian Williams...NBC's best of the best (Did I say hypocrite?)

Updated...see below...ends with a whopper!

Over at Yahoo News NBC does a bit of bragging about their number one hypocrite, Brian Williams.  The lead off headline reads: NBC Touts Brian Williams’ First Decade At ‘Nightly’ As He Tussles With ABC’s David Muir
While they're touting, "No matter what hurdles lie ahead, no one should count Williams out.", as if he's some kind of important news anchor, they seem to overlook one of Williams most noticeable traits.  The guy is a hypocrite!  I guess NBC is proud to have the best of the best two-faced characters filling the nightly TV screens loosely scattered around the country.

 

 

See also...

NBC's Tom Brokaw reportedly wants Brian Williams fired over fabricated Iraq helicopter story

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And don't think for a minute that all these lies and hypocrisies are editorial errors...they have been making up stories for a long time...

Dateline 1993

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Frankly I'm tired of all this NBC/Brian Williams stuff  so if you want to hear a whopper, I've got one for you...

 

Some years ago I was sitting at the edge of the pier...to be more accurate, it was one of the wide pilings that support the pier. I was fishing. After catching a few small fry that I tossed back into the water, my hook snagged something big...man, this was going to be a record breaker! I struggled for what seemed the best part of thirty minutes and still no sight of what was at the end of my line. Manupilating the pole such that whatever it was would not snap the line, I reeled some and released some trying to tire out whatever it was...the pole seemed like it was about to snap...I was the one getting tired. The battle for supremecy was coming to a head...one of us will be a loser and it won't be me! Then all of a sudden I saw this huge fish break the surface of the water...it happened so fast I could not identify the type of fish that it was... The action however caused me to over re-act and forgetting that I was so close to the edge of the pier and with a taut line and bent pole the forces pulling at me were greater than my resistance to overcome them...and with one big splash I fell into the water below... Do you want to know what happened next?  Scroll down ↓

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I drowned!

Retired? Still working? Don't matter, in either case your screwed!

Update: I'm not the only one talking about this...see Dick Morris video at bottom of page.

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“If your bank account or pension gets wiped out, you could wind up in the street or sharing food with your pets.”

Before you read the following commentary understand this:

The courts have ruled that once you deposit your money in the bank, the bank owns your money. (You can read more about this here. ...and please do!)

Now that I've warned you (actually, I've warned you before and you did nothing) pay close attention to statements like this:

1. “A key danger is that taxpayers would be saved by pushing pensioners under the bus.”

2. “Both the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 and the Dodd Frank Act provide special protections for derivative counterparties, giving them the legal right to demand collateral to cover losses in the event of insolvency. They get first dibs...”

Item #1, are you retired?  I am.  Are you prepared for this? Better get hustling!

Item #2, Do you know who supported the 'lets-rob-the-people' legislation both of the above laws represent? And what did you do about it?  I know exactly what you did...you voted for the same people expecting different results, aka “insanity”.  ~ Norman E. Hooben
ps: The following is a good read...very informative...so lets stay informed!

New G20 Rules: Cyprus-Style Bail-Ins to Hit Depositors and Pensioners
Tuesday, 02 December 2014 10:17 By Ellen Brown, The Web of Debt Blog | News Analysis  

World leaders meet at the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, November 15, 2014.
(Photo: Palazzo Chigi / Flickr)

On the weekend of November 16, the G20 leaders whisked into Brisbane, posed for their photo ops, approved some proposals, made a show of roundly disapproving of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and whisked out again. It was all so fast, they may not have known what they were endorsing when they rubber-stamped the Financial Stability Board’s “Adequacy of Loss-Absorbing Capacity of Global Systemically Important Banks in Resolution,” which completely changes the rules of banking.
Russell Napier, writing in ZeroHedge, called it “the day money died.” In any case, it may have been the day deposits died as money. Unlike coins and paper bills, which cannot be written down or given a “haircut,” says Napier, deposits are now “just part of commercial banks’ capital structure.” That means they can be “bailed in” or confiscated to save the megabanks from derivative bets gone wrong.
Rather than reining in the massive and risky derivatives casino, the new rules prioritize the payment of banks’ derivatives obligations to each other, ahead of everyone else. That includes not only depositors, public and private, but the pension funds that are the target market for the latest bail-in play, called “bail-inable” bonds.
“Bail in” has been sold as avoiding future government bailouts and eliminating too big to fail (TBTF). But it actually institutionalizes TBTF, since the big banks are kept in business by expropriating the funds of their creditors.
It is a neat solution for bankers and politicians, who don’t want to have to deal with another messy banking crisis and are happy to see it disposed of by statute. But a bail-in could have worse consequences than a bailout for the public. If your taxes go up, you will probably still be able to pay the bills. If your bank account or pension gets wiped out, you could wind up in the street or sharing food with your pets.
In theory, US deposits under $250,000 are protected by federal deposit insurance; but deposit insurance funds in both the US and Europe are woefully underfunded, particularly when derivative claims are factored in. The problem is graphically illustrated in this chart from a March 2013 ZeroHedge post:


More on that after a look at the new bail-in provisions and the powershift they represent.

Bail-in in Plain English

The Financial Stability Board (FSB) that now regulates banking globally began as a group of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors organized in a merely advisory capacity after the Asian crisis of the late 1990s. Although not official, its mandates effectively acquired the force of law after the 2008 crisis, when the G20 leaders were brought together to endorse its rules. This ritual now happens annually, with the G20 leaders rubberstamping rules aimed at maintaining the stability of the private banking system, usually at public expense. (Bold emphasis mine. NEH)
According to an International Monetary Fund paper titled “From Bail-out to Bail-in: Mandatory Debt Restructuring of Systemic Financial Institutions”:

[B]ail-in . . . is a statutory power of a resolution authority (as opposed to contractual arrangements, such as contingent capital requirements) to restructure the liabilities of a distressed financial institution by writing down its unsecured debt and/or converting it to equity. The statutory bail-in power is intended to achieve a prompt recapitalization and restructuring of the distressed institution.

The language is a bit obscure, but here are some points to note:

• What was formerly called a “bankruptcy” is now a “resolution proceeding.” The bank’s insolvency is “resolved” by the neat trick of turning its liabilities into capital. Insolvent TBTF banks are to be “promptly recapitalized” with their “unsecured debt” so that they can go on with business as usual.
• “Unsecured debt” includes deposits, the largest class of unsecured debt of any bank. The insolvent bank is to be made solvent by turning our money into their equity – bank stock that could become worthless on the market or be tied up for years in resolution proceedings.
• The power is statutory. Cyprus-style confiscations are to become the law.
• Rather than having their assets sold off and closing their doors, as happens to lesser bankrupt businesses in a capitalist economy, “zombie” banks are to be kept alive and open for business at all costs – and the costs are again to be to borne by us.

The Latest Twist: Putting Pensions at Risk with “Bail-Inable” Bonds

First they came for our tax dollars. When governments declared “no more bailouts,” they came for our deposits. When there was a public outcry against that, the FSB came up with a “buffer” of securities to be sacrificed before deposits in a bankruptcy. In the latest rendition of its bail-in scheme, TBTF banks are required to keep a buffer equal to 16-20% of their risk-weighted assets in the form of equity or bonds convertible to equity in the event of insolvency.
Called “contingent capital bonds”, “bail-inable bonds” or “bail-in bonds,” these securities say in the fine print that the bondholders agree contractually (rather than being forced statutorily) that if certain conditions occur (notably the bank’s insolvency), the lender’s money will be turned into bank capital.
However, even 20% of risk-weighted assets may not be enough to prop up a megabank in a major derivatives collapse. And we the people are still the target market for these bonds, this time through our pension funds.
In a policy brief from the Peterson Institute for International Economics titled “Why Bail-In Securities Are Fool’s Gold”, Avinash Persaud warns, “A key danger is that taxpayers would be saved by pushing pensioners under the bus.”
It wouldn’t be the first time. As Matt Taibbi noted in a September 2013 article titled “Looting the Pension Funds,” “public pension funds were some of the most frequently targeted suckers upon whom Wall Street dumped its fraud-riddled mortgage-backed securities in the pre-crash years.”
Wall Street-based pension fund managers, although losing enormous sums in the last crisis, will not necessarily act more prudently going into the next one. All the pension funds are struggling with commitments made when returns were good, and getting those high returns now generally means taking on risk.
Other than the pension funds and insurance companies that are long-term bondholders, it is not clear what market there will be for bail-in bonds. Currently, most holders of contingent capital bonds are investors focused on short-term gains, who are liable to bolt at the first sign of a crisis. Investors who held similar bonds in 2008 took heavy losses. In a Reuters sampling of potential investors, many said they would not take that risk again. And banks and “shadow” banks are specifically excluded as buyers of bail-in bonds, due to the “fear of contagion”: if they hold each other’s bonds, they could all go down together.
Whether the pension funds go down is apparently not of concern.

Propping Up the Derivatives Casino: Don’t Count on the FDIC

Kept inviolate and untouched in all this are the banks’ liabilities on their derivative bets, which represent by far the largest exposure of TBTF banks. According to the New York Times:

American banks have nearly $280 trillion of derivatives on their books, and they earn some of their biggest profits from trading in them.

These biggest of profits could turn into their biggest losses when the derivatives bubble collapses.
Both the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005 and the Dodd Frank Act provide special protections for derivative counterparties, giving them the legal right to demand collateral to cover losses in the event of insolvency. They get first dibs, even before the secured deposits of state and local governments; and that first bite could consume the whole apple, as illustrated in the above chart.
The chart also illustrates the inadequacy of the FDIC insurance fund to protect depositors. In a May 2013 article in USA Today titled “Can FDIC Handle the Failure of a Megabank?”, Darrell Delamaide wrote:

[T]he biggest failure the FDIC has handled was Washington Mutual in 2008. And while that was plenty big with $307 billion in assets, it was a small fry compared with the $2.5 trillion in assets today at JPMorgan Chase, the $2.2 trillion at Bank of America or the $1.9 trillion at Citigroup.
. . . There was no possibility that the FDIC could take on the rescue of a Citigroup or Bank of America when the full-fledged financial crisis broke in the fall of that year and threatened the solvency of even the biggest banks.

That was, in fact, the reason the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve had to step in to bail out the banks: the FDIC wasn’t up to the task. The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act was supposed to ensure that this never happened again. But as Delamaide writes, there are “numerous skeptics that the FDIC or any regulator can actually manage this, especially in the heat of a crisis when many banks are threatened at once.”
All this fancy footwork is to prevent a run on the TBTF banks, in order to keep their derivatives casino going with our money. Warren Buffett called derivatives “weapons of financial mass destruction,” and many commentators warn that they are a time bomb waiting to explode. When that happens, our deposits, our pensions, and our public investment funds will all be subject to confiscation in a “bail in.” Perhaps it is time to pull our money out of Wall Street and set up our own banks – banks that will serve the people because they are owned by the people.
 

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

 

Permission granted to re-print here at Storm'n Norm'n via email from the author.

Ellen Brown

Ellen Brown is an attorney, president of the Public Banking Institute, and author of twelve books including the best-selling Web of Debt. In The Public Bank Solution, her latest book, she explores successful public banking models historically and globally. Her websites are Web of Debt, Public Bank Solution, and Public Banking Institute.

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Climate Change...the imprudent liars

by Norman E. Hooben

In case you may have missed it, back in January of this year there was this headline, "IPCC silently slashes its global warming predictions in the AR5 final draft".  And though everybody talks about the weather few of us know who the heck is IPCC.  They are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  Those are the propaganda people over at the United Nations trying their darndest to impose a global tax on every nation in the world.  A better description would be that they are the largest group of New World Order people assembled in one place.  Other members of this group include many politicians but we won't name names here.  Lets get on to deciphering this UN myth about global warming...once upon a time it was called global cooling but because they're constantly proven wrong they settled for the innocuous title of climate change.  Here's the first paragraph:

Unnoticed, the IPCC has slashed its global-warming predictions, implicitly rejecting the models on which it once so heavily and imprudently relied. In the second draft of the Fifth Assessment Report it had broadly agreed with the models that the world will warm by 0.4 to 1.0 Cº from 2016-2035 against 1986-2005. But in the final draft it quietly cut the 30-year projection to 0.3-0.7 Cº, saying the warming is more likely to be at the lower end of the range [equivalent to about 0.4 Cº over 30 years]. If that rate continued till 2100, global warming this century could be as little as 1.3 Cº.

Imprudent: not prudent : lacking discretion, wisdom, or good judgment (key word: "lacking" to be deficient or missing)
Interestingly enough the Merriam-Webster on line dictionary gives the following example:

Example of IMPRUDENT
It's politically imprudent to stir up such controversy during an election year.

I threw in the definition not to imply something but that these people actually admit that they have lied in the past but like every Alinskyite, change their story to fit the political climate hoping you haven't noticed their past indiscretions.   So that first sentence admits they heavily relied on their lies.  By the way, any politician that supports these false notions about climate change fall into the same category--imprudent, liars! (Yet they'll still stir up controversy every election cycle.)  So the next time you hear your favorite person on the ballot talk about the weather tax (for that's what climate change legislation is all about) you know now that they're just blowing wind.

You can read the full story here.
Click here for the UN's Fifth Assessment Report

See Also: Climate Change: UN Scientists Plead for Immunity from Criminal Prosecution

Post Script: Climate change has been occuring since day one and will continue to change until the last day.  The only 'One' who has control over the beginning and the end is the maker Himself.  So the next time you hear an advocate for the climate tax ask them this question, "Who are you going to give the money to?  God?"

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Here, you want to ponder something...ponder this ↓ 

The above video has been removed by the powers to be and not me!

 

One last thought...

It's the politicians and the scientists they have convinced to publish their opinions in order to promote their political agenda...this should also be said of so-called educators at all academic levels who preach the same lecture from their left leaning podiums.  Climate change should ought not be called a science but rather an ever changing natural occurring event.  And with that said, every person of sound mind observes the same data that every so-called scientist observes; today is different than yesterday, and tomorrow will be warmer or colder depending on the season, some days it will rain or snow and some days it will not...collectively these observations are called climate change and it's been happening since the beginning of time and will continue to happen until the end of time.  On a global scale man has little or no effect (or 'affect' if you will) on the weather.  Climate change was responsible for the elimination of the dinosaurs and man wasn't around to contribute to their demise so please stop saying that man is responsible.

And by the way...not one scientist or politician has come up with a solution to fix this imaginary problem yet they want to collect a tax to fix the unfixable. ~ Norman E. Hooben 

Race Baiter Farrakhan...he's up to no good (What ! Again !) Plus ! 'the other race baiter'

 

See video →

Plus the other race baiter... (it may take a moment for video to load)

Post by KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.

My 11, 11 Bucket List

Courtesy The Twisted Sifter

THERE is no human invention more ancient, or more interesting, than that of the sun-dial...

I'm not sure if the adjacent picture falls into the category of sundials or a meridian calendar, but be as it may, it is the earth's revolution around the sun that the people of an earlier time figured out that the sun shines on the same spot with some precision on an annual basis.
The first time I witnessed this phenomenon was in a church in Catania, Italy...Sicily, to be more precise.  There was a hole in the ceiling (or roof, if you prefer) where the sun shown through (lets forget about clouds for the moment) and each day at noon landed on the current day's date engraved in the floor (it was a very old church so they used Roman Numerals, the hieroglyphics of the day). 
Putting this ancient technology to modern day use, the people in Anthem, Arizona erected a memorial honoring our veterans of the armed forces...Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard...on Veterans Day; a national holiday.  At precisely 11:11 a.m. each Veterans Day (Nov. 11), the sun’s rays pass through the ellipses of the five Armed Services pillars to form a perfect solar spotlight over a mosaic of The Great Seal of the United States. 
As a proud former member of the armed services (21 years, United States Air Force) this is an extraordinary memorial and will make it an item on my bucket list.  ~ Norman E. Hooben

Courtesy The Twisted Sifter

The Anthem Veterans Memorial, located in Anthem, Arizona, is a monument dedicated to honoring the service and sacrifice of the United States armed forces. The pillar provides a place of honor and reflection for veterans, their family and friends, and those who want to show their respects to those service men and women who have and continue to courageously serve the United States. ~ The Twisted Sifter ← Click on link for more pictures

Video courtesy of YouTube

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Meanwhile back at the ranch...

It may take a moment for the videos to load.

Post by The Kelly File.

Post by Norman Hooben.

Post by Libertarian Girl.

Comment of the Day ...you don't want to miss this one...on a second thought, maybe you do.

Quoted from comment below: "Every able-bodied red-blooded American should drop everything they are doing to go when and where freedom is threatened... " IMHO, we may have some able-bodied Americans and we may have some red-blooded Americans but too damn few with a mixture of both! ~ Norman E. Hooben

From the comment section atwebsite.

Are YOU on the government’s watch list?

Read that editorial here, the following is the "Comment of the Day"

Posted by G Barrett

Paraphrased from founding Father; “The only requirement for tyranny to thrive, is for good people to do nothing.” We not only have good people doing nothing, we are short of good people. It’s all talk, we want change, but we just talk. americans are too scared, too spoiled and too lazy, to ever rise up off our respective asses and do what has to be done. The ones that would are too few to make a difference, or completely disorganized and would be picked off one by one. So all we’ve got is a bunch of whiners that will continue on as usual. Time for talk is long gone, yet we are still too damn delusional to accept that simple truth. It’s , “oh, I can’t miss my job or I’ve got a family to look after.” Really?, allowing your country to be systematically destroyed and weakened is taking care of your family? Really? I’ve been in the company of some mighty fine bullshitters in my time, and sites like this or facebook and people that just complain aren’t even convincing in their feeble attempt to act indignant. Every able-bodied red-blooded American should drop everything they are doing to go when and where freedom is threatened, ESPECIALLY in our own country. Just one case in point, Bundy Land Management standoff, what were you willing to accept?, another Waco, or Ruby Ridge? And then just bitch about it. Americans in mass should have descended on the area with a show a force and put an end to these hypocrisies once and for all. It’s obvious “they” don’t care about us and talking won’t change it. They continue to lie and we continue to give multiple chances. It’s just like this, “hey, you lied”, and then, ‘oh, I won’t do it again”, and it’s repetitive and nothing changes. It’s time to unleash the caveman, for might to makes right, it’s the only way there will EVER be change. Since that won’t happen due to our learned weakness and dependence for what we do still have, it’s obvious we’ll do with less and less as time goes on. Forget about freedom, we don’t have it, we’ve never had it and we sure won’t fight for it. So, just give up the thought, we’ll worry less and learn to be more accepting of our cowardice. after all, there has been more than enough time that’s passed on various atrocities by the gov. (Banghazi, ect.) and nothing has been done, so, it leads to the conclusion that we don’t deserve freedom. I recall our Forefathers saying something about that, and that’s that if we give up one for the other than we deserve neither security or freedom. And it’s plain to see, we won’t have it. The American way of life has gone the way of santa, the tooth fairy and every other lie we have believed at one time or another. FREE America has become the fairy tail and one day we will wake up and see that. Prove me wrong, PLEASE !!!