28 April 2009–The situation continues to evolve rapidly. As of 19:15 GMT, 28 April 2009, seven countries have officially reported cases of swine influenza A/H1N1 infection. The United States Government has reported 64 laboratory confirmed human cases, with no deaths. Mexico has reported 26 confirmed human cases of infection including seven deaths.
The following countries have reported laboratory confirmed cases with no deaths – Canada (6), New Zealand (3), the United Kingdom (2), Israel (2) and Spain (2).
Further information on the situation will be available on the WHO website on a regular basis.
WHO advises no restriction of regular travel or closure of borders. It is considered prudent for people who are ill to delay international travel and for people developing symptoms following international travel to seek medical attention, in line with guidance from national authorities.
There is also no risk of infection from this virus from consumption of well-cooked pork and pork products. Individuals are advised to wash hands thoroughly with soap and water on a regular basis and should seek medical attention if they develop any symptoms of influenza-like illness.
Swine Flu – CDC says TOO LATE to Contain Outbreak – Protect yourself and others – Please Share!
Michael Savage – Illegal Aliens, Swine Flu Epidemic, and How to Protect Yourself
**Alert** Swine Flu Outbreak San Diego 6 News “We Were Warned of a Weponized Flu” G4T
SWINE FLU NATURAL OR MAN-MADE
Swine Flu Outbreak in Mexico Spreading to California, Texas and Possibly Beyond
Swine Flu Found In California and Texas
Swine flu reaches Britain
Spain Confirms first case swine flu
There seems to be a lack of urgency on the part of President Obama to take the necessary steps to quickly contain and prevent the spread of Mexican swine flu and other diseases to the United States and the American people.
When it comes to bailouts of the banks and auto companies and the stimulus package, the American people were told that the legislation must be passed now to avoid economic disaster.
When it comes to global warming, the American people were told to avoid a climate crisis, the American people must pay cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions tax now or face environmental catastrophe.
When it comes to protecting our health from the spreading Mexican swine flu, the American people were told to wash our hands!
It’s an emergency!
Comparing the Mexican government’s response to the outbreak of the swine flu with that of the United States government’s slow and timid response, leaves the American people wondering what is going on?
Prudence would seem to demand the shutting down, policing and sealing of the Mexican border and requesting all illegal immigrants to go home or face deportation.
E-verify should be used to verify that all employees working for a US employer have the legal right to work in the United States.
Lou Dobbs – E-Verify & Border Fence may be canceled
Those illegal aliens found to be working illegally in the US would be fired and deported and their employers fined.
Yet the President never mentions closing , policing and sealing the borders, the deportation of illegal aliens or E-Verify.
Big media never asks the President these questions.
The impression given is that the radical socialist Democratic Party are more concerned with giving illegal aliens living and working in the United States amnesty than protecting the lifes of the American people.
The radical socialist Democratic Party are more concerned about expanding their voter base than protecting the American people.
Maybe some brave new world order reporter will ask President Obama tonight at his press conference these questions.
Followup question Mr. President, how many millions of American citizens have to die and get sick from Mexican swine flu and other diseeases before you will close the borders and deport all illegal immigrants?
Any bets there is no answer on the teleprompter script.
LOL
Swine Flu…
Illegal Immigrant problem solved…
Background Articles and Videos
Influenza Pandemic
“An influenza pandemic is an epidemic of an influenza virus that spreads on a worldwide scale and infects a large proportion of the human population. In contrast to the regular seasonal epidemics of influenza, these pandemics occur irregularly, with the 1918 Spanish flu the most serious pandemic in recent history. Pandemics can cause high levels of mortality, with the Spanish influenza estimated as being responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people. There have been about three influenza pandemics in each century for the last 300 years. The most recent ones were the Asian Flu in 1957 and the Hong Kong Flu in 1968.
Influenza pandemics occur when a new strain of the influenza virus is transmitted to humans from another animal species. Species that are thought to be important in the emergence of new human strains are pigs, chickens and ducks. These novel strains are unaffected by any immunity people may have to older strains of human influenza and can therefore spread extremely rapidly and infect very large numbers of people. Influenza A viruses can occasionally be transmitted from wild birds to other species causing outbreaks in domestic poultry and may give rise to human influenza pandemics.[1][2]
The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that there is a substantial risk of an influenza pandemic within the next few years. One of the strongest candidates is a highly pathogenic variation of the H5N1 subtype of Influenza A virus. As of 2006, prepandemic influenza vaccines are being developed against the most likely suspects which include H5N1, H7N1, and H9N2.[3] Certain scholars and senior policy advisors argue that pandemic influenza represents a substantive threat to the international economy, to national security[where?], and a challenge to international governance.[4]
There is current concern that the spread of a new strain of H1N1 influenza, also known as “swine flu”, might develop into a pandemic. This concern about the 2009 swine flu outbreak was first raised in April 2009 by the CDC and World Health Organization. …”
“…Influenza, commonly known as flu, is an infectious disease of birds and mammals caused by an RNA virus of the family Orthomyxoviridae (the influenza viruses). In humans, common symptoms of influenza infection are fever, sore throat, muscle pains, severe headache, coughing, and weakness and fatigue.[5] In more serious cases, influenza causes pneumonia, which can be fatal, particularly in young children and the elderly. Sometimes confused with the common cold, influenza is a much more severe disease and is caused by a different type of virus.[6] Although nausea and vomiting can be produced, especially in children,[5] these symptoms are more characteristic of the unrelated gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called “stomach flu” or “24-hour flu.”[7]
Typically, influenza is transmitted from infected mammals through the air by coughs or sneezes, creating aerosols containing the virus, and from infected birds through their droppings. Influenza can also be transmitted by saliva, nasal secretions, feces and blood. Infections occur through contact with these bodily fluids or with contaminated surfaces. Flu viruses can remain infectious for about one week at human body temperature, over 30 days at 0 °C (32 °F), and indefinitely at very low temperatures (such as lakes in northeast Siberia). Most influenza strains can be inactivated easily by disinfectants and detergents.[8][9][10]
Flu spreads around the world in seasonal epidemics, killing millions of people in pandemic years and hundreds of thousands in non-pandemic years. Three influenza pandemics occurred in the 20th century and killed tens of millions of people, with each of these pandemics being caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans. Often, these new strains result from the spread of an existing flu virus to humans from other animal species. Since it first killed humans in Asia in the 1990s, a deadly avian strain of H5N1 has posed the greatest risk for a new influenza pandemic; however, this virus has not mutated to spread easily between people.[11]
Vaccinations against influenza are most commonly given to high-risk humans in industrialized countries[12] and to farmed poultry.[13] The most common human vaccine is the trivalent influenza vaccine that contains purified and inactivated material from three viral strains. Typically this vaccine includes material from two influenza A virus subtypes and one influenza B virus strain.[14] A vaccine formulated for one year may be ineffective in the following year, since the influenza virus changes rapidly over time and different strains become dominant. Antiviral drugs can be used to treat influenza, with neuraminidase inhibitors being particularly effective. …”
First U.S. swine flu death is Mexico City boy in Houston
Texas shuts down high school competitions until May 11
By DALE LEZON, BRADLEY OLSON and TODD ACKERMAN Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
“…The first reported death in the United States from the swine flu outbreak was that of a 23-month-old Mexico City boy who fell ill in Brownsville and was transported for treatment at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, where he died Monday, officials said.
Also, officials suspended all high school athletic and academic competition statewide until at least May 11 because of the spreading flu, which has prompted five districts to cancel classes entirely, including three in suburban San Antonio.
Gov. Rick Perry issued a disaster declaration for the entire state, basically a paperwork measure that allows Texas to begin emergency protective measures and seek reimbursement from the federal government. Perry also said Texas has 850,000 more courses of antiviral medicine coming, which would double its supply. …”
“… The outbreak of disease in people caused by a new influenza virus of swine origin continues to grow in the United States and internationally. Today, CDC reports additional confirmed human infections, hospitalizations and the nation’s first fatality from this outbreak. The more recent illnesses and the reported death suggest that a pattern of more severe illness associated with this virus may be emerging in the U.S. Most people will not have immunity to this new virus and, as it continues to spread, more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths are expected in the coming days and weeks.
CDC has implemented its emergency response. The agency’s goals are to reduce transmission and illness severity, and provide information to help health care providers, public health officials and the public address the challenges posed by the new virus. Yesterday, CDC issued new interim guidance for clinicians on how to care for children and pregnant women who may be infected with this virus. Young children and pregnant women are two groups of people who are at high risk of serious complications from seasonal influenza. In addition, CDC’s Division of the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) continues to send antiviral drugs, personal protective equipment, and respiratory protection devices to all 50 states and U.S. territories to help them respond to the outbreak. The swine influenza A (H1N1) virus is susceptible to the prescription antiviral drugs oseltamivir and zanamivir. This is a rapidly evolving situation and CDC will provide updated guidance and new information as it becomes available. …”
U.S. pork producers are finding that the name of the virus spreading from Mexico is affecting their business, prompting U.S. officials to argue for changing the name from swine flu.
At a news briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack took pains to repeatedly refer to the flu as the “H1N1 virus.”
“This is not a food-borne illness, virus. It is not correct to refer to it as swine flu because really that’s not what this is about,” Vilsack said.
I’m all for helping keep businesses from being victimized by the uninformed (many voters can empathize because the same thing often happens to us on Election Day), so maybe another name is in order. But what should it be? …”
“…Obama appointed Leon Panetta, a chief of intelligence with no intelligence experience. He gave us Hillary Clinton, a secretary of state who cackled about the Somali pirate hijacking and laughed off serious questions about the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation techniques. He installed Rosa Brooks, a radical George Soros-trained ideologue as a top Pentagon adviser. He came close to embracing Charles Freeman as top U.S. intelligence analyst — a jihadi-sympathizing conspiracist who blamed America for 9/11.
And he appointed Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary who can’t get her facts straight about the 9/11 terrorists, pooh-poohed our immigration laws, disseminated a hit job on conservatives and veterans as rightwing extremist threats, and redefined acts of terrorism as “man-caused disasters.”
“Man-caused disaster.” That’s a perfect description of the Scare Force One torture photo op that took place this week, and an apt summary of the last 100 days. Say cheese. …”
“…The Obama administration has declared a public health emergency as a result of the increasing number of Swine Flu cases being reported around the country and the danger that the virus could become a pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Democrats are blaming Republicans. And the president went golfing.
For those of us who are somewhat rational and take reality seriously, we might ask how in the name of all that is good and holy can the Democrats blame Republicans?
Because no Republicans voted for the president’s stimulus bill which, as Don Surber of the Daily Mail blog explains, contained $900 million for flu preparedness:
Actually, Republicans voted against the entire spending bill, which was 874.44 times as large as that single appropriation.
If we follow this silly Democratic talking point, then for every dollar spent on fighting swine flu will cost taxpayers $874.44 using Nichols example.
What is more, Republicans were right. An emergency appropriation could be made after the fact – as we do every disaster be it hurricanes, tornadoes or blizzards. Is he saying by not appropriating money for these certain disasters that Democrats favor hurricanes, tornadoes and blizzards?
Nichols is just mouthing the White House words.
Indeed. This tactic is being used to cover up the gross negligence of the White House in naming people to posts who are desperately needed to deal with this crisis.
No Secretary of HHS, no head of the CDC, no Surgeon General – whoops. …”
“…Already, the conspiracy theorists are claiming the swine flu virus spreading around the world was genetically engineered by bioterrorists. The truth is more prosaic: the virus is far more likely to be a product of our lust for bacon than of a hatred for humanity.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, the new virus is a mixture of four different viruses: North American swine flu, North American avian flu, human H1N1 flu and a swine flu strain found in Asia and Europe.
The claim of the conspiracy theorists is that this new combination could not have occurred naturally, but this is not true. Flu viruses consisting of a mixture of human, swine and bird strains have been found before. However, there is a sense in which the virus could be regarded as man-made.
Flu viruses contain 8 strands of RNA, which code for 10 proteins. If two flu viruses infect a cell at the same time, new viruses budding from that cell can contain a mixture of RNA strands from the two original viruses – a phenomenon called reassortment. Recombination – “cutting and pasting” – can also produce mixing within RNA strands. …”
There was reassortment between bird and human flu viruses in pigs in Italy during the 1980s, for instance, while in the 1990s a H1N2 swine flu circulating in pigs in the UK was found to be a mixture of swine, human and bird flu strains resulting from multiple reassortments.
It is not yet clear exactly when and how Mexican swine flu strain evolved, but it could certainly have happened without the help of genetic engineers. Despite this, the swine flu could still be regarded as man-made. …”
“…It is unusual to be infected by two flu viruses at the same time, and even rarer for one of those viruses to come from another species. But it does happen, especially in pigs, which are susceptible to both human and bird flu viruses. Repeated reassortments can produce mixtures like that found in the swine flu virus now spreading worldwide.
Flu viruses contain 8 strands of RNA, which code for 10 proteins. If two flu viruses infect a cell at the same time, new viruses budding from that cell can contain a mixture of RNA strands from the two original viruses – a phenomenon called reassortment. Recombination – “cutting and pasting” – can also produce mixing within RNA strands. …”
Obama’s Watergate?: GE Using CNBC, MSNBC to Promote Cap-and-Trade – OReilly
Glenn Beck & Bill O’Reilly: GE, NBC & MSNBC in Corruption Racket with Barack Obama Admin?
Glenn Beck: GE [NBC News/MSNBC/CNBC/Gov’t Contracts] Merges With The Obama Administration
GE [NBC/MSNBC/CNBC] CEO Joins Obama’s Team
GE Shareholder Meeting: Investors of Tanking Co. Outraged over NBC, MSNBC Bias
General Electric used both NBC and MSNBC to promote the candidacy of now President Barack Obama.
The usual description was that NBC and MSNBC were in the tank for Obama.
Both NBC and MSNBC continue to promote both President Obama and the radical socialist Democratic Party by denigrating their opponents in both political parties.
The most recent example was the Tea Parties across the nation organized by individuals in protest of the bailouts, stimulus package, skyrocketing deficits and the proposed new cap and trade carbon dioxide tax.
Why? Jeff Immelt and General Electric wanted President Obama to get behind the cap and trade carbon dioxide tax so that their company would benefit from government contracts for alternative energy from wind turbines.
President Obama fully supports the proposed cap and trade carbon dioxide tax.
The reason given for this new carbon dioxide emissions tax is that by limiting carbon dioxide emmissions, man can stop global warming.
This is the government funded junk science of computer climate models promoted by Al Gore and the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Unfortunately for Al Gore and the IPCC the observed evidence does not support the theory that man’s carbon dioxide emissions is the cause of global warming.
Professor Fred Singer on Climate Change pt 1
Professor Fred Singer on Climate Change pt 2
The exact opposite is true. Naturally rising temperatures cause a rise in carbon emissions over time.
Man is not the primary or even secondary cause or driver of global warming.
The many natural causes of global warming include sun activity variabliity, cosmic rays, clouds, watervapor, volcanic erruptions, just to name a few.
In order to justify the cap and trade carbon dioxide tax the radical socialist Democratic Party need to convice the American people that humans are responsible for global warming or climate change and not natural causes.
The majority of the American people believe that man is not causing global warming.
Also the majority of the American people do not support a new tax on energy — the cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions tax.
The American people do not want to pay more for electricity, heating oil and gasoline.
The Americdan people do not want to pay more for all the goods and services that need electricity and gasoline to be produced.
The American people do not want to pay more for everything they purchase as a direct result of huge bailouts and deficits leading to rising general prices or inflation.
The nationwide Tea Parties and End The Fed rallies were organized at the grassroots level by individuals exercising their rights of free speech and assembly.
The American people attending these events are tired of being betrayed by elites of both political parties, Democrats and Republicans.
The American people want the unconstitutional bailouts to stop, a balanced budget, no new taxes and the past tax cuts made permanent.
The American people do not want their children and grandchildren to be burdened with the massive growth in the national debt by skyrocketing deficits.
President Obama promised change.
Instead he conned the American people.
The executives and directors of General Electric and the financial institutions on Wall Street such as J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs provided candidate Obama with huge campaign contributions in exchange for his support of massive government bailouts of these same financial institutions and government contracts and subsidies for electricity produced by “so-called” alternative energy, namely wind and solar power to be funded by the new cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions tax.
Since General Electric owns both NBC and MSNBC with Microsoft, Jeff Immelt and General Electric made sure that both candidate and President Obama received positive coverage while his opponents were either ignored or received negative coverage.
This situation is called pay for play.
The company supporters of Obama paid campaign contributions from their company’s executives, directors, and employees in exchange for government bailouts, expenditures, subsidies, contracts, and policies that would directly benefit their companies.
Who pays the bill?
The American people in higher taxes, higher prices for goods and services, lower purchasing power of their dollars, and lower values of their investments and retirement plans
Barack Obama and his pay and play pals are part and parcel of the Crime of the Century–criminals–robbing the American people–by using the Federal Government Treasury and the Federal Reserve–to facilitate the crime.
Do not purchase any goods or services produced by companies and banks that accept bailouts.
I will no longer be purchasing cars or trucks produced by General Motors or goods and services produced by General Electric.
As far as I am concerned they should change their names to Government Motors and Government Electric.
Both brands have lost their luster by forgetting who brought them their success in the past–the American people.
Damn shame.
General Electric forgot to dance with the one that brought you.
Shania Twain – Dance With The One That Brought You
Charlie Rose – An Hour with Jeffrey Immelt, Chairman &…
Profile of General Electric
We are GE
The Passive Safety Features of the General Electric ESBWR
GE General Electric commercial – Wind Energy
General Electric, Power of Wind
Jeff Immelt on Troubles at NBC
Jeff Immelt on the Impact of Private Equity
Jeff Immelt on YouTube
GE’s Immelt and CNBC’s Cramer discuss GE and the Future (part 1)
GE’s Immelt and CNBC’s Cramer discuss GE and the Future (part 2)
GE’s Immelt and CNBC’s Cramer discuss GE and the Future (part 3)
GE’s Immelt and CNBC’s Cramer discuss GE and the Future (part 4)
Background Articles and Videos
Obama’s hidden bailout of General Electric
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
“…While many companies hire lobbyists to win earmarks, General Electric’s unmatched lobbying force has secured a tax increase — or its equivalent — in President Barack Obama’s budget.
Labeled “climate revenues” and totaling $646 billion over eight years, this line item in Obama’s budget has inspired confidence in GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt. As Immelt put it in a letter this week, he believes that the Obama administration will be a profitable “financier” and “key partner.” …”
“…This isn’t altruism or public relations. GE has started a joint venture called Greenhouse Gas Services, which invests in — and hopes to manage the trade in — greenhouse gas credits. But these investments and this trading floor are of basically no use and nearly no value without government restrictions on greenhouse gases.
Hence the lobbying, buttressed by generous campaign contributions: Employees and executives gave $1.35 million to politicians in the past election while GE’s political action committee shelled out $1.55 million. About 64 percent of this $2.9 million went to Democrats, with Obama easily the top recipient of GE money.
Obama’s budget includes the payoff, promising to start a multibillion-dollar greenhouse gas industry by 2012. In a letter this week, GE’S Immelt told shareholders that current events present an “opportunity of a lifetime,” because “capitalism will be ‘reset.’ ”
Immelt wrote: “The interaction between government and business will change forever. In a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier, and a key partner.”
In short, GE plans to get rich by being one of the government’s closest partners — which it has always been, thanks to its unmatched lobbying efforts.
The environmentalist at this point might respond, “Well, good for GE. if they can get rich while helping the planet, more power to them.” But this ignores important issues. First, restraining greenhouse gas emissions will cost Americans dearly. Gas, electricity and heating prices will all go up. The prices of manufactured and shipped goods will go up. A Clemson University report on similar cap-and-trade proposals forecast a 1 percent decline in he U.S. gross domestic product by 2015 if they were implemented. …”
“…Immelt, a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is under increasing pressure from investors to back up his words with actions. Shares of the Fairfield, Conn.-based conglomerate are down 36 percent this year, even with the recent run-up in the stock market. Many investors are still worried about the company’s financial arm.But as BusinessWeek recently argued, Immelt’s options regarding GE Capital are limited because of its exposure to risky lines of business such as commercial real estate and consumer loans in Eastern Europe. The CEO, though, probably could not sell the business even if he wanted to, since it would require GE to inject as much as $32 billion to back up GE Capital’s obligations. Moreover, GE Capital’s borrowing costs would rise because it would need to renegotiate credit lines with some 65 banks, according to the magazine.
In any event, Immelt’s rosy outlook may not be shared by his fellow CEOs.
“… General Electric Co. Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said the company is preparing for a once-in-a-generation “reset” as it tries to weather what he called the worst recession in 80 years.
Speaking at GE’s annual meeting Wednesday, Mr. Immelt outlined planned changes at the conglomerate, and tried to appease investors disheartened by the company’s recent performance
The meeting came after a rough year for GE, largely because of growing losses inside its finance unit, which had been providing roughly half of the Fairfield, Conn., firm’s profits. GE shares are down 63% in the past year, though they gained 0.9% to close at $11.80 in 4 p.m. trading Wednesday.
Many of the roughly 600 attending shareholders were upset about GE’s plan to cut its dividend by 68% for the second half of the year, to 10 cents per quarter. The dividend cut, announced earlier this year, is the company’s first since the Great Depression.
Chief Financial Officer Keith Sherin said the dividend cut “was the toughest decision we have ever wrestled with. We had lots of debates with the board. In the end, the decision to protect the franchise was the right decision.” …”
Top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers received about $5.2 million over the past year in compensation from hedge fund D.E. Shaw, and also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from major financial institutions.
A financial disclosure form released by the White House Friday afternoon shows that Mr. Summers made frequent appearances before Wall Street firms including J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers. He also received significant income from Harvard University and from investments, the form shows.
In total, Mr. Summers made a total of about 40 speaking appearances to financial sector firms and other places, with fees totaling about $2.77 million. Fees ranged from $10,000 for a Yale University speech to $135,000 for an appearance paid for by Goldman Sachs & Co…
More cashin’ in from the true representatives of the little people:
David Axelrod, the president’s top political advisor, reported in his form that he will get $3 million over the next five years from the sale of his two media consulting firms, ASK Public Strategies, LLC and AKP&D Message and Media. In addition, Mr. Axelrod took a salary of $896,776 last year from AKP&D and reported $651,914 in partnership income from the two companies.
In total, Mr. Axelrod reported assets valued between $6.9 million and $9.5 million. Mr. Axelrod’s clients were mostly political campaigns, including those of Rep. Patrick Kennedy, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. He also reported receiving money from large corporations such as AT&T Inc., Comcast Corp. and the nuclear energy company Exelon Corp…
Simon and Garfunkel – Are you going to Scarborough Fair
Great scene from The Graduate film,1967
Background Articles and Videos
Age disparity in sexual relationships
“Significant age disparity in sexual relationships has been and remains a feature of couples in many cultures and societies. Historically the most common pattern in heterosexual couples is an older man with a younger woman[1]; although the average age gap between men and women at marriage has been narrowing as women have gained greater financial independence.[citation needed] This may be brought about as an arranged marriage, or either member may pursue and initiate this relationship. Homosexual relationships of both sexes may also exhibit age disparity; when between an adult male and adolescent boy, the term “pederasty” is sometimes used, especially in European historical context. In extreme cases, age disparity may be seen as dysfunctional (a paraphilia) if such relationships are pursued to the exclusion of all others and to the detriment of the partners. Sexual relationships involving an adult or adolescent and a prepubescent child are defined as child sexual abuse in most societies.[2][3]
“…Cougar – an older woman who sexually pursues men at least eight years her junior.[11] The term has been used in TV series, advertising and film. The 2007 film Cougar Club was dedicated to the subject. It is also featured in the recurring Saturday Night Live sketch “Cougar Den”. It is also the prominent plot in the 2009 TV series The Cougar. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships
The number of illegal aliens in the United States is between 20 million to 30 million or higher.
The number of illegal aliens working in the United States is between 10 million and 20 million or higher.
The Federal government does not know or refuses to disclose their own estimates.
By the end of April the number of American seeking a full time job will officially exceed 14 million Americans with the actual number far exceeding 20 million.
The official unemployment rate will exceed 9% with the actual rate exceeding 16%.
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Series Id: LNS13000000
Seasonal Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Level
Labor force status: Unemployed
Type of data: Number in thousands
Age: 16 years and over
Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey
Series Id: LNS14000000
Seasonal Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Rate
Labor force status: Unemployment rate
Type of data: Percent
Age: 16 years and over
Series Id: LNS13327709
Seasonal Adjusted
Series title: (seas) Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers plus total
employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of all civilian labor
force plus all marginally attached workers
Labor force status: Aggregated totals unemployed
Type of data: Percent
Age: 16 years and over
Percent/rates: Unemployed and mrg attached and pt for econ reas as percent of labor force plus
marg attached
The border fences, roads, and border patrols work.
Unfortunately, there still remain over 1,200 miles of open borders with illegal aliens crossing daily.
Closed the borders now.
The time for criminal alien removal is long overdue.
Start with a public service announcement by President Obama requesting all illiegal aliens to return home or face mandatory criminal alien removal and deportation to their country of origin.
Require all employers to use E-Verifyfor all current and future employees to establish that their workers can work in the United States legally.
Double and triple fence the entire border with Mexico and patrol it to stop illegal immigration, drug smuggling and violence, and the spread of swine flu!
“…Intentionally low, static, and misleading official government estimates claim that 8 million to 12 million illegal aliens reside in the United States and that 700,000 new illegals enter and stay every year. Based upon the analysis presented here, it is likely that in mid-2005 more than 20 million illegal aliens presently resided in the United States, with roughly 12,000 additional illegal aliens entering every day.
No one can say with certainty how many illegal aliens enter and reside in the United States because the precise data simply are not available. The methodology used in this analysis is presented as an alternative approach to estimating illegal alien numbers. Because it depends on factors that are not known with great accuracy, it produces a wider range of estimates than traditional estimates, but can be used to present another perspective on illegal immigration numbers.
Further analysis is certainly warranted. However it is important to recognize the magnitude of the numbers in order to recognize the seriousness of the crisis and urgency for a return to the rule of law and secured borders that the United States Constitution demands. …”
Number of illegal immigrants in U.S. may be closer to 20 million
“…The “12 million undocumented and illegal immigrants” residing in our country have fueled the national discourse on immigration reform. The number is repeatedly cited by immigration reform advocates like CNN’s Lou Dobbs looking to incite support for their policies in curtailing the influx of foreigners. But few politicos and pundits ever stop to ask two questions fundamental to the immigration debate: How do we calculate the number of illegal immigrants? And where did the number 12 million come from?
The methodology for counting unauthorized immigrants relies on a lot of assumptions which call into question the accuracy of the results. Twelve million may be the most popular number cited for illegal immigrants in the U.S at present, but some estimates, like one from Bear Stearns, believe the count is actually closer to a whopping 20 million. …”
How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US? – Diana Hull, part 1
How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US? – Diana Hull, part 2
“…How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the United States? Presentation by Diana Hull, PhD, President, Californians for Population Stabilization – part 2.
Census Bureau estimates of the number of illegals in the U.S. are suspect and may represent significant undercounts. The studies presented by these authors show that the numbers of illegal aliens in the U.S. could range from 20 to 38 million. …”
How Many Illegal Aliens Are in the US? – Philip Romero
“….Census Bureau estimates of the number of illegals in the U.S. are suspect and may represent significant undercounts. The studies presented by these authors show that the numbers of illegal aliens in the U.S. could range from 20 to 38 million. …”
Well, it didn’t take long for partisan Democrats to blame the swine flu outbreak on the Republican Party.
Here’s the line: Since House Republicans all opposed the trillion-dollar-porkulus, which included funding for pandemic preparations, it’s all. Our. Fault.
“All those little porky things that the House put in, the money for the [National] Mall or the sexually transmitted diseases or the flu pandemic, they’re all out,” Schumer said.
“Porky things.” Er, a rather unfortunate choice of words then. And now.
Leaves a bad taste in your mouth, doesn’t it?
***
Wow. There is actually one sane person at the Daily Kos. Probably won’t be there for long, but give this person credit for pointing out that the left-wing attacks on Republicans over flu pandemic funding are utterly ridiculous. The money they are shrieking about was included in a different bill passed by the Senate — and in fact, was funding requested by George W. Bush: …”
Both the Tea Parties and End The Fed rallies continue across the country.
The American people understand that the Fed by expanding the money supply will in time result in significantly rising prices or inflation.
Inflation is a hidden tax on all Americans.
End the Federal Reserve System now.
The failure of the Fed to regulate banks or depository institutions and an easy money policy resulted in the financial crisis and recession we are now experiencing.
How Abolishing the Fed Would Change Everything
Inflation in Recent Monetary History
END THE FED
Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve
End the Fed
Peter Schiff on Fox BN End The FED Rally in New York 24 04 2009
Raw Footage:End The Fed Rally NYC Peter Schiff Part I
Raw Footage:End The Fed Rally NYC Peter Schiff Part II
Posted on April 21st, 2009 by J. Nick Puglia in Upcoming Crashes
This Saturday, April 25, Federal Reserve Banks around the country will again come under siege from protestors. Recall that this past November saw similar protests and included a memorable speech from Congressman Ron Paul at the Houston Rally.
Crasher Morgan Ashcom gave a nice summary of the DC Rally in November which featured several notable speakers including Gary Franchi from Restore the Republic and fellow Crasher Adam Kokesh from Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Ron Paul has 55 co-sponsors for HR 1207, which would require a complete audit of the Federal Reserve. A similar measure, S. 604, is in the Senate.
Now, more than any time in recent memory, people are becoming aware of the Fed. The Fed’s nature compels rational Americans to oppose it.
“a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.”
~Oxford English Dictionary
Gattaca – Trailer (1997)
Sex Control Rant Eugenics Mind Control Report College Girl
Fit vs. UnFit, Eugenics, Planned Parenthood & Psychology, Mind Control Report
Sex Control Police State, Eugenics, Galton, Kantsaywhere, Mind Control Report
Margaret Sanger and planned parenthood part 1
Margaret Sanger and planned parenthood part 2
Margaret Sanger, Planned Parenthood’s Racist Founder
Glenn Beck part 3 Eugenic Margaret Sanger
Glenn Beck part 5 Slavery
Glenn Beck part 6 Slavery
Population Control: The Eugenics Connection – Part 1
Population Control: The Eugenics Connection – Part 2
Population Control: The Eugenics Connection – Part 3
Obama and Rockefeller 1
Barack Obama Addresses Planned Parenthood
Lila Rose with Glenn Beck on Planned Parenthood Statutory Rape Cover-Up
How Does Planned Parenthood Celebrate Black History Month? Anti-Abortion Pro-Life Video
David Rockefeller speaks about population control.
Designer Babies – Comments by Princeton professor Lee Silver
Tom Emmer on the Glenn Beck Show
Against the USA, Naked Communist Conspiracy Theory, NWO, Mind Control Report
Mind Control, Psychology of Brainwashing, Sex & Hypnosis
Is America A Police State? The Role of Psychiatry
Background Articles and Videos
Designer Babies: Ethical Considerations
Nicholas Agar
“…In 2004 the term “designer baby” made the transition from sci-fi movies and weblogs into the Oxford English Dictionary, where it is defined as “a baby whose genetic makeup has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization to ensure the presence or absence of particular genes or characteristics.”1 This coinage was prompted by recent advances in genetics that may make such babies possible. We need to pause and ask what moral or ethical limits, if any, should apply to the selection of our children’s genes or characteristics. Before we can answer this we must address other questions:
What issues should we consider before modifying humans?
How would designer babies be made?
Is there a moral or ethical difference between using genetic technologies to prevent disease and to enhance human capacities?
Should we be striving to protect our humanity from genetic enhancement?
What effect will human genetic modification have on society? …”
"Eugenics is "the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)."[2] As a social movement eugenics reached its height of popularity in the early decades of the 20th century. By the end of World War II eugenics had been largely abandoned,[3] though current trends in genetics have raised questions amongst critical academics concerning parallels between pre-war attitudes about eugenics and current "utilitarian" and social darwinistic theories[4]. At its pre-war zenith, the movement often pursued pseudoscientific notions of racial supremacy and purity.[5]
Eugenics was practiced around the world and was promoted by governments, and influential individuals and institutions. Its advocates regarded it as a social philosophy for the improvement of human hereditary traits through the promotion of higher reproduction of certain people and traits, and the reduction of reproduction of certain people and traits.[6] Today it is widely regarded as a brutal movement which inflicted massive human rights violations on millions of people.[7] The "interventions" advocated and practised by eugenicists involved prominently the identification and classification of individuals and their families, including the poor, mentally ill, blind, 'promiscuous women', homosexuals and entire "racial" groups——such as the Roma and Jews——as "degenerate" or "unfit"; the segregation or institutionalisation of such individuals and groups, their sterilization, their "euthanasia", and in the worst case of Nazi Germany, their mass extermination.[8] The practices engaged in by eugenicists involving violations of privacy, attacks on reputation, violations of the right to life, to found a family, to discrimination are all today classified as violations of human rights. The practice of negative racial aspects of eugenics, after World War II, fell within the definition of the new international crime of genocide, set out in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.[9]
The modern field and term were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1883,[10] drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin. From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including Margaret Sanger, H. G. Wells, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, John Maynard Keynes, William Keith Kellogg, Winston Churchill, and Sidney Webb.[11][12][13] Its most infamous proponent and practitioner was however Adolf Hitler who praised and incorporated Eugenic ideas in Mein Kampf, and emulated Eugenic legislation for the sterilization of "defectives" that had been pioneered in the United States.[14] G. K. Chesterton was an early critic of the philosophy of eugenics, expressing this opinion in his book, Eugenics and Other Evils. Eugenics became an academic discipline at many colleges and universities, and received funding from many sources.[15] Three International Eugenics Conferences presented a global venue for eugenicists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York. Eugenic policies were first implemented in the early 1900s in the United States.[16] Later, in the 1920s and 30s, the eugenic policy of sterilizing certain mental patients was implemented in a variety of other countries, including Belgium,[17] Brazil,[18] Canada,[19] and Sweden,[20] among others. The scientific reputation of eugenics started to decline in the 1930s, a time when Ernst Rüdin used eugenics as a justification for the racial policies of Nazi Germany, and when proponents of eugenics among scientists and thinkers prompted a backlash in the public. Nevertheless, the second largest known eugenics program, created by social democrats in Sweden, continued until 1975.[20]
Since the postwar period, both the public and the scientific communities have associated eugenics with Nazi abuses, such as enforced racial hygiene, human experimentation, and the extermination of undesired population groups. However, developments in genetic, genomic, and reproductive technologies at the end of the 20th century have raised many new questions and concerns about what exactly constitutes the meaning of eugenics and what its ethical and moral status is in the modern era. ..."
"The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) is a DNA database funded by the United StatesFederal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It is a computer system that stores DNA profiles created by federal, state, and local crime laboratories in the United States, with the ability to search the database to assist in the identification of suspects in crimes.
"...Gattaca is a 1997 science fiction drama film written and directed by Andrew Niccol, starring Ethan Hawke, Uma Thurman and Jude Law with supporting roles played by Loren Dean, Gore Vidal and Alan Arkin.[1] The film was a 1997 nominee for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction — Set Decoration.
The film presents a biopunk vision of a society driven by liberal eugenics. Children of the middle and upper classes are selected through preimplantation genetic diagnosis to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. A genetic registry database uses biometrics to instantly identify and classify those so created as valids while those conceived by traditional means are derisively known as in-valids. While genetic discrimination is forbidden by law, in practice it is easy to profile one's genotype resulting in the Valids qualifying for professional employment while the In-Valids who are susceptible to disease are relegated to menial jobs. The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.
William K. Black Criticizes the Bailout Plan — Might Destroy the Obama Presidency
“Stress tests Total Sham” William K. Black on Fox Business
Moyers 1 of 3: Sharing the Blame for the Economic Crisis?
Moyers 2 of 3: Sharing the Blame for the Economic Crisis?
Moyers 3 of 3: Sharing the Blame for the Economic Crisis?
William Black on Alex Jones Tv 1/5:Former Federal Regulator Tells All !!
William Black on Alex Jones Tv 2/5:Former Federal Regulator Tells All !!
William Black on Alex Jones Tv 3/5:Former Federal Regulator Tells All !!
William Black on Alex Jones Tv 4/5:Former Federal Regulator Tells All !!
William Black on Alex Jones Tv 5/5:Former Federal Regulator Tells All !!
FDIC may borrow money from Treasury.
Wells Fargo Chairman “Dick” Kovacevich Explains “What the Hell Happened” – Part 1
The Federal Government should put all failed and insolvent banks and financial institutions into FDIC receivership.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should be tasked to investigate massive mortgage fraud and the Department of Justice prosecute those committing crimes.
All bailouts should cease and banks wanting to return TARP money should be allowed to do so.
Instead President Obama’s administration and Treasury Secretary refuse to take decisive action in shutting down these insolvent banks now.
“…When an insured institution fails, the FDIC is ordinarily appointed as receiver. In that capacity, it assumes responsibility for efficiently recovering the maximum amount possible from the disposition of the receivership’s assets and the pursuit of the receivership’s claims. Funds collected from the sale of assets and the disposition of valid claims are distributed to the receivership’s creditors in accordance with the priorities set by law.
The FDIC seeks to terminate receiverships in an orderly and expeditious manner. Once the FDIC has completed the disposition of the receivership’s assets and has resolved all obligations, claims, and other legal impediments, the receivership is terminated, and a final distribution is made to its creditors. Receivership creditors may include secured creditors, unsecured creditors (including general trade creditors), subordinate debt holders, shareholders of the institution, uninsured depositors, and the DIF (as subrogee). The FDIC is often the largest creditor of the receivership.
In addition, the FDIC works closely with other regulators and with the industry to stay abreast of capital markets and financial markets developments to be prepared for potential resolutions involving complex financial instruments. Further, with growing globalization, international outsourcing, and the interconnections of financial markets, the FDIC enters into international agreements, through cross border memoranda of understanding, to facilitate closer cooperation with key foreign authorities on the analysis of emerging issues, improved understanding of national legal and policy structures, and contingency planning for potential resolutions. …”
“William Kurt Black is an American lawyer, academic, author, and a former bank regulator.[1]His expertise is on white-collar crime, public finance, regulation, and other topics in law and economics. He developed the concept of “control fraud”, in which a business or national executive uses the entity he or she controls as a “weapon” to commit fraud.
He is currently an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He previously taught at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and at Santa Clara University. He was litigation director for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and the General Counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco.[2]
Transcript of April 3, 2009 Bill Moyers Journal
“…WILLIAM K. BLACK: In the Savings and Loan debacle, we developed excellent ways for dealing with the frauds, and for dealing with the failed institutions. And for 15 years after the Savings and Loan crisis, didn’t matter which party was in power, the U.S. Treasury Secretary would fly over to Tokyo and tell the Japanese, “You ought to do things the way we did in the Savings and Loan crisis, because it worked really well. Instead you’re covering up the bank losses, because you know, you say you need confidence. And so, we have to lie to the people to create confidence. And it doesn’t work. You will cause your recession to continue and continue.” And the Japanese call it the lost decade. That was the result. So, now we get in trouble, and what do we do? We adopt the Japanese approach of lying about the assets. And you know what? It’s working just as well as it did in Japan.
BILL MOYERS: Yeah. Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely.
BILL MOYERS: You are.
WILLIAM K. BLACK: Absolutely, because they are scared to death. All right? They’re scared to death of a collapse. They’re afraid that if they admit the truth, that many of the large banks are insolvent. They think Americans are a bunch of cowards, and that we’ll run screaming to the exits. And we won’t rely on deposit insurance. And, by the way, you can rely on deposit insurance. And it’s foolishness. All right? Now, it may be worse than that. You can impute more cynical motives. But I think they are sincerely just panicked about, “We just can’t let the big banks fail.” That’s wrong. …”
The Two Documents Everyone Should Read to Better Understand the Crisis
By William K. Black
“…As a white-collar criminologist and former financial regulator much of my research studies what causes financial markets to become profoundly dysfunctional. The FBI has been warning of an “epidemic” of mortgage fraud since September 2004. It also reports that lenders initiated 80% of these frauds.1 When the person that controls a seemingly legitimate business or government agency uses it as a “weapon” to defraud we categorize it as a “control fraud” (“The Organization as ‘Weapon’ in White Collar Crime.” Wheeler & Rothman 1982; The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Black 2005). Financial control frauds’ “weapon of choice” is accounting. Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime — combined. Control fraud epidemics can arise when financial deregulation and desupervision and perverse compensation systems create a “criminogenic environment” (Big Money Crime. Calavita, Pontell & Tillman 1997.)
The FBI correctly identified the epidemic of mortgage control fraud at such an early point that the financial crisis could have been averted had the Bush administration acted with even minimal competence. To understand the crisis we have to focus on how the mortgage fraud epidemic produced widespread accounting fraud. …”
“…The widespread claim that nonprime loan originators that sold their loans caused the crisis because they “had no skin in the game” ignores the fundamental causes. The ultra sophisticated buyers knew the originators had no skin in the game. Neoclassical economics and finance predicts that because they know that the nonprime originators have perverse incentives to sell them toxic loans they will take particular care in their due diligence to detect and block any such sales. They assuredly would never buy assets that the trade openly labeled as fraudulent, after receiving FBI warnings of a fraud epidemic, without the taking exceptional due diligence precautions. The rating agencies’ concerns for their reputations would make them even more cautious. Real markets, however, became perverse — “due diligence” and “private market discipline” became oxymoronic. These two documents are enough to begin to understand:
the FBI accurately described mortgage fraud as “epidemic”
nonprime lenders are overwhelmingly responsible for the epidemic
the fraud was so endemic that it would have been easy to spot if anyone looked
the lenders, the banks that created nonprime derivatives, the rating agencies, and the buyers all operated on a “don’t ask; don’t tell” policy
willful blindness was essential to originate, sell, pool and resell the loans
willful blindness was the pretext for not posting loss reserves
both forms of blindness made high (fictional) profits certain when the bubble was expanding rapidly and massive (real) losses certain when it collapsed
the worse the nonprime loan quality the higher the fees and interest rates, and the faster the growth in nonprime lending and pooling the greater the immediate fictional profits and (eventual) real losses
the greater the destruction of wealth, the greater the (fictional) profits, bonuses, and stock appreciation
many of the big banks are deeply insolvent due to severe credit losses
those big banks and Treasury don’t know how insolvent they are because they didn’t even have the loan files
a “stress test” can’t remedy the banks’ problem — they do not have the loan files …”
The Death of Democratic Capitalism? Will a state-directed economy really produce strong growth?
By Larry Kudlow
“…The issue at hand is the possible conversion of the TARP money now held by banks in the form of non-voting preferred stock into common stock with full voting rights. White House and Treasury officials have spoken of this possibility in recent days, and it plainly raises the issue of government ownership and backdoor nationalization of the banks — or at least the major banks.
To wit, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan look to be recovering their health. They want to de-TARP, and perhaps Geithner will let them. But if he doesn’t, these institutions might be forced to convert their preferred TARP shares into common stock, thereby giving Team Obama tremendous sway over their operations. As for the less-healthy big banks, one suspects the government will increase its 36 percent ownership in Citigroup and take a new ownership position in Bank of America.
The results of the government’s economic “stress tests” — due early next month — will complicate these calculations. And at the end of the day I think Team Obama will interpret the stress tests in whatever manner serves its larger purpose, which I suspect is backdoor nationalization.
Just to confuse matters more, the congressional strings attached to TARP might apply not only to the banks, but also to participants in TALF and PPIP — the new government-lending programs designed to detoxify bank balance sheets. I don’t know this is the case, but it could well be the case.
This is why most private investors have stayed away from the two early TALF auctions. And JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon says his bank won’t play in PPIP because “we’ve learned our lesson.” He calls TARP a “scarlet letter.” But what he’s really saying as America’s leading banker is that he doesn’t want his bank or shareholders to be run by the government. …”
The AIG Outrage The government shouldn’t run anything, because it cannot run anything.
By Larry Kudlow
“…In a column last week I suggested that not one more dime of government money is necessary for the banks. Instead, the marriage of the cash-flow valuation of bank assets and the upward-sloping Treasury yield curve will do the trick. Net interest margins are rising as banks purchase money for near-zero interest and loan it out at profitable rates. And the new mark-to-market reform will allow banks to hold their toxic assets for several more years and work them out — just as they did back in the 1990s.
We don’t need more TARP. We don’t need to take over more big banks. And we don’t need to have the government run things it simply isn’t capable of running.”
“My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.”
~Socrates
The Beach boys California girls
UPDATED
Beauty Pageant Sues Carrie Prejean for Implants Money
Miss California USA wants the $5,200 back
“… Carrie Prejean who, not long ago, was stripped of her Miss California USA crown in the aftermath of the homophobia scandal, sued the beauty pageant for religious discrimination, saying she was let go because she dared speak her mind, which, in turn, she did only because it was her belief. The Miss California USA organization is now counter-suing Prejean, asking for the $5,200 it gave her to get implants,…”
Carrie Prejean on Losing Her Miss California Crown on Hannity — 06/11/2009
Carrie Prejean is Fired as Miss California
Carrie Prejean: ‘I Lost Miss USA Because 3 Of The Judges Are Gay’
Donald Trump said Carrie Prejean would resume her duties as Miss California
Miss USA California Responds To Gay Marriage Question From Perez Hilton
Miss California I pray and feel sorry for Perez Hilton”
Carrie Prejean: Woman of Integrity
Cavuto – Carrie Prejean (4/21/09)
Miss California says, “Stay true to your beliefs”
miss california carrie prejean caught with naughty photos
The Mamas & The Papas: California Dreamin’
“Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.”
~Aristotle
LOL
Perez Hilton is a Liberals Wet Dream…
Perez Hilton Vs. Miss California
Miss California’s Nudie Pictures
“Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.”
~Plato
Background Articles and Videos
Miss USA 2009
Marriage
Marriage is a social, religious, spiritual, or legal union of individuals. This union may also be called matrimony, while the ceremony that marks its beginning is usually called a wedding and the married status created is sometimes called wedlock.
Marriage is an institution in which interpersonal relationships (usually intimate and sexual) are acknowledged by the state, by religious authority, or both. It is often viewed as a contract. Civil marriage is the legal concept of marriage as a governmental institution, in accordance with marriage laws of the jurisdiction. If recognized by the state, by the religion(s) to which the parties belong or by society in general, the act of marriage changes the personal and social status of the individuals who enter into it.
People marry for many reasons, but usually one or more of the following: legal, social, and economic stability; the formation of a family unit; procreation and the education and nurturing of children; legitimizing sexual relations; public declaration of love; or to obtain citizenship.[1][2]
Marriage may take many forms: for example, a union between one man and one woman as husband and wife is a monogamous heterosexual marriage; polygamy – in which a person takes more than one spouse – is common in some societies.[3] Some jurisdictions[4] and religious denominations[5][6][7] recognize same-sex marriage, uniting people of the same sex.
A marriage is often formalized during a marriage ceremony,[8] which may be performed either by a religious officiant, by a secular state authorised officiator, or (in weddings that have no church or state affiliation) by a trusted friend[citation needed] of the wedding participants. The act of marriage usually creates normative or legal obligations between the individuals involved and, in many societies, their extended families. …”
Public opinion of same-sex marriage in the United States
“Same-sex marriage in the United States is generally opposed by public opinion, though by decreasing margins in recent years.[1]
Advocates of same-sex marriage generally hold that marriage and its benefits should not be denied to same-sex couples, and that such a denial infringes one or more of their rights as American citizens. Critics of same-sex marriage generally hold that marriage should be defined as only consisting of a union of one man and one woman, and that no rights exist that should compel a state to recognize any relationships to the contrary of that definition.
Some people make a distinction between same-sex marriage and civil unions, which would provide same-sex couples certain legal rights such as health care proxies or insurance.
Opposition correlated with level of religious attendance, older age, Republican Party affiliation and residing in the South. Levels of support were higher among the young, non-church going, independents, Democratic Party affiliated and those who lived in the Northeast United States and the West Coast.
In some states, particularly in the northeastern and some western states, people have expressed support for same-sex marriage in some polls. However, in states where the issue was put to voters, same sex marriage bans were passed with a rare exception. …”
“…The most recent national poll on same-sex marriage in the United States was conducted in July 17, 2008 by Quinnipiac University, with 55 percent opposed, and 36 percent in favor.[2] An ABC News poll found that the majority (58%) of Americans remained opposed to same-sex marriages, while the minority (36%) support them. However, on the question of a constitutional amendment, more are now opposed than for it. The majority (51%) of Americans say the issue should be left for the states to decide, while 43% would agree with amending the Constitution.[3]
Prior to this poll, Gallup conducted a poll on the issue through May 2006. The poll found opposition to same-sex marriage had fallen slightly, as other polls found a sharper dip. In the poll, when asked if marriages between homosexuals should be recognized by law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages, 58% (down 1 point from Aug 2005, and 9 points from March 1996) of Americans responded that they should not be recognized. 39% (up 2 points from Aug 2005, and 12 points from 1996) felt same-sex marriages should be recognized by law. If “homosexuals” is replaced with “same-sex couples”, 42% back same-sex marriage while 56% oppose it.[citation needed]
A similar poll conducted in March 2006, a Princeton Survey Research Associates / Pew Research Center poll concluded 39% of Americans support same-sex marriage, while 51% oppose it, and 10% were undecided. In December 2004, a poll by the same company found 61% of Americans opposed – with 38% “strongly opposed”. Now, less than 2 years later, just 23% are “strongly opposed”. However, an identical poll taken by the same group in June 2006 found a rise in those opposed to same-sex marriage, with 56% disapproving of the practice.
The most recent poll prior to this also showed opposition to gay marriages had fallen. An Opinion Dynamics / Fox News poll released April 06th of 2006. According to this poll, 55% of Americans oppose same-sex marriage, 33% support it, and 11% are unsure of where they stand. …”
$%^&*!!: Civility and tolerance in the Age of Obama
By Michelle Malkin • April 22, 2009 09:55 AM
My syndicated column today looks at the outbreak of Obama-esque discourse across the country. Couldn’t even mention some of the misogynist sleaze prompted by the Tea Party movement because newspapers wouln’t print it. And they call us an “unhinged mob?”
***
“…
* Celebrity leech/trash blogger Perez Hilton took to the Internet and TV airwaves to humiliate a beauty pageant contestant who gave what he considered an “offensive” answer about gay marriage. Hilton, inexplicably serving as a judge of the Miss USA contest, had asked Miss California Carrie Prejean whether she supported the legalization of gay marriage. Prejean respectfully answered: “I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.” President Obama, by the way, defines marriage the same way Carrie Prejean does.
No matter. Hilton immediately lambasted Prejean as a “dumb b*tch” in a viral YouTube video he taped after the pageant Sunday night. He apologized the next morning for the attack, then retracted his apology, then escalated his divisive rhetoric. On Tuesday afternoon, Hilton told an MSNBC female anchor that he was thinking of an even more vulgar epithet – the “c-word” – as he listened to Prejean’s answer. The female anchor said nothing. Basking in his new role as thought and speech enforcer, Hilton told CNN’s Larry King that beauty pageant contestants must bow to the tolerance mob: “Yes. I do expect Miss USA to be politically correct.” …”
President Obama big lie is enhanced interrogation techniques as outlined in the recently released Central Intelligence Agency memos do not work and the techniques are torture.
The President knows that the techniques do work for the simple reason the blacked out sections of the memos reference the results of the intelligence gained from the interrogation.
This is the reason former Vice-President Cheney is insisting that the results of the interrogation also be released.
The full story needs to be told. How many Americans are living today by the prevention of one terrorist attack?
Transparency means full, fair, and complete disclosure of the facts and circumstances and and not just legal opinion memos.
The selective release of memos is not tranparency, far from it.
President Obama would rather play politics with the release of these memos, than protecting the safety and security of the American people.
Besides lying and misleading the American people about the techniques, why release this information in the first place?
President Obama must have known that Vice-President Cheney and others in the Bush Administration know the full story and would insist on as much as possible be released.
The release of the CIA memos is a betrayal of those in CIA and Armed Forces who risk their livies to protect the nation and the American people.
The release of the CIA memos is a betrayal of the American people who rely on President Obama and the Federal Government to protect them from terrorist attacks.
The release of the CIA memos is a betrayal of the oath of office by the President Obama.
The release of the CIA memos is a big distraction that will also placate Obama’s radical socialist base.
His former pastor would be cheering President Obama on:
Obama Pastor: God Damn America
Both President Obama and his politcal strategist, David Axelrod, are trying to distract both the American people and the media from a real threat to their property and liberty.
The Obama administration is attempting to nationalize the banking system and control over who gets credit or loans both business and personal.
This will require continuing huge bailouts of banks who have significant exposure from so-called troubled assets or bad investments made by the banks in mortgaged-backed securites and derivative securities.
The vast majority of the American people continue to oppose the huge bailouts of banks that recklessly invested in these securities using signficant amounts of leverage or borrowed money.
These banks should be put into FDIC receivership and either sold off to other successful banks or investors or liquidated.
The Federal government should not own these banks or any other businesses.
The release of the CIA enhanced interrogation or so-called “torture” memos is a very big distraction to divert attention from what the Treasury Department is trying to do.
Keep your hands on your wallet and focus in on what the tax cheat, Secretary Geithner is doing and proposing.
Boycott bailedout banks and transfer your business and accounts to a successfully run privately owned bank.
The President compounded his mistake of releasing the CIA memos by stating that he might prosecute the lawyers who drafted the policy on interrogations.
This is simply despicable and incompetent.
Start doing this and the President should remember two parties can play this game.
Legal discovery might prove embarrassing to the President and his staff and the leadership of the Democratic party.
The Congressional leadership of both parties were briefed and approved of the enhanced interrogation techniques.
When I heard that President Obama had flip-flopped on the issue of pursing past Administration officials, I immediately thought of Obama’s major supporter George Soros and thought he was behind this sudden change in policy.
One of the worlds wealthiest men call bush a Nazi
Neil Cavuto’s interview of George Soros Part 1
Neil Cavuto’s interview of George Soros Part 2
Apparently I was right.
The word has gone out that Soros and his funded organizations still want to pursue both President Bush and Vice-President Cheney as war criminals over the Iraq war.
The irony is that George Soros rightly points out that people must recognize their mistakes.
People are not infallible.
Soros fails to apply this principle to his own policy positions and agenda.
The majority of the American people are appalled by most of Soros’ agenda and policy positions:
Thus the first step of was for the Obama Administration to go after the attorneys that offerred legal opinions on what was and was not permissable interrogation techniques.
President Obama should have ignored Soros and his funded organizations and supporters.
President Obama should not have released the CIA memos nor should he have indicated he might pursue the attorneys that provided their legal opinions.
Had President Obama been his own man, he would have told George Soros that he was not going to criminalize policy differences and prosecute President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Instead, President Obama put the American people, our military and intelligence forces at risk by releasing the CIA memos.
Both George Soros and President Obama provided an iconic example of fallibility in their handling of the CIA memos on enhanced interrogation techniques.
I am affraid for my country for I believe this is only the first of many more massive mistakes not only in area of foreign policy but also in the areas of economic and domestic policy.
There will be a day of reckoning for President Obama when the United States is again attacked by the Islamic terrorists.
“I Was There” Tribute to September 11, 2001
The American people will ask,”why Mr. President did you help the enemies of the United States by releasing these memos?”
The cheering will stop and the booing will begin in earnest.
The Tea Parties will be coming to Washington D.C. on July 4, 2009 to deliver the message in person.
Unfortunately by July 4, 2009 the official unemployment will exceed 10% and more than 20 million Americans will be looking for full time jobs.
The American people will have very little patience or tolerance for a President of the United States or a political party who wants to criminalize policy differences with past Administrations.
Both the President’s and Congress’ approval ratings will be in free fall and hitting new lows.
“…It’s realistic, not cynical, to assume political entities generally act out of their own self-interests. And political self-interests are what the CIA memos are really about.
The oldest declassified CIA memo is from 2002, the youngest from 2005. So one question is about timing. Why now? Another is about content. What do they offer that’s new?
The bulk of material can be grouped under two headings: (1) Elaborate lawyerly parsing of legal terms (like “shocks the conscience”) coupled with citations of case law; and, (2) redundant descriptions of enhanced interrogation techniques. The most controversial technique, waterboarding, is a rehash of what we’ve heard before, and often. It was only used on three high-value captives. The less aggressive techniques won’t make headlines, unless a fraternity uses one to haze a pledge and someone dies accidently.
The explanations for, and consequences of, publishing the documents spin in two directions.
David Axelrod says is all about Obama respecting the law and being transparent. He called releasing the documents a “weighty decision” that took Obama weeks to make as he balanced two principles. “One is … the sanctity of covert operations … and keeping faith with the people who do them, and the impact on national security, on the one hand. And the other was the law and his belief in transparency.” (“A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.” Niccolo Machiavelli) …”
58% Say Release of CIA Memos Endangers National Security
“…Fifty-eight percent (58%) believe the Obama administration’s recent release of CIA memos about the harsh interrogation methods used on terrorism suspects endangers the national security of the United States. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 28% believe the release of the memos helps America’s image abroad.
Thirty-seven percent (37%) of voters now believe the U.S. legal system worries too much about protecting individual rights when national security is at stake. But 21% say the legal system is too concerned about protecting national security. Thirty-three percent (33%) say the balance between the two is about right.
Document: Cheney, Rice signed off on interrogation techniques
“…A newly declassified narrative of the Bush administration’s advice to the CIA on harsh interrogations shows that the small group of Justice Department lawyers who wrote memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques were operating not on their own but with direction from top administration officials, including then-Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
At the same time, the narrative suggests that then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and then-Secretary of State Colin Powell were largely left out of the decision-making process.
The narrative, posted Wednesday on the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Web site and released by its former chairman, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., came as Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that he’d “follow the evidence wherever it takes us” in deciding whether to prosecute any Bush administration officials who authorized harsh techniques that are widely considered torture.
In a statement accompanying the narrative’s release, Rockefeller said the task of declassifying interrogation and detention opinions “is not complete” and urged prompt declassification of other opinions from 2006 and 2007 that he said would show how Bush Justice Department officials interpreted laws governing torture and war crimes. …”
Pressure grows on Obama to call for interrogation panel
“…Congress remains divided. Some prominent Democrats, led by Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the speaker of the House of Representatives, favor a commission, but others don’t, and many liberals balk at offering immunity from prosecution for what they think are crimes.
Republicans oppose any commission. They say its purpose would be vindictive against the Bush administration and would criminalize policy differences.
Other Democrats prefer to wait for a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee inquiry to finish before deciding about an independent commission — but that could take six months or more. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Thursday that “until we get that information, I think we would all be better off relaxing.”
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, meanwhile, is proposing a sort of pre-commission, in which the attorney general would tap a group of “distinguished” experts such as retired judges to examine the available evidence privately and recommend whether further investigation is warranted.
Still other Democrats await the conclusions of a Justice Department inquiry into whether Bush administration lawyers acted professionally in shaping their legal justifications for the techniques in question, including waterboarding, the simulated drowning of detainees.
Following Obama’s release last week, however, of four memos detailing those techniques, and the subsequent political firestorm, the clamor for another investigation is growing. On Thursday, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., told MSNBC, “I’m sure there’ll be some form of investigation in Congress.” …”
Bush-era interrogations: From waterboarding to forced nudity
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
“…Another memo on the same day, written by then-OLC head Steven Bradbury, described “prototypical interrogation.” These techniques could be authorized for up to a month at a time, during which a detainee is stripped, shackled and hooded with a collar attached to his neck. As soon as the detainee does anything “inconsistent” with the interrogators’ instructions, the interrogators use an “insult slap or abdominal slap.”
The techniques Bradbury approved included “walling,” sleep deprivation, liquid diets and forced nudity except for an adult diaper. If medical personnel approved, repeated sessions could be initiated. Interrogators also were permitted to use a water hose to douse a detainee for several minutes.
In one memo, Bradbury signed off on a long list of limits on interrogation — including setting a maximum of 180 hours for sleep deprivation and allowing for no more than 12 minutes of waterboarding daily. Overall, no detainee could be waterboarded for more than a month.
Bradbury also discussed in detail the legal questions raised by using the various techniques.
“Our conclusion is straightforward with respect to all but two of the techniques . . . ” Bradbury wrote, adding that the use of sleep deprivation and waterboarding “involve more substantial questions, with the waterboard presenting the most substantial question.”
Bradbury noted that Congress’ prohibitions, written to meet U.S. obligations under international law, referred to actions constituting torture must be “specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering.
His memo went on to say, “drawing distinctions among gradations of pain is obviously not an easy task.”
Basing his opinion partly on specialized military training, Bradbury urged “great caution” in the use of waterboarding and sleep deprivation, but concluded the methods as described by the CIA in specific instances didn’t constitute torture. …”
More Obama backtracking that will not surprise you, via ABC News:
President Obama suggested today that it remained a possibility that the Justice Department might bring charges against officials of the Bush administration who devised harsh interrogation policies that some see as torture.
He also suggested that if there is any sort of investigation into these past policies and practices, he would be more inclined to support an independent commission outside the typical congressional hearing process.
Both statements represented breaks from previous White House statements on the matter.
Calling the Bush-era memos providing legal justifications for enhanced interrogation methods “reflected us losing our moral bearings,” the president said that he did not think it was “appropriate” to prosecute those CIA officers who “carried out some of these operations within the four corners of the legal opinions or guidance that had been provided by the White House.”
But in clear change from language he and members of his administration have used in the past, the president said that “with respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there.”
Just yesterday, asked by a reporter as to why the administration was not seeking to “hold accountable” Bush administration lawyers who may have “twisted the law,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “the President is focused on looking forward, that’s why.”
The president made his remarks in the Oval Office during a joint press availability with His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein. …”
“…The US Bank Tower, formerly the Library Tower and First Interstate World Center, is a skyscraper located at 633 West Fifth Street in downtown Los Angeles. It is the ninth-tallest building in the United States, the tallest North American skyscraper west of the Mississippi River, the tallest building in California, and the tallest building with a helipad on the roof (this is required by the city building code). Rising 1,018 feet (310.3 m) in height, it is also the 31st-tallest building in the world as of March 2008. Until the construction of Taipei 101, it was also the tallest building in a major active seismic region; its structure was designed to resist an earthquake of 8.3 on the Richter scale. It consists of 73 stories above ground and two parking levels below ground. Construction began in 1987 with completion in 1989. The building was designed by Henry N. Cobb of the architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners and cost $350 million to build. It is one of the most recognizable buildings[citation needed] in Los Angeles, often used in establishing shots for the city in films and television programs.
The building is also known as the Library Tower due to its location across the street from the Los Angeles Central Library; it was built as part of the $1 billion redevelopment of the Library following two disastrous fires in 1986. The City of Los Angeles sold air rights to the developers of the tower to help pay for the reconstruction of the library. The building was also known for a time as First Interstate World Center after being bought by First Interstate Bank. After First Interstate merged with Wells Fargo Bank the name Library Tower was restored. In March 2003 the property was leased by U.S. Bancorp and the building was renamed U.S. Bank Tower. Residents, however, generally continue to refer to it as the Library Tower.
The tower has a large glass “crown” at its top that is illuminated at night. The crown is lighted with red and green during the Christmas holiday season. It is also lit with purple and gold when the Los Angeles Lakers are playing in the NBA Playoffs and blue and white on Opening Day for the Los Angeles Dodgers. The crown was also lit with red, white and blue during the July 4 holidays, but that practice ended in 2003.
On February 28, 2004, two U.S. Bank logo signs, each standing 75 feet (23 m) high, were installed on the crown, amid controversy for their effect on the aesthetic appearance of the building (as was the case previously when First Interstate Bank’s logos were placed on the crown between 1990 and 1998). …”
“…Yesterday, I noted Marc Thiessen’s op-ed in which he asserted that the interrogation of KSM helped thwart an attack on the Library Tower in Los Angeles. Thiessen was citing a freshly declassified May 2005 memo (PDF), which states (referencing a CIA “effectiveness memo”) that, “the interrogation of KSM — once enhanced techniques were employed–led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into a building in Los Angeles.'” Yesterday, CNSNews reported that the CIA was standing by this claim.
But in Slate, Timothy Noah explains that the timeline doesn’t add up: …”
Press Briefing on the West Coast Terrorist Plot by Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
“…The President today highlighted one example of a disrupted plot, in which al Qaeda intended to use a hijacked airliner to attack the West Coast of the United States. I should say, he used the phrase “Liberty Tower,” that should have been “Library Tower.” This plot is an instructive and chilling reminder of al Qaeda’s global connections and their intention to attack our homeland. More importantly, it makes clear to the American public that there’s an ongoing and effective international cooperation that is working to undermine al Qaeda’s attempts to attack us. It also reminds us that we must continue to gather as much information as possible and from all sources, especially detainee debriefings and intelligence operations, to reveal the evolving terrorist networks and plots.
In telling the American public about this foiled plot, we have to be sensitive to the need to protect sources and methods since we are dealing with the ongoing threat from al Qaeda — and you’ll appreciate that’s why the President doesn’t name the countries, the particular allies or the particulars of the sources and methods to glean the operational leads that led to the disruption of the plot.
As you’ll all recall, the September 11th attack was conceived as a broader plot than what was actually executed. It was meant to include — it was intended, in its initial, formative stages, to include by the East Coast and the West Coast plots. It was bin Laden who decided that it should just focus on the East Coast, and that the West Coast should be held in abeyance until there was a — as a follow-on attack. It’s our understanding now that it was too difficult to get enough operatives for both the East and West Coast plots at the same time.
Khalid Shaykh Muhammad was the individual who led this effort. He initiated the planning for the West Coast plot after September 11th, in October of 2001. KSM, working with Hambali in Asia, recruited the members of the cell. There was a total of four members of the cell. When they — KSM, himself, trained the leader of the cell in late 2001 or early 2002 in the shoe bomb technique. You all will recall that there was the arrest of the shoe bomber, Richard Reid, in December of 2001, and he was instructing the cell leader on the use of the same technique.
After the cell — the additional members of the cell, in addition to the leader, were recruited, they all went — the cell leader and the three other operatives went to Afghanistan where they met with bin Laden and swore biat — that is an oath of loyalty to him — before returning to Asia, where they continued to work under Hambali.
The cell leader was arrested in February of 2002, and as we begin — at that point, the other members of the cell believed that the West Coast plot has been canceled, was not going forward. You’ll recall that KSM was then arrested in April of 2003 — or was it March — I’m sorry, March of 2003.
The ongoing cooperation between — and information exchange between all of the international partners of the various countries involved in this operation permitted us to continue to get more leads, even after Hambali’s arrest. And it permitted us — even after KSM’s arrest, I’m sorry. And that allowed us to follow the path of Hambali, who was ultimately arrested in August of 2003.
The case, I think more than anything, underscores the importance of real-time information sharing. And the fact is, if we don’t — by sharing the information, by working with others and sharing information real-time, while it can be a slow process — you can see we unraveled this over a period of years, this information allows us to get the dots, as the 9/11 Commission put it. And it’s only by collecting those dots and sharing them with each other, something that in isolation may not seem significant, we put together the picture that permits us to disrupt it. It is of critical importance that we build these relationships, that we foster these relationships of cooperation and trust with our allies. And, frankly, they’ve done nothing but get stronger since 9/11. …”
“…More Obama backtracking that will not surprise you, via ABC News:
President Obama suggested today that it remained a possibility that the Justice Department might bring charges against officials of the Bush administration who devised harsh interrogation policies that some see as torture.
He also suggested that if there is any sort of investigation into these past policies and practices, he would be more inclined to support an independent commission outside the typical congressional hearing process.
Both statements represented breaks from previous White House statements on the matter.
Calling the Bush-era memos providing legal justifications for enhanced interrogation methods “reflected us losing our moral bearings,” the president said that he did not think it was “appropriate” to prosecute those CIA officers who “carried out some of these operations within the four corners of the legal opinions or guidance that had been provided by the White House.”
But in clear change from language he and members of his administration have used in the past, the president said that “with respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws and I don’t want to prejudge that. I think that there are a host of very complicated issues involved there.”
Just yesterday, asked by a reporter as to why the administration was not seeking to “hold accountable” Bush administration lawyers who may have “twisted the law,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “the President is focused on looking forward, that’s why.”
The president made his remarks in the Oval Office during a joint press availability with His Majesty King Abdullah II Ibn Al Hussein. …”
“…Consider the Justice Department memo of May 30, 2005. It notes that “the CIA believes ‘the intelligence acquired from these interrogations has been a key reason why al Qaeda has failed to launch a spectacular attack in the West since 11 September 2001.’ . . . In particular, the CIA believes that it would have been unable to obtain critical information from numerous detainees, including [Khalid Sheik Mohammed] and Abu Zubaydah, without these enhanced techniques.” The memo continues: “Before the CIA used enhanced techniques . . . KSM resisted giving any answers to questions about future attacks, simply noting, ‘Soon you will find out.’ ” Once the techniques were applied, “interrogations have led to specific, actionable intelligence, as well as a general increase in the amount of intelligence regarding al Qaeda and its affiliates.”
Specifically, interrogation with enhanced techniques “led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles.” KSM later acknowledged before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay that the target was the Library Tower, the tallest building on the West Coast. The memo explains that “information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of Riduan bin Isomuddin, better known as Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell, a 17-member Jemmah Islamiyah cell tasked with executing the ‘Second Wave.’ ” In other words, without enhanced interrogations, there could be a hole in the ground in Los Angeles to match the one in New York. …”
“…Critics claim that enhanced techniques do not produce good intelligence because people will say anything to get the techniques to stop. But the memos note that, “as Abu Zubaydah himself explained with respect to enhanced techniques, ‘brothers who are captured and interrogated are permitted by Allah to provide information when they believe they have reached the limit of their ability to withhold it in the face of psychological and physical hardship.” In other words, the terrorists are called by their faith to resist as far as they can — and once they have done so, they are free to tell everything they know. This is because of their belief that “Islam will ultimately dominate the world and that this victory is inevitable.” The job of the interrogator is to safely help the terrorist do his duty to Allah, so he then feels liberated to speak freely.
This is the secret to the program’s success. And the Obama administration’s decision to share this secret with the terrorists threatens our national security. Al-Qaeda will use this information and other details in the memos to train its operatives to resist questioning and withhold information on planned attacks. CIA Director Leon Panetta said during his confirmation hearings that even the Obama administration might use some of the enhanced techniques in a “ticking time bomb” scenario. What will the administration do now that it has shared the limits of our interrogation techniques with the enemy? President Obama’s decision to release these documents is one of the most dangerous and irresponsible acts ever by an American president during a time of war — and Americans may die as a result. …”
“…At the Central Intelligence Agency, it’s known as “slow rolling.” That’s what agency officers sometimes do on politically sensitive assignments. They go through the motions; they pass cables back and forth; they take other jobs out of the danger zone; they cover their backsides.
Sad to say, it’s slow roll time at Langley after the release of interrogation memos that, in the words of one veteran officer, “hit the agency like a car bomb in the driveway.” President Obama promised CIA officers that they won’t be prosecuted for carrying out lawful orders, but the people on the firing line don’t believe him. They think the memos have opened a new season of investigation and retribution.
The lesson for younger officers is obvious: Keep your head down. Duck the assignments that carry political risk. Stay away from a counterterrorism program that has become a career hazard. …”
“…Agency officials also worry about the effect on foreign intelligence services that share secrets with the United States in a process politely known as “liaison.” A former official who remains in close touch with key Arab allies such as Egypt and Jordan warns: “There is a growing concern that the risk is too high to do the things with America they’ve done in the past.” …”
A President can’t placate the left and keep America safe.
“…The memos give considerable indication both of the sheer quantity, as well as some of the specifics, of the intelligence gathered through the interrogations. “You have informed us,” wrote Mr. Bradbury in the May 30, 2005 memo, “that the interrogation of KSM — once enhanced techniques were employed — led to the discovery of a KSM plot, the ‘Second Wave,’ ‘to use East Asian operatives to crash a hijacked airliner into’ a building in Los Angeles. You have informed us that information obtained from KSM also led to the capture of . . . Hambali, and the discovery of the Guraba Cell . . . tasked with the execution of the ‘Second Wave.'”
All in all, Mr. Bybee added, “the intelligence derived from CIA detainees has resulted in more than 6,000 intelligence reports and, in 2004, accounted for approximately half of CTC’s [the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center] reporting on al Qaeda.” …”
“…Instead, the release of the memos has unleashed the liberal mob, with renewed calls in Congress for a “truth commission” and even, perhaps, Judge Bybee’s impeachment and prosecutions of the other authors. Mr. Obama has hinted that while his Administration won’t prosecute CIA officials, it may try to sate the mob by going after Bush officials who wrote the memos.
One major concern here is what Mr. Obama’s decision to release these memos says about his own political leadership. He claims that one of his goals as President is to restore more comity to our politics, especially concerning national security. He also knows he needs a CIA willing to take risks to keep the country safe. Yet Mr. Obama seems more than willing to indulge the revenge fantasies of the left, as long as its potential victims served a different President. And while he is willing to release classified documents about interrogation techniques, Mr. Obama refuses to release documents that more fully discuss their results.
All of this might appease the President’s MoveOn.org base, but he can’t expect to satisfy them without also weakening American intelligence capabilities. The risk-averse CIA that so grievously failed in the run-up to 9/11 was a product of a spy culture that still remembered the Church Committee of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra recriminations of the 1980s. Mr. Obama needs to stop this score-settling now, and he can start by promptly releasing the documents that reveal what the CIA learned from its interrogations. …”
Why Obama Won’t Release ALL the CIA Memos on “Torture”
“…In September 2006 President Bush described how enhanced interrogation techniques spared us from the horror of another day like September 11th but few listened. The Democrats with their allies in the “news” media were more interested in scoring cheap political points by accusing Bush of “torture” for his treatment of the worst of the worst Al Queda terrorists which included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who personally sawed the head off a screaming Daniel Pearl… … and held it up to the cameras for all to see.
Democrats Fully Informed on Interrogations
In the selective memory of Democrats and their media allies it’s easy to forget that Democrats had a much different attitude towards what some now call “torture.” Via Peter Wehner at Commentary Magazine we are reminded of this: …”
“…All of these interrogation methods have been adapted from the U.S. military’s own Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (or SERE) training program, and have been used for years on thousands of American service members with the full knowledge of Congress. This has created a large body of information about the effect of these techniques, on which the CIA was able to draw in assessing the likely impact on the detainees and ensuring that no severe pain or long term psychological impact would result.
The actual intelligence benefits of the CIA program are also detailed in these memos. The CIA believed, evidently with good reason, that the enhanced interrogation program had indeed produced actionable intelligence about al Qaeda’s plans. First among the resulting successes was the prevention of a “second wave” of al Qaeda attacks, to be carried out by an “east Asian” affiliate, which would have involved the crashing of another airplane into a building in Los Angeles.
The interrogation techniques described in these memos are indisputably harsh, but they fall well short of “torture.” They were developed and deployed at a time of supreme peril, as a means of preventing future attacks on innocent civilians both in the U.S. and abroad.
The dedicated public servants at the CIA and Justice Department — who even the Obama administration has concluded should not be prosecuted — clearly cared intensely about staying within the law as well as protecting the American homeland. These memos suggest that they achieved both goals in a manner fully consistent with American values. …”
Congresswoman Bachmann Discusses Reforms to the TARP Program on Glenn Beck
Small Banks Repay TARP, Big Banks Still Owe
Bank Stress Test Hits D.C.
Bank Stress Test Breakdown
In-Depth Look – Limits Of Bank Stress Tests – Bloomberg
In-Depth Look – Stress-Testing the Banks – Bloomberg
20/20 – Bailouts and Bull**** Pt. 1 of 6
John Stossel interview with Reason Magazine Part 1 of 2
Dennis Prager & Thomas Sowell – Part 3/3: Stimulus, Bailouts,
Glenn Beck The economy is Sinking in Debt
President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s radical socialist agenda to takeover banking, insurance, and industry by nationalization is becoming increasing obvious, if not totally transparent.
The total in committed government spending so far exceeds 12 Trillion Dollars–$12,000,000,000,000!
Unless the American people protest these unconstitutinal bailouts, 12 trillion could just be the down-payment:
Where the government has a near monopoly and runs a sector of the economy, the results can be horrendous with widespread failure.
One example is public schools or more accurately government schools.
The government school near monopoly have over the last fifty years slowly but surely resulted in the decline in the level of education of US citizens in comparison to the citizens of other countries.
Stupid in America
President Obama would never put his own children in government schools.
Obamas Chose Private Sidwell Friends School
George Carlin on American Owners and Education
George Carlin – List of people who ought to be killed
However, President Obama opposes other American parents from having the choice as to where their children go to school.
School Vouchers Killed by Democrat Congress – All poor children to be left behind now – Glenn Beck
The Case for School Vouchers
President Obama and the Democratic Party oppose school vouchers or money given to parents to be used to pay for the tuition of their children at the school of their choice.
If President Obama really cared about the education of our children, he would support school vouchers and more competition in education, not less.
Instead he used the stimulus bill to fund public education–more money for failing government schools–in order to reward his political supporters the teacher unions.
Rewarding the performance of outstanding teachers, charter schools and school voucher programs received very little funding or no funding in the stimulus package.
Rhetoric and Reality in the Education Stimulus Bill
Bill Gates presses Obama on stimulus, global aid
The None Stimulus Package
Why should you send your children to government schools?
Why should you put your money in government banks?
Why indeed as long as there are competitive private schools and banks?
If you value your children and money never send them to a government controlled, owned and operated institution.
Minds are precious and money is hard to earn.
Minds and money are terrible things to waste.
Next to the unions and trial lawyers, President Obama’s biggest supporters and campaign contributors have been Wall Street financial institutions including the executives and board members of the largest commercial and investment banks.
President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s radical socialism agenda should be boycotted not stimulated and certainly not encouraged with your tax dollars or business.
Find another bank that either did not take a bailout or TARP money or were forced to take TARP money and have already or want to pay the money back.
Then move your account and business to a private bank that serves your needs.
Shun all banks, businesses, and institutions that accept government funding or subsidies.
If you have children, home school them if you can or take a second job and send them to the best private school you can afford.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil; God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Bonhoeffer Agent of Grace
Background Articles and Videos
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“…Dietrich BonhoefferIPA: [ˈdiːtrɪç ˈboːnhøfɐ] (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, a founding member of the Confessing Church. His involvement in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler resulted in his execution. Bonhoeffer was arrested in March 1943, imprisoned, and eventually executed by hanging shortly before the war’s end.[1] …”
“Nationalization, also spelled nationalisation, is the act of taking an industry or assets into the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being state operated or owned by the state. The opposite of nationalization is usually privatization or de-nationalisation, but may also be municipalization. A renationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when a different political party or faction is in power. A renationalization process may also be called reverse privatization.
The motives for nationalization are political as well as economic. It is a central theme of certain brands of ‘state socialist’ policy that the means of production, distribution and exchange, should be owned by the state on behalf of the people to allow for rational allocation and operation, and rational planning or control of the economy. Many socialists believe that public ownership enables people to exercise full democratic control over the means whereby they earn their living and provides an effective means of redistributing wealth and income more equitably.
Nationalized industries, charged with operating in the public interest, may be under strong political and social pressures to give much more attention to externalities. They may be obliged to operate some loss making activities where social benefits are clearly greater than social costs – for example, rural, postal and transport services. As an instance, the United States Postal Service is guaranteed its nationalised status by the Constitution. The government has recognized these social obligations and, in some cases, provides subsidies for such non-commercial operations.
Since the nationalised industries are state owned, the government is responsible for meeting any debts incurred by these industries. The nationalized industries do not normally borrow from the domestic market other than for short-term borrowing.
Nationalization may occur with or without compensation to the former owners. If it takes place without compensation it is a case of expropriation. Nationalization is distinguished from property redistribution in that the government retains control of nationalized property. Some nationalizations take place when a government seizes property acquired illegally. For example, the French government seized the car-makers Renault because its owners had collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of France. …”
“…A key issue in nationalization is payment of compensation to the former owner. The most controversial nationalizations, known as expropriations, are those where no compensation, or an amount far below the likely market value of the nationalized assets, is paid. Many nationalizations through expropriation have come after revolutions.
The traditional Western stance on compensation was expressed by United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull, during the 1938 Mexican nationalization of the petroleum industry, that compensation should be “prompt, effective and adequate.” According to this view, the nationalizing state is obligated under international law to pay the deprived party the full value of the property taken. The opposing position has been taken mainly by developing countries, claiming that the question of compensation should be left entirely up to the sovereign state, in line with the Calvo Doctrine. Communist states have held that no compensation is due, based on socialist notions of private properties.
In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1803, “Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources”, which states that in the event of nationalization, the owner “shall be paid appropriate compensation in accordance with international law.” In doing so, the UN rejected both the traditional Calvo-doctrinist view and the Communist view. The term “appropriate compensation” represents a compromise between the traditional views, taking into account the need of developing countries to pursue reform even without the ability to pay full compensation, and the Western concern for protection of private property.
When nationalizing a large business, the cost of compensation is so great that many legal nationalizations have happened when firms of national importance run close to bankruptcy and can be acquired by the government for little or no money. A classic example is the UK nationalization of the British Leyland Motor Corporation. At other times, governments have considered it important to gain control of institutions of strategic economic importance, such as banks or railways, or of important industries struggling economically. The case of Rolls-Royce plc, nationalized in 1971, is an interesting blend of these two arguments. This policy was sometimes known as ensuring government control of the “commanding heights” of the economy, to enable it to manage the economy better in terms of long-term development and medium-term stability. The extent of this policy declined in the 1980s and 1990s as governments increasingly privatized industries that had been nationalized, replacing their strategic economic influence with use of the tax system and of interest rates.
Nonetheless, national and local governments have seen the advantage of keeping key strategic assets in institutions that are not strongly profit-driven and can raise funds outside the public-sector constraints, but still retain some public accountability. Examples from the last five years in the United Kingdom include the vesting of the British railway infrastructure firm Railtrack in the not-for-profit company Network Rail, and the divestment of much council housing stock to “arms-length management companies”, often with mutual status. …”
“…In the United States, I have heard talk show hosts often ask the question, “why can’t government run like a business.” The answer is simple. They have the wrong incentives and disincentives. It has to do with game theory.
Principals have to hire agents to run things. Principal are the owners, employers, shareholders and citizens. Agents are the employees, managers and government officials. Agents are supposed to act in their principals’ best interests. Employees are supposed to do their jobs. Managers are supposed to run their companies with shareholder value in mind. Politicians of all countries are supposed to implement policies that benefit all of their citizens. Often they don’t.
In the US, we are now being treated to the spectacle of AIG and Merrill Lynch bonuses. This is generally viewed as some sort of moral failure, but it is nothing of the sort. These agents are just acting naturally. They are looking after their own interests. They did not really care if the owners of their firms, either shareholders or now the US government, lost. In game theory, an agent’s best move is to act for themselves, not for the principal. The principal knows this and attempts to offer economic incentives and disincentives, to get the agent to perform. …”
“…The current economic crisis has now reversed the trend of privatization of many state owned firms all over the world. The perception of the failure of capitalism has made nationalization more acceptable. Firms from China to Russia to Dubai have received injections of capital from the state. Bolivia and Venezuela have resorted to old fashion nationalization. In China, airlines, power generation, car companies and banks have all received capital from the state. One of China sovereign wealth funds, China Investment Corporation, having been burned by investments in the west, is now focusing its attention to buying companies in China. It seems that no politician can resist expanding not only political power but economic as well.
Finally, it comes down to one thing: state firms manage for political reasons, not for profit, whether those reasons are to try and increase access to natural resources for national security or to find jobs for the unemployed. Either way, it makes little difference to investors or minority shareholders. Value and efficiency will always take a back seat. Although some growth may occur, it will only last until the needs of the state take priority. …”
“…Now, it seems, they will be asked to come to the aid of their banks — with the added inducement of possibly making some money for themselves.
As part of its sweeping plan to purge banks of troublesome assets, the Obama administration is encouraging several large investment companies to create the financial-crisis equivalent of war bonds: bailout funds.
The idea is that these investments, akin to mutual funds that buy stocks and bonds, would give ordinary Americans a chance to profit from the bailouts that are being financed by their tax dollars. But there is another, deeply political motivation as well: to quiet accusations that all of these giant bailouts will benefit only Wall Street plutocrats.
The potential risks — politically for the administration, and financially for would-be investors — are considerable.
The funds, the thinking goes, would buy troubled mortgage securities from banks, enabling the lenders to make the loans that are needed to rekindle the economy. Many of the loans that back these securities were made during the subprime era. If all goes well, the funds will eventually sell the investments at a profit.
But, as with any investment, there are risks. If, as some analysts suspect, the banks’ assets are worth even less than believed, the funds’ investors could suffer significant losses. Nonetheless, the administration and executives in the financial industry are pushing to establish the investment funds, in part to counter swelling hostility against the financial industry. …”
“…If only the condescending cable TV anchors at CNN and MSNBC had paused from wallowing in gutter puns about tea bags, they might have reported an even more significant phenomenon: Tea Party protesters were as vocal in their criticism of Republicans as they were of Democrats. In Salt Lake City, Utah, a crowd of 2,000 repeatedly booed GOP Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, who both supported the $700 billion TARP bailout, and protested GOP Gov. Jon Huntsman’s decision to accept $1.6 billion in porky stimulus funds.
In Sacramento, Tea Party organizer Mark Meckler singled out California GOP chair Ron Nehring for waffling on proposed $16 billion tax hikes. The crowd of 5,000 greeted Nehring – who unsuccessfully tried to hitch his wagon to the Tea Party movement – with a roar of boos and catcalls. Speaker after speaker lambasted Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for abandoning fiscal conservative principles. The loudest chant of the day: “Throw them out.” …”
“…What resonated on Tax Day were non-partisan calls to roll back pork, hold the line on taxing and spending, end the endless government bailouts, and stop the congressional steamrollers who have pushed through mountains of legislation without deliberation. This is a teachable moment for GOP public relations peddlers in Washington. While they search for the Holy Grail of Re-branding in tony salons and country club conferences, the agenda for 2010 is smacking them in the face. It’s the three T’s, stupid: Too Many Taxes, Trillions in Debt, and Transparency. …”
History of Atmospheric CO2 through geological time (past 550 million years: from Berner, Science, 1997). The parameter RCO2 is defined as the ratio of the mass of CO2 in the atmosphere at some time in the past to that at present (with a pre-industrial value of 300 parts per million). The heavier line joining small squares represents the best estimate of past atmospheric CO2 levels based on geochemical modeling and updated to have the effect of land plants on weathering introduced 380 to 350 million years ago. The shaded area encloses the approximate range of error of the modeling based on sensitivity analysis. Vertical bars represent independent estimates of CO2 level based on the study of ancient soils.
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million – ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,”
~ Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer
Climate Change in 12 Minutes – The Skeptic’s Case
Heritage In Focus: Supreme Court’s EPA Ruling
Greenhouse Gases
Carbon Dioxide is Our Friend
Professor Fred Singer on Climate Change Pt 1
Professor Fred Singer on Climate Change Pt 2
Unstoppable Solar Cycles
60 Minutes – Climate Change Debate Part I
60 Minutes – Climate Change Debate Part II
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 1 of 4
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 2 of 4
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 3 of 4
Climate Change – Is CO2 the cause? – Pt 4 of 4
EPA Finds Greenhouse Gases Pose Threat to Public Health, Welfare / Proposed Finding Comes in Response to 2007 Supreme Court Ruling
“…EPA’s proposed endangerment finding is based on rigorous, peer-reviewed scientific analysis of six gases – carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride – that have been the subject of intensive analysis by scientists around the world. The science clearly shows that concentrations of these gases are at unprecedented levels as a result of human emissions, and these high levels are very likely the cause of the increase in average temperatures and other changes in our climate.
The scientific analysis also confirms that climate change impacts human health in several ways. Findings from a recent EPA study titled “Assessment of the Impacts of Global Change on Regional U.S. Air Quality: A Synthesis of Climate Change Impacts on Ground-Level Ozone,” for example, suggest that climate change may lead to higher concentrations of ground-level ozone, a harmful pollutant. Additional impacts of climate change include, but are not limited to:
increased drought;
more heavy downpours and flooding;
more frequent and intense heat waves and wildfires;
greater sea level rise;
more intense storms; and
harm to water resources, agriculture, wildlife and ecosystems. …”
The radical socialists, aka Democrats, of President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency or EPA in a move that could eventually wreck the US economy and destroy jobs, by taxing carbon dioxide emissions have declared carbon dioxide to be a pollutant under the Clean Air Act.
There are two very big problems or issues with this position.
First, carbon dioxide or CO2 is not pollutant, it is a trace gas and one of the greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide or CO2 is a trace gas.
CO2 Contributed by Human Activity: 12 to 15ppmv / version 1
Carbon Cycle and Global Warming
The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, which also is not a pollutant.
Why was water vapor not added to the list of one of polluting greenhouse gases?
Simple, the EPA would be revealed as fools and become a laughing stock.
Man-made caused global warming would be exposed as a fraud and hoax if they declared water-vapor a pollutant.
Only a fanatic or a fool would attempt to control water-vapor emissions and propose that water vapor be taxed.
So, the EPA did not include water-vapor as a pollutant, but did assert that carbon dioxide is a pollutant.
Second, carbon-dioxide is not a cause of global warming but a result of global warming.
A rising level of carbon-dioxide in the atmosphere from about 280 parts per million to about 390 parts per million or ppm are a lagging result of rising temperatures.
Note the reason carbon dioxide is called a trace gas is that the earth’s atmosphere contains only 390 part per million.
Carbon dioxide increasing in our atmosphere
What the radical socialists and their government funded scientists want to do to is to get the United States economy off of fossil fuels by reducing carbon dioxide emissions:
Understanding Atmospheric Oxygen: Global Carbon Dioxide
The EPA clearly states what it is planning to do: “…The Administration is developing
a comprehensive energy and climate
change plan to invest in clean energy, end our
addiction to oil, address the global climate crisis,
and create new American jobs that cannot
be outsourced. After enactment of the Budget,
the Administration will work expeditiously
with key stakeholders and Congress to develop
an economy-wide emissions reduction program
to reduce greenhouse gas emissions approximately
14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020,
and approximately 83 percent below 2005 levels
by 2050. This program will be implemented
through a cap-and-trade system, a policy approach
that dramatically reduced acid rain at
much lower costs than the traditional Government
regulations and mandates of the past.
Through a 100 percent auction to ensure that
the biggest polluters do not enjoy windfall profits,
If the above cap and trade carbon dioxide tax is implemented in the United States, this is what is going to happen to the American economy and global carbon dioxide emissions:
(4 of 14) MAJOR REDUCTIONS IN CARBON EMISSIONS ARE NOT WORTH THE MONEY DEBATE: PETER HUBER
Glenn Beck: Cap & Trade SCAM
Global Warming: How Hot Air and Bad Science Will Give You Staggeringly Higher Taxes and Prices.
The EPA declares that carbon dioxide is both a pollutant and man is the primary cause of global warming.
When man uses energy or burns carbon based fuels, the result is an increases carbon dioxide emissions.
These man-made carbon dioxide emissions are the cause of global warming or climate change according to the EPA and its government funded climate computer model scientists.
The EPA needs you to believe this big lie.
The radical socialists want to significantly decrease energy use produced by carbon based fossil fuels such as coal, gasoline and natural gas.
The EPA and President Obama need either a cap and trade carbon dioxide tax or a carbon tax to accomplish this.
The radical socialists or Democrats will increase taxes on the American people to finance more government programs for their supporters and campaign contributors.
They need to make you believe that you are responsible for global warming by using electricity, heating oil, and driving a car or truck.
This results in carbon dioxide emissions which in turn according to the EPA is pollution and causes global warming.
Nice fairy tale, but as the above videos have shown, it is simply not true.
So the radical socialists proposed a cap and trade carbon dioxide tax that would significantly raise the cost of all goods and services that require energy in the form of electricity or transportation.
Should yet another cap and trade bill is defeated in Congress, the radical socialist backup plan is to use the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and tax it.
The radical socialists are liars and thiefs.
Do not believe a word they say.
Protect your property, job and life.
Either a carbon tax or a cap and trade carbon dioxide tax would significantly impact the economy resulting in a reduction in economic growth and the loss of jobs.
All of this based on the junk science of discredited computer climate models.
The EPA and President Obama are nuts if you they think the American people are going to go along with their stupidity and ignorance of science.
LOL
Taxes are NOT the problem…
Alternative Energy Sources…
George Carlin – Saving the Planet
Carbon dioxide or CO2 is a trace gas.
“…Here’s a simple example of how much man has contributed towards CO2 in the atmosphere.
Think of the atmosphere as 100 cases of 24 one-litre bottles of water — 2,400 litres in all.
According to the global warming theory, rising levels of human-produced carbon dioxide are trapping more of the sun’s reflected heat in the atmosphere and dangerously warming the planet.
But 99 of our cases would be nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%), neither of which are greenhouse gases. Only one case — just 24 bottles out of 2,400 — would contain greenhouse gases.
Of the bottles in the greenhouse gas case, 23 would be water vapour.
Water vapour is the most abundant greenhouse gas, yet scientists will admit they understand very little about its impact on global warming. (It may actually help cool the planet: As the earth heats up, water vapour may form into more clouds and reflect solar radiation before it reaches the surface. Maybe. We don’t know.)
The very last bottle in that very last case would be carbon dioxide, one bottle out of 2,400.
Carbon dioxide makes up just 0.04% of the entire atmosphere, and most of that — at least 95% — is naturally occurring (decaying plants, forest fires, volcanoes, releases from the oceans).
At most, 5% of the carbon dioxide in the air comes from human sources such as power plants, cars, oilsands, etc.
So in our single bottle of carbon dioxide, just 50 ml is man-made carbon dioxide. Out of our model atmosphere of 2,400 litres of water, just about a shot glassful is carbon dioxide put their by humans …”
Global Warming Alarmists Dislike CO2 Scrubbers
The Big Obama and EPA lie that carbon dioxide is a pollutant and carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warm could mean you lose your job.
Cap and Trade
Obama’s Cap and Trade Taxes Will Destroy America
Warren Buffett Slams “Cap and Trade” as a Regressive Tax on All Americans
The Obama Energy Tax Is Misguided and Unfair
Time to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency before it kills you for exhalling too much carbon dioxide or breathing oxygen.
If you value your job, suggest you vote out of office any politician, Democrat or Republican that votes in favor of either a carbon tax or a cap and trade carbon dioxide tax.
“..But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth.
~ Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer
Global Cooling: The Coming Ice Age
The Ice Age
Ice Age/ Interglacial Cycle
.
Ice Age/Interglacial Cycle
During the last Ice Age, approximately one-third of all land was covered by glaciers. Glaciers reached as far south as New York City. This huge volume of ice reduced the amount of water in the oceans, which lowered sea level by several hundred feet. As a result, a land bridge joined Siberia to Alaska, making travel between the two continents possible.
Climate Scientists Laugh at Global Warming Hysteria
Respected Australian scientists laugh at Julia Gillard, David Suzuki and other climate change drama queens.
Professor Bob Carter of James Cook University is a Marine Geologist.
Professor Peter Reid of James Cook University is a Marine Physics specialist.
Professor Garth Paltridge is a former Cheif Scientist at the CSIRO and is an Atmospheric Physicist.
Listen to 100 years of experience in the field!
Background Articles and Videos
Beware of Cap and Trade Climate Bills
by Ben Lieberman
“…Carbon dioxide is the unavoidable byproduct of fossil fuel combustion, which currently provides 85 percent of America’s energy. Thus, it will be very costly to move away from this preferred energy source, and especially doing so as expeditiously as S. 2191 requires. A study by Charles River Associates puts the cost (in terms of reduced household spending per year) of S. 2191 at $800 to $1,300 per household by 2015, rising to $1,500 to $2,500 by 2050.[2] Electricity prices could jump by 36 to 65 percent by 2015 and 80 to 125 percent by 2050.[3] No analysis has been done on the impact of S. 2191 on gasoline prices, but an Environmental Protection Agency study of a less stringent cap and trade bill estimates impacts of 26 cents per gallon by 2030 and 68 cents by 2050.[4]
Dems Failure to Fast Track Cap-And-Trade a Terrific Omen
Marc Sheppard
“…Yesterday, a genuine bi-partisan coalition (twenty-six Democrats and forty-one Republicans) denied cap-and-trade legislation a filibuster-and-amendment-proof path through the Senate. The move effectively prevents overzealous legislators the likes of Boxer and Waxman from turning their paranoid green dreams of citizen-control into law by circumventing Senate procedures.
And while I probably wouldn’t have your eyes on loan if you thought that anything less than good news – it’s actually nothing short of tremendous news.
You see, as recently as Tuesday it appeared the climate-hysterics might succeed in attaching their dreadful stealth national sales tax scheme to the budget resolution by employing a sneaky little trick called the reconciliation process. But yesterday’s passage of an amendment put forth by freshman Senator Mike Johanns (R-Neb) forces the green ideologues to muster 60 votes instead of a simple majority to pass their inane plan. And, given yesterday’s clear message sent via vote by Democrats from home-states most overwhelmed by the financial disintegration this legislation would assure, such, thankfully, won’t be an easy task.
After all, did over two dozen Democrats suddenly have a moment of group clarity and grasp the madness of raising every American’s energy costs by thousands of dollars annually in a futile and meaningless attempt to diminish atmospheric levels of CO2? Have the decade-long cessation of warming, or the almost daily news of yet another climate expert concurring that the minuscule levels of this trace gas mankind might influence has no bearing on climate whatsoever, finally sunk in? Were the trickle-down consequences of an abrupt $2 Trillion expense to industry and utility companies debated more clearly yesterday than they had been hitherto?
Not likely. Smart money would instead be on a lack of cohesion within the Congressional Green Caucus. And why not? The latest Gallup Poll reports that 41% of Americans consider global warming an exaggeration. And a January Rasmussen poll found 44% percent believing that “long-term planetary trends are the cause of global warming.” So one must wonder — what percentage of Senate and House Democrats remain true believers as opposed to those dutifully following party orthodoxy? And just how far will they be willing to stick their necks out to abide those tenets?
“…Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or damages the natural environment, into the atmosphere.
The atmosphere is a complex, dynamic natural gaseous system that is essential to support life on planet Earth. Stratospheric ozone
In our solar system, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects.
Greenhouse gases, mainly water vapor, are essential to helping determine the temperature of the Earth; without them this planet would likely be so cold as to be uninhabitable. Although many factors such as the sun and the water cycle are responsible for the Earth’s weather and energy balance, if all else was held equal and stable, the planet’s average temperature should be considerably lower without greenhouse gases.[2][3][4]
“…Water vapor or water vapour (see spelling differences), also aqueous vapor, is the gas phase of water. Water vapor is one state of the water cycle within the hydrosphere.[2] Water vapor can be produced from the evaporation or boiling of liquid water or from the sublimation of ice. Under normal atmospheric conditions,[3] water vapor is continuously generated by evaporation and removed by condensation. …”
“…Gaseous water represents a small but environmentally significant constituent of the atmosphere. Approximately 99.99% of it is contained in the troposphere. The condensation of water vapor to the liquid or ice phase is responsible for clouds, rain, snow, and other precipitation, all of which count among the most significant elements of what we experience as weather. Less obviously, the latent heat of vaporization, which is released to the atmosphere whenever condensation occurs, is one of the most important terms in the atmospheric energy budget on both local and global scales. For example, latent heat release in atmospheric convection is directly responsible for powering destructive storms such as tropical cyclones and severe thunderstorms. Water vapor is also a potent greenhouse gas. Because the water vapor content of the atmosphere is expected to greatly increase in response to warmer temperatures, there is the potential for a water vapor feedback that could amplify the expected climate warming effect due to increased carbon dioxide alone. However, it is less clear how cloudiness would respond to a warming climate; depending on the nature of the response, clouds could either further amplify or partly mitigate the water vapor feedback.
Fog and clouds form through condensation around cloud condensation nuclei. In the absence of nuclei, condensation will only occur at much lower temperatures. Under persistent condensation or deposition, cloud droplets or snowflakes form, which precipitate when they reach a critical mass. …”
“Parts-per” notation is used, especially in science and engineering, to denote relative proportions in measured quantities; particularly in low-value (high-ratio) proportions at the parts-per-million (ppm)…”
“…The Environmental Protection Agency concluded Friday that greenhouse gases linked to climate change “endanger public health and welfare,” setting the stage for regulating them under federal clean air laws.
The EPA action marks the first step toward imposing limits on pollution linked to climate change, which would mean tighter rules for cars and power plants. Agency officials cautioned such regulations are expected to be part of a lengthy process and not issued anytime soon. …”
“…The agency said in its finding that “in both magnitude and probability, climate change is an enormous problem” and that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases “that are responsible for it endanger public health and welfare within the meaning of the Clean Air Act.”
The EPA concluded that the science pointing to man-made pollution as a cause of global warming is “compelling and overwhelming.” It also said tailpipe emissions from motor vehicles contribute to climate change. …”
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 17, 2009;
“…The Environmental Protection Agency issued a proposal today finding greenhouse gas emissions pose a danger to the public’s health and welfare, a determination that could trigger a series of sweeping regulations affecting everything from vehicles to coal-fired power plants.
In a statement issued at noon, EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson said, “This finding confirms that greenhouse gas pollution is a serious problem now and for future generations.”
She added, “This pollution problem has a solution — one that will create millions of green jobs and end our country’s dependence on foreign oil.”
Investigate Magazine is a New Zealand publication which has been looking into the history of Kyoto and pollution credit trading:
…without Enron there would have been no Kyoto Protocol.
About 20 years ago Enron was owner and operator of an interstate network of natural gas pipelines, and had transformed itself into a billion-dollar-a-day commodity trader, buying and selling contracts and their derivatives to deliver natural gas, electricity, internet bandwidth, whatever. The 1990 Clean Air Act amendments authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to put a cap on how much pollutant the operator of a fossil-fueled plant was allowed to emit. In the early 1990s Enron had helped establish the market for, and became the major trader in, EPA’s $20 billion-per-year sulphur dioxide cap-and-trade program, the forerunner of today’s proposed carbon credit trade. This commodity exchange of emission allowances caused Enron’s stock to rapidly rise.
Then came the inevitable question, what next? How about a carbon dioxide cap-and-trade program? The problem was that CO2 is not a pollutant, and therefore the EPA had no authority to cap its emission. Al Gore took office in 1993 and almost immediately became infatuated with the idea of an international environmental regulatory regime. He led a U.S. initiative to review new projects around the world and issue ‘credits’ of so many tons of annual CO2 emission reduction. …”
Prominent Scientist Tells Congress: Earth in ‘CO2 Famine’
‘The increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind’
‘Children should not be force-fed propaganda, masquerading as science’
“…Award-winning Princeton University Physicist Dr. Will Happer declared man-made global warming fears “mistaken” and noted that the Earth was currently in a “CO2 famine now.” Happer, who has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, made his remarks during today’s Environment and Public Works Full Committee Hearing entitled “Update on the Latest Global Warming Science.”
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million – ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that,” Happer told the Senate Committee. …”
“…“I believe that the increase of CO2 is not a cause for alarm and will be good for mankind,” Happer told the Committee. “What about the frightening consequences of increasing levels of CO2 that we keep hearing about? In a word, they are wildly exaggerated, just as the purported benefits of prohibition were wildly exaggerated,” he explained. “At least 90% of greenhouse warming is due to water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is a bit player,” he added. “But the climate is warming and CO2 is increasing. Doesn’t this prove that CO2 is causing global warming through the greenhouse effect? No, the current warming period began about 1800 at the end of the little ice age, long before there was an appreciable increase of CO2. There have been similar and even larger warmings several times in the 10,000 years since the end of the last ice age. These earlier warmings clearly had nothing to do with the combustion of fossil fuels. The current warming also seems to be due mostly to natural causes, not to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Over the past ten years there has been no global warming, and in fact a slight cooling. This is not at all what was predicted by the IPCC models,” Happer testified. …”
“…“I keep hearing about the ‘pollutant CO2,’ or about ‘poisoning the atmosphere’ with CO2, or about minimizing our ‘carbon footprint.’ This brings to mind another Orwellian pronouncement that is worth pondering: ‘But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.’ CO2 is not a pollutant and it is not a poison and we should not corrupt the English language by depriving ‘pollutant’ and ‘poison’ of their original meaning. Our exhaled breath contains about 4% CO2. That is 40,000 parts per million, or about 100 times the current atmospheric concentration. CO2 is absolutely essential for life on earth. Commercial greenhouse operators often use CO2 as a fertilizer to improve the health and growth rate of their plants. Plants, and our own primate ancestors evolved when the levels of atmospheric CO2 were about 1000 ppm, a level that we will probably not reach by burning fossil fuels, and far above our current level of about 380 ppm. We try to keep CO2 levels in our U.S. Navy submarines no higher than 8,000 parts per million, about 20 time current atmospheric levels. Few adverse effects are observed at even higher levels.” …”
“…By concluding that greenhouse gases are pollutants that could endanger human health and welfare, the EPA is essentially over-riding a Bush-era decision to allow public comment on the threat of global warming-related pollution. The Bush-era EPA had made that decision after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007 instructed the EPA to determine whether greenhouse gases should fall under the Clean Air Act.
If the White House approves the EPA proposal, which was sent with little fanfare March 20 to President Obama, it would mean possible emissions caps for businesses from auto manufacturers to steel forgeries to utilities, according to a Bloomberg article.
It also could mean regulation of automobile tailpipe emissions, according to the Detroit News.
The Obama Administration reportedly would prefer that Congress impose a cap-and-trade system, but this recent move is being held out as a backup plan if Congress does not move forward with a plan.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce says the EPA’s move is a potential boondoggle to the economic stimulus package.
“This will mean that all infrastructure projects, including those under the president’s stimulus initiative, will be subject to environmental review for greenhouse gases. Since not one of the projects has been subjected to that review, it is possible that the projects under the stimulus initiative will cease. This will be devastating to the economy,” said Bill Kovacs, vice president, of environment, technology and regulatory affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in an interview with The Washington Post. …”
“The carbon cycle is the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged among the biosphere, pedosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of the Earth.
The carbon cycle is usually thought of as four major reservoirs of carbon interconnected by pathways of exchange. These reservoirs are:
The plants
The terrestrial biosphere, which is usually defined to include fresh water systems and non-living organic material, such as soil carbon.
The oceans, including dissolved inorganic carbon and living and non-living marine biota,
The sediments including fossil fuels.
The annual movements of carbon, the carbon exchanges between reservoirs, occur because of various chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes. The ocean contains the largest active pool of carbon near the surface of the Earth, but the deep ocean part of this pool does not rapidly exchange with the atmosphere.
The global carbon budget is the balance of the exchanges (incomes and losses) of carbon between the carbon reservoirs or between one specific loop (e.g., atmosphere ↔ biosphere) of the carbon cycle. An examination of the carbon budget of a pool or reservoir can provide information about whether the pool or reservoir is functioning as a source or sink for carbon dioxide …”
Crooked Carol Browner: Obama’s ethically-challenged energy czar
By Michelle Malkin
My syndicated column today puts the screws on Clintonite Carol Browner, rumored to be Obama’s choice for energy czar. She’s not so fresh and so clean. And conservatives should raise their voices for, you know, real change.
*** Same old, same old.
The trouble with Obama’s energy czar
by Michelle Malkin …”
“…After a two-year legal battle, Judge Lamberth finally held the EPA in contempt of court for the systemic file destruction – actions Lambert lambasted as “contumacious conduct” (obstinate resistance to authority). As is typical in Washington, Browner weaseled out of any serious repercussions. Lamberth inexplicably decided that slapping the agency as a whole with contempt – rather than any individual – would deter future cover-ups.
Is this a gamble the Obama administration wants to take? Browner has crossed the line and violated public trust before in her capacity as eco-chief. Early in her first term as EPA head, Browner got caught by a congressional subcommittee using taxpayer funds to create and send out illegal lobbying material to over 100 grassroots environmental lobbying organizations. Browner exploited her office to orchestrate a political campaign by left-wing groups, who turned around and attacked Republican lawmakers for supporting regulatory reform. These are the very same groups – anti-business, anti-sound science, pro-eco-hysteria – that Browner would be working arm in arm with as Obama’s “energy czar.”
(Washington, D.C. – March 25, 2009) Jon Cannon, nominee for Deputy U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, released the following statement:
“Today I am voluntarily removing my name from consideration to be Deputy Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. It has come to my attention that America’s Clean Water Foundation, where I once served on the board of directors, has become the subject of scrutiny. While my service on the board of that now-dissolved organization is not the subject of the scrutiny, I believe the energy and environmental challenges facing our nation are too great to delay confirmation for this position, and I do not wish to present any distraction to the agency.”
EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said: “I’m disappointed that Jon Cannon will be unable to serve as Deputy Administrator, and I thank him for his many years of dedication to the EPA. The administration will move quickly to identify a new candidate who can help us carry out our mission to preserve environmental sustainability and create green jobs as we transition the nation to a clean energy economy.”
The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials.
The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power.
Translation: Another billion, trillion, multiple gazillion down the drain in the name of our savior-based economy.
If you are a conservative, libertarian, veteran, Catholic, pro-life and anti-abortion Christian or Jew, illegal immigration opponent, unemployed, gun and rifle owner and user, and believer and supporter of the United States Constitution, President Obama has warned your local police and sheriff departments that you may be a recruit for rightwing extremists such as white supremacist and violent anti-government groups.
Looks like I am prime candidate on all counts.
There are just three problems, I am not a racist, I support limited government and I oppose the violent overthrow of the government.
Well President Obama knows left-wing extremists and radical socialists–he has been one since his college years at Columbia University and Harvard Law School, if not earlier.
President Obama attended Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s racist black liberation theology church for over twenty years and was friends and worked closely with a revolutionary socialist bomber for over ten years, Bill Ayers and his wife and fellow terrorist bomber, Bernadine Dohrn.
EMERGENCY; Warning to All U.S.A. Citizens – Obama and Ayers
Obama’s terrorist connections – William Ayers
Part 1: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
Part 2: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
Part 3: Rev. Jeremiah Wright In His Own Words
The reason President Obama never left the church for over twenty-years and remains friends with Bill Ayers to this day is simple.
President Obama is a left-wing extremist–a radical socialist.
President Obama has now set the groundwork or predicate for going after his political opponents.
Instead of rescinding the report and demanding the firing of those responsible for its writing and publication, the press was given limited access and very limited questioning about the report to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
The person responsible for the writing and publication of the report–President Barack Obama!
President Obama said he was not aware of the tea parties.
Sound familiar. Candidate Obama was also unaware of the extreme views of Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers.
May be the Secretary of Homeland Security should give him a “heads-up” to improve his situational awareness!
Never mind.
President Obama lies.
The ends justify the means for all radical socialists.
Do not believe a word the President Obama says–he is conning you.
Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real
By Michelle Malkin • April 14, 2009 12:01 AM
“…Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.
The “report” (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real. …”
“…Nanny state is a term that refers to state protectionism, economic interventionism, or regulatory policies (of economic, social or other nature), and the perception that these policies are becoming institutionalized as common practice. Opponents of such policies use the term in their advocacy against what they consider as uninvited and damaging state meddling. It has been referred to as a form of political correctness. …”
“…Its usage varies by political context, but in general it is used in reference to policies where the state is characterized as being excessive in its desire to protect (“nanny”), govern or control particular aspects of society. Which particular aspects are considered to be excessively protected depends on usage. The term can refer to:
public health interventions such as disease surveillance, quarantines, mandatory or government-subsidized vaccination, food labeling regulations, school lunch programs, and water fluoridation[1]
consumer protectionism that removes or controls otherwise free choices such as helmet laws, anti-smoking laws and other laws regarding personal choices (some of which include a social cost, as in disease in non-smokers cause by second hand smoke)
national economic and social policies (regulation and intervention) that affect large and state-favored businesses
international trade policies that favor native corporate industries (protectionism).
For example, politically conservative or libertarian groups in the United States (especially paleoconservatives that support the free market and capitalism) object to excessive state action to protect people from the consequences of their actions by restricting citizen options.
Liberals on the other hand have used the term to describe the state as being excessive in its protections of businesses and the business class —protections ostensibly made against the public good, and the good of consumers. This usage applies to the international context as well, where the “public good” is used to refer to people in general, and where the state is viewed as being excessive in its protection of native business over foreign (rival) businesses.
The term “Nanny State” was probably coined by the Conservative British MP Iain Macleod who wrote “what I like to call the nanny state . . .” in his column “Quoodle” in the December 3, 1965 edition of The Spectator.[citation needed]
American foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky regularly uses the term “nanny state” to refer to U.S. protectionist policy. …”
The Constitution Is A Subversive Manifesto Per DHS
By William A. Jacobson
“…One thing that is not clear from the news reports, to begin with, is that the Report specifically states that there is no current real threat, even from the most extreme White Supremacist groups: “Threats from white supremacist and violent anti-government groups during 2009 have been mostly rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts.” From the news accounts, you would think there was an actual threat, but that is not so.
But the even bigger vice is how a “rightwing extremist” is defined. I don’t disagree that the few remaining White Supremacist groups should be in any definition, but DHS puts a distinctly political spin on the definition (emphasis mine):
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
This definition is so broad as to include anyone who seeks to preserve the foundation of our federal-state constitutional distinction, under the 10th Amendment (“The 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”), because such a person could be deemed to “reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.” So Texas Governor Rick Perry, who has come out in support of preserving the constitutional integrity of Texas now should be on the DHS‘ extremist and radical watch-list.
Similarly, the reference to “abortion or immigration” is purely political. Why pick those two subjects? If someone is planning violence, that is one thing. But vocalizing one’s view on a subject and seeking to influence the government are protected by the 1st Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances …”
Janet Napolitano’s Extremist Makeover tour
By Michelle Malkin
“…Janet Napolitano made the media rounds this morning to face the public firestorm over DHS’s hit job on conservatives.
I’m calling it the Extremist Makeover tour.
She offered an apology to veterans, saying it wasn’t her intention to offend. It may not have been the intention of the report authors or Napolitano to offend or overreach, but that was certainly the effect. And it remains a mystery why Napolitano felt it necessary to distribute a shoddy nine-page report that was supposedly in the works under the Bush administration for a year, as Napolitano claims, containing zero data backing up the claim of a “resurgence” of rightwing extremist violence — and was padded with analysis from the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to stir fear of “disgruntled military veterans.”
On Fox and Friends this morning, Napolitano admitted that she would have changed the definition included in the report. …”
You might be a radicalized rightwing extremist if…
By Michelle Malkin
“…if you are heading out to a Tea Party today!
Here’s my syndicated column on the DHS hit job. A few may be inclined to give DHS the benefit of the doubt. Andrew McCarthy reminds you of the many reasons why you should not.
“… is here, courtesy of Jake Tapper. This is the report heralded by counter-critics of the DHS report on “right-wing extremism” that supposedly disproves political bias in the substance-free attack on conservative critics. Except that the report on extremism of the Left is much different than the other DHS report, starting with specifics. While the DHS report focusing on the Right expansively and generally indicted groups opposing abortion, illegal immigration, and federalism, this report instead focuses on actual and specific extremist groups — groups who have a long history of domestic terrorism and violence (page 9):
(U//FOUO) DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines leftwing extremists as groups or individuals who embrace radical elements of the anarchist, animal rights, or environmental movements and are often willing to violate the law to achieve their objectives. Many leftwing extremist groups are not hierarchically ordered with defined members, leaders, or chain of command structures but operate as loosely-connected underground movements composed of “lone wolves,” small cells, and splinter groups.
— (U//LES) Animal rights and environmental extremists seek to end the perceived abuse and suffering of animals and the degradation of the natural environment perpetrated by humans. They use non-violent and violent tactics that, at times, violate criminal law. Many of these extremists claim they are conducting these activities on behalf of two of the most active groups, the Animal Liberation Front and its sister organization, the Earth Liberation Front. Other prominent groups include Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty; and chapters within the Animal Defense League, and Earth First!.
— (U//FOUO) Anarchist extremists generally embrace a number of radical philosophical components of anticapitalist, antiglobalization, communist, socialist, and other movements. Anarchist groups seek abolition of social, political, and economic hierarchies, including Western-style governments and large business enterprises, and frequently advocate criminal actions of varying scale and scope to accomplish their goals. Anarchist extremist groups include entities within Crimethinc, the Ruckus Society, and Recreate 68.
In other words, it does not treat all animal-rights criticisms as indications of terrorist thought. It fails to paint all opponents of free trade as potential national-security threats. Global warming activism does not get treated in this instance as federalism does in the execrable DHS report on conservatives and libertarians. In other words, in this report, the DHS actually focuses on threats, not becoming the Thought Police. …”
“…The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Federal agency warns of radicals on right
A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.
“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says. …”
The White House has distanced itself from the analysis. When asked for comment on its contents, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said, “The President is focused not on politics but rather taking the steps necessary to protect all Americans from the threat of violence and terrorism regardless of its origins. He also believes those who serve represent the best of this country, and he will continue to ensure that our veterans receive the respect and benefits they have earned.” …”
Robin Williams Stand Up – How to know if you have cocaine problem!!
Robin Williams Live at the Roxy 1978
Robin Williams – Weapons Of Self Destruction
An Evening with Robin Williams
Robin Williams stand up part 1/10
Robin Williams stand up part 2/10
Robin Williams stand up part 3/10
Robin Williams stand up part 4/10
Robin Williams stand up part 5/10
Robin Williams stand up part 6/10
Robin Williams stand up part 7/10
Robin Williams stand up part 8/10
Robin Williams stand up part 9/10
Robin Williams stand up part 10/10
Robin Williams interview – Inside The Actors Studio
Background Articles and Videso
Robin Williams
“Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1951)[1] is an Academy Award-, Golden Globe-, and Grammy Award-winning American comedian and actor.
Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He has won an Academy Award for his performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as being nominated in the 1991 film The Fisher King, and 1993’s Mrs. Doubtfire He has also won six Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and three Grammy Awards. …”
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts “native” before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else.”
The Unanimous Declaration
of the Thirteen United States of America
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. …”
Homeland Security Issues Warning About Right Wing Extremist
HOMELAND SECURITY WARNS OF ‘RIGHT WING RADICALS’
Extremism In The Defense Of Liberty Is No Vice
MALCOLM X: OXFORD UNION DEBATE
The Department of Homeland Security’s Report on “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Environment Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment” is political propaganda released in an attempt to intimidate the American people.
More specifically, it was a lame insulting attempt to intimidate the American people into not attending over 2,000 plus nationwide tea parties protesting out-of-control Federal government spending, taxes, deficits, regulations and the national debt.
It was sent to police departments and sheriffs nationwide and released just before the Tax Day Tea Parties of April 15, 2009.
Fortunately, the report had just the opposite effect.
The American people were not intimidated.
Instead, they were mad as hell at the report.
Many are demanding they whoever wrote the report and those responsible for its release be fired.
This may pose a problem for the simple reason that the primary source of the report appears to be Barack Obama, the President of the United States.
The Department of Homeland Security’s report has a very broad defintion as to what is a rightwing extremist:
“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s report language appears to echo remarks made by Barack Obama on more than one occassion:
NRA: Barack Obama – “bitter gun owners”
Clinton Finds Obama’s “Bitter” Remarks “Patronizing”
Barack Obama on Rural and Working Class America, Circa 2004
The Department of Homeland Security’s report also plays the race card:
Rightwing extremists have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.
Looks like President Obama is again using that tried and true tactic of playing the race card–right out of the Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals playbook–to try to freeze the opposition.
Confirmed: The Obama DHS hit job on conservatives is real
By Michelle Malkin • April 14, 2009 12:01 AM
“…Yesterday, Roger Hedgecock and the Liberty Papers posted an unclassified DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis report titled:
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.
The “report” (PDF file here) was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.
I spent the day chasing down DHS spokespeople, who have been tied up preparing for a very important homeland security event later today: The First Lady is coming to visit their Washington office. Priorities, you know.
Well, the press office got back to me and verified that the document is indeed for real.
They were very defensive — preemptively so — in asserting that it was not a politicized document and that DHS had done reports on “leftwing extremism” in the past. I have covered DHS for many years and am quite familiar with past assessments they and the FBI have done on animal rights terrorists and environmental terrorists. But those past reports have always been very specific in identifying the exact groups, causes, and targets of domestic terrorism, i.e., the ALF, ELF, and Stop Huntingdon wackos who have engaged in physical harassment, arson, vandalism, and worse against pharmaceutical companies, farms, labs, and university researchers.
By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election. …”
You might be a radicalized rightwing extremist if…
By Michelle Malkin
“…if you are heading out to a Tea Party today!
Here’s my syndicated column on the DHS hit job. A few may be inclined to give DHS the benefit of the doubt. Andrew McCarthy reminds you of the many reasons why you should not.
“…You cannot ignore the context or the timing of this DHS report. It’s no small coincidence that Napolitano’s agency disseminated the assessment just a week before the nationwide April 15 Tax Day Tea Party protests. The grass-roots events organized by fiscal conservatives, independents, Libertarians, and yes, even some blue Dog Democrats were fueled by the “current economic and political climate” of bipartisan profligate spending and endless taxpayer-funded bailouts. The growing success of the loose-knit movement has invited scorn, ridicule, and fear-mongering from Obama’s supporters. Liberal bloggers have likened the Tea Party movement to neo-Nazis, militias, and even Weather Underground terrorists. …”
“…“Potential to turn violent?” So did the hysterical fervor whipped up by Capitol Hill over the AIG bonuses, which prompted ugly death threats from across the country. No mention here, though. Not “rightwing” enough. Nor will you see Obama DHS warnings to police and sheriff’s departments about self-proclaimed bank terrorists such as Bruce Marks of the aggressive Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America or the mob activists of ACORN who have committed burglary, stormed corporate executives’ homes, and vowed to conduct “civil disobedience” by “any means necessary” in response to the “current economic and political climate.”
If you can redefine dissenting opinion as “hate,” you can brand your political opponents as “extremists” – and you can marginalize electoral threats. “Antigovernment?” “Pro-enforcement?” “Disgruntled?” Feeling taxed enough already and “recruiting” and “radicalizing” your friends and neighbors through “chatter on the Internet?”
We are all rightwing extremists now. Welcome to the club. …”
“…That DHS report warning about all manner of “right-wing extremists” could be considerably shortened if it simply alerted law-enforcement officials to be on the lookout for people from “small towns (who are) bitter (and) cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment.” …”
The execrable DHS report on “right-wing extremism”
By Ed Morrissey
“…The first question we should ask is whether the DHS is reacting to any specific threats at all? Er … no (emphasis mine):
The DHS/Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) has no specific information that domestic rightwing* terrorists are currently planning acts of violence, but rightwing extremists may be gaining new recruits by playing on their fears about several emergent issues.
This gets repeated over and over again during the report. They have no threat information. In fact, the report can’t even say definitively whether “extremists” are gaining “new recruits”. In order to find that, they’d have to identify the actual groups, note the recruiting patterns, and determine whether in fact they’re gaining recruits or losing members. Bottom line: DHS has no actual data. They’re pulling threats out of their collective arse and publishing them without any supporting research whatsoever.
DHS acts as though white-supremacist groups and militias believing in Zionist world conspiracies stopped existing between 2000 and 2008. Of course they didn’t; George Bush’s strong support for Israel fed those nutcase groups for eight years. Are those groups growing in the last five months, after what DHS assumes is the trigger for all this hate — the election of Barack Obama? They provide absolutely no evidence at all for it, and in fact repeat over and over again that they don’t have that data in a hail of May Bes. …”
The Government’s Jihad on Jihad Still lookin’ for love in all the wrong places.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
“…I prefer to focus on what DHS is trying to accomplish. Respectfully, I do believe the agency, like the wider government, is engaged precisely in an exercise in political correctness.
This, after all, is not the first time such an issue has arisen. Despite mountainous evidence to the contrary, President Bush brands Islam a “religion of peace,” a status raised by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to “religion of love and peace.” The administration routinely designates as “moderates” such luminaries as Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali Sistani (who does not meet with non-Muslims — whom he regards as unclean — and calls, for example, for the brutal killing of homosexuals, citing Islamic law), the former Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (a creation of Iran which has dropped the “Revolution” from its title but remains dedicated to the establishment of a Khomeinist sharia state), and the Palestinian Fatah organization (the legacy of Yasser Arafat which sports its own terror wing and a charter committed to Israel’s destruction).
In Orwellian lockstep, DHS (like the FBI) now compels many of its agents to endure cultural sensitivity training designed to inculcate this relentlessly sunny view of Islam. A year ago, moreover, I caught the Transportation Safety Administration, a DHS agency, posting a press release from CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) on its official government website.
At the time, CAIR, which was created by an arm of Hamas and has a history of operatives being caught up in terrorism investigations, was regarded by the Justice Department as an unindicted coconspirator in a terrorism financing case, had aligned with the ACLU to sue the government over the NSA’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, and had published a “Muslim community safety kit” to counsel Muslims on how to thwart FBI investigations.Yet, this is how it was described on TSA’s website:
CAIR, America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group, has 32 offices and chapters nationwide and in Canada. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
Today’s Tea Parties are a huge success because they are planned and organized by a spontaneous grassroots movement in protest of out of control Federal Government spending, taxes, deficits, regulations and national debt.
The American people deeply resent that the political elites in Washington D.C. of both political parties who have ignored and betrayed them.
It’s Tea Party Time!—Glenn Beck’s ‘One Thing’: 04-15-09
Both political parties are responsible for massive government spending, deficits, bailouts, handouts, amnesty for illegal aliens, high unemployment and the proposed new cap and trade carbon dioxide tax and the coming high inflation rates.
There is widespread agreement that both Federal taxation and spending is out of control and needs to be reformed and constrained.
Ten years ago I favored a flat tax. I am still waiting with no prospect for passage in sight.
After carefully comparing a flat tax with the proposed FairTax, I am now convinced the FairTax is a better alternative.
At first I resisted The FairTax thinking it was simply a sales tax and would be regressive on those with low income.
I had not done by homework and needed to read and understand the FairTax better.
The more I read and understood the FairTax, the more I preferred it to the flat tax.
Both the flat tax and the FairTax would be much better than our existing Federal taxation system.
The Origins of the FairTax
The advantages and benefits of the FairTax include the following:
Replaces all individual and corporate income taxes, Social Security, Medicare and other payroll taxes, alternative minimum tax, capital gains taxes, gift and estate taxes with a single rate national retail sales consumption tax–The Fair Tax
Provides a pre-bate for the taxes paid on the necessities of life up to the poverty level for all individuals–this eliminates the regressive aspect of any sales tax.
Pay taxes only when you consume a new good or service–no taxes on education and used or old goods.
No more filing of annual tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service and invasions of your privacy
Encourages work, savings and investment
Attracts capital and manufacturing back to the United States
Broadens the tax base
Expands our export sector by making it very competitive
Grows the economy at much higher rates
Creates more and higher paid jobs
Easy to understand and fair to all Americans
The more and better you understand the principles and benefits of the FairTax, the more you will be saying to yourself, “we need to do this now!”
Neal Boortz is an talk show host and libertarian who co-authored two books on the FairTax with Congressman John Linder.
As a result, many other talk show hosts, many of whom I think would normally support a FairTax, will not discuss or support the FairTax, because one of their competitors in talk radio wrote the book.
It is passed time for real tax reform.
Conservative and libertarian talk show hosts need to get behind either the FairTax or the Flat Tax.
I hope you will spend the time learning more about the FairTax and eventually support it.
Tax reform is an issue that impacts the American people.
At future Tea Parties this summer and especially at the July 4, 2009 Washington Fair Tea Parties, the American people need local and national talk radio show hosts to come out in favor of either the FairTax or the Flat Tax.
So, please do your homework and study both.
While you are reading and thinking, remember, there will soon be over 20 million Americans looking for a full time job to earn a living and support their families.
The American people are counting on you to put aside your differences and support Federal tax reform.
Time is of the essence.
Then in the coming weeks talk about Federal tax reform on your shows.
Ask your listeners what they are looking for in tax system.
Remember the words of one of the founding fathers:
“We must hang together, gentlemen…else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.”
“…There is widespread consensus that the current tax system is a complicated failure that hinders the nation’s growth while allowing the politically well-connected to manipulate the system to get special breaks that are not available to average workers and businesses. This is stimulating a great deal of interest in shifting to a simple and fair flat tax. For instance, President George W. Bush has appointed the President’s Advisory Panel on Tax Reform to recommend options for fundamental tax reform,[1] the Department of the Treasury has produced extensive analysis of the flat tax and other reform options,[2] and lawmakers on Capitol Hill are exploring various ways to reform the tax code.
The United States should move quickly to reform its tax system. In a competitive global economy, jobs and capital flow to jurisdictions with better tax law. Traditionally, this process of “tax competition” has benefited the United States, but there is growing evidence that America is falling behind. Nations around the world are lowering tax rates and reforming their tax systems. Indeed, nine countries that were part of the former Soviet Bloc have adopted versions of the flat tax.[3] These pro-growth reforms are yielding impressive results and are a road map for U.S. policymakers. …”
Democrats and Republicans Have Different Understanding of Fair Tax System
“…Democrats, by a 53% to 34% margin, say that a fair tax system would have higher income Americans paying a higher percentage of their income in taxes. Republicans, by a 66% to 25% margin, say that a fair tax system would have everyone paying the same percentage of their income in taxes.
Looking beyond the partisan perspective, 48% of all voters think that all Americans should pay an equal percentage of their income in taxes. Forty percent (40%) think that upper income Americans should pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes.
When it comes to the way that the system currently works, Democrats, by a 53% to 28% margin, believe that those earning $50,000 a year pay a larger share of their income in taxes than someone who earns $200,000 a year. Republicans, by a 50% to 30% margin, have the opposite view. Overall, voters are fairly evenly divided on this point.
Democratic Presidential hopeful has proposed raising taxes on those earning $200,000 a year to finance tax cuts for lower and middle income Americans. Democrats, by a 75% to 15% margin, favor that proposal. Republicans, by a 56% to 34% margin, are opposed.
However, voter skepticism runs deep on the tax issue. If a politician promises to raise taxes only on the wealthy, 76% of voters believe that middle taxes will go up. That figure includes 85% of Republicans, 76% of Democrats, and 63% of those not affiliated with either major party. …”
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. …”
One tactic favored by the radical socialists is to accuse your opponents of doing what in fact they are not doing but you and your political friends are in fact doing.
Until this morning I thought a tea bag was a tea bag and I had never heard tea bag used as a verb– tea bagging.
Since my Mother and Father both liked tea, I have made and had my share of both hot and ice tea.
While I still like tea, I mainly drink water, diet cola and chocolate milk.
This morning I was in my car listening to the final segment of Bill Bennet’s Morning in America show, when a caller warned Bill what the radical socialists were up to regarding the labelling of tea parties.
It seems that Rachel Maddow on MSNBC just could not resist repeatedly calling the over 2,000 tea parties that are being given on tax day, April 15, 2009 as tea-bagging.
The caller informed Bill that the term has a “vile” meaning.
Bill Bennet wisely told the caller that on his show, he was not having anything to do with this tactic and use of the term tea-bagging and quickly ended the conversation.
I had never heard of the term tea-bagging and had no idea why Maddow was intentionally using the term to refer to the Tax Day Tea Parties.
Since I am one of many thousands of individuals promoting these tea parties and seldom watch TV, I watched her Tea Party video on youtube:
The Rachel Maddow Show: Insani-Tea: Conservatives Rally Around “Teabagging”
I then googled the term “tea bagging” definition and quickly found out why the ladies were so excited about and could not resist labelling tea parties tea bagging in their piece.
Tea-baggin
There is just one problem. Very few of the promoters and organizers have used the term tea bagging on blog posts, sites or videos.
If you do not know the word, you do not use it.
If you do know the word and its meaning, you do not use it if it would be offensive to others.
Apparently both Rachel Maddow and her frequent guest, Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, knew the risque meaning of the word and intentionally used it.
They were deliberately being offensive to the viewers of her show and to those who watched it on YouTube.
For that alone, Maddow should at least apologize.
I would fire her and her producer and if I owned a station cancel her show.
She deliberately and knowingly crossed the line and demonstrated she lacked judgement and taste.
It is one thing to use a word when you do not intend to offend someone and the word actually has one meaning that would offend some people.
It is quite a different matter when you knowingly use a word that is offensive, just so you can be offensive and know that many would find it offensive.
Looks like MSNBC is repeatedly using the term “tea bagging” as a double entrendre:
If You’re Gonna Have Tea Bagging All Over the Country, You’re Gonna Need A Dick Armey!
Maddow, lover of props, just could not get enough of a double entrendre and milked it for all it was worth:
Rachel Maddow: Is There a Rift in the Tea Bag Movement?
When your viewership hits new lows, I guess you get desperate and will say anything to get viewers even if it offends them.
Glenn Beck ratings skyrocket, Olbermann up, Maddow down, has anyone seen CNN?
Fox News is on top with O’Reilly, Beck, and Hannity and MSNBC is on bottom with Olbermann and Maddow.
Where is CNN?
Looks like Anderson Cooper is bringing down and dirty the CNN brand by getting in on tea bagging double entrendre act.:
Anderson Cooper: It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging
I thought CNN was a news show and not a droll British comedy with quiet tongue-in-cheek kind of humor:
Sit on My Face
Monty Python- I’m a lumberjack
Both Maddow and Cooper should be fired for their down and dirty double entrendre offensive speech.
Also, Maddow is fooling herself if she thinks the American people are still falling for President’s Obama’s line that 95% of the American people will not face higher taxes.
I guess she missed the proposed cap and trade carbon dioxide tax and the hidden tax of inflation that will be the direct result of massive bailouts and deficits.
These taxes will impact every American, but in particular those who are retired and/or on a fixed income.
While there are many videos on YouTube promoting Tea Parties, by far the two that have got the most attention are those by a modern day Thomas Paine:
The Second American Revolution
We The People Stimulus Package
The American people of all political parties and persuasions are attending the tax day tea parties on April 15, 2009 for many reasons.
“Rachel Anne Maddow (born April 1, 1973) is an American radio personality, television host, and liberal political commentator.[1] Her syndicated talk radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, airs on Air America Radio. Maddow also hosts a nightly television show, The Rachel Maddow Show, on MSNBC;[2] she was formerly a guest host of Countdown with Keith Olbermann and other MSNBC shows.
A graduate of Castro Valley High School in Castro Valley, California, Maddow earned a degree in public policy from Stanford University in 1994.[3] At graduation she was awarded the John Gardner Fellowship. She was also the recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship and began her postgraduate study in 1995 at Lincoln College, Oxford. In 2001, she completed her Doctor of Philosophy degree (styled a DPhil) in political science from the University of Oxford.[4] Her doctoral thesis is titled HIV/AIDS and Health Care Reform in British and American Prisons. She was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes scholarship.[5][6]
“…A double entendre is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is intended to be understood in either of two ways. In most cases, the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so; often risqué, inappropriate, or ironic.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines a double entendre as especially being used to “convey an indelicate meaning”. It is often used to express potentially offensive opinions without the risks of explicitly doing so. …”
Rachel Maddow’s disgusting homoerotic Tea Party “news” report
“…Rachel Maddow and MSNBC have taken an official position on the Tea Party protests spreading across the country: They will attempt to belittle them by referring to them as “tea bagging,” a euphemism for an act performed by homosexual men.
In the attached video, lesbian Maddow uses the term “tea bagging” 63 times. 63 times. …”
“Tea Bagging” Rallies Ruthlessly Mocked On Maddow Show
“…Tonight, on the Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow and regular guest, Air America’s Ana Marie Cox, discussed the fringetastic anti-tax Renaissance Faires known as “tea parties.” There is only one thing in all the world worth noting about the people behind these things, and it is this: everyone involved is apparently unaware of what the term “teabagging” means. As you will see, this is not the case with Maddow and Cox.
“Now, no laughing off set or I will lose it!” begged Maddow, “I’m only barely making it through as it is.” She said this BEFORE Cox joined the segment. From there, it just got better: “Who wouldn’t want to tea bag John McCain?” Cox asked. “This is all part of the midterm strategy,” she added. “You know it’s going to be teabagging 24/7 when it comes to the midterms.” And it shall be. Of this you can be certain. …”
Cable Anchors, Guests Use Tea Parties as Platform for Frat House Humor
Cable anchors and guests covered the anti-tax tea party protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.
“…For thousands of Americans, Tax Day was a moment to protest what they see as bloated budgets and a pile of debt being passed on to their children.
For CNN, MSNBC and other media outlets, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to use the word “teabagging” in a sentence.
Teabagging, for those who don’t live in a frat house, refers to a sexual act involving part of the male genitalia and a second person’s face or mouth.
So when the anti-tax “tea party” protests were held Wednesday across the country, cable anchors and guests — who for weeks had all but ignored the story — covered the protests by cracking a litany of barely concealed sexual references.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper interspersed “teabagging” references with analyst David Gergen’s more staid commentary on how Republicans are still “searching for their voice.”
“It’s hard to talk when you’re teabagging,” Cooper explained. Gergen laughed, but Cooper kept a straight face.
MSNBC’s David Shuster weaved a tapestry of “Animal House” humor Monday as he filled in for Countdown host Keith Olbermann. …”
“..Unhinged CNN reporter Susan Roesgen is on “vacation” after scrapping with Tea Party protesters last week, but her bosses are still hard at work trying to stifle Tea Party voices of dissent. As many of you know, CNN forced the takedown of behind-the-scenes video shot by Andrew Marcus of Founding Bloggers and posted to YouTube. Founding Bloggers has sent and published an open letter to the cable network requesting that the video (which has aired on other TV networks without retribution) be restored:
In short, we suspect that you are harassing us because our product was popular, because we are small, and because you can. We conclude, with some amusement, that your conduct tends to lend validity to the least flattering stereotypes associated with your organization. We live in the era of the internet – it is not so easy to silence people these days, as you will discover. In the final analysis, you will have become the butt of your own joke.
Should you prefer to avoid this fate, we will, of course, welcome the return of our production to its rightful spot – and the 3000+ viewer generated comment-opinions, both in support and in opposition, regarding it. Alternatively, should you prefer to continue on your current course of intimidation and censorship, we will endeavor to counter your actions.
In short, withdraw your fraudulent DMCA claim against our production, and instruct You Tube to restore the clip.
CNN is engaging in blatant abuse of the DMCA to stifle free speech under the guise of “fair use.” Been there, done that. Hot Air successfully fought off a bogus takedown from the bullies at Universal Music Group. I hope the Founding Bloggers do the same — and shame the censors at CNN for eternity. …”
“…Eric Odom reports that there are now 115 cities signed up for the April 15 nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protest. Wow. If you haven’t signed up, want to start your own, and are looking to meet up and organize with other tax revolters, go to Tax Day Tea Party’s website here.
(On a parallel track, fellow Fox News colleague Glenn Beck has spearheaded “We Surround Them” parties scheduled across the country today. I’m hearing from lots of first-time activists who have found overlapping networks. The same principles that unite the “We Surround Them” effort also are in sync with the tax revolters. Synergy is good. We need every body and mind in motion we can get.)
In the meantime, other local Tea Party events keep rolling on.
Reader Stan e-mails photos from Columbia, MO’s protest today: …”
No duh! White House “worried about bailout backlash”
By Michelle Malkin
“…With a few notable exceptions, the national media has ignored the tax revolt movement against the porkulus package, omni-pork spending bill, and bottomless bailouts that began in Seattle on President’s Day; continued in Denver on the day of the Generational Theft Act signing; spread to Mesa AZ during President Obama’s massive mortgage entitlement push; spurred protest in Overland Park KS; and evolved into the Tea Party movement across the country.
But local politicians and local newspapers/TV are definitely on notice. Thousands of folks converging in places like St. Louis (1,500), Greenville (2,000), Fullerton (est. 15,000), and Cincinnati (5,000) are getting harder to ignore.
And now, it seems, word is getting around in Washington. The White House, the NYTimes (which has mocked the tax revolters) tells us, is worried about a populist backlash against bailout-mania. Naw. Really? You don’t say: …”
Huge: Thousands converge for Cincinnati Tea Party; Update: 5k strong
By Michelle Malkin
“…The Cincinnati Tea Party organizers told us it was going to be big. And it was. Organizer J. Binik-Thomas e-mails this evening that 5,000 folks turned out for the protest and more than 1,600 people signed a petition to ask local governments to reject porkulus funding.
Check out photos at Instapundit, including this aerial:
Tea Party on: Taxpayer revolts in Green Bay, Lafayette, Olathe, and Harrisburg; Plus: Live from Fullerton CA… “Recall the Taxinator!;” Arnie videotapes/DVDs smashes/shredded
By Michelle Malkin
“…The tax-paying rebels are not going away.
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, today an estimated 500 protesters gathered for a Tea Party at Titletown Brewing. Reader David has more at Pork Revolution:
“…Tons of groups and individuals are stepping up to the plate in the wake of last week’s anti-stimulus/anti-entitlement protests and the call for a nationwide Tea Party.
The New American Tea Party page from “a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government…dedicated to the Washington, D.C. effort specifically sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, and the Young Conservatives Coalition” is here.
The #TCOT folks have a site here and #dontgo has a list of links to official Facebook Event (and some non-Facebook) pages for each confirmed Chicago Tea Party. …”
“An act of generational theft;” Update: Ugh. Not another Gang of 14! Update Corker’s office clarifies
By Michelle Malkin
“…Here are two staunch conservatives in the Senate who are looking out for you.
U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn weighed in Thursday against a massive package of spending and tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy.
Joining a group of fellow Republican senators, the two Oklahomans questioned whether many of the areas funded in the $800 billion-plus measure would actually end up providing a much-needed economic boost.
“We know what works,” Inhofe said, citing previous packages that succeeded.
He repeated his previous comments of disappointment that spending on infrastructure projects such as highways is not a bigger percentage of the bill.
Citing the package’s historic price tag, Inhofe said that each of the 3 million to 4 million jobs expected to be created would cost about $295,000.
Coburn also said spending on certain areas would help but predicted 80 percent of the money in the bill would not stimulate the economy.
“This is about spending money we don’t have for things we don’t need,” he said.
Coburn said cities across Oklahoma have prepared their own lists of projects they hope to get funded.
“Everybody wants their share,” he said.
Future generations will be denied wealth, Coburn said, if the bill passes.
“This bill is a generational theft bill,” he said. …”
From the Boston Tea Party to your neighborhood pork protest
By Michelle Malkin
“…In Schmucky Schumer’s world, these American taxpayers don’t exist. A big crowd of them gathered in Seattle this afternoon to raise their voices in opposition to the trillion-dollar, pork-filled Generational Theft Act of 2009 — which will be signed into law by the blind President “There are no no earmarks” Obama. Thanks to Zac Petersen for the photos. It took just one person — blogger Liberty Belle — to get the ball rolling. She writes: “Make no mistake, the President will be signing that bill tomorrow, I have no illusions that he will actually listen to us. BUT, maybe, just maybe we can start a movement that will snowball across the nation and get people out of their homes, meeting each other and working together to redirect this country towards its truly radical founding principles of individual liberty and freedom. Maybe people will wake up slowly at first, and then quickly when they realize the urgency needed.”
No wonder Bill O’Reilly is losing out in the ratings to Glenn Beck!
Bill Oreilly takes a stab at Glenn Beck
I will give Bill the benefit of the doubt.
Anyone who goes after Barney Frank over his role in the subprime crisis and Fannie Mae and Freddie bailout is fine by me.
Bill O’Reilly vs Barney Frank
Looks like O’Reilly followed Frank’s investment advice and lost some money.
Bill should have been watching Beck’s show:
Peter Schiff on Glenn Beck Freddie Fannie Bailout! Barr 08!
Glenn Beck illustrate the Printing of the Big Government
Glenn Beck does his homework and reads books to get up to speed–he works harder and it shows.
Prediction: Beck will be number 1 in the ratings within two years.
You betcha.
Glenn Beck ratings skyrocket, Olbermann up, Maddow down, has anyone seen CNN?
“…The biggest news in cable news this week is the remarkable rise of Glenn Beck at Fox.
His Friday night special drew huge numbers and leapfrogged his show above long-time #2 Sean Hannity. What was CNN thinking when the let this guy get away? …”
“…So Glenn Beck leaves Headline News – and is now sending shockwaves throughout Cable News. Now drawing over 2,000,000 viewers and has only been on Fox since January.
So let’s see who the winners and losers are – of this turn of events:
Winner: FOX News
Loser: Headline News
Loser: The other cable news channels
Loser: Bill O’Reilly? …”
Glenn Beck says he’s no Rush Limbaugh, but the ratings say he may be Bill O’Reilly
“…Glenn Beck kicked butt in the ratings last week. After being on television for years, he’s an overnight success.
His Fox News program soared in the ratings, passing perennial second place Sean Hannity and nearly catching long-time leader Bill O’Reilly. All three Fox hosts left the other cable news shows far, far behind. …”
“…Eric Odom reports that there are now 115 cities signed up for the April 15 nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protest. Wow. If you haven’t signed up, want to start your own, and are looking to meet up and organize with other tax revolters, go to Tax Day Tea Party’s website here.
(On a parallel track, fellow Fox News colleague Glenn Beck has spearheaded “We Surround Them” parties scheduled across the country today. I’m hearing from lots of first-time activists who have found overlapping networks. The same principles that unite the “We Surround Them” effort also are in sync with the tax revolters. Synergy is good. We need every body and mind in motion we can get.)
In the meantime, other local Tea Party events keep rolling on.
Reader Stan e-mails photos from Columbia, MO’s protest today: …”
No duh! White House “worried about bailout backlash”
By Michelle Malkin
“…With a few notable exceptions, the national media has ignored the tax revolt movement against the porkulus package, omni-pork spending bill, and bottomless bailouts that began in Seattle on President’s Day; continued in Denver on the day of the Generational Theft Act signing; spread to Mesa AZ during President Obama’s massive mortgage entitlement push; spurred protest in Overland Park KS; and evolved into the Tea Party movement across the country.
But local politicians and local newspapers/TV are definitely on notice. Thousands of folks converging in places like St. Louis (1,500), Greenville (2,000), Fullerton (est. 15,000), and Cincinnati (5,000) are getting harder to ignore.
And now, it seems, word is getting around in Washington. The White House, the NYTimes (which has mocked the tax revolters) tells us, is worried about a populist backlash against bailout-mania. Naw. Really? You don’t say: …”
Huge: Thousands converge for Cincinnati Tea Party; Update: 5k strong
By Michelle Malkin
“…The Cincinnati Tea Party organizers told us it was going to be big. And it was. Organizer J. Binik-Thomas e-mails this evening that 5,000 folks turned out for the protest and more than 1,600 people signed a petition to ask local governments to reject porkulus funding.
Check out photos at Instapundit, including this aerial:
A friend of mine brought his 5 year old son, holding a sign saying, “Even a 5 year old knows socialism is stealing” #teaparty
about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Good sign: “Tar. Feathers. Washington. Now.” #teaparty
about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry
“My recommendation is that people look no further than the halls of Congress to find the stench of pork” #teaparty
Unlike the Los Angeles Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer actually covered the tax revolters without trashing them: …”
Tea Party on: Taxpayer revolts in Green Bay, Lafayette, Olathe, and Harrisburg; Plus: Live from Fullerton CA… “Recall the Taxinator!;” Arnie videotapes/DVDs smashes/shredded
By Michelle Malkin
“…The tax-paying rebels are not going away.
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, today an estimated 500 protesters gathered for a Tea Party at Titletown Brewing. Reader David has more at Pork Revolution:
“…Tons of groups and individuals are stepping up to the plate in the wake of last week’s anti-stimulus/anti-entitlement protests and the call for a nationwide Tea Party.
The New American Tea Party page from “a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government…dedicated to the Washington, D.C. effort specifically sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, and the Young Conservatives Coalition” is here.
The #TCOT folks have a site here and #dontgo has a list of links to official Facebook Event (and some non-Facebook) pages for each confirmed Chicago Tea Party. …”
“An act of generational theft;” Update: Ugh. Not another Gang of 14! Update Corker’s office clarifies
By Michelle Malkin
“…Here are two staunch conservatives in the Senate who are looking out for you.
U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn weighed in Thursday against a massive package of spending and tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy.
Joining a group of fellow Republican senators, the two Oklahomans questioned whether many of the areas funded in the $800 billion-plus measure would actually end up providing a much-needed economic boost.
“We know what works,” Inhofe said, citing previous packages that succeeded.
He repeated his previous comments of disappointment that spending on infrastructure projects such as highways is not a bigger percentage of the bill.
Citing the package’s historic price tag, Inhofe said that each of the 3 million to 4 million jobs expected to be created would cost about $295,000.
Coburn also said spending on certain areas would help but predicted 80 percent of the money in the bill would not stimulate the economy.
“This is about spending money we don’t have for things we don’t need,” he said.
Coburn said cities across Oklahoma have prepared their own lists of projects they hope to get funded.
“Everybody wants their share,” he said.
Future generations will be denied wealth, Coburn said, if the bill passes.
“This bill is a generational theft bill,” he said. …”
From the Boston Tea Party to your neighborhood pork protest
By Michelle Malkin
“…In Schmucky Schumer’s world, these American taxpayers don’t exist. A big crowd of them gathered in Seattle this afternoon to raise their voices in opposition to the trillion-dollar, pork-filled Generational Theft Act of 2009 — which will be signed into law by the blind President “There are no no earmarks” Obama. Thanks to Zac Petersen for the photos. It took just one person — blogger Liberty Belle — to get the ball rolling. She writes: “Make no mistake, the President will be signing that bill tomorrow, I have no illusions that he will actually listen to us. BUT, maybe, just maybe we can start a movement that will snowball across the nation and get people out of their homes, meeting each other and working together to redirect this country towards its truly radical founding principles of individual liberty and freedom. Maybe people will wake up slowly at first, and then quickly when they realize the urgency needed.”
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. …”
A New Low Point for the Media: Couric Wins Award for Outrageously Biased Palin Interview!
The conservative right in America loves Governor Sarah Palin.
The liberal left in America hates Governor Sarah Palin.
The liberal left knows that Sarah Palin was connecting with the American people in her many campaign appearances
The big media went on a full court press to find anything to damage her, whether true or false.
The big media refused to do the same with Barack Obama, their Presidential candidate.
Any doubts remaining that the pump and dump drive-by media were solidly behind Barack Obama were put to rest when Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin.
Sarah Palin CBS Interview (Katie Couric)
Katie Couric Sarah Palin Interview Part II
Late Show – Katie Couric Post-Palin
Governor Palin expressed her views on big media and the Katie Couric interview:
Sarah Palin Unplugged on the Media
Kate Couric is no Sarah Palin.
Governor Palin will be back in 2012, most likely as the Vice-President candidate and next time she will bury them.
Given Couric’s low ratings, I doubt Couric will be interviewing Governor Palin in 2012.
While Couric will be receiving the award on April 15, 2009, millions of Americans will be holding grassroot organized Tea Parties in hundreds of cities protesting President Obama’s and the Democratic Party’s fiscally irresponsible stimulus packages, deficit busting budgets and increased taxes such as the new cap and trade carbon tax.
Will CBS cover the American people’s Tea Parties or the Katie Couric award ceremony?
Time to join the Second American Revolution and rally at a Tax Day Tea Party in your community on April 15, 2009:
Will the conservatives’ love affair with Governor Palin continue?
You betcha.
Governor Sarah Palin’s Address To The 2009 Special Olympics In Boise, Idaho
LOL
Commencement — Columbia School of Journalism
Background Articles and Videos
Couric Wins Walter Cronkite Award
“…Evening News anchor Katie Couric was honored for her “extraordinary, persistent and detailed multi-part interviews with Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin” which judges called a “defining moment in the 2008 presidential campaign.”
She was given the award for Special Achievement for National Impact on the 2008 Campaign.
The award was given by Reliable Resources, a group run out of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California. It’s mission statement says “Reliable Resources was created to help generate conversation and ideas on improving broadcast political coverage. Broadcast news, network and local, has declined significantly as a primary source for campaign news. Our project seeks to design and distribute tools which would make political news enlightening, informative and exciting to local and network broadcasters.” …”
MYTH: CBS Evening News with Katie Couric’s ratings have greatly improved
by Robert Seidman
“… don’t follow the television news game that much. I almost never watch television news, broadcast or cable. But I eyeball the numbers. I keep reading about how the ratings are so much better these days for the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. First I read Tom Shales slobbering all over Ms. Couric in the Washington Post, and then today I even saw our friends at TV Newser write a piece about Couric that mentioned ratings and said, But recently the ratings have greatly improved.
I scratched my head and thought, “huh? Really? WTF!?” because my basic regular eyeballing of the broadcast news standings is that CBS is still mired in last place and that from that basic scanning things didn’t seem a whole lot different than they ever were.
I understand about Couric being a media darling. A lot of people loved her treatment of Sarah Palin, and hey, I too think she’s much cuter than Brian Williams. But it seems like Williams is the one who should be getting all the love.
Broadcast news ratings got some recent boost from the election and inaugural week, and in the first week post-inauguration has held some of it. But I wondered how that compared with the same period one year ago. So I looked it up . It’s only the smallest of slices to examine, but I think no matter how you examine it, there’s not really any case for saying Couric’s ratings have greatly improved.
What it seems to indicate is that things are up year over year for NBC and CBS. But in terms of the 25-54 demographic that news shows ads are sold based on, it’s up at NBC 5X what it is at CBS. CBS went up a tenth of a ratings point year over year while NBC was up half a ratings point (.5) among 25-54 year olds.
The Rise And Fall Of Katie Couric
By Ryan Tate,
“Katie Couric is reportedly close to being pushed off the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News after less than two years. Resented by coworkers and aging viewers, regretted by the executives paying her exorbitant salary and ignored by the younger people she was hired to attract, Couric must sometimes miss the days when she was a perky, fearless anchor key to making Today the most profitable program in television history. Back then, the New Yorkercalled the anchor America’s “imaginary friend” while others admired her interviews as surprisingly tough (she once asked Pat Buchanan, “Are you trying to drive the President crazy, or are you just on a big ego trip?”) How did America come to hate “America’s Sweetheart?”
At the Evening News, Couric is swimming against the tide of history. Old-aged viewers don’t like change, and young viewers cannot be lured in to a national news broadcast because they’re too busy reading their news online and watching the Daily Show. In fact, the only significant credit Couric has gotten for connecting with young people is when she was in the gossip columns for dating a man 16 years her junior. …”
Liberal CBS News anchor Katie Couric wins award named for liberal CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite.
“…Katie Couric may never win the ratings, but who cares? She just took home a coveted Cronkite Award (which we assume is called a “Wally” by TV insiders).
Couric’s Wally was presented for “her revealing, multi-part interview of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.”
The Wallies are awarded twice each year by the USC Annenberg School for Communication. They are named in honor of Walter Cronkite, once known as “the most trusted man in America.” …”
“…Alaskans aren’t fazed much by the ongoing Sarah Palin-bashing taking place in the Lower 48 — a new poll indicates the governor’s popularity remains sky high among voters in her home state.
Anchorage-based pollster Hays Research Group says its March survey shows 61.3 percent — nearly two out of every three Alaskans — feel either “very positive” or “positive” about Gov. Palin.
Palin triggers a negative reaction from about one-third of Alaskans, however. The poll found some 32.7 percent of Alaskans rate Palin as either “somewhat negative” (12.5 percent) or “very negative” (20.2 percent).
Only 6 percent are undecided about her, suggesting that the GOP governor tends to evoke strong feelings one way or the other. The poll of 400 Alaskans has an error margin of plus or minus 4.9 percent.
Anchorage pollster Ivan Moore reported similar results in January. His survey showed Palin’s favorability rating at 63 percent. …”
“…Eric Odom reports that there are now 115 cities signed up for the April 15 nationwide Tax Day Tea Party protest. Wow. If you haven’t signed up, want to start your own, and are looking to meet up and organize with other tax revolters, go to Tax Day Tea Party’s website here.
(On a parallel track, fellow Fox News colleague Glenn Beck has spearheaded “We Surround Them” parties scheduled across the country today. I’m hearing from lots of first-time activists who have found overlapping networks. The same principles that unite the “We Surround Them” effort also are in sync with the tax revolters. Synergy is good. We need every body and mind in motion we can get.)
In the meantime, other local Tea Party events keep rolling on.
Reader Stan e-mails photos from Columbia, MO’s protest today: …”
No duh! White House “worried about bailout backlash”
By Michelle Malkin
“…With a few notable exceptions, the national media has ignored the tax revolt movement against the porkulus package, omni-pork spending bill, and bottomless bailouts that began in Seattle on President’s Day; continued in Denver on the day of the Generational Theft Act signing; spread to Mesa AZ during President Obama’s massive mortgage entitlement push; spurred protest in Overland Park KS; and evolved into the Tea Party movement across the country.
But local politicians and local newspapers/TV are definitely on notice. Thousands of folks converging in places like St. Louis (1,500), Greenville (2,000), Fullerton (est. 15,000), and Cincinnati (5,000) are getting harder to ignore.
And now, it seems, word is getting around in Washington. The White House, the NYTimes (which has mocked the tax revolters) tells us, is worried about a populist backlash against bailout-mania. Naw. Really? You don’t say: …”
Huge: Thousands converge for Cincinnati Tea Party; Update: 5k strong
By Michelle Malkin
“…The Cincinnati Tea Party organizers told us it was going to be big. And it was. Organizer J. Binik-Thomas e-mails this evening that 5,000 folks turned out for the protest and more than 1,600 people signed a petition to ask local governments to reject porkulus funding.
Check out photos at Instapundit, including this aerial:
A friend of mine brought his 5 year old son, holding a sign saying, “Even a 5 year old knows socialism is stealing” #teaparty
about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Good sign: “Tar. Feathers. Washington. Now.” #teaparty
about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry
“My recommendation is that people look no further than the halls of Congress to find the stench of pork” #teaparty
Unlike the Los Angeles Times, the Cincinnati Enquirer actually covered the tax revolters without trashing them: …”
Tea Party on: Taxpayer revolts in Green Bay, Lafayette, Olathe, and Harrisburg; Plus: Live from Fullerton CA… “Recall the Taxinator!;” Arnie videotapes/DVDs smashes/shredded
By Michelle Malkin
“…The tax-paying rebels are not going away.
In Green Bay, Wisconsin, today an estimated 500 protesters gathered for a Tea Party at Titletown Brewing. Reader David has more at Pork Revolution:
“…Tons of groups and individuals are stepping up to the plate in the wake of last week’s anti-stimulus/anti-entitlement protests and the call for a nationwide Tea Party.
The New American Tea Party page from “a coalition of citizens and organizations concerned about the recent trend of fiscal recklessness in government…dedicated to the Washington, D.C. effort specifically sponsored by the American Spectator, the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, Americans for Prosperity, and the Young Conservatives Coalition” is here.
The #TCOT folks have a site here and #dontgo has a list of links to official Facebook Event (and some non-Facebook) pages for each confirmed Chicago Tea Party. …”
“An act of generational theft;” Update: Ugh. Not another Gang of 14! Update Corker’s office clarifies
By Michelle Malkin
“…Here are two staunch conservatives in the Senate who are looking out for you.
U.S. Sens. Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn weighed in Thursday against a massive package of spending and tax cuts designed to stimulate the economy.
Joining a group of fellow Republican senators, the two Oklahomans questioned whether many of the areas funded in the $800 billion-plus measure would actually end up providing a much-needed economic boost.
“We know what works,” Inhofe said, citing previous packages that succeeded.
He repeated his previous comments of disappointment that spending on infrastructure projects such as highways is not a bigger percentage of the bill.
Citing the package’s historic price tag, Inhofe said that each of the 3 million to 4 million jobs expected to be created would cost about $295,000.
Coburn also said spending on certain areas would help but predicted 80 percent of the money in the bill would not stimulate the economy.
“This is about spending money we don’t have for things we don’t need,” he said.
Coburn said cities across Oklahoma have prepared their own lists of projects they hope to get funded.
“Everybody wants their share,” he said.
Future generations will be denied wealth, Coburn said, if the bill passes.
“This bill is a generational theft bill,” he said. …”
From the Boston Tea Party to your neighborhood pork protest
By Michelle Malkin
“…In Schmucky Schumer’s world, these American taxpayers don’t exist. A big crowd of them gathered in Seattle this afternoon to raise their voices in opposition to the trillion-dollar, pork-filled Generational Theft Act of 2009 — which will be signed into law by the blind President “There are no no earmarks” Obama. Thanks to Zac Petersen for the photos. It took just one person — blogger Liberty Belle — to get the ball rolling. She writes: “Make no mistake, the President will be signing that bill tomorrow, I have no illusions that he will actually listen to us. BUT, maybe, just maybe we can start a movement that will snowball across the nation and get people out of their homes, meeting each other and working together to redirect this country towards its truly radical founding principles of individual liberty and freedom. Maybe people will wake up slowly at first, and then quickly when they realize the urgency needed.”
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. …”
“…This is what we have come to. Unilateral action, even if it is as clear cut as defending US interests against pirates, must be avoided. Murderous Jihadist terrorists get civil rights and government lawyers while US taxpayers pick up the bill. Pirates, who board US shipping and threaten American seamen, get treated like simple criminals that do not warrant so much as a mention by the President. One would have thought it was a no-brainer for the Manchurian President, a populist win-win to paint Obama as a decisive leader, a chance to inspire confidence that he was up to the challenge. It was a chance to warn aggressors, pirates or otherwise, away from international shipping. It was also a chance, now squandered, to reassure friend and foe alike that America had not lost her nerve or reneged on her exceptional role as a world leader.
But no, it’s all just a distraction from the greater work of wealth redistribution, “social justice,” and remaking America into the utopian vision of a narcissistic socialist academic with a nice speaking voice. No pompous speeches and meandering lectures this time, the implications of piracy on trade and sovereignty are beyond Obama.
When asked by a reporter about the Maersk Alabama during a White House event, President Obama responded to the question with: “Guys, we’re talking about housing right now,” translated as “don’t bother me with trivialities.” Obama has no clue what is required of a world leader and his advisors less so. A mere three months into its first term, the Obama administration is turning out to be just the embarrassment and bumbling disaster, we feared it would be.
I’ve already noticed people taking Obama stickers off their cars. They can only pad the polls so long. Pirates are easy, what’s going to happen if we are attacked again, or Iran, Pakistan, or North Korea use a nuke? …”
“…Over 93.7% ($188 Trillion) of this gross exposure was held by only four bank s, J. P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Goldman Sachs. One institution, J. P. Morgan Chase, accounted for $87 Trillion of the total exposure or approximately 140% of Gross World Product. …”
~OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities: Fourth Quarter 2008
While President Obama is in firing mode, how about asking all his campaign contributors to resign as board members and executives of banks that bet trillions of dollars on mortage derivative securities and are now being bailed out by the American people to cover their massive losses from derivative securities trading.
The loss exposure from these derivative securities, mainly credit default swaps, is over a trillion dollars!
Time for the Federal Government to stop the bailouts, fire the management of these banks, and close this mess down.
Enough is enough.
Wall Street made billions of dollars on this business and should bear the losses.
The American people and the Federal Government should not bail these greedy, arrogant, stupid bastards out.
If the Federal Govenment continues to bailout these bastards, we know who the bought and paid for corrupt politicians are of both political parties.
The American people will be coming after them soon.
Massive theft of the American people are high crimes–crimes of the century!
Derivatives contracts are concentrated in a small number of institutions. The largest five banks hold 96 percent of the total notional amount of derivatives, while the largest 25 banks hold nearly 100 percent.
Credit default swaps are the dominant product in the credit derivatives market, representing 98 percent of total credit derivatives.
The number of commercial banks holding derivatives increased by 33 in the quarter to 1,010.
A copy of the OCC’s Quarterly Report on Bank Trading and Derivatives Activities: Fourth Quarter 2008 is available on the OCC’s Web site at: http://www.occ.gov/ftp/release/2009-34a.pdf.
1. Derivatives Trading is a really big business; the notional amount of all derivatives positions at all U. S. commercial banks and trust companies that participate in this business was slightly more than $200 Trillion on December 31, 2008. That’s more than three times Gross World Product which the CIA estimates to have been a little over $62 Trillion in 2008.
2. Over 93.7% ($188 Trillion) of this gross exposure was held by only four bank s, J. P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Goldman Sachs. One institution, J. P. Morgan Chase, accounted for $87 Trillion of the total exposure or approximately 140% of Gross World Product.
3. While the bulk of the exposure ($181 Trillion) was in the “traditional” derivatives markets, interest rate and FOREX swaps, almost $16 Trillion was in Credit Default Swaps, up from $1 Trillion in such transactions five years earlier.
4. What had once been a very profitable business for the major banks, turned decidedly sour in 2008, with net reported trading losses of $836 million for the year as compared with profits of $5.5 Billion in 2007 and $18.8 Billion in 2006. Drilling down to the details, Credit Default Swaps generated losses for the banks in 2008 of $12.6 Billion, more than offsetting gains for the year in Interest Rate and Foreign Exchange trading. …”
“…The OCC report provides a lengthy explanation as to why the notional amounts dramatically overstate the risk posed to the system by these contracts. First, the real credit exposure is not the notional amount of the contract, but the amount that the market has moved from the strike price of the swap: i.e. the net amount the counterparty would be obligated to pay to true up the contract based on current market conditions. This is referred to as the Gross Positive Value (GPV) of the contracts. Since this GPV is in effect an unsecured claim against another financial institution, it represents a credit risk to the holder of the claims. At yearend total GPV held by U. S. commercial banks was $7.1 Trillion. Actual credit exposure was much lower, however, as the holders have the legal right to set off this exposure against certain of their counter exposures to the obligor institutions (Gross Negative Fair Values).
The netted credit exposure was estimated to be only $800 billion. Added to this was Potential Future Exposure of $782 Billion based upon the amount by which the contracts could move in favor of the obligee banks to generate a Total Credit Exposure of $1.58 Trillion. For the top five derivatives trading banks (the four above plus the U. S. operations of HSBC) total credit exposure averaged 489% of the institutions’ Risk Based Capital at the end of the fourth quarter. At one bank, Goldman Sachs, credit exposure was more than 1000% of Risk Based Capital. To be fair this calculation does not take into account pledged collateral backing a portion of the credit risks, which the OCC estimates as typical averaging 30-40% of the exposure amounts, so actual credit exposure was presumably somewhat lower. …”
How Much Risk is the Treasury Really Assuming from the Financial Institutions? (Part 2)
“… Our previous post raised the question of just how much risk is being assumed by the U. S. Treasury with its apparent implied guaranty of the unsecured obligations of the major financial institutions.We asked whether the $188 Trillion (notional amount) of derivatives transactions on the books of four major banks (J. P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Goldman Sachs) could potentially pose risks not fully understood by the banks or their regulators.
In evaluating the potential risks inherent in the derivatives positions of the banks (and more particularly at the risks of the Credit Default Swaps (“CDS”)), it is necessary to look at the one situation where similar risks have been converted to real losses: i.e. AIG Financial Products (AIG FP).Chris Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics has done so in depth in a recent article posted here.
Mr. Whalen paints a picture of financial instruments created for the purpose of enabling financial as well as non-financial companies to falsify their earnings through the issuance of insurance contracts calculated to remove certain assets and liabilities from companies’ books and by doing so to bring them into compliance with regulatory capital requirements or shift earnings and losses between reporting period, with the presumed intent of manipulating the equity prices of the counterparties.He further asserts that these ostensibly “economic” transactions were converted to blatant fraud through side letters never disclosed to company management, auditors or regulators that absolved the writers of these contracts from responsibility for honoring their commitments.These activities are further described as the essence of the SEC’s charges against AIG in a Complaint brought against AIG in 2004. …”
Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.
The king and his men
stole the queen from her bed
and bound her in her Bones.
The seas be ours
and by the powers
where we will we’ll roam.
Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.
Some men have died
and some are alive
and others sail on the sea
– with the keys to the cage…
and the Devil to pay
we lay to Fiddler’s Green!
The bell has been raised
from it’s watery grave…
Do you hear it’s sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
pay head the squall
and turn your sail toward home!
Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.
America’s first War on Terror – Somalia Pirates – Send in the U.S. Marines – Tripoli – Glenn Beck
Somali pirates take US captain hostage
Hijacked U.S. Ship’s Crewman Calls CNN During Negotiation W/ Pirates
U.S. warship nears boat carrying pirates
After Somali pirates seize U.S. ship, crew regains control
somali pirates hijack usa flagged danish cargo ship with 20 maersk american crew on board
In-Depth Look – Somali Pirate Attack – Bloomberg
Clinton: World must end ‘scourge’ of piracy
Pirates Yo Ho Yo ho a pirates Life for Me
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We pillage plunder, we rifle and loot.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We extort and pilfer, we filch and sack.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
Maraud and embezzle and even highjack.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We kindle and char and in flame and ignite.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we’re really a fright.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
We’re rascals and scoundrels, we’re villians and knaves.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
We’re devils and black sheep, we’re really bad eggs.
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
We’re beggars and blighters and ne’er do-well cads,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
Aye, but we’re loved by our mommies and dads,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.
Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
Background Articles and Videos
Latest Somali pirate hijacking update: US warships and air assets on the way
By Michelle Malkin
“…Latest wire and cable TV reports say US warships and air assets are being sent to the scene of the Maersk Alabama hijacking by Somali pirates. Captain is reportedly being held hostage on a lifeboat near the vessel.
Obama’s pirate problem; Update: US crewmen regain control?; Maersk will NOT confirm; 1 pirate reportedly in custody; captain still being held?
By Michelle Malkin
It’s another Gird Your Loins moment for the Obama administration.
Somali pirates have now hijacked a U.S.-flagged ship with 20 American crew members on board – the first in “recent memory” according to military officials. The vessel is one of the DoD’s top shipping contractors. The vessel was taking humanitarian aid to Mombasa.
What will BO do?
So far, the White House response has been weak. Brian Faughnan says Obama needs to take a page from the Russian playbook.
Ed Morrissey wonders what DHS secretary Janet Napolitano will rename the problem? “A stowaway problem? On-demand course correction?” …”
“Hang ‘Em High is a 1968Western film directed by Ted Post starring Clint Eastwood. It is the story of an innocent man, Jed Cooper (Eastwood), who survives a lynching by nine men, and becomes a US Marshal to see that justice is done. …”
“Hoist the Colours” is a song in the feature film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End from the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise. It was composed by Hans Zimmer and Gore Verbinski, and it featured lyrics by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. This song fulfills a tradition in the trilogy that every film contains a pirate song, although this song features far more heavily than “A Pirate’s Life for Me” in Curse of the Black Pearl or “Dead Man’s Chest” in Dead Man’s Chest, as its melody is used throughout the film as a major theme. …”
“…This song was sung in the opening scene of the movie, wherein a young cabin boy associated with piracy sang it while waiting to be hanged. All the prisoners then started to join in the singing. It is then reprised by Elizabeth Swann when she enters the Singapore waterways via canoe to meet with Barbossa.
In the film, “Hoist the Colours” is known among all the pirates of the world and refers to what occurred at the first meeting of the Brethren Court. The song spreads the message throughout the Pirate world that a meeting of the “Brethren Court” must be called. The song seems to somehow resonate through pieces of eight, as seen when Sao Feng holds a piece of eight by his ear when Barbossa gave it to him. It refers to the binding of Calypso in human form by the Brethren Court in order to control her domain. In the opening scene the boy sings “the king and his men” meaning the pirate king and his men “stole the queen from her bed, and bound her in her bones” trap the queen of the sea, Calypso, and bind her in Tia Dalma’s body. “The seas be ours, and by the powers, where we will, we’ll roam” the sea belongs to man now.
When Elizabeth sings in Singapore, she sings of men living and those who are dead and some who ‘sail on the sea’ referring to the pirate lords and their whereabouts. She sings of ‘keys to the cage’ (the nine pieces of eight that will free Calypso from her body) and a ‘devil to pay’ (Davy Jones told the pirates how to bind Calypso, and his price was the agreement of the pirates to never unbind her). ‘Fiddler’s Green‘ is a legendary, blissful place to which the pirates refer, where they could escape from the world’s problems. (Traditionally, it is the afterlife found by drowned sailors.) She then starts another verse about a bell raised from its ‘watery grave’ (the song that calls the Brethren Court) urging the pirates to listen and turn ‘their sails to home’ (calling the pirate lords to Shipwreck Cove).
The melody of the song’s chorus is incorporated in a number of musical pieces played throughout the film, including a full orchestral version played during the climactic battle between the Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl. …”
Webster Tarpley on Obama, Calls RabbitHoleCentral.tv
Webster Tarpley – The Neo-Con Fascist Madmen
Webster Tarpley on The Global Warming Frauds
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 1/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 2/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 3/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 4/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 5/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 6/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 7/8
Webster G. Tarpley | WCR 013109 “Unemployment” 8/8
Alex Jones – KLBJ: Webster Tarpley Pt 1
Alex Jones – KLBJ: Webster Tarpley Pt 2
Alex Jones – KLBJ: Webster Tarpley Pt 3
Alex Jones – KLBJ: Webster Tarpley Pt 4
Webster Tarpley in Studio on Alex Jones Tv”Magna Carta” 1/5
Webster Tarpley in Studio on Alex Jones Tv”Magna Carta”2/5
Webster Tarpley in Studio on Alex Jones Tv”Magna Carta +”3/5
Webster Tarpley in Studio on Alex Jones Tv”Magna Carta +”4/5
Webster Tarpley in Studio on Alex Jones Tv”Magna Carta +”5/5
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 1
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 2
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 3
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 4
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 5
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 6
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 7
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 8
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 9
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 10
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 11
Webster. Griffin Tarpley From Guy Fawkes to 9/11 Part 12
Webster Griffin Tarpley
“…As a journalist living in Europe in the 1980s, Tarpley wrote a study commissioned by a committee of the Italian Parliament on the assassination of Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The study reported on the false flag nature of the assassination, orchestrated by the neofascist lodge Propaganda Due with the cooperation of senior members of Italian government secret services but blamed on the Red Brigades.[1]
In 1986 Tarpley attempted to run on the platform of Lyndon LaRouche in the New York State Democratic Party primary for the U.S. Senate, but was ruled off the ballot because of a defect in his nominating petitions.[2] He was a frequent host of “The LaRouche Connection”, which its producer, LaRouche’s Executive Intelligence Review News Service,[3][4] describes as “a news and information cable television program”.[5]
Tarpley first gained attention for co-authoring, with Anton Chaitkin, (“history editor of Executive Intelligence Review”) a 1992 book on George H. W. Bush, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, which was published by Executive Intelligence Review, run by Lyndon LaRouche.[6] He has expounded the “Versailles Thesis” laying the blame for the great wars of the 20th century on intrigues by Britain to retain her dominance.[7] He gained experience as a political operative during his years with the LaRouche movement but broke away in the mid-1990s.
In 2005, Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA gained a following. On October 7, 2006, Amazon.com’s top non-fiction book reviewer, Robert David Steele, called it “the strongest of the 770+ books I have reviewed here at Amazon.” Tarpley speaks at length about the themes in his book during an interview in the film Oil, Smoke, Mirrors.
Starting March, 2006, Tarpley had a weekly talk radio show called World Crisis Radio for Republic Broadcasting Network. Following a split between Wes Perkins and John Stadtmiller in January 2007, Tarpley apparently left RBN and moved to Genesis, where he presented originally the Thursday edition of Genesis World Report; his slot has since moved to Saturday. The format remains as a “world intelligence roundup”, quite similar to his RBN show.
Tarpley is a member of the “world anti-imperialist conference” Axis for Peace, of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and of a research Netzwerk of German 9/11 authors founded in September 2006.
In August 2007, Webster Tarpley issued the Kennebunkport Warning, which claimed an impending “false flag attack” in America in the “coming months.”[8] Controversy ensued after Jamilla El-Shafei, Cindy Sheehan, Dahlia Wasfi, and Ann Wright issued a joint-statement claiming that they did not sign this Kennebunkport Warning.[9] In response to this denial, Tarpley sent out a widely distributed and highly publicized email in which he characterized Cindy Sheehan, Anne Wright and other anti-war activists as “lying in appalling fashion” and “wretched individuals.”[10][11]
In January 2008, Tarpley became one of the first critics to assert that Barack Obama is actually managed by right-wing powerbrokers. Tarpley claimed that a shift in power had taken place in the ruling class, with the Zbigniew Brzezinski faction and its presidential candidate Obama ascendant over the lame-duck neocons. The targets of US imperialism would now be Russia, China and its ally Pakistan, instead of Iraq, Iran and Syria. He developed these themes in his two books on Obama.
Tarpley is also a tough critic of free market, particularly the Austrian School and Chicago School economics [12]. …”
The American people are tired of listening to Barney Frank blaming everyone but himself and the Democratic Party when it comes to the subprime-mortgage crisis and the role played by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in creating this situation.
If both the Republicans and Democrats had insisted on tougher regulation of mortgage lending five years ago, much of the bubble in real estate could have been avoided and may be even the current recession.
Instead the Democratic Party attacked the regulators of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for doing their jobs and defended Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Unfortunately for Barney Frank and the Democratic Party, some of this was caught on video and is now on YouTube.
The American people do not want to lynch anybody, but it is high time Barney Frank be censured for his role in the whole affair and kicked off of the committee he now chairs.
Mr. Frank, you sir are a disgrace.
Have you no shame?
Apparently not:
Barney Frank v Harvard Student
Bill O’Reily vs Barney Frank TOTAL SMACKDOWN ANNIHILATION!
Who is Responsible? (Meltdown): Fannie Mae – Freddie Mac – Wall Street – Bill Clinton – George Bush?
Timeline shows Bush, McCain warning Dems of financial and housing crisis; meltdown
Explosive Video, Fannie Mae CEO calling Obama and the Dems the “Family” and “Conscience” of Fannie Mae
Shocking Video Unearthed Democrats in their own words Covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our Economic Crisis2
Obama and Democrats are Responsible: Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac
Government Takes Over Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Steve Forbes on Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and the Subprime Crisis
Jim Rogers Speaks the Truth about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
Charlie Rose – Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac
THE NEWSHOUR WITH JIM LEHRER | Paul Solman’s Moral Hazard Pt. 1 | PBS
THE NEWSHOUR WITH JIM LEHRER | Paul Solman’s Moral Hazard Pt. 2 | PBS
The Mortgage Meltdown
Financial Derivatives: What are They? – Housing Bubble Collapse – Unregulated Insurance
Credit Default Swaps explained clearly in five minutes
Credit Default Swaps
LOL
Bird and Fortune – Financial Adviser
Barney Frank
Background Articles and Videos
Credit default swap (CDS)
Harvard Student Takes on Barney Frank Over His Role In The Economic Melt-Down With Video
Posted by PegOn April – 7 – 2009
“…Here are some more facts about President warnings and attempts to avoid the housing collapse caused, in large part, by Freddie and Fannie.
President Bush’s efforts over the years, not once, but several from The White House:
2001 April: The Administration’s FY02 budget declares that the size of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is “a potential problem,” because “financial trouble of a large GSE could cause strong repercussions in financial markets, affecting Federally insured entities and economic activity.”
2002 May: The President calls for the disclosure and corporate governance principles contained in his 10-point plan for corporate responsibility to apply to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. (OMB Prompt Letter to OFHEO, 5/29/02)
2003 September: Treasury Secretary John Snow testifies before the House Financial Services Committee to recommend that Congress enact “legislation to create a new Federal agency to regulate and supervise the financial activities of our housing-related government sponsored enterprises” and set prudent and appropriate minimum capital adequacy requirements. 2004 February: The President’s FY05 Budget again highlights the risk posed by the explosive growth of the GSEs and their low levels of required capital, and called for creation of a new, world-class regulator: “The Administration has determined that the safety and soundness regulators of the housing GSEs lack sufficient power and stature to meet their responsibilities, and therefore…should be replaced with a new strengthened regulator.” (2005 Budget Analytic Perspectives, pg. 83)
2005 April: Treasury Secretary John Snow repeats his call for GSE reform, saying “Events that have transpired since I testified before this Committee in 2003 reinforce concerns over the systemic risks posed by the GSEs and further highlight the need for real GSE reform to ensure that our housing finance system remains a strong and vibrant source of funding for expanding homeownership opportunities in America… Half-measures will only exacerbate the risks to our financial system.” (Secretary John W. Snow, “Testimony Before The U.S. House Financial Services Committee,” 4/13/05)
2007 August: President Bush emphatically calls on Congress to pass a reform package for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying “first things first when it comes to those two institutions. Congress needs to get them reformed, get them streamlined, get them focused, and then I will consider other options.” (President George W. Bush, Press Conference, The White House, 8/9/07)
2008 February: Assistant Secretary David Nason reiterates the urgency of reforms, says “A new regulatory structure for the housing GSEs is essential if these entities are to continue to perform their public mission successfully.” (David Nason, Testimony On Reforming GSE Regulation, Senate Committee On Banking, Housing And Urban Affairs, 2/7/08)
March: President Bush calls on Congress to take action and “move forward with reforms on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. They need to continue to modernize the FHA, as well as allow State housing agencies to issue tax-free bonds to homeowners to refinance their mortgages.” (President George W. Bush, Remarks To The Economic Club Of New York, New York, NY, 3/14/08) …”
By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 15, 2008
Big Government: Barack Obama and Democrats blame the historic financial turmoil on the market. But if it’s dysfunctional, Democrats during the Clinton years are a prime reason for it.
“…The untold story in this whole national crisis is that President Clinton put on steroids the Community Reinvestment Act*, a well-intended Carter-era law designed to encourage minority homeownership. And in so doing, he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats now decry as not only greedy but “predatory.”
Yes, the market was fueled by greed and overleveraging in the secondary market for subprimes, vis-a-vis mortgaged-backed securities traded on Wall Street. But the seed was planted in the ’90s by Clinton and his social engineers. They were the political catalyst behind this slow-motion financial train wreck.
And it was the Clinton administration that mismanaged the quasi-governmental agencies that over the decades have come to manage the real estate market in America.
As soon as Clinton crony Franklin Delano Raines took the helm in 1999 at Fannie Mae, for example, he used it as his personal piggy bank, looting it for a total of almost $100 million in compensation by the time he left in early 2005 under an ethical cloud.
Other Clinton cronies, including Janet Reno aide Jamie Gorelick, padded their pockets to the tune of another $75 million.
Raines was accused of overstating earnings and shifting losses so he and other senior executives could earn big bonuses.
In the end, Fannie had to pay a record $400 million civil fine for SEC and other violations, while also agreeing as part of a settlement to make changes in its accounting procedures and ways of managing risk. …”
what caused the melt down Investors business daily 5 part series.
What caused this loan crisis, Investors business daily 5 part series.
‘Crony’ Capitalism Is Root Cause Of Fannie And Freddie Troubles
By TERRY JONES
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, September 22, 2008 4:30 PM PT
“…Barack Obama has repeatedly blasted “Bush-McCain” economic policies as the cause, as if the two were joined at the hip.
Funny, because over the past 8 years, those who tried to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — the trigger for today’s widespread global financial meltdown — were stymied repeatedly by congressional Democrats.
This wasn’t an accident. Though some key Republicans deserve blame as well, it was a concerted Democratic effort that made reform of Fannie and Freddie impossible.
The reason for this is simple: Fannie and Freddie became massive providers both of reliable votes among grateful low-income homeowners, and of massive giving to the Democratic Party by grateful investment bankers, both at the two government-sponsored enterprises and on Wall Street.
The result: A huge taxpayer rescue that at last estimate is approaching $700 billion but may go even higher.
It all started, innocently enough, in 1994 with President Clinton’s rewrite of the Carter-era Community Reinvestment Act.
Ostensibly intended to help deserving minority families afford homes — a noble idea — it instead led to a reckless surge in mortgage lending that has pushed our financial system to the brink of chaos. …”
“…What Congress would not investigate was anything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, they fought against such investigations and cast aspersions against anyone who would even doubt the soundness of those institutions. Here is what Barney Frank said:
These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.
You can also see on YouTube how Democrats treated the regulators trying to reign in Fannie and Freddie.
But now we know what happened. Fannie and Freddie were run corruptly and ineptly and went bankrupt. Their $1.5 trillion portfolios had to be rescued by the government this year. Franklin Raines, the Clinton-appointed CEO of Fannie Mae who was vigorously defended by Congressional Democrats, was sued by government regulators for cooking the books to the tune of $10 billion to increase his own bonuses to the tune of tens of millions. He settled his suit for an estimated $25 million.
The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages. All told, these two institutions’ debt portfolio exceeds more than $1.5 trillion. Their current regulator is ill equipped to keep tabs on Freddie’s and Fannie’s sophisticated hedging strategies and the other financial moves they use to manage their huge investments.
For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac… I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole. …”
Why Barney Frank resisted additional regulation of Fannie Mae
Ethel C. Fenig
“…While Bill O’Reilly absolutely explodedat Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) on his Fox news show The O’Reilly Factor, screaming at him, “Shouldn’t everybody in the country be angry with you right now?” – while asking Frank to remove himself as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which oversaw Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, O’Reilly was uncharacteristically reticent about another factorin Frank’s personal life which bear upon these institutions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank’s relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie’s assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
And they have every reason to be skeptical; Moses and Frank were lovers who lived together from 1987 until 1998.
“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have – or at least what’s not in the stock market – that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”
Double standard? The standard for the first declared gay Democratic Congressman and a gay lover involved in a financial meltdown under a Republican president’s term is to knock the Republican president, as did the first female Speaker of the House, Rep Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), or to ignore it, as did most of the MSM.
Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.
Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank.
Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.
“I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president, to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,” Clinton said recently. …”
His defensive bullying and sputtering and ranting about “right-wing attacks” speaks for itself.
So do the FOIA records that Judicial Watch obtained and released yesterday, which I linked yesterday. A reminder for Barney Frank (and ammunition for the next time a brave student wants to take him on again): …”
The most outspoken man in the House gets some real power.
by Jeffrey Toobin
“…According to Frank, at the root of the real-estate crisis was a misguided notion that homeownership should be available to all people—what President Bush has called “the ownership society.” “The ‘I told you so’ here is that homeownership is a nice thing but it is not suitable for everybody,” Frank said at Boston College. “There are people in this society who don’t have enough money to be homeowners, and there are people whose lives are not sufficiently integrated for them to take on the responsibility to be a homeowner. And we did too much pushing of people into inappropriate mortgages and into homeownership.” He said that many people would always be renters, and that there was nothing wrong with this. “We need to get back in the business of building rental housing and preserving the housing we have,” he said. …”
Washington, DC — April 2, 2009“…Congress Warned on Fannie and Freddie Misdeeds, yet Liberals in Congress Blocked Attempts to Rein in the Government Sponsored Enterprises
Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, announced today that as part of its ongoing investigation of the government’s role in the financial crisis it has uncovered new documents. The documents show that members of Congress for years were aware that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were playing fast and loose with accounting issues, risk assessment issues and executive compensation issues, even while liberals in Congress continued to block attempts to regulate the two Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs).
Judicial Watch obtained the documents from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request dated December 4, 2008. Judicial Watch requested records related to members of Congress activity regarding the policy of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to increase lending to individuals with poor credit risk, as well as correspondence and records about contacts between FHFA and Fannie and Freddie. Among the important documents: …”
Barney Frank and Chuck Schumer’s Role in the Fannie Mae Failure
“…Besides their total ignorance about the troubles that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were headed towards is the fact that these two men, and other Democrats, helped to make the problem worse.
In fact, Frank & Co. made matters worse by pushing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to take on greater risk. They wanted more loans to people who might not qualify for traditional bank financing. And, as The Wall Street Journal has pointed out, Frank “pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements
These companies were forced to loan money to people who couldn’t afford it in the interest of “being fair.” Rules were relaxed and money was loaned and predictably low income families defaulted on loans that they never had any business getting in the first place and now you and I have to pay for it.
Another liberal policy and another liberal failure. And now we must all pay for it. But hell, they meant well. …”
The Trilateral Commission’s roots stem from the book Between Two Ages (16) written by Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1970. The following quotations from that book show how closely Brzezinski’s thinking parallels that of CFR founder Edward Mandell House.
On page 72, Brzezinski writes: “Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief.”
On page 83, he states: “Marxism, disseminated on the popular level in the form of Communism, represented a major advance in man’s ability to conceptualize his relationship to his world.”
And on page 123, we find: “Marxism supplied the best available insight into contemporary reality.”
Nowhere does Mr. Brzezinski tell his readers that the Marxism “in the form of Communism,” which he praises, has been responsible for the murder of approximately 100 million human beings in the Twentieth Century, has brought about the enslavement of over a billion more, and has caused want, privation and despair for all but the few criminals who run the communist-dominated nations.
On page 198, after discussing America’s shortcomings, Brzezinski writes: “America is undergoing a new revolution” which “unmasks its obsolescence.” We disagree; America is not becoming obsolete.
On page 260, he proposes “Deliberate management of the American future…with the…planner as the key social legislator and manipulator.” The central planning he wants for our country is a cardinal underpinning of communism and the opposite of the way things are done in a free country.
On page 296, Mr. Brzezinski suggests piecemeal “Movement toward a larger community of the developed nations…through a variety of indirect ties and already developing limitations on national sovereignty.” Here, we have the same proposal that has been offered by Richard Gardner in the CFR publication Foreign Affairs.
Brzezinski then calls for the forging of community links among the United States, Western Europe, and Japan; and the extension of these links to more advanced communist countries. Finally, on page 308 of his 309-page hook, he lets us know that what he really wants is “the goal of world government”. …”
Chapter 9.1: The Trilateral Commission The Trilateral Commission, the CFR, and control of the White House
“…Brzezinski was the author of the book Between Two Ages, which was published in 1970, in which he called for a new international monetary system, and it was considered to be the ‘Bible’ of the Trilateralists. On page 72, he said: “Marxism is simultaneously a victory of the external, active man over the inner, passive man and a victory of reason over belief.” He called for “deliberate management of the American future” (pg. 260), a “community of nations” (pg. 296), and a “world government” (pg. 308). He became its first Director (1973-76), drafted its Charter, and became its driving force.
In July, 1972, Rockefeller called his first meeting, which was held at Rockefeller’s Pocantico compound in New York’s Hudson Valley. It was attended by about 250 individuals who were carefully selected and screened by Rockefeller and represented the very elite of finance and industry.
Within a year, after their first full meeting of the Executive Committee in Tokyo, the Trilateral Commission, considered to be an off-shoot of the Bilderberg group, was officially initiated, holding biannual meetings. Because of a heavy cross-membership, some researchers have said that they appear to be an inner circle of the Council on Foreign Relations, with ties to the Atlantic Institute for International Affairs (established in 1961), and the Bilderberg Group.
The Trilateral Commission represents a union of experts and transnational elite from the three noncommunist industrial regions of the world: North America, Japan, and Western Europe (excluding Austria, Greece, and Sweden). Rockefeller saw the need for such a private consultation among these three democratic areas. With the demise of the Bretton Woods system, they believed an overhaul was needed. The theory was that America’s role should be diminished, and made equal to the Common Market [E.U.] and Japan, because together, the three represent 70% of the world’s trade. …”
“…According to official Trilateral Commission membership lists, there are only 87 members from the United States (the other 337 members are from other regions). Thus, in less than two weeks since his inauguration, Obama’s appointments encompass more than 12% of Commission’s entire U.S. membership.
Chairman, Economic Recovery Committee, Paul Volker
Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Dennis C. Blair
Assistant Secretary of State, Asia & Pacific, Kurt M. Campbell
Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg
State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Haass
State Department, Special Envoy, Dennis Ross
State Department, Special Envoy, Richard Holbrooke
There are many other incidental links to the Trilateral Commission, for instance,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is married to Commission member William Jefferson Clinton.
Geithner‘s informal group of advisors include E. Gerald Corrigan, Paul Volker, Alan Greenspan and Peter G. Peterson, among others. His first job after college was with Henry Kissinger at Kissinger Associates.
Brent Scowcroft has been an unofficial advisor to Obama and was mentor to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Robert Zoelick is currently president of the World Bank
Laurence Summers, White House Economic Advisor, was mentored by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin during the Clinton administration.
There are many other such links, but these are enough for you to get the idea of what’s going on here. …”
“…Conclusion
The Obama presidency is a disingenuous fraud. He was elected by promising to bring change, yet from the start change was never envisioned. He was carefully groomed and financed by the Trilateral Commission and their friends.
In short, Obama is merely the continuation of disastrous, non-American policies that have brought economic ruin upon us and the rest of the world. The Obama experience rivals that of Jimmy Carter, whose campaign slogan was “I will never lie to you.”
When the Democrat base finally realizes that it has been conned again (Bill Clinton and Al Gore were members), perhaps it will unleash a real political revolution that will oust Trilateral politicians, operatives and policies from the shores of our country.
If the reader is a Democrat, be aware that many Republicans and conservatives are still licking their wounds after finally realizing that George Bush and Dick Cheney worked the same con on them for a disastrous eight years of the same policies! …”
“…It’s not accidental that so many of the original members of the Trilateral Commission, all of whom are now well into their 80’s, have returned to dance in the limelight once again.
TC Members like Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paul Volker and Brent Scowcroft, for instance. …”
“…So, now we have the mother of all crises and on a global scale at that: Financial, political, religious (remember Islam?).
And socialistic solutions are being railroaded through on a daily basis.
If the New World Order baby is about to be delivered, wouldn’t you expect the fathers (Kissinger, Brzezinski, Scowcroft, Volker, Rockefeller, et al) to show up and pace the floor?
Everybody figures that these guys are just crusty and harmless old men, but I will guarantee that when the baby is finally born the screaming will begin. …”
Pronk Palisades 
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