Saturday, April 30, 2011
Governments Rot When Their Citizens Let Them
Not long ago I suggested that we might as well elect a real clown, Grumpy, to serve as president of the United States. When he ran (very successfully) for the Brazilian Chamber of Deputies in 2010, Grumpy promised that, with him in office, things wouldn’t get worse. Though he didn’t have a clue what deputados actually did, the voters would find out, he claimed, if they elected him. Thus far at least, few of the candidates popular enough to win the 2012 beauty contest against President Obama seem to be much better than Grumpy — leaving the field, such as it is, still wide open. With conditions worsening and the country’s mood tanking, Obama’s second term — said to be a mythical creation of David Axelrod — could be worse than the Grumpy administration. But to whom should we turn? (MORE)
Obama's Brand of 'Greatness' for America
April 29, 2011
Obama's Brand of 'Greatness' for America
By Kevin Jackson
Obama's budget reminds me of the joke where the wife asks her husband, "Should I get a bikini or an all-in-one?" The husband replies, "Better get a bikini...you'll never get it all in one."
The budget is out of control because of the thing that Obama says makes America great: entitlements. Who knew that giving money to the shiftless and lazy is the way we are supposed to measure ourselves?
Apparently America is at the pinnacle of its greatness, because we are giving it all away. According to this report, 50% of Americans are receiving entitlements, and more shocking is this report that shows that as many as 62% of illegal immigrants are receiving them. I can understand 10% of Americans receiving entitlements, because conservatives are sensitive to the plight of the underprivileged, despite the lies from the lunatic left. But 50% just helps me understand how many lazy leftoids there are -- you know, people who believe that they are entitled to our money.
Like the 40% who don't represent the relatively small group of Americans who actually need help, illegal aliens are entitled to nothing except to be thrown out of the bar. We've all seen the movies where the bouncers escort the troublemaker out of the trendy bar full of gorgeous hotties and then toss him onto the sidewalk. Well, America is the trendy bar full of gorgeous hotties called conservatives. We value our club, and we won't let just anybody in. You have to dress right and "know somebody," or you are entitled to meet the pavement.
A New York Times columnist disagrees with me, saying Republicans are trying to make "entitlement" a dirty word. It really sucks that we are still only "trying." "Entitlement" is a dirty word. Life entitles you to nothing except to die, and even that doesn't have to be pretty.
These days, the left wants to give out free residences, food, cars, cell phones, TVs, video games, and about everything else. It's quite frankly ridiculous. It would be different if the government provided basics, leaving incentive to work for an Xbox. But the government will give you the Xbox, too, and free games -- confiscated from the kids of hardworking conservatives, of course.
When did it become a source of pride to receive entitlements? Further, those who are best at getting them are respected in their communities, even looked upon as policy gurus. They teach clinics while at their stylists, and again when getting their manicures and pedicures. They even enlighten while shopping for DVDs and wardrobes.
In the old days, people hid the fact that they needed government assistance, and they worked hard to get off the system. Not anymore, Rip Van Winkle. To remove the stigma of being a freeloader, the government has gone to the welfare credit card. And in California you can now buy liquor and cigarettes on your welfare credit card, not to mention the gambling and Hawaiian vacations people were taking with them last year. One would guess that the Golden State is saying, "Screw it; things are so bad here, we might as well let you smoke and/or drink yourselves to death!" You never know with the left. These entitlements have gotten us the worst credit rating in the modern era. However, they did one good thing, and that is to expose just how inept at economics Obama is.
The national debt adds $1M every twenty seconds. Imagine the national lottery we could have if we had no debt! We could create a millionaire every twenty seconds, or roughly 4,300 millionaires every day. How's that for stimulus?
Despite our little debt problem, Obama wants to keep printing money, keep spending money, and raise the debt ceiling. Why bother calling it a ceiling, since the debt ceiling has already been raised three times in The Time of O? Let's just call it a moving target.
So what if we hit the debt ceiling? It's not like the lights will go off in America. Will Lockheed stop building that next missile system, or will they just say, "Well, looks like our number-one client is gonna be late for a bit?" Given Standard and Poor's put our rating on warning, I suspect our creditors already know what's happening.
Yet government credit cards are not being cut. Nobody's threatening to repossess Air Force One, and Obama is not hiding the presidential limos at a storage locker in D.C. or having Secret Service run interference from creditors. No, Obama is still living large, likely planning his next taxpayer-funded vacation.
The only thing we have done that is more stupid than allowing the Geri-curl and plus-sized spandex is the election of Obama. The New Black Panthers know it, Louis Farrakhan knows it, and Oprah knows it. Deal with it, liberal America, because you know it, too.
In the midst of a financial meltdown that cost the American taxpayers $1.4T, Obama and Geithner said to the Wall Street Journal that they are optimistic about the budget deficit. Seriously, how can you be optimistic about the budget deficit? That's like being optimistic about being three months behind on your mortgage. Surpluses make you happy, not deficits.
Obama's solution is to attack the most productive people in America: the conservative rich. The liberal rich are the morons, but conservative rich people work for a living and create jobs. They also create opportunity, the thing that people used to come to America to find -- and not at the welfare office.
There is certainly enough history on the subject of tax increases that you would think Obama wouldn't even consider -- correction: re-consider -- such an inane notion. But as Obama said in 2008 about raising the Capital Gains Tax, he would do it "for fairness purposes." Fair to whom?
When Maryland passed a higher tax rate on people earning $1 million a year or more, the number of millionaires living in Maryland fell from nearly 8,000 to fewer than 6,000. Maryland counted on $106 million in increase revenue, but instead, revenues fell by $257 million. Oops.
Enough is enough, America. "Entitlement" is a dirty word. If you haven't contributed to the system, you are entitled to nothing.
Kevin Jackson is author of The BIG Black Lie and The Black Sphere blog.
Obama's Brand of 'Greatness' for America
By Kevin Jackson
Obama's budget reminds me of the joke where the wife asks her husband, "Should I get a bikini or an all-in-one?" The husband replies, "Better get a bikini...you'll never get it all in one."
The budget is out of control because of the thing that Obama says makes America great: entitlements. Who knew that giving money to the shiftless and lazy is the way we are supposed to measure ourselves?
Apparently America is at the pinnacle of its greatness, because we are giving it all away. According to this report, 50% of Americans are receiving entitlements, and more shocking is this report that shows that as many as 62% of illegal immigrants are receiving them. I can understand 10% of Americans receiving entitlements, because conservatives are sensitive to the plight of the underprivileged, despite the lies from the lunatic left. But 50% just helps me understand how many lazy leftoids there are -- you know, people who believe that they are entitled to our money.
Like the 40% who don't represent the relatively small group of Americans who actually need help, illegal aliens are entitled to nothing except to be thrown out of the bar. We've all seen the movies where the bouncers escort the troublemaker out of the trendy bar full of gorgeous hotties and then toss him onto the sidewalk. Well, America is the trendy bar full of gorgeous hotties called conservatives. We value our club, and we won't let just anybody in. You have to dress right and "know somebody," or you are entitled to meet the pavement.
A New York Times columnist disagrees with me, saying Republicans are trying to make "entitlement" a dirty word. It really sucks that we are still only "trying." "Entitlement" is a dirty word. Life entitles you to nothing except to die, and even that doesn't have to be pretty.
These days, the left wants to give out free residences, food, cars, cell phones, TVs, video games, and about everything else. It's quite frankly ridiculous. It would be different if the government provided basics, leaving incentive to work for an Xbox. But the government will give you the Xbox, too, and free games -- confiscated from the kids of hardworking conservatives, of course.
When did it become a source of pride to receive entitlements? Further, those who are best at getting them are respected in their communities, even looked upon as policy gurus. They teach clinics while at their stylists, and again when getting their manicures and pedicures. They even enlighten while shopping for DVDs and wardrobes.
In the old days, people hid the fact that they needed government assistance, and they worked hard to get off the system. Not anymore, Rip Van Winkle. To remove the stigma of being a freeloader, the government has gone to the welfare credit card. And in California you can now buy liquor and cigarettes on your welfare credit card, not to mention the gambling and Hawaiian vacations people were taking with them last year. One would guess that the Golden State is saying, "Screw it; things are so bad here, we might as well let you smoke and/or drink yourselves to death!" You never know with the left. These entitlements have gotten us the worst credit rating in the modern era. However, they did one good thing, and that is to expose just how inept at economics Obama is.
The national debt adds $1M every twenty seconds. Imagine the national lottery we could have if we had no debt! We could create a millionaire every twenty seconds, or roughly 4,300 millionaires every day. How's that for stimulus?
Despite our little debt problem, Obama wants to keep printing money, keep spending money, and raise the debt ceiling. Why bother calling it a ceiling, since the debt ceiling has already been raised three times in The Time of O? Let's just call it a moving target.
So what if we hit the debt ceiling? It's not like the lights will go off in America. Will Lockheed stop building that next missile system, or will they just say, "Well, looks like our number-one client is gonna be late for a bit?" Given Standard and Poor's put our rating on warning, I suspect our creditors already know what's happening.
Yet government credit cards are not being cut. Nobody's threatening to repossess Air Force One, and Obama is not hiding the presidential limos at a storage locker in D.C. or having Secret Service run interference from creditors. No, Obama is still living large, likely planning his next taxpayer-funded vacation.
The only thing we have done that is more stupid than allowing the Geri-curl and plus-sized spandex is the election of Obama. The New Black Panthers know it, Louis Farrakhan knows it, and Oprah knows it. Deal with it, liberal America, because you know it, too.
In the midst of a financial meltdown that cost the American taxpayers $1.4T, Obama and Geithner said to the Wall Street Journal that they are optimistic about the budget deficit. Seriously, how can you be optimistic about the budget deficit? That's like being optimistic about being three months behind on your mortgage. Surpluses make you happy, not deficits.
Obama's solution is to attack the most productive people in America: the conservative rich. The liberal rich are the morons, but conservative rich people work for a living and create jobs. They also create opportunity, the thing that people used to come to America to find -- and not at the welfare office.
There is certainly enough history on the subject of tax increases that you would think Obama wouldn't even consider -- correction: re-consider -- such an inane notion. But as Obama said in 2008 about raising the Capital Gains Tax, he would do it "for fairness purposes." Fair to whom?
When Maryland passed a higher tax rate on people earning $1 million a year or more, the number of millionaires living in Maryland fell from nearly 8,000 to fewer than 6,000. Maryland counted on $106 million in increase revenue, but instead, revenues fell by $257 million. Oops.
Enough is enough, America. "Entitlement" is a dirty word. If you haven't contributed to the system, you are entitled to nothing.
Kevin Jackson is author of The BIG Black Lie and The Black Sphere blog.
'Atlas Shrugged' strikes a chord with activists.
Atlanta – Did America just go John Galt?
The relative box-office success of the independent film "Atlas Shrugged," based on the bestselling Ayn Rand novel that features the character John Galt, has reportedly surprised Hollywood insiders who took a pass on the script. It shouldn't have.
The box-office results show that cinematic clashes between self-made industrialists and government bureaucrats fit this moment in American history snugly, addressing both tea party sentiments and polls that show growing pessimism about the direction of the country.
QUIZ: How much do you know about the tea party?
"Atlas Shrugged: Part I" (Parts II and III are reportedly in the planning stages) cost $10 million and wrapped in 26 days. Last weekend when it opened, it reported a respectable $5,640 per-theater take, with a Duluth, Ga., theater leading the way with more than $25,000 in receipts. In all, the movie earned $1.7 million in 244 theaters the first weekend, enough to warrant further distribution.
With no studio backing for a public-relations blitz, co-producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow pushed the movie out through various "Randian" fan networks and tea party channels, including Dick Armey's FreedomWorks. Despite critical panning (Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson called it a "model of mediocrity") and some admittedly two-dimensional characters, the movie seems to have struck a chord among at least some concerned Americans.
“People are hungry for what these characters are saying,” Mr. Aglialoro told The Washington Times. “They’re telling the government, ‘Just leave me alone. Let me hang onto my life and pursue my passions and rational self-interest.' That’s what will benefit society.”
For their part, critics see "Atlas Shrugged" as a dangerous balm "for conservatives, free marketeers, predatory capitalists, and people who hate the government and the poor," in the words of Huffington Post columnist Jonathan Kim.
But if Sarah Palin is one populist face of the amorphous tea party movement, Ms. Rand, the Russian-born philosopher and author, has become its intellectual patron. References to her works rival Thomas Jefferson quotes on tea party placards.
The founder of "Objectivist" philosophy, Rand centered her beliefs on a basic point: America's foundational quest to raise individual wealth and happiness through free agency and hard work is its enduring legacy, and its enduring hope. But as tea party activists argue, those ideas are today (as in "Atlas Shrugged") locked in a struggle with oppressive collectivist forces – often epitomized by President Obama, bent on transforming America into an outpost of the eurozone.
Set in 2016, "Atlas Shrugged" the movie presents two industrialists – railroad exec Dagny Taggart and steel magnate Henry Rearden – fighting against irrational government officials colluding with socialist business magnates to tax to the ground those who are trying to end the dystopia. In the background is a central mystery: "Who is John Galt?"
Rand is a peculiar choice for the tea party, critics say. Although she advocated individual liberty, she was also an atheist – a point that, one could argue, runs counter to polls that show tea partyers tend to be socially conservative and religious. Even her views of democracy should disqualify the embrace of her ideas by the tea party, critics add. Rand "espoused an elitist, oligarchic philosophy that is both fundamentally anti-American and deeply at odds with the tea party's own 'we the people' cause," Vladimir Shlapentokh wrote in the Monitor last year.
"Rand, almost above all else, championed the individual over the collective," adds columnist Megan Gibson in the Guardian this week. "The notion that a populist movement is using her name and economic philosophies to mobilise their broader political goal is laughable."
Rand adherents reject many of those criticisms, saying they're simplistic and misconstrue her underlying beliefs. "It is a philosophy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, born out of an immigrant’s love for America," writes Vanderbilt University student Jesse Jones, a member of Young Americans for Liberty.
But it's also true that many Rand supporters in the tea party may simply be laying aside some of her social views to focus on her broader writings about individual rights being "the moral sanction of a positive" – as well as her ideas about how markets ultimately respond to consumer and government signals.
Whatever the case, all the attention has been good for Rand's estate (she died in 1982). The tea party protests in the past few years – over everything from stimulus packages to health-care reform – have corresponded with spikes in the sales of Rand books.
As with the put-upon industrialists in the film, the story of how "Atlas Shrugged" the movie got made hints at individual perseverance and people fighting oppressive forces, in this case supposed Hollywood liberals.
Aglialoro – the CEO of a gym-equipment manufacturer, a poker player, and one of Forbes's capitalists to watch in 2011 – tried and failed for 18 years to get studio interest in the project. Sensing that the zeitgeist moment was right (plus nearing the end of his rights to the book), he eventually opened his own checkbook and turned to Mr. Kaslow, a Hollywood entertainment attorney, to help him assemble a production team and quickly shoot the movie.
"Atlas Shrugged" may ultimately not break any box-office records, and it may, in the end, have a limited reach – seeing that it did well in Duluth but flopped in Mobile, Ala. But it also represents an elevation of conservative ideas in the popular culture, as the tea party movement continues to make its influence known from Washington to Hollywood.
“We’re lucky that the relevance of the book to what’s going on today has steadily increased over time,” Kaslow tells The Wall Street Journal. “So that’s made the film more accessible and more embraced by the various political factions that [subscribe] to Ayn Rand's philosophy. And we haven’t resisted their embracing it.”
QUIZ: How much do you know about the tea party?
The relative box-office success of the independent film "Atlas Shrugged," based on the bestselling Ayn Rand novel that features the character John Galt, has reportedly surprised Hollywood insiders who took a pass on the script. It shouldn't have.
The box-office results show that cinematic clashes between self-made industrialists and government bureaucrats fit this moment in American history snugly, addressing both tea party sentiments and polls that show growing pessimism about the direction of the country.
QUIZ: How much do you know about the tea party?
"Atlas Shrugged: Part I" (Parts II and III are reportedly in the planning stages) cost $10 million and wrapped in 26 days. Last weekend when it opened, it reported a respectable $5,640 per-theater take, with a Duluth, Ga., theater leading the way with more than $25,000 in receipts. In all, the movie earned $1.7 million in 244 theaters the first weekend, enough to warrant further distribution.
With no studio backing for a public-relations blitz, co-producers John Aglialoro and Harmon Kaslow pushed the movie out through various "Randian" fan networks and tea party channels, including Dick Armey's FreedomWorks. Despite critical panning (Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson called it a "model of mediocrity") and some admittedly two-dimensional characters, the movie seems to have struck a chord among at least some concerned Americans.
“People are hungry for what these characters are saying,” Mr. Aglialoro told The Washington Times. “They’re telling the government, ‘Just leave me alone. Let me hang onto my life and pursue my passions and rational self-interest.' That’s what will benefit society.”
For their part, critics see "Atlas Shrugged" as a dangerous balm "for conservatives, free marketeers, predatory capitalists, and people who hate the government and the poor," in the words of Huffington Post columnist Jonathan Kim.
But if Sarah Palin is one populist face of the amorphous tea party movement, Ms. Rand, the Russian-born philosopher and author, has become its intellectual patron. References to her works rival Thomas Jefferson quotes on tea party placards.
The founder of "Objectivist" philosophy, Rand centered her beliefs on a basic point: America's foundational quest to raise individual wealth and happiness through free agency and hard work is its enduring legacy, and its enduring hope. But as tea party activists argue, those ideas are today (as in "Atlas Shrugged") locked in a struggle with oppressive collectivist forces – often epitomized by President Obama, bent on transforming America into an outpost of the eurozone.
Set in 2016, "Atlas Shrugged" the movie presents two industrialists – railroad exec Dagny Taggart and steel magnate Henry Rearden – fighting against irrational government officials colluding with socialist business magnates to tax to the ground those who are trying to end the dystopia. In the background is a central mystery: "Who is John Galt?"
Rand is a peculiar choice for the tea party, critics say. Although she advocated individual liberty, she was also an atheist – a point that, one could argue, runs counter to polls that show tea partyers tend to be socially conservative and religious. Even her views of democracy should disqualify the embrace of her ideas by the tea party, critics add. Rand "espoused an elitist, oligarchic philosophy that is both fundamentally anti-American and deeply at odds with the tea party's own 'we the people' cause," Vladimir Shlapentokh wrote in the Monitor last year.
"Rand, almost above all else, championed the individual over the collective," adds columnist Megan Gibson in the Guardian this week. "The notion that a populist movement is using her name and economic philosophies to mobilise their broader political goal is laughable."
Rand adherents reject many of those criticisms, saying they're simplistic and misconstrue her underlying beliefs. "It is a philosophy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, born out of an immigrant’s love for America," writes Vanderbilt University student Jesse Jones, a member of Young Americans for Liberty.
But it's also true that many Rand supporters in the tea party may simply be laying aside some of her social views to focus on her broader writings about individual rights being "the moral sanction of a positive" – as well as her ideas about how markets ultimately respond to consumer and government signals.
Whatever the case, all the attention has been good for Rand's estate (she died in 1982). The tea party protests in the past few years – over everything from stimulus packages to health-care reform – have corresponded with spikes in the sales of Rand books.
As with the put-upon industrialists in the film, the story of how "Atlas Shrugged" the movie got made hints at individual perseverance and people fighting oppressive forces, in this case supposed Hollywood liberals.
Aglialoro – the CEO of a gym-equipment manufacturer, a poker player, and one of Forbes's capitalists to watch in 2011 – tried and failed for 18 years to get studio interest in the project. Sensing that the zeitgeist moment was right (plus nearing the end of his rights to the book), he eventually opened his own checkbook and turned to Mr. Kaslow, a Hollywood entertainment attorney, to help him assemble a production team and quickly shoot the movie.
"Atlas Shrugged" may ultimately not break any box-office records, and it may, in the end, have a limited reach – seeing that it did well in Duluth but flopped in Mobile, Ala. But it also represents an elevation of conservative ideas in the popular culture, as the tea party movement continues to make its influence known from Washington to Hollywood.
“We’re lucky that the relevance of the book to what’s going on today has steadily increased over time,” Kaslow tells The Wall Street Journal. “So that’s made the film more accessible and more embraced by the various political factions that [subscribe] to Ayn Rand's philosophy. And we haven’t resisted their embracing it.”
QUIZ: How much do you know about the tea party?
The left and choke points of society
The grand strategy of the left is to seize and then to occupy alone the choke points of society. The left is pleased to move slowly, disarming opponents through pious professions of unbiased interest. Consider education and its companion groups. Many decades ago, as early as the 1920s, the left began to deliberately occupy positions of control within the field of education. In academia, that meant grabbing sinecures in History, Political Science, Sociology and the like. It meant also the creation and control of professional associations of academicians. Tenure, once the left had a majority of the faculty, was used to deny opportunity for advancement to those who disagreed with the left and to promote untalented haters like Ward Churchill or Anita Hill into places of power. Now we live in a world in which leftism is ubiquitous in colleges.
Public school has also been choke point possessed by enemies of liberty and logic. The pseudo-history taught our children propounds a villainous cabal of Christians, males, Europeans, businessmen and other lesser demons. College degrees in "Education" are required before a teacher can instruct public school classrooms and these education department of colleges are occupied by the left. Teachers who resist the leftism they must stay quiet in college education classes and even so these non-leftist teacher may find themselves required to join a teachers' union, which will not only spends their dollars to hire Democrats also sends them unwarranted leftist glop.
Children who go through public education face an imposing gauntlet of teachers and classes which pound the same false notions into the students' minds. State-controlled instruction creates demonologies of businessmen, people of Judeo-Christian faith, European descendants, and patriots. These children are pompously told that they have learned much when, grimily, they have learned almost nothing. They read poorly. They write atrociously. They have no grasp of logic. Their knowledge of history and religion is pathetic.
The left insures that those who leave our public schools and enter our universities move seamlessly from a world of intellectual and moral nihilism into a higher grade of the same vacuity. The choke points, the places in which the flicker of hope can shine, have been shut tight. These young adults have grown up watching television. Forget the news programs, which mean nothing to anyone any more. The entertainment programming which these children absorb from the earliest age is marinated in leftism. Sacred words like "recycle" and "tolerance" are insinuated into every situation in life.
The young person may look for help at the public library. This is, after all, intended to be the place where vistas of the mind are expanded. Yet very few of the "new books" in most libraries are written in opposition to the prevailing currents of leftism. The American Library Association, an umbrella organization to which over thousands of library systems belong, refuses to condemn Castro's imprisonment of librarians and consistently takes a leftist position. Ironically, conservatives write many best sellers and succeed in the book publishing field just like in the talk radio arena. But when the gatekeepers all are ideologues of the same persuasion, only one way of thinking receives recognition (conservatives may recall that when Rush Limbaugh's books came out, staff in booksellers would put his book in the cooking section, turn the jacket around, etc. – the "profit motive" is powerful, but the "ideological motive" of the leftist true believer trumps money.)
Long ago the left also began to inhabit "mainstream religion." Organizations like the National Council of Churches are reflexive in their support for leftist tyrants or chic leftist causes. The same is true of many mainstream religions. The pews of those leftist-occupied churches have been shrinking for years, and the ordination of homosexual bishops, support for premarital sex and out of wedlock birth, and deconstruction of historical religious texts are intended to provide utterly nothing for the soul desperately in need of something.
The long, dreary list of groups that are wholly own subsidiaries of leftism seems to swallow us up: American Bar Association, American Medical Association, NOW, United Way, League of Women Voters, NAACP, American Association of University Women, and many, many more. This is the familiar pattern - the collective, the hive, the group – leftists always seek the comfort of "associations" or "councils" or "leagues." What happens when conservatives form organizations like Concerned Women or America, the largest women's organization in America? It is a pariah, an unperson, a Jim Crow organization to the leftist gatekeepers at the choke points of society.
What are the sixty percent of Americans who call ourselves "conservatives" to do, then? Most of us already know. Recognize that organizations with the most benign names are often our worst enemies. We should utterly ignore them. Attention is the most priceless commodity today, especially to the insecure creatures of the left. Calculated yawns in the direction of these leftist vanities panic them. When we all think and speak like independent souls, then the grotesque menagerie of leftist mouthpieces is a shrill, empty voice in the wind. We should decline membership or help for any of these groups.
There are government programs which we cannot simply decline to join like schools, libraries and colleges. In those cases, we should support real diversity. I have said that we should privatize education. We should also allow competing library systems - allow a citizen by his choice of membership to support which pleases him most. We should have vouchers for college would also allow students and parents to choose the best value and the least indoctrination.
The reason why a small percentage of rather silly Americans controls so much of our lives, is that they pinpointed the choke points of society, they burrowed from within to control those choke points, and they slaughter anyone who threatens their control. We will win the war for America when we oust the left from those choke points and let ideas, information and art flow freely: we win fair fights.
Public school has also been choke point possessed by enemies of liberty and logic. The pseudo-history taught our children propounds a villainous cabal of Christians, males, Europeans, businessmen and other lesser demons. College degrees in "Education" are required before a teacher can instruct public school classrooms and these education department of colleges are occupied by the left. Teachers who resist the leftism they must stay quiet in college education classes and even so these non-leftist teacher may find themselves required to join a teachers' union, which will not only spends their dollars to hire Democrats also sends them unwarranted leftist glop.
Children who go through public education face an imposing gauntlet of teachers and classes which pound the same false notions into the students' minds. State-controlled instruction creates demonologies of businessmen, people of Judeo-Christian faith, European descendants, and patriots. These children are pompously told that they have learned much when, grimily, they have learned almost nothing. They read poorly. They write atrociously. They have no grasp of logic. Their knowledge of history and religion is pathetic.
The left insures that those who leave our public schools and enter our universities move seamlessly from a world of intellectual and moral nihilism into a higher grade of the same vacuity. The choke points, the places in which the flicker of hope can shine, have been shut tight. These young adults have grown up watching television. Forget the news programs, which mean nothing to anyone any more. The entertainment programming which these children absorb from the earliest age is marinated in leftism. Sacred words like "recycle" and "tolerance" are insinuated into every situation in life.
The young person may look for help at the public library. This is, after all, intended to be the place where vistas of the mind are expanded. Yet very few of the "new books" in most libraries are written in opposition to the prevailing currents of leftism. The American Library Association, an umbrella organization to which over thousands of library systems belong, refuses to condemn Castro's imprisonment of librarians and consistently takes a leftist position. Ironically, conservatives write many best sellers and succeed in the book publishing field just like in the talk radio arena. But when the gatekeepers all are ideologues of the same persuasion, only one way of thinking receives recognition (conservatives may recall that when Rush Limbaugh's books came out, staff in booksellers would put his book in the cooking section, turn the jacket around, etc. – the "profit motive" is powerful, but the "ideological motive" of the leftist true believer trumps money.)
Long ago the left also began to inhabit "mainstream religion." Organizations like the National Council of Churches are reflexive in their support for leftist tyrants or chic leftist causes. The same is true of many mainstream religions. The pews of those leftist-occupied churches have been shrinking for years, and the ordination of homosexual bishops, support for premarital sex and out of wedlock birth, and deconstruction of historical religious texts are intended to provide utterly nothing for the soul desperately in need of something.
The long, dreary list of groups that are wholly own subsidiaries of leftism seems to swallow us up: American Bar Association, American Medical Association, NOW, United Way, League of Women Voters, NAACP, American Association of University Women, and many, many more. This is the familiar pattern - the collective, the hive, the group – leftists always seek the comfort of "associations" or "councils" or "leagues." What happens when conservatives form organizations like Concerned Women or America, the largest women's organization in America? It is a pariah, an unperson, a Jim Crow organization to the leftist gatekeepers at the choke points of society.
What are the sixty percent of Americans who call ourselves "conservatives" to do, then? Most of us already know. Recognize that organizations with the most benign names are often our worst enemies. We should utterly ignore them. Attention is the most priceless commodity today, especially to the insecure creatures of the left. Calculated yawns in the direction of these leftist vanities panic them. When we all think and speak like independent souls, then the grotesque menagerie of leftist mouthpieces is a shrill, empty voice in the wind. We should decline membership or help for any of these groups.
There are government programs which we cannot simply decline to join like schools, libraries and colleges. In those cases, we should support real diversity. I have said that we should privatize education. We should also allow competing library systems - allow a citizen by his choice of membership to support which pleases him most. We should have vouchers for college would also allow students and parents to choose the best value and the least indoctrination.
The reason why a small percentage of rather silly Americans controls so much of our lives, is that they pinpointed the choke points of society, they burrowed from within to control those choke points, and they slaughter anyone who threatens their control. We will win the war for America when we oust the left from those choke points and let ideas, information and art flow freely: we win fair fights.
You Call This a Recovery?
Call it the "excuses recovery." President Obama and his administration have been warning for the last week that the just announced first quarter GDP growth rate of 1.8 percent would be weak, and they have been quick to blame it on the recent spike prices in oil. The problem is that this whole recovery has been anemic, not just one or two slow quarters of economic growth.
Seven quarters into the Obama recovery, GDP growth has averaged an annual rate of only 2.8 percent. In contrast, since 1970, the first seven quarters of previous recoveries averaged 4.6 percent. The poor growth rate is especially surprising since the preceding recession was so severe, there should have been ample room for high growth as the unemployed returned to work. For example, the Reagan recovery followed a similarly high unemployment rate and saw the economy grow at an average annual growth rate of 7 percent (see graph here).
The slight decrease in unemployment – currently at 8.8 percent -- has been touted as good news. Yet that slight drop has largely been the result of job-seekers giving up looking for work and leaving the labor force. On top of that, the new jobs that have opened up have primarily been temporary jobs, the number of permanent jobs has actually fallen.
Given all that, Americans are understandably pessimistic about the economy. By an incredible 68 percent to 26 percent margin, The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows that Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, which is the pessimism people experienced at the depths of the recent recession. By a 56 to 40 percent difference, even the liberal Talking Points Memo average of selected surveys finds that Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.
High oil prices can only explain a small portion of the recent low GDP growth. While some companies, such as those in the transportation sector suffer, others – most notably energy producers – benefit. As workers and capital investments cannot instantly move across states and from one set of jobs to another, the resulting unemployment means that output is temporarily reduced.
Ironically, however, this problem from shifting resources is no different than what happened from Obama's stimulus spending and all his new regulations. By moving money from where companies and consumers would have spent the money to where the Obama and the Democrats wanted it spent, jobs and resources were also moved.
Take a large sector of the economy such as housing. The most recent numbers show that median house price has fallen back to where it was in April 2002. Not surprisingly, with existing housing prices so low, it doesn't pay for anyone to build new housing. But even at those low prices the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales is back to where it was over a decade ago.
But rather than blaming high oil prices, for housing, possibly the Obama administration might want to look in the mirror and ask what impact its regulations have had. On top of previous attempts to force mortgage companies into accepting write downs on the value of mortgages, the Huffington Post recently reported on the Obama administration's new "shock and awe" approach to reviving the housing market:
"The Obama administration is seeking to force the nation's five largest mortgage firms to reduce monthly payments for as many as three million distressed homeowners in as little as six months as part of an agreement to settle accusations of improper foreclosures and violations of consumer protection laws, six people familiar with the matter said."
Would you want to make a new loan if you were one of these mortgage companies? Companies might find huge drops in the value of their loans just a year or two after they are made. Fewer loans mean a drop in the number of purchases and a drop in house prices.
At some point even Democrats are going to have concede that President Obama's "cure" has made the economy worse. How many more quarters of slow growth are Americans going to have to endure?
Seven quarters into the Obama recovery, GDP growth has averaged an annual rate of only 2.8 percent. In contrast, since 1970, the first seven quarters of previous recoveries averaged 4.6 percent. The poor growth rate is especially surprising since the preceding recession was so severe, there should have been ample room for high growth as the unemployed returned to work. For example, the Reagan recovery followed a similarly high unemployment rate and saw the economy grow at an average annual growth rate of 7 percent (see graph here).
The slight decrease in unemployment – currently at 8.8 percent -- has been touted as good news. Yet that slight drop has largely been the result of job-seekers giving up looking for work and leaving the labor force. On top of that, the new jobs that have opened up have primarily been temporary jobs, the number of permanent jobs has actually fallen.
Given all that, Americans are understandably pessimistic about the economy. By an incredible 68 percent to 26 percent margin, The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows that Americans think that the country is headed in the wrong direction, which is the pessimism people experienced at the depths of the recent recession. By a 56 to 40 percent difference, even the liberal Talking Points Memo average of selected surveys finds that Americans disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.
High oil prices can only explain a small portion of the recent low GDP growth. While some companies, such as those in the transportation sector suffer, others – most notably energy producers – benefit. As workers and capital investments cannot instantly move across states and from one set of jobs to another, the resulting unemployment means that output is temporarily reduced.
Ironically, however, this problem from shifting resources is no different than what happened from Obama's stimulus spending and all his new regulations. By moving money from where companies and consumers would have spent the money to where the Obama and the Democrats wanted it spent, jobs and resources were also moved.
Take a large sector of the economy such as housing. The most recent numbers show that median house price has fallen back to where it was in April 2002. Not surprisingly, with existing housing prices so low, it doesn't pay for anyone to build new housing. But even at those low prices the seasonally adjusted annual rate of sales is back to where it was over a decade ago.
But rather than blaming high oil prices, for housing, possibly the Obama administration might want to look in the mirror and ask what impact its regulations have had. On top of previous attempts to force mortgage companies into accepting write downs on the value of mortgages, the Huffington Post recently reported on the Obama administration's new "shock and awe" approach to reviving the housing market:
"The Obama administration is seeking to force the nation's five largest mortgage firms to reduce monthly payments for as many as three million distressed homeowners in as little as six months as part of an agreement to settle accusations of improper foreclosures and violations of consumer protection laws, six people familiar with the matter said."
Would you want to make a new loan if you were one of these mortgage companies? Companies might find huge drops in the value of their loans just a year or two after they are made. Fewer loans mean a drop in the number of purchases and a drop in house prices.
At some point even Democrats are going to have concede that President Obama's "cure" has made the economy worse. How many more quarters of slow growth are Americans going to have to endure?
Portuguese will learn to live with IMF
"Know what will change in your life with the IMF", headlines Jornal de Negócios, in a special edition almost exclusively dedicated to the International Monetary Fund. The economic diary notes that the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission have not yet reached an agreement on the period of time Portugal should be given to reduce its public deficit, adding that a short period, as Brussels wants, will demand greater austerity. Although the measures imposed by the troika are not known yet, Jornal de Negócios guarantees that the Portuguese citizens will receive less from the state and will have to pay more taxes, receive lower pensions and unemployment benefits and face a wave of privatisations. The Lisbon daily also reveals that Germany, France, Italy, Spain and United States are the five countries that will guarantee more than half of the financial attendance to Portugal.
Treason Complaint against Obama in Hands of Two Federal Grand Juries
(Apr. 27, 2011) — A little bit of background.
Before Tim and I proceeded with the treason complaint two years ago, we did everything we thought we needed to do to make the complaint, and we gave other people the opportunity to do it before Tim and I did. We wrote to the Electoral College and got no response. We made phone calls; we looked for this wherever we could find some way to answer it. Then, in the meantime, we had reports coming out of Kenya that Mr. Obama was being celebrated there as a national hero because he’s just been elected President of the United States.
There were the radio talk show hosts who got a hold of that ambassador who said, “Oh, yes, we have a monument to him here,” and then later, it was reported that when Obama ran for the Senate, the Nigerian Observer announced that Kenyan-born Senator Obama was likely to win the presidency. So Tim and I had done everything that we thought we needed to do to confirm the fact that Mr. Obama was a foreign-born domestic enemy, and when we said “foreign-born,” we pointed to Mombasa, Kenya.
This happened for two years, and we’ve discussed the issue about Mr. Obama accepting the fact that he is declared by the military as a foreign-born domestic enemy. Other people have filed that complaint; we have some 3,000+ complaints out there naming Mr. Obama in treason.
In other words, Obama is a foreign-born domestic enemy, and it was with that knowledge that Mr. Obama was named again in the commission of treason on the 17th of March of this year, again. Before that, there was a letter sent to the two sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville alerting them to the issue of the challenge to recapture the power of presentment. When those letters were mailed on the 16th and 17th of March, respectively, some five weeks ago, to the two sitting grand juries in Knoxville, copies of those letters were sent to the FBI in Knoxville and to the U.S. attorney in Knoxville, William C. Killian.
It was exactly those two mailings that were sent back to me by the federal magistrate judge, Bruce Guyton. Those which were supposed to go to the grand jury I received back unopened two weeks ago, on the 9th of April. You have Guyton’s letter. I had mailed in other documents in the meantime, and I expected to get them back. I was waiting to mail back those letters of 16 and 17 March; I’ve held onto them for two weeks, waiting for the other mailings to be returned to me so I could put them all in one envelope and save some money. Those other mailings never came back.
So on Monday of this week, the 25th of April, I went to the post office and mailed back directly to the U.S. attorney in Knoxville, those four letters: one letter which went to the two juries, and then the letters from 16 and 17 March, one for each of the juries so there were four envelopes that I returned to the United States attorney. I mailed them on Monday. He would have received them yesterday. And today Obama comes out and says, “Here’s my new birth certificate.”
The significance of this is that there is no place else in the country where a sitting federal grand jury has this information in their hands. And Mr. Obama reacted the way that he did. It puts the pressure on the U.S. attorney in Knoxville. If you go back and read those two letters – I sent them to you again as a PDF; they’re one page each – they’re very, very powerful writings, Mr. Obama is named on that 17 March 2011 document as a criminal against the United States who is destroying the country. Now, again, the U.S. attorney had copies of those letters five weeks ago, and so did the FBI. I have not been arrested. These accusations against Mr. Obama stand on their face, because if they had been found defective either two years ago or in the intervening two years or in the last couple of weeks, I wouldn’t be talking to you tonight. I have not been arrested. Nothing has been found that is defective in the criminal complaint that I, as a military officer, holding standing, have issued against Mr. Obama. He is, in fact, a foreign-born domestic enemy, and it could be that the two grand juries, one or both, are looking at this thing. I don’t believe in coincidences. There is no place else in the country where a sitting federal grand jury has been tasked in the way that the two grand juries in Knoxville have been tasked. There is no other grand jury in the country that knows about this, and the timing is just too tight. And I’m still able to talk to you tonight.
My complaint naming Obama as a foreign-born domestic enemy…”Google” that sometime…”foreign-born domestic enemy,” and see what you find. Mr. Obama has been named by his military as a foreign-born domestic enemy. I’m not the only guy. But this is coming up out of Tennessee, and then you have all of the other things that have happened because we’ve been trying to advance a complaint against Mr. Obama because he’s a foreign-born domestic enemy.
Judge Ross wrote that letter of instruction to his jury and said, “You can’t hear a complaint against Mr. Obama for treason.” So we sent it to the federal grand jury, and now Obama’s on the podium today after it was received in Knoxville. I don’t believe that Killian would have held this back from the federal grand jury; he couldn’t throw this in the round file. He couldn’t just put it away and say, “I’m not going to do anything with this.” There are too many things going on. I think he showed this to one of the people in the grand jury, and I think he did it before. They knew that I was going to return those mailings to them; they knew that they were coming back. They knew that they were coming back in. But the timing is not a coincidence. So there’s nobody else in the country right now as far as a reporter who knows that there is a federal grand jury who has that letter in their hands. And if they don’t, what kind of position does that put Killian in? If you write that they have it in their hands, because they do, what are they going to do, come out and say, “No, they don’t. I didn’t give it to them?” Uh-oh.
Editor’s Note: The March 16, 2011 letter addressed to Federal Grand Jury #1 in Knoxville reads as follows:
Federal Grand Jury #1 sitting in Knoxville, Tennessee
c/o Jury Administrator Helen Spears
800 Market Street, Suite 130
Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
To the Foreman and Jurors:
Accept this as a call to action in the exercise of your Great Commission!
Our Founding Fathers commissioned you as the most powerful law enforcement agency known in human history. In your Great Commission the Founders invest in you the Power of Presentment. Your Power of Presentment and Great Commission authority are reduced to writing in this day still as found in our United States Constitution.
We are arrived at a point in our Nation’s life where the life of that Nation is threatened to the very point of death. Dictatorial and tyrannical government oppressions are intolerable. Another unconstitutional rival and competing government is installed and thriving in the place of our United States Constitution.
Our present system of government is unsound and unconstitutional. Our laws are unstable. Government functionaries appropriate your Great Commissioned using the Power Presentment against We the People. We all of us are besieged and betrayed by a terrible affliction. We all of us smell the rotten order in our Country while the judges refuse to sniff their own robes.
Reclaim your appropriated and abused Great Commission. Renew the purpose and design of your Power of Presentment.
Lawlessness begets lawlessness. your clear and compelling duty is to see to the great work We the People bring to you. Cometh the hour cometh the man!
Born fighting,
Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III
United States Navy Retired
Distringuished Military Graduate Class of 1975, United States Naval Academy
The reasons that this clicked with me tonight was that I was clicking through emails and I saw in one of them, “Now is the time for a federal grand jury to stand up.” I started thinking to myself, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” And I started going back checking dates, checking the mailings…the certified mail receipts and other things. The two mailings that Guyton sent back were those of 16 and 17 March of 2011 which the U.S. attorney received back in his hands on Tuesday, which was yesterday. And he had copies of them back on the 16th and 17th of March; in other words, when he got them back yesterday, he knew what they were, and they knew that the documents were returning to them. So they’ve had weeks to prepare for this to come back in again, and they got it yesterday.
I have named him – and it could have been anybody – as a foreign-born domestic enemy. Today, Obama stood up and broke his silence about this; he’s addressed the issue directly. If you believe Mr. Obama, then that defect that I keep pointing to…has not Obama not identified the defect and has said basically that Fitzpatrick is wrong? “I really was born in this Kapiolani Hospital.” Well, then, why am I still here now talking to you? Why is it that these documents have been received by the FBI and the U.S. attorney and the two sitting grand juries in Knoxville, and they haven’t taken action against me?
In the meantime, I have been to the offices of the FBI in Knoxville twice. It was back in March, and it was before I sent the complaints in, but they know where I am and they know where to find me, and they haven’t called me. In other words, if I am wrong and Mr. Obama is legit, then he gets to keep Terry Lakin locked up and he also comes and gets me. This really is a big deal. Mr. Obama is charged with treason from the military; not just from Walt Fitzpatrick, because there are others. He has remained silent on the issue; we have talked about silence being consent. And today he broke his silence on his own. By the way, that certificate that is out there is just as fake as anything else we’ve seen.
This has been brought to the attention of two sitting grand juries. This is the first time that the complaint naming Mr. Obama in treason has been brought before a federal grand jury. The American Grand Jury complaints and the common-law grand jury work that Carl Swensson did – God bless them; don’t get me wrong, but none of that was delivered to a sitting federal grand jury. This is the first time this has happened, and it’s coming from a guy who did the homework two years ago and has done the homework since. That letter naming Obama in treason that’s dated 17 March 2011 is a very powerfully-worded, aggressive letter. And it’s in the hands of the United States attorney, and they’ve know about it since 18 March; that’s when they received it.
I am not allowed to make a false complaint. If I know that the complaint is defective, malicious or political harassment, or if I did it knowing it was false and I should have known better and I did it anyway…no, you don’t get away with that. They must place me under arrest.
In other words, Obama has come to the podium today and said, “Well, you know, this is all settled. And by the way, CDR Fitzpatrick’s complaints against me are frivolous and silly, and we’re going to have to take action against him,” and you know that if they could, they would.
The other thing about Terry Lakin‘s case is this: Lakin is not in Ft. Leavenworth tonight because of anything he said about Obama. If you ask a military officer why Terry Lakin is in Ft. Leavenworth tonight, they will tell you, “Because he was ordered to deploy and he failed to obey the order to deploy.” And we know better than that, but the military position on this is that Lakin is locked up because he failed to obey a lawful order. That was the beginning and the end of it. That’s all that he had. Well, if Lakin had stood up and told him what I told him to do, and so did Tim Harrington, which was to declare this man in commission of treason because he is a foreign-born domestic enemy, or if any other officer in the military had stood up and done that, they would have protected Lakin. Then nobody could have gone after them, because that’s a different issue. In order for Obama to come after me as a military officer and challenge me in my declaration of his being a foreign-born domestic enemy, Mr. Obama has had to prove that he is, in fact a “natural born Citizen.” Well, excuse me, but he can’t make that proof.
Tonight, Mr. Obama is denying that he is a foreign-born domestic enemy in a document that we know is as false as can be. Does this not put pressure on the feds in Knoxville, just to say that this has been reported again?
When you read that letter of 17 March 2011 again, the hair on the back of your neck is going to stand up. The letter of the 16th is as powerful as it addresses the Power of Presentment. I think Mr. Obama feels the pressure and feels the need to do something.
We do not know why he did what he did today, but the timing of this thing is just too coincidental. I don’t think it was Donald Trump. This is the first time that a federal grand jury has had this in their hands, and not one, but two grand juries. Remember Russell Dedrick, when he was in the seat, said, “I’m not going to do anything with this unless a federal judge hands it to me?” Well, two years ago I didn’t have the presence of mind to go directly to the federal grand jury. We tried other things first. We tried to take it to Judge Royce Lamberth in DC, and that didn’t work. We tried to go through the local jury here, and you know how that’s all turned out.
But now, this is the first time that we know about in the country where a military officer has taken this directly to two sitting grand juries, and they have it in their hands tonight. They had it in their hands this morning when Obama came to the podium and said, “Here’s my real birth certificate.”
This will sink in with one of your readers once they understand that Mr. Obama was named in a complaint that went to two sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville, and that the feds have known about this now for five weeks. They sent the letters back, but we sent them back in on Monday and they were received in Knoxville yesterday. Now I don’t have the green card receipt back, but I know it’s overnight from here. I mailed them Monday; they were in Knoxville on Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, Obama’s on the podium with a brand-new document with a brand-new document saying, “I’m good to go.”
He didn’t hold up anything. At the bottom, it’s certified 25 April 2011…the thing is completely false. And tonight, there’s a buzz going on throughout the community. Nobody in the country beyond you and maybe Tim Harrington knows that there is in the hands of not one, but two, sitting federal grand juries tonight that letter of 17 March. The U.S. attorney knows about it, and the FBI knows about it. This is not about me; I am just trying to point to how important it is regarding the timing. This is the first time in two years that a grand jury has been called upon to do something with a treason complaint, and it’s coming from a military man. And they got it yesterday.
Actually, the feds knew about this five weeks ago, and whether they took it to the grand jury then or not, we don’t know. But we do know this much: it was mailed back to them on Monday, and they received it Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, Obama came to the podium with a brand-new birth certificate. We need to put the pressure on the feds, one way or the other.
In the letter that went to them on 17 March, I wrote:
Subject: Renewed Formal Criminal Complaint naming Barack Hussein Obama and Obama’s Criminal Assistants in Commission of the Crime of Treason against the United States of America
We are arrived at a point in our Nation’s Life where Barack Hussein Obama and Obama’s criminal assistants threaten the life of our Nation to the point of death. Obama and his criminal cohorts install an unconstitutional, rival and competing government that replaces our United States Constitution.
That’s as simply-put as can be. That is what treason is.
Mr. Obama’s unconstitutional government is thriving and growing. Under Mr. Obama, the United States Constitution no longer operates. Mr. Obama and his outlaw partners enforce only their own form of unconstitutional, treasonous government.
Proofs and evidences of Obama’s treason are manifest. Moreover, we have Mr. Obama’s two-year silent agreement and consent.
Those first three paragraphs tell them as laconically and directly as it can be put. And this day, two years later, anybody who reads that letter can think on his own of an instance where Mr. Obama has installed his own government.
I believe that that letter got somebody’s attention in Washington, DC, and before we get anything by way of response from the feds on that letter – they might just be trying to keep this quiet – I think that there’s an opportunity here just to report the facts as we now have them tonight and say, “OK; go arrest Fitzpatrick.”
JB Williams said that 18 months ago: “Either go get Fitzpatrick because he’s wrong, or take Obama out.” Well, I’m still standing, and this next complaint went in. This is the first time in our history where a sitting federal grand jury – not one, but two – has this kind of a challenge in front of them. And the closeness in timing on this thing…from the dates, the times and the facts, let people draw their own conclusions. They can come to understand it for themselves and whatever it means to them.
That’s why I wanted to speak with you tonight.
Wouldn’t this be a luscious thing for the sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville to pick up on this and say, “Let’s see this; we want to take a closer look.” I believe that Mr. Obama knows that this kind of pressure is coming his way from the federal grand juries and if it’s not that, OK, fine; we can jump on this and put pressure on the feds. What will they say…”We’re not acting on these letters from Fitzpatrick”? We’ll do what we can to keep the pressure on them.
Right now, we know that Mr. Obama came to the podium only after a federal grand jury was put on notice a second time in five weeks that Mr. Obama is committing the kind of crimes that we know he is committing.
And, by the way, the letter that I was just reading from which went out talked about the treasonous incarceration of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin. Everything comes together. We have been fighting in Tennessee to get this handled at every level, and tonight, for the first time, it really went to a federal grand jury. There’s nobody else in the country who knows what you know right now.
They have accepted this criminal complaint as legitimate. Why? Because I’m still standing here. They haven’t arrested me. That really is significant. It’s so important because it was registered again as a second time this year with Mr. Obama’s name on it, and now it’s in the hands of grand jury #1 and grand jury #2 sitting in Knoxville, TN. It’s in their hands. They broke the seal yesterday.
Once you print this and put it out, what’s the federal government going to come back and say? “Well, no, we didn’t give it to the grand jury”? Wouldn’t that be something? We talked about putting pressure on William C. Killian, the U.S. attorney, making him the lightning rod for this stuff? He has it. This is radioactive.
Why now? It’s because the grand juries in Knoxville have been put on notice from this letter from a man in the military, in combination with every other letter that’s out there. And you know today, treason is being talked about in a way that it’s never been talked about before. You take all of the things that Trump has been saying and add the pressure that’s been building and add that to the letter that the grand jury had in its hands again yesterday.
He did this today because he’s trying to save himself from facing the music in regard to a real complaint which names him again in treason. He has been named as a foreign-born domestic enemy by the military. He can’t come and get me because he doesn’t have a collateral charge of failure to obey an order. If he’s coming after me, and this was the way it was two years ago: “Obama, either you’re right or I’m right. If I’m wrong about this, come get me. That was the whole point of charging this man two years ago. “Let’s get to the bottom of this. If you are legit, come and court-martial me or bring me into a federal court as a civilian, and we’ll just deal with these issues in discovery and get to the bottom of it. If I’m wrong, come lock me up! They could have done it in a court-martial just as easily as they did it to Lakin.
But you see, Mr. Obama can’t challenge me because he is not legal. And now, we waited two years. We have been batted away over and over again. Every time we tried to get this into a judge, it got batted away. Now, we have it before two sitting federal grand juries, and we have gotten nothing back that said that they’re going to ignore the request. So I think it’s an opportune time to exploit just the facts that we have before us tonight.
Before Tim and I proceeded with the treason complaint two years ago, we did everything we thought we needed to do to make the complaint, and we gave other people the opportunity to do it before Tim and I did. We wrote to the Electoral College and got no response. We made phone calls; we looked for this wherever we could find some way to answer it. Then, in the meantime, we had reports coming out of Kenya that Mr. Obama was being celebrated there as a national hero because he’s just been elected President of the United States.
There were the radio talk show hosts who got a hold of that ambassador who said, “Oh, yes, we have a monument to him here,” and then later, it was reported that when Obama ran for the Senate, the Nigerian Observer announced that Kenyan-born Senator Obama was likely to win the presidency. So Tim and I had done everything that we thought we needed to do to confirm the fact that Mr. Obama was a foreign-born domestic enemy, and when we said “foreign-born,” we pointed to Mombasa, Kenya.
This happened for two years, and we’ve discussed the issue about Mr. Obama accepting the fact that he is declared by the military as a foreign-born domestic enemy. Other people have filed that complaint; we have some 3,000+ complaints out there naming Mr. Obama in treason.
In other words, Obama is a foreign-born domestic enemy, and it was with that knowledge that Mr. Obama was named again in the commission of treason on the 17th of March of this year, again. Before that, there was a letter sent to the two sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville alerting them to the issue of the challenge to recapture the power of presentment. When those letters were mailed on the 16th and 17th of March, respectively, some five weeks ago, to the two sitting grand juries in Knoxville, copies of those letters were sent to the FBI in Knoxville and to the U.S. attorney in Knoxville, William C. Killian.
It was exactly those two mailings that were sent back to me by the federal magistrate judge, Bruce Guyton. Those which were supposed to go to the grand jury I received back unopened two weeks ago, on the 9th of April. You have Guyton’s letter. I had mailed in other documents in the meantime, and I expected to get them back. I was waiting to mail back those letters of 16 and 17 March; I’ve held onto them for two weeks, waiting for the other mailings to be returned to me so I could put them all in one envelope and save some money. Those other mailings never came back.
So on Monday of this week, the 25th of April, I went to the post office and mailed back directly to the U.S. attorney in Knoxville, those four letters: one letter which went to the two juries, and then the letters from 16 and 17 March, one for each of the juries so there were four envelopes that I returned to the United States attorney. I mailed them on Monday. He would have received them yesterday. And today Obama comes out and says, “Here’s my new birth certificate.”
The significance of this is that there is no place else in the country where a sitting federal grand jury has this information in their hands. And Mr. Obama reacted the way that he did. It puts the pressure on the U.S. attorney in Knoxville. If you go back and read those two letters – I sent them to you again as a PDF; they’re one page each – they’re very, very powerful writings, Mr. Obama is named on that 17 March 2011 document as a criminal against the United States who is destroying the country. Now, again, the U.S. attorney had copies of those letters five weeks ago, and so did the FBI. I have not been arrested. These accusations against Mr. Obama stand on their face, because if they had been found defective either two years ago or in the intervening two years or in the last couple of weeks, I wouldn’t be talking to you tonight. I have not been arrested. Nothing has been found that is defective in the criminal complaint that I, as a military officer, holding standing, have issued against Mr. Obama. He is, in fact, a foreign-born domestic enemy, and it could be that the two grand juries, one or both, are looking at this thing. I don’t believe in coincidences. There is no place else in the country where a sitting federal grand jury has been tasked in the way that the two grand juries in Knoxville have been tasked. There is no other grand jury in the country that knows about this, and the timing is just too tight. And I’m still able to talk to you tonight.
My complaint naming Obama as a foreign-born domestic enemy…”Google” that sometime…”foreign-born domestic enemy,” and see what you find. Mr. Obama has been named by his military as a foreign-born domestic enemy. I’m not the only guy. But this is coming up out of Tennessee, and then you have all of the other things that have happened because we’ve been trying to advance a complaint against Mr. Obama because he’s a foreign-born domestic enemy.
Judge Ross wrote that letter of instruction to his jury and said, “You can’t hear a complaint against Mr. Obama for treason.” So we sent it to the federal grand jury, and now Obama’s on the podium today after it was received in Knoxville. I don’t believe that Killian would have held this back from the federal grand jury; he couldn’t throw this in the round file. He couldn’t just put it away and say, “I’m not going to do anything with this.” There are too many things going on. I think he showed this to one of the people in the grand jury, and I think he did it before. They knew that I was going to return those mailings to them; they knew that they were coming back. They knew that they were coming back in. But the timing is not a coincidence. So there’s nobody else in the country right now as far as a reporter who knows that there is a federal grand jury who has that letter in their hands. And if they don’t, what kind of position does that put Killian in? If you write that they have it in their hands, because they do, what are they going to do, come out and say, “No, they don’t. I didn’t give it to them?” Uh-oh.
Editor’s Note: The March 16, 2011 letter addressed to Federal Grand Jury #1 in Knoxville reads as follows:
Federal Grand Jury #1 sitting in Knoxville, Tennessee
c/o Jury Administrator Helen Spears
800 Market Street, Suite 130
Knoxville, Tennessee 37902
To the Foreman and Jurors:
Accept this as a call to action in the exercise of your Great Commission!
Our Founding Fathers commissioned you as the most powerful law enforcement agency known in human history. In your Great Commission the Founders invest in you the Power of Presentment. Your Power of Presentment and Great Commission authority are reduced to writing in this day still as found in our United States Constitution.
We are arrived at a point in our Nation’s life where the life of that Nation is threatened to the very point of death. Dictatorial and tyrannical government oppressions are intolerable. Another unconstitutional rival and competing government is installed and thriving in the place of our United States Constitution.
Our present system of government is unsound and unconstitutional. Our laws are unstable. Government functionaries appropriate your Great Commissioned using the Power Presentment against We the People. We all of us are besieged and betrayed by a terrible affliction. We all of us smell the rotten order in our Country while the judges refuse to sniff their own robes.
Reclaim your appropriated and abused Great Commission. Renew the purpose and design of your Power of Presentment.
Lawlessness begets lawlessness. your clear and compelling duty is to see to the great work We the People bring to you. Cometh the hour cometh the man!
Born fighting,
Walter Francis Fitzpatrick, III
United States Navy Retired
Distringuished Military Graduate Class of 1975, United States Naval Academy
The reasons that this clicked with me tonight was that I was clicking through emails and I saw in one of them, “Now is the time for a federal grand jury to stand up.” I started thinking to myself, “Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” And I started going back checking dates, checking the mailings…the certified mail receipts and other things. The two mailings that Guyton sent back were those of 16 and 17 March of 2011 which the U.S. attorney received back in his hands on Tuesday, which was yesterday. And he had copies of them back on the 16th and 17th of March; in other words, when he got them back yesterday, he knew what they were, and they knew that the documents were returning to them. So they’ve had weeks to prepare for this to come back in again, and they got it yesterday.
I have named him – and it could have been anybody – as a foreign-born domestic enemy. Today, Obama stood up and broke his silence about this; he’s addressed the issue directly. If you believe Mr. Obama, then that defect that I keep pointing to…has not Obama not identified the defect and has said basically that Fitzpatrick is wrong? “I really was born in this Kapiolani Hospital.” Well, then, why am I still here now talking to you? Why is it that these documents have been received by the FBI and the U.S. attorney and the two sitting grand juries in Knoxville, and they haven’t taken action against me?
In the meantime, I have been to the offices of the FBI in Knoxville twice. It was back in March, and it was before I sent the complaints in, but they know where I am and they know where to find me, and they haven’t called me. In other words, if I am wrong and Mr. Obama is legit, then he gets to keep Terry Lakin locked up and he also comes and gets me. This really is a big deal. Mr. Obama is charged with treason from the military; not just from Walt Fitzpatrick, because there are others. He has remained silent on the issue; we have talked about silence being consent. And today he broke his silence on his own. By the way, that certificate that is out there is just as fake as anything else we’ve seen.
This has been brought to the attention of two sitting grand juries. This is the first time that the complaint naming Mr. Obama in treason has been brought before a federal grand jury. The American Grand Jury complaints and the common-law grand jury work that Carl Swensson did – God bless them; don’t get me wrong, but none of that was delivered to a sitting federal grand jury. This is the first time this has happened, and it’s coming from a guy who did the homework two years ago and has done the homework since. That letter naming Obama in treason that’s dated 17 March 2011 is a very powerfully-worded, aggressive letter. And it’s in the hands of the United States attorney, and they’ve know about it since 18 March; that’s when they received it.
I am not allowed to make a false complaint. If I know that the complaint is defective, malicious or political harassment, or if I did it knowing it was false and I should have known better and I did it anyway…no, you don’t get away with that. They must place me under arrest.
In other words, Obama has come to the podium today and said, “Well, you know, this is all settled. And by the way, CDR Fitzpatrick’s complaints against me are frivolous and silly, and we’re going to have to take action against him,” and you know that if they could, they would.
The other thing about Terry Lakin‘s case is this: Lakin is not in Ft. Leavenworth tonight because of anything he said about Obama. If you ask a military officer why Terry Lakin is in Ft. Leavenworth tonight, they will tell you, “Because he was ordered to deploy and he failed to obey the order to deploy.” And we know better than that, but the military position on this is that Lakin is locked up because he failed to obey a lawful order. That was the beginning and the end of it. That’s all that he had. Well, if Lakin had stood up and told him what I told him to do, and so did Tim Harrington, which was to declare this man in commission of treason because he is a foreign-born domestic enemy, or if any other officer in the military had stood up and done that, they would have protected Lakin. Then nobody could have gone after them, because that’s a different issue. In order for Obama to come after me as a military officer and challenge me in my declaration of his being a foreign-born domestic enemy, Mr. Obama has had to prove that he is, in fact a “natural born Citizen.” Well, excuse me, but he can’t make that proof.
Tonight, Mr. Obama is denying that he is a foreign-born domestic enemy in a document that we know is as false as can be. Does this not put pressure on the feds in Knoxville, just to say that this has been reported again?
When you read that letter of 17 March 2011 again, the hair on the back of your neck is going to stand up. The letter of the 16th is as powerful as it addresses the Power of Presentment. I think Mr. Obama feels the pressure and feels the need to do something.
We do not know why he did what he did today, but the timing of this thing is just too coincidental. I don’t think it was Donald Trump. This is the first time that a federal grand jury has had this in their hands, and not one, but two grand juries. Remember Russell Dedrick, when he was in the seat, said, “I’m not going to do anything with this unless a federal judge hands it to me?” Well, two years ago I didn’t have the presence of mind to go directly to the federal grand jury. We tried other things first. We tried to take it to Judge Royce Lamberth in DC, and that didn’t work. We tried to go through the local jury here, and you know how that’s all turned out.
But now, this is the first time that we know about in the country where a military officer has taken this directly to two sitting grand juries, and they have it in their hands tonight. They had it in their hands this morning when Obama came to the podium and said, “Here’s my real birth certificate.”
This will sink in with one of your readers once they understand that Mr. Obama was named in a complaint that went to two sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville, and that the feds have known about this now for five weeks. They sent the letters back, but we sent them back in on Monday and they were received in Knoxville yesterday. Now I don’t have the green card receipt back, but I know it’s overnight from here. I mailed them Monday; they were in Knoxville on Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, Obama’s on the podium with a brand-new document with a brand-new document saying, “I’m good to go.”
He didn’t hold up anything. At the bottom, it’s certified 25 April 2011…the thing is completely false. And tonight, there’s a buzz going on throughout the community. Nobody in the country beyond you and maybe Tim Harrington knows that there is in the hands of not one, but two, sitting federal grand juries tonight that letter of 17 March. The U.S. attorney knows about it, and the FBI knows about it. This is not about me; I am just trying to point to how important it is regarding the timing. This is the first time in two years that a grand jury has been called upon to do something with a treason complaint, and it’s coming from a military man. And they got it yesterday.
Actually, the feds knew about this five weeks ago, and whether they took it to the grand jury then or not, we don’t know. But we do know this much: it was mailed back to them on Monday, and they received it Tuesday, and today, Wednesday, Obama came to the podium with a brand-new birth certificate. We need to put the pressure on the feds, one way or the other.
In the letter that went to them on 17 March, I wrote:
Subject: Renewed Formal Criminal Complaint naming Barack Hussein Obama and Obama’s Criminal Assistants in Commission of the Crime of Treason against the United States of America
We are arrived at a point in our Nation’s Life where Barack Hussein Obama and Obama’s criminal assistants threaten the life of our Nation to the point of death. Obama and his criminal cohorts install an unconstitutional, rival and competing government that replaces our United States Constitution.
That’s as simply-put as can be. That is what treason is.
Mr. Obama’s unconstitutional government is thriving and growing. Under Mr. Obama, the United States Constitution no longer operates. Mr. Obama and his outlaw partners enforce only their own form of unconstitutional, treasonous government.
Proofs and evidences of Obama’s treason are manifest. Moreover, we have Mr. Obama’s two-year silent agreement and consent.
Those first three paragraphs tell them as laconically and directly as it can be put. And this day, two years later, anybody who reads that letter can think on his own of an instance where Mr. Obama has installed his own government.
I believe that that letter got somebody’s attention in Washington, DC, and before we get anything by way of response from the feds on that letter – they might just be trying to keep this quiet – I think that there’s an opportunity here just to report the facts as we now have them tonight and say, “OK; go arrest Fitzpatrick.”
JB Williams said that 18 months ago: “Either go get Fitzpatrick because he’s wrong, or take Obama out.” Well, I’m still standing, and this next complaint went in. This is the first time in our history where a sitting federal grand jury – not one, but two – has this kind of a challenge in front of them. And the closeness in timing on this thing…from the dates, the times and the facts, let people draw their own conclusions. They can come to understand it for themselves and whatever it means to them.
That’s why I wanted to speak with you tonight.
Wouldn’t this be a luscious thing for the sitting federal grand juries in Knoxville to pick up on this and say, “Let’s see this; we want to take a closer look.” I believe that Mr. Obama knows that this kind of pressure is coming his way from the federal grand juries and if it’s not that, OK, fine; we can jump on this and put pressure on the feds. What will they say…”We’re not acting on these letters from Fitzpatrick”? We’ll do what we can to keep the pressure on them.
Right now, we know that Mr. Obama came to the podium only after a federal grand jury was put on notice a second time in five weeks that Mr. Obama is committing the kind of crimes that we know he is committing.
And, by the way, the letter that I was just reading from which went out talked about the treasonous incarceration of Lt. Col. Terry Lakin. Everything comes together. We have been fighting in Tennessee to get this handled at every level, and tonight, for the first time, it really went to a federal grand jury. There’s nobody else in the country who knows what you know right now.
They have accepted this criminal complaint as legitimate. Why? Because I’m still standing here. They haven’t arrested me. That really is significant. It’s so important because it was registered again as a second time this year with Mr. Obama’s name on it, and now it’s in the hands of grand jury #1 and grand jury #2 sitting in Knoxville, TN. It’s in their hands. They broke the seal yesterday.
Once you print this and put it out, what’s the federal government going to come back and say? “Well, no, we didn’t give it to the grand jury”? Wouldn’t that be something? We talked about putting pressure on William C. Killian, the U.S. attorney, making him the lightning rod for this stuff? He has it. This is radioactive.
Why now? It’s because the grand juries in Knoxville have been put on notice from this letter from a man in the military, in combination with every other letter that’s out there. And you know today, treason is being talked about in a way that it’s never been talked about before. You take all of the things that Trump has been saying and add the pressure that’s been building and add that to the letter that the grand jury had in its hands again yesterday.
He did this today because he’s trying to save himself from facing the music in regard to a real complaint which names him again in treason. He has been named as a foreign-born domestic enemy by the military. He can’t come and get me because he doesn’t have a collateral charge of failure to obey an order. If he’s coming after me, and this was the way it was two years ago: “Obama, either you’re right or I’m right. If I’m wrong about this, come get me. That was the whole point of charging this man two years ago. “Let’s get to the bottom of this. If you are legit, come and court-martial me or bring me into a federal court as a civilian, and we’ll just deal with these issues in discovery and get to the bottom of it. If I’m wrong, come lock me up! They could have done it in a court-martial just as easily as they did it to Lakin.
But you see, Mr. Obama can’t challenge me because he is not legal. And now, we waited two years. We have been batted away over and over again. Every time we tried to get this into a judge, it got batted away. Now, we have it before two sitting federal grand juries, and we have gotten nothing back that said that they’re going to ignore the request. So I think it’s an opportune time to exploit just the facts that we have before us tonight.
There Are No Free Markets; Only Interventions
Australian Fund Manager and Advisor explains how currencies are being debased around the world while precious metals are once again taking their historical place and being recognized as real money which cannot just be printed endlessly at will for the benefit of those doing the printing. Free markets really do not exist any more. Link to Video Clip
Around the World in 80 Lines
The Amish Mafia
We’re lucky that the federal government has recently cracked down on the selling of contraband in the US. The Washington Times reports that a year-long sting operation conducted by federal agents has resulted in the bust of an illegal operation in Pennsylvania. The Amish-run Rainbow Acres Farm was selling non-pasteurized milk to consumers who knew the milk was non-pasteurized. The consumers of the illegal milk prefer the taste and say that pasteurization kills good as well as bad bacteria. There have been no complaints or charges filed against the dairy farm previously.
According to Tamara N. Ward, spokesperson for the US Food and Drug Administration, “It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed.” We can’t seem to protect voters from intimidation at the polls by the New Black Panther Party, write oil-drilling permits that can be acted upon, or protect our borders from illegal aliens by we can sure shut-down the Amish Mafia with their natural milk.
Exciting Events in London
Many of us were excited today about the Royal Wedding in London, where Prince William wed Kate Middleton. We’re thrilled, thrilled that it is over. Best wishes to the newly wed Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but we’ll be very happy to see them exit the news channels to be replaced by real news.
Trump Not Trumped
Not to be outdone in publicity, faux Presidential candidate Donald Trump dropped the F-bomb four times in a Las Vegas speech. To prove his fluidity in unacceptable language, Trump even managed to work the F-word into a compound word alleging incestuous activities, as well as using it in its raw, unadulterated form. There is a rumor, that I am starting right here, that the foul-mouthed outbreak was the result of a wager between Mr. Trump and his chauffer. Best wishes to Mr. Trump, but we’ll also be very happy to see him exit the news channels to be replaced by real news.
Geld Gadaffi
Moammar Gadaffi (pick your own spelling) has been a bad boy again. The mischievous, murderous madman has not only illegally mined a harbor, he has also been handing out Viagra to his troops to increase the number of rapes perpetrated on Libyan civilians. This is unacceptable by thinking human beings, so we’re waiting on a statement condemning these actions from Gadaffi’s good pal Minister Louis Farrakhan. We are not; however, holding our breath.
We do not wish Mr. Gadaffi well, but we do wish for him to be locked in a room with the husbands, fathers and brothers of the rape victims. They may wish to geld Gadaffi, or more. Oh, and we also wish that all of their knives are rusty and dull, making for a long, painful evening for Mr. Gadaffi.
Painful Gas
The average gas price in the US for regular is now $3.91 per gallon. Overlooked by most is the fact that not all of this can be laid at the feet of President Obama’s energy policies. A large part of it can be found at the feet of President Obama’s monetary policies which has officially given us the weakest dollar in years. And, in terms of dollars, gold has just set an all-time record high, which helps reinforce the point.
I have yet to decide if our President Obama knows nothing about economics or if he knows nothing about this country. Former Pennsylvania US Senator and Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum stated that Obama does not understand America. I think Santorum may be right and the President knows even less about us than we know about him.
McCain-Feingold Still Makes Hypocrites
Finally, two years ago Democrats were screaming bloody murder about Republican fund-raising by less regulated organizations. I’m sure you remember the accusations that Republicans were allowing overseas donations to be used in the Congressional races. The charges were unproved and unfounded, but it seems Democrats secretly thought it was a good idea. Now they are forming their own.
Why is this happening? McCain-Feingold, of course. Let’s not forget that McCain-Feingold is a clear violation of First Amendment rights above all else. It was supposed to put an end to all of this, but it has actually made it worse. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions – and well-meaning idiots.
We’re lucky that the federal government has recently cracked down on the selling of contraband in the US. The Washington Times reports that a year-long sting operation conducted by federal agents has resulted in the bust of an illegal operation in Pennsylvania. The Amish-run Rainbow Acres Farm was selling non-pasteurized milk to consumers who knew the milk was non-pasteurized. The consumers of the illegal milk prefer the taste and say that pasteurization kills good as well as bad bacteria. There have been no complaints or charges filed against the dairy farm previously.
According to Tamara N. Ward, spokesperson for the US Food and Drug Administration, “It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed.” We can’t seem to protect voters from intimidation at the polls by the New Black Panther Party, write oil-drilling permits that can be acted upon, or protect our borders from illegal aliens by we can sure shut-down the Amish Mafia with their natural milk.
Exciting Events in London
Many of us were excited today about the Royal Wedding in London, where Prince William wed Kate Middleton. We’re thrilled, thrilled that it is over. Best wishes to the newly wed Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, but we’ll be very happy to see them exit the news channels to be replaced by real news.
Trump Not Trumped
Not to be outdone in publicity, faux Presidential candidate Donald Trump dropped the F-bomb four times in a Las Vegas speech. To prove his fluidity in unacceptable language, Trump even managed to work the F-word into a compound word alleging incestuous activities, as well as using it in its raw, unadulterated form. There is a rumor, that I am starting right here, that the foul-mouthed outbreak was the result of a wager between Mr. Trump and his chauffer. Best wishes to Mr. Trump, but we’ll also be very happy to see him exit the news channels to be replaced by real news.
Geld Gadaffi
Moammar Gadaffi (pick your own spelling) has been a bad boy again. The mischievous, murderous madman has not only illegally mined a harbor, he has also been handing out Viagra to his troops to increase the number of rapes perpetrated on Libyan civilians. This is unacceptable by thinking human beings, so we’re waiting on a statement condemning these actions from Gadaffi’s good pal Minister Louis Farrakhan. We are not; however, holding our breath.
We do not wish Mr. Gadaffi well, but we do wish for him to be locked in a room with the husbands, fathers and brothers of the rape victims. They may wish to geld Gadaffi, or more. Oh, and we also wish that all of their knives are rusty and dull, making for a long, painful evening for Mr. Gadaffi.
Painful Gas
The average gas price in the US for regular is now $3.91 per gallon. Overlooked by most is the fact that not all of this can be laid at the feet of President Obama’s energy policies. A large part of it can be found at the feet of President Obama’s monetary policies which has officially given us the weakest dollar in years. And, in terms of dollars, gold has just set an all-time record high, which helps reinforce the point.
I have yet to decide if our President Obama knows nothing about economics or if he knows nothing about this country. Former Pennsylvania US Senator and Republican Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum stated that Obama does not understand America. I think Santorum may be right and the President knows even less about us than we know about him.
McCain-Feingold Still Makes Hypocrites
Finally, two years ago Democrats were screaming bloody murder about Republican fund-raising by less regulated organizations. I’m sure you remember the accusations that Republicans were allowing overseas donations to be used in the Congressional races. The charges were unproved and unfounded, but it seems Democrats secretly thought it was a good idea. Now they are forming their own.
Why is this happening? McCain-Feingold, of course. Let’s not forget that McCain-Feingold is a clear violation of First Amendment rights above all else. It was supposed to put an end to all of this, but it has actually made it worse. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions – and well-meaning idiots.
We're all communists now
Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
– Sir Winston Churchill
Communism in America was exposed in a 1958 book by conservative writer Cleon Skousen, "Naked Communist." State capitalism, Federal Reserve, federal taxes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unionism, welfare statism (subsidies) and pension plans, are examples of the thousands of treasonous Ponzi schemes and slush funds politicians have used since the 1850s to dumb down society, buy votes and broker power.
Examine this simple syllogism below from the own mouths of the forefathers of communism:
Marx: Democracy is the road to socialism;
Lenin: Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism;
Marx: The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The logic is both diabolical and totalizing. Socialism is merely a euphemism for communism. Ergo, we're all communists now.
Skousen's book cited 45 communist strategies used to systematically deconstruct American institutions – Christianity, economics, education, capitalism, science, politics, the courts, natural law, etc., by purposely collapsing the system via the Cloward-Piven Strategy – top down, bottom up, inside out, and from the ashes erect a glorious new society based on Marxist atheism and the god of the state. Let's examine whether Skousen's predictions have come to fruition:
Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
Disarming the U.S. didn't start during the anti-war protests of the hippies, anarchists and socialists of the 1960s. Homegrown traitors of America have disarmed America by giving military secrets to our enemies. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and physicist's Robert Oppenheimer and Klaus Fuchs are just the most conspicuous. We have disarmed our military by promoting appeasement generals, putting women in combat positions and allowing homosexuals to serve openly.
Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.
Wilson's League of Nations (1919) became the United Nations under FDR at the San Francisco Conference in April, 1945, just 13 days before he died in office after serving four terms tirelessly deconstructing American society brick by brick and turning it into a servile welfare state. NATO is the U.N.'s de facto military presently fighting in Libya under the George Soros responsibility to protect doctrine. Many more U.N. wars will follow.
Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
The Communist Party USA has been brazenly operating in America since 1919 and through its sympathizers in the unions, Congress, the courts, Hollywood and the media, has overtime achieved constitutional free speech and association protections for itself which has essentially turned our Constitution into a suicide pact.
Do away with all loyalty oaths.
Loyalty oaths have been a part of America's legal system since the Founding Fathers, who codified it under Art. II, §1, cl. 7 and Art. VI, cl.3. However, loyalty oaths exposed socialists and communists as being predominately humanists, atheists and duplicitous; therefore, after 170 years of jurisprudence protecting loyalty oaths, beginning in the early 1960s loyalty oaths were systematically ruled unconstitutionally "vague," "overbroad" or violations of speech and association by our Marxist judiciary.
Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
Since 1901 under President Theodore Roosevelt, our first progressive president, Democrats and Republicans have essentially functioned as two sides of the same coin (Reagan notwithstanding). That's why systemic societal pathology, promiscuity, ignorance, crime, deconstruction of the Constitution and education atheism has exploded while natural law, capitalism, societal morality and critical thinking has been purposely purged from society.
Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
The progressive Hughes and Warren Courts, positive law, separation of church and state, the incorporation doctrine, Roe v. Wade, NLRB v. Jones Laughlin Steel (1937), which legalized FDR's Marxist New Deal programs, are a few examples of how socialist activist courts have deconstructed society and liberal judges have corrupted the Constitution.
Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
Stalin famously said of education, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." Public education in America began in the 1830s expressing egalitarian ideas, but in less than 30 years was utterly corrupted by socialists under education unions like the National Education Association, or NEA, and the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT.
Progressive education was purposely centralized to dumb down society through state-controlled education atheism, anti-American propaganda and a de-emphasis on history, philosophy, religion and objective "truth," which communists define as "anything that will promote communism." Obama's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, recently said that up to 80 percent of all public schools will fail within a year. Textbooks have been absolutely compromised and perverted.
Gain control of all student newspapers.
The official Soviet party newspaper was called "Pravda" (truth), but printed only lies and communist propaganda. The Soviets mastered absolute control of all media so that the people remained ignorant, fearful and suspicious of the U.S. America's media has long championed socialist propaganda. Thank God for WND!
Since about 1937 when FDR's "New Deal" programs were ruled constitutional, America has gradually devolved into a socialist nation which if Obama gets re-elected in 2012 will push our nation totally into communism. Lenin boasted, Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. America's only hope is to ally with independent-minded people like the tea party, deconstruct every brick of the communist welfare state via the electoral process while purging the GOP of RINOs, take back the courts and reestablish a political discourse rooted firmly on the foundations of God, natural law, fair capitalism and the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.
VIDEO: See "What is Communism? (in Full Story)
– Sir Winston Churchill
Communism in America was exposed in a 1958 book by conservative writer Cleon Skousen, "Naked Communist." State capitalism, Federal Reserve, federal taxes, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unionism, welfare statism (subsidies) and pension plans, are examples of the thousands of treasonous Ponzi schemes and slush funds politicians have used since the 1850s to dumb down society, buy votes and broker power.
Examine this simple syllogism below from the own mouths of the forefathers of communism:
Marx: Democracy is the road to socialism;
Lenin: Democracy is indispensable to socialism. The goal of socialism is communism;
Marx: The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The logic is both diabolical and totalizing. Socialism is merely a euphemism for communism. Ergo, we're all communists now.
Skousen's book cited 45 communist strategies used to systematically deconstruct American institutions – Christianity, economics, education, capitalism, science, politics, the courts, natural law, etc., by purposely collapsing the system via the Cloward-Piven Strategy – top down, bottom up, inside out, and from the ashes erect a glorious new society based on Marxist atheism and the god of the state. Let's examine whether Skousen's predictions have come to fruition:
Develop the illusion that total disarmament by the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
Disarming the U.S. didn't start during the anti-war protests of the hippies, anarchists and socialists of the 1960s. Homegrown traitors of America have disarmed America by giving military secrets to our enemies. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and physicist's Robert Oppenheimer and Klaus Fuchs are just the most conspicuous. We have disarmed our military by promoting appeasement generals, putting women in combat positions and allowing homosexuals to serve openly.
Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces.
Wilson's League of Nations (1919) became the United Nations under FDR at the San Francisco Conference in April, 1945, just 13 days before he died in office after serving four terms tirelessly deconstructing American society brick by brick and turning it into a servile welfare state. NATO is the U.N.'s de facto military presently fighting in Libya under the George Soros responsibility to protect doctrine. Many more U.N. wars will follow.
Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
The Communist Party USA has been brazenly operating in America since 1919 and through its sympathizers in the unions, Congress, the courts, Hollywood and the media, has overtime achieved constitutional free speech and association protections for itself which has essentially turned our Constitution into a suicide pact.
Do away with all loyalty oaths.
Loyalty oaths have been a part of America's legal system since the Founding Fathers, who codified it under Art. II, §1, cl. 7 and Art. VI, cl.3. However, loyalty oaths exposed socialists and communists as being predominately humanists, atheists and duplicitous; therefore, after 170 years of jurisprudence protecting loyalty oaths, beginning in the early 1960s loyalty oaths were systematically ruled unconstitutionally "vague," "overbroad" or violations of speech and association by our Marxist judiciary.
Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
Since 1901 under President Theodore Roosevelt, our first progressive president, Democrats and Republicans have essentially functioned as two sides of the same coin (Reagan notwithstanding). That's why systemic societal pathology, promiscuity, ignorance, crime, deconstruction of the Constitution and education atheism has exploded while natural law, capitalism, societal morality and critical thinking has been purposely purged from society.
Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
The progressive Hughes and Warren Courts, positive law, separation of church and state, the incorporation doctrine, Roe v. Wade, NLRB v. Jones Laughlin Steel (1937), which legalized FDR's Marxist New Deal programs, are a few examples of how socialist activist courts have deconstructed society and liberal judges have corrupted the Constitution.
Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
Stalin famously said of education, "Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed." Public education in America began in the 1830s expressing egalitarian ideas, but in less than 30 years was utterly corrupted by socialists under education unions like the National Education Association, or NEA, and the American Federation of Teachers, or AFT.
Progressive education was purposely centralized to dumb down society through state-controlled education atheism, anti-American propaganda and a de-emphasis on history, philosophy, religion and objective "truth," which communists define as "anything that will promote communism." Obama's secretary of education, Arne Duncan, recently said that up to 80 percent of all public schools will fail within a year. Textbooks have been absolutely compromised and perverted.
Gain control of all student newspapers.
The official Soviet party newspaper was called "Pravda" (truth), but printed only lies and communist propaganda. The Soviets mastered absolute control of all media so that the people remained ignorant, fearful and suspicious of the U.S. America's media has long championed socialist propaganda. Thank God for WND!
Since about 1937 when FDR's "New Deal" programs were ruled constitutional, America has gradually devolved into a socialist nation which if Obama gets re-elected in 2012 will push our nation totally into communism. Lenin boasted, Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. America's only hope is to ally with independent-minded people like the tea party, deconstruct every brick of the communist welfare state via the electoral process while purging the GOP of RINOs, take back the courts and reestablish a political discourse rooted firmly on the foundations of God, natural law, fair capitalism and the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.
VIDEO: See "What is Communism? (in Full Story)
More trouble at the southern border: anti-American curriculum
In the long struggle to contain a potentially explosive situation at the southern border, the state of Arizona has tried various means to secure the border and prevent the onslaught of illegal aliens--many of whom are criminals--in light of the fact that the Obama Administration refuses to enforce U.S. law that addresses the issue. That attempt by Arizona has been thwarted on every hand, not only by the federal government but by some who have a vested interest in stirring up ethnic and racial warfare by introducing into the curriculum of Arizona schools a so-called 'Mexican-American History' as an alternative to U.S. history. The alternative Mexican version teaches U.S. history from a Mexican point of view.
However, the Mexican-American class includes indocrtination of students regarding caucasian Americans and the U.S. government. Within this curriculum is a clear attempt to indoctinate students on 3 fronts--one, to overthrow the U.S. government, two, to stir up resentment toward a particular race, and three, to aggrandize Hispanics over all other races and ethnic groups.
This tell-all expose at Line in the Desert provides the details.
But it only gets worse. According to the report,
The class has been offered as an alternative to the US history class requirement but is now being considered for elimination to comply with a new Arizona State law that sets standards for “ethnic studies” classes. The class, which teaches history from a Mexican-American perspective, seems to violate that law in numerous ways. Materials obtained from the class have led the school district superintendent to conclude the controversial curriculum promotes resentment between ethnic group and promotes the overthrow of the US government. The material also calls for the abolishment of Thanksgiving as a holiday and advocates replacing it with a National Day of Atonement.
When the local school board in Tucson met to consider the Superintendent's recommendations concerning changes to the alternative curriculum, the meeting was disrupted and overtaken by a group of angry Hispanic students.
The video of the scene is provided here, from Fox News Phoenix.
In addition, the report at Line in the Desert indicates that some parents in the area believe that the students were put up to stage to school board takeover by La Raza. The charge is not baseless. Pima County Public Defender Isabel Garcia, a member of La Raza, was seen in the altercation giving instructions to the unruly students. More about that can be found at Townhall.
The incident is more evidence that the situation at the southern border is quickly raging out of control and that the Obama Administration continues to promote ideas through the Department of Education that undermine the stability of the U.S. through the indoctrination of America's youth.
Be sure to catch my blog at The Liberty Sphere.
However, the Mexican-American class includes indocrtination of students regarding caucasian Americans and the U.S. government. Within this curriculum is a clear attempt to indoctinate students on 3 fronts--one, to overthrow the U.S. government, two, to stir up resentment toward a particular race, and three, to aggrandize Hispanics over all other races and ethnic groups.
This tell-all expose at Line in the Desert provides the details.
But it only gets worse. According to the report,
The class has been offered as an alternative to the US history class requirement but is now being considered for elimination to comply with a new Arizona State law that sets standards for “ethnic studies” classes. The class, which teaches history from a Mexican-American perspective, seems to violate that law in numerous ways. Materials obtained from the class have led the school district superintendent to conclude the controversial curriculum promotes resentment between ethnic group and promotes the overthrow of the US government. The material also calls for the abolishment of Thanksgiving as a holiday and advocates replacing it with a National Day of Atonement.
When the local school board in Tucson met to consider the Superintendent's recommendations concerning changes to the alternative curriculum, the meeting was disrupted and overtaken by a group of angry Hispanic students.
The video of the scene is provided here, from Fox News Phoenix.
In addition, the report at Line in the Desert indicates that some parents in the area believe that the students were put up to stage to school board takeover by La Raza. The charge is not baseless. Pima County Public Defender Isabel Garcia, a member of La Raza, was seen in the altercation giving instructions to the unruly students. More about that can be found at Townhall.
The incident is more evidence that the situation at the southern border is quickly raging out of control and that the Obama Administration continues to promote ideas through the Department of Education that undermine the stability of the U.S. through the indoctrination of America's youth.
Be sure to catch my blog at The Liberty Sphere.
A DIFFERENT Birth Certicate was released last month, anyone see THIS ONE yet?
Hawaii considering law to ignore Obama ‘birthers’
Obama’s Birth Certificate?
Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama’s birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won’t give up.
“Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy,” said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health’s Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.
So-called “birthers” claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn’t meet a constitutional requirement for being president.
Read more …
Obama’s Birth Certificate?
Birthers beware: Hawaii may start ignoring your repeated requests for proof that President Barack Obama was born here.
As the state continues to receive e-mails seeking Obama’s birth certificate, the state House Judiciary Committee heard a bill Tuesday permitting government officials to ignore people who won’t give up.
“Sometimes we may be dealing with a cohort of people who believe lack of evidence is evidence of a conspiracy,” said Lorrin Kim, chief of the Hawaii Department of Health’s Office of Planning, Policy and Program Development.
So-called “birthers” claim Obama is ineligible to be president because, they argue, he was actually born outside the United States, and therefore doesn’t meet a constitutional requirement for being president.
Read more …
Big Government and Small Business: The Effect of Federal Policy on Job Creation
At a recent stop by the Small Business Administration's Jobs Act tour in Washington, D.C., small business owners seemed divided about the effects federal policy is having on their companies.
"Government is getting too big," said attendee Pennie Drinkard, president of Advanced Visions Systems Inc., an engineering and technical services company. "Giving more jobs to the government, government employees, instead of contracting things out, makes it very difficult for small businesses, because the government continues to expand. We lose people because they go to work for the government because it's secure. …That's hurtful when the government continues to hire people and expand. That's hurtful for small business."
Drinkard said she's sat on a line of credit that's 100 percent guaranteed by the government for some time but has not used it because she feels it's too risky. One key component of the SBA program is helping facilitate loans by lenders to small businesses and providing a government guarantee on those loans. However, with the U.S. government getting dangerously close to defaulting on its own debt ceiling limit, the question remains whether that would create uncertainty with government-guaranteed loans. A spokesman for PNC Bank said that the bank does foresee a strong partnership with small businesses regardless of the U.S. decision on the debt limit, although that is no indication on whether the partnership will or will not happen through government-backed loans.
SBA administrator Karen Mills, has said, however, that small business owners have not been expressing that concern to her over the agency's thirteen-city tour (D.C. is the ninth stop).
"I'm not hearing that – I am hearing from small business owners that they want government to be paying attention to the economy and those things that create jobs, and they want to make sure that we keep our fiscal house in order, that we tighten our belts…and then at the same time, we remember how to support them in cost-effective ways," Mills said. "Small business owners right now are experiencing a good amount of momentum from recovery. Two years ago, they were worried. They need[ed] a loan to stay in business. But right now, they are saying, "I need a loan, I need a government contract – I need something to help me because I'm going to take this next order and hire some new people.'"
Mills said that's why last year's Jobs Act is so important. It provided increased lending support and included 17 tax cuts for small businesses, although it also contained a $30 billion small business lending fund "bailout" that gave money to banks with incentives to increase small business lending.
Karen Yoho, who attended the SBA event in D.C., said her husband is interested in her taking more ownership of his small business, Yoho Electrical Services, because there are more advantages for women-owned businesses. SBA, in fact, has recently authorized the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract program to permit contracting officers to "set aside certain federal contracts" for eligible women-owned small businesses.
As of yet, her husband's company has not done any government work, because they have been turned off by the paperwork, although there's the assurance the money is there. The company has been in business for five years. Previously, her husband worked for his father, also a business owner.
Drinkard said her business had yet to benefit from the Small Business Jobs Act, but that was part of the reason she was in attendance at the tour stop in D.C. The tour is aimed at letting small business owners know what tools are available to them through the Small Business Jobs Act, and it's also a chance to receive feedback and suggestions for improvements. The SBA provides services to small businesses that usually fall under three categories: capital, contracting, and counseling.
Yoho, who dropped to being part-time schoolteacher so that she can spend more time with her husband's business, said she's okay with, although not excited about, the president's plan that would increase taxes on those making over $250,000, which probably encompasses small businesses, although she said she doesn't think Republicans get it when it right now when it comes to small businesses.
James Geehan, a program manager at L.A. Systems, said it probably would be a concern for the company if there were an increase in taxes on income over $250,000 that would hit small businesses.
"As a worker, it's not my concern, but I don't think my boss/owner would be happy about that," said Geehan, who has been with the company, founded in 1982, for 15 years. "It's hard to eek out a profit when you don't have huge amounts of income coming in."
Geehan said the business has been able to weather the economic storm pretty well thanks to long-term contracts, but they are concerned about the future, when the contracts start to fall to the side. He does believe the debt ceiling needs to be raised, but just to give enough room to pass legislation to start eliminating the debt.
He also said he's been encouraged with what he's been hearing regarding the Jobs Act, provided the rhetoric is followed through with actions.
"Government is getting too big," said attendee Pennie Drinkard, president of Advanced Visions Systems Inc., an engineering and technical services company. "Giving more jobs to the government, government employees, instead of contracting things out, makes it very difficult for small businesses, because the government continues to expand. We lose people because they go to work for the government because it's secure. …That's hurtful when the government continues to hire people and expand. That's hurtful for small business."
Drinkard said she's sat on a line of credit that's 100 percent guaranteed by the government for some time but has not used it because she feels it's too risky. One key component of the SBA program is helping facilitate loans by lenders to small businesses and providing a government guarantee on those loans. However, with the U.S. government getting dangerously close to defaulting on its own debt ceiling limit, the question remains whether that would create uncertainty with government-guaranteed loans. A spokesman for PNC Bank said that the bank does foresee a strong partnership with small businesses regardless of the U.S. decision on the debt limit, although that is no indication on whether the partnership will or will not happen through government-backed loans.
SBA administrator Karen Mills, has said, however, that small business owners have not been expressing that concern to her over the agency's thirteen-city tour (D.C. is the ninth stop).
"I'm not hearing that – I am hearing from small business owners that they want government to be paying attention to the economy and those things that create jobs, and they want to make sure that we keep our fiscal house in order, that we tighten our belts…and then at the same time, we remember how to support them in cost-effective ways," Mills said. "Small business owners right now are experiencing a good amount of momentum from recovery. Two years ago, they were worried. They need[ed] a loan to stay in business. But right now, they are saying, "I need a loan, I need a government contract – I need something to help me because I'm going to take this next order and hire some new people.'"
Mills said that's why last year's Jobs Act is so important. It provided increased lending support and included 17 tax cuts for small businesses, although it also contained a $30 billion small business lending fund "bailout" that gave money to banks with incentives to increase small business lending.
Karen Yoho, who attended the SBA event in D.C., said her husband is interested in her taking more ownership of his small business, Yoho Electrical Services, because there are more advantages for women-owned businesses. SBA, in fact, has recently authorized the Women-Owned Small Business Federal Contract program to permit contracting officers to "set aside certain federal contracts" for eligible women-owned small businesses.
As of yet, her husband's company has not done any government work, because they have been turned off by the paperwork, although there's the assurance the money is there. The company has been in business for five years. Previously, her husband worked for his father, also a business owner.
Drinkard said her business had yet to benefit from the Small Business Jobs Act, but that was part of the reason she was in attendance at the tour stop in D.C. The tour is aimed at letting small business owners know what tools are available to them through the Small Business Jobs Act, and it's also a chance to receive feedback and suggestions for improvements. The SBA provides services to small businesses that usually fall under three categories: capital, contracting, and counseling.
Yoho, who dropped to being part-time schoolteacher so that she can spend more time with her husband's business, said she's okay with, although not excited about, the president's plan that would increase taxes on those making over $250,000, which probably encompasses small businesses, although she said she doesn't think Republicans get it when it right now when it comes to small businesses.
James Geehan, a program manager at L.A. Systems, said it probably would be a concern for the company if there were an increase in taxes on income over $250,000 that would hit small businesses.
"As a worker, it's not my concern, but I don't think my boss/owner would be happy about that," said Geehan, who has been with the company, founded in 1982, for 15 years. "It's hard to eek out a profit when you don't have huge amounts of income coming in."
Geehan said the business has been able to weather the economic storm pretty well thanks to long-term contracts, but they are concerned about the future, when the contracts start to fall to the side. He does believe the debt ceiling needs to be raised, but just to give enough room to pass legislation to start eliminating the debt.
He also said he's been encouraged with what he's been hearing regarding the Jobs Act, provided the rhetoric is followed through with actions.
Job Opportunity at SEIU for Would-Be Spy
Field Information Services (FIS) ManagerOrganization: SEIU
Date Posted: 4/19/2011
Listing Expires: 5/19/2011
City: Washington
Location: District of Columbia
Country: United States
Primary Category: Database Manager / Voter File Manager
Type of Position: Full-Time
Education Requirement: Bachelor's
Experience Requirement: 2 - 5 Years
Description & Details
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION (SEIU), the nation's fastest growing labor organization representing more than 2 million workers, is seeking a FIS Manager for its Washington, DC headquarters.
Purpose:
This position is responsible for aiding the Assistant Field Information Services Director by managing all matters related to the development and maintenance of a membership database and integration of technology in organizing
Primary Responsibilities:
(Any one position may not include all of the specific duties and responsibilities listed. Examples provide a general summary of the work required and should not be treated as a total and complete list of expected duties to be performed by employees in the classification.)
Serves as the chief aid to the Assistant Field Information Services Director to develop and maintain the membership database.
Facilitates data management and data processing with Locals to be able to fully utilize member engagement technologies and data supported by FIS.
Responsible for the development of necessary databases and other technology needs and innovations for SEIU strength programs;
Where applicable, oversees requirements gathering, design, and development of new applications within member engagement databases.
Oversees the development of necessary plans, templates, manuals, and guides for implementation of tools and technology for member engagement.
Facilitates interactions between the Locals and International Union Departments and Divisions to achieve the goals of FIS.
Advises Locals on matters related to their technology and systems needs.
Performs other duties as required to support the Department and its mission
Education and Experience:
Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university and graduate degree or equivalent in social sciences or management and at least three (3) years of political, issue or union organizing campaign experience. All candidates must be able to demonstrate the following knowledge skills and abilities.
Knowledge of labor or political field organizing methods.
Proficiency in SQL and relational databases
Knowledge of GIS software (ArcGIS, Maptitude)
Advanced proficiency in Excel and Access.
Expert knowledge of on-line organizing databases (e.g. Voter Activation Network - VAN, NUWS Organizers Toolbox, and Catalist).
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
Ability to work effectively with people regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or job type.
Ability to exercise sound judgment in politically sensitive situations.
Ability to handle multiple sensitive assignments in a timely manner.
Ability to determine how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
Ability to analyze data and make sound, logical conclusions.
Ability to look beyond the standard solutions.
Ability to pay attention to the minute details of a project or task.
Physical Requirements:
Work is generally performed in an office setting. Long and extended hours and some travel required.
Date Posted: 4/19/2011
Listing Expires: 5/19/2011
City: Washington
Location: District of Columbia
Country: United States
Primary Category: Database Manager / Voter File Manager
Type of Position: Full-Time
Education Requirement: Bachelor's
Experience Requirement: 2 - 5 Years
Description & Details
SERVICE EMPLOYEES INTERNATIONAL UNION (SEIU), the nation's fastest growing labor organization representing more than 2 million workers, is seeking a FIS Manager for its Washington, DC headquarters.
Purpose:
This position is responsible for aiding the Assistant Field Information Services Director by managing all matters related to the development and maintenance of a membership database and integration of technology in organizing
Primary Responsibilities:
(Any one position may not include all of the specific duties and responsibilities listed. Examples provide a general summary of the work required and should not be treated as a total and complete list of expected duties to be performed by employees in the classification.)
Serves as the chief aid to the Assistant Field Information Services Director to develop and maintain the membership database.
Facilitates data management and data processing with Locals to be able to fully utilize member engagement technologies and data supported by FIS.
Responsible for the development of necessary databases and other technology needs and innovations for SEIU strength programs;
Where applicable, oversees requirements gathering, design, and development of new applications within member engagement databases.
Oversees the development of necessary plans, templates, manuals, and guides for implementation of tools and technology for member engagement.
Facilitates interactions between the Locals and International Union Departments and Divisions to achieve the goals of FIS.
Advises Locals on matters related to their technology and systems needs.
Performs other duties as required to support the Department and its mission
Education and Experience:
Graduation from an accredited four-year college or university and graduate degree or equivalent in social sciences or management and at least three (3) years of political, issue or union organizing campaign experience. All candidates must be able to demonstrate the following knowledge skills and abilities.
Knowledge of labor or political field organizing methods.
Proficiency in SQL and relational databases
Knowledge of GIS software (ArcGIS, Maptitude)
Advanced proficiency in Excel and Access.
Expert knowledge of on-line organizing databases (e.g. Voter Activation Network - VAN, NUWS Organizers Toolbox, and Catalist).
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.
Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.
Ability to work effectively with people regardless of their age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or job type.
Ability to exercise sound judgment in politically sensitive situations.
Ability to handle multiple sensitive assignments in a timely manner.
Ability to determine how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
Ability to analyze data and make sound, logical conclusions.
Ability to look beyond the standard solutions.
Ability to pay attention to the minute details of a project or task.
Physical Requirements:
Work is generally performed in an office setting. Long and extended hours and some travel required.
Fearmongers failing
Washington is about to bump smack into the nation's debt ceiling, and the Obama White House is demanding that it be raised without any cost-cutting measures attached.
Republicans say no -- raising the prospect of the government lacking sufficient funds to pay its bills.
That'd cause problems -- but if refusing to hike the limit is what it will take to start an adult discussion about the nation's finances, we say: Go for it, folks.
"I have to hold my ground," says freshman Rep. Mike Grimm (R-SI), "because otherwise I really believe . . . our economy will be destroyed."
The left is having none of it: The Working Families Party organized an anti-Grimm protest this week, essentially accusing him of voting to put old folks on ice floes and float them out to sea.
Grimm isn't the only target, of course.
But it doesn't seem as if the scare campaign is working.
A Gallup poll shows a plurality of seniors supporting Medicare reforms meant to help reduce deficit spending.
It seems voters are starting to realize that the debate is about the integrity of the dollar and whether the economy can support the safety net long-term.
That is, when Standard & Poor's downgraded America's credit rating last month, people noticed.
Democrats can demonize the GOP all they want, but if they do they'll be playing a mug's game. Indeed, several Senate Democrats announced last week that any debt-ceiling increase needs to include significant deficit-reduction measures.
America is beginning to pay attention, and that's good.
Republicans say no -- raising the prospect of the government lacking sufficient funds to pay its bills.
That'd cause problems -- but if refusing to hike the limit is what it will take to start an adult discussion about the nation's finances, we say: Go for it, folks.
"I have to hold my ground," says freshman Rep. Mike Grimm (R-SI), "because otherwise I really believe . . . our economy will be destroyed."
The left is having none of it: The Working Families Party organized an anti-Grimm protest this week, essentially accusing him of voting to put old folks on ice floes and float them out to sea.
Grimm isn't the only target, of course.
But it doesn't seem as if the scare campaign is working.
A Gallup poll shows a plurality of seniors supporting Medicare reforms meant to help reduce deficit spending.
It seems voters are starting to realize that the debate is about the integrity of the dollar and whether the economy can support the safety net long-term.
That is, when Standard & Poor's downgraded America's credit rating last month, people noticed.
Democrats can demonize the GOP all they want, but if they do they'll be playing a mug's game. Indeed, several Senate Democrats announced last week that any debt-ceiling increase needs to include significant deficit-reduction measures.
America is beginning to pay attention, and that's good.
Update: ‘sticky note campaign’ gains momentum
Since I first reported on the so-called “sticky note campaign,” it has more than doubled in size, now capturing the attention of more than 8,000 people on Facebook alone. Most noticeably, the campaign’s sticky notes are now popping up in locations across the country. (Click to see more pics)
Texas governor says Obama ignoring disaster-aid request
Texas Governor Rick Perry criticized the Obama administration on Thursday for not responding to a request for a disaster aid for the parched state, where wildfires have scorched nearly 2 million acres.
"You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?' I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," Perry, a Republican and frequent critic of the federal government, said after addressing a Texas emergency management conference.
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Alabama, where storms -- including a tornado that ravaged Tuscaloosa on Wednesday -- killed nearly 200 people this week.
The White House said Obama will visit the state on Friday.
"There is a point in time where you say, 'Hey, what's going on here?'" Perry said.
ENTIRE STORY
"You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?' I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," Perry, a Republican and frequent critic of the federal government, said after addressing a Texas emergency management conference.
President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency for Alabama, where storms -- including a tornado that ravaged Tuscaloosa on Wednesday -- killed nearly 200 people this week.
The White House said Obama will visit the state on Friday.
"There is a point in time where you say, 'Hey, what's going on here?'" Perry said.
ENTIRE STORY
Santorum to NRA: Obama doesn't understand America
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Republican presidential aspirant Rick Santorum told National Rifle Association members at their annual convention Friday that President Barack Obama doesn't "understand America," and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told them the administration is "consistently anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment."
Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, criticized remarks the president made about two weeks ago when he said America not only was a better country because of social programs like Medicare and Medicaid but said, "I'll go further — we would not be a great country without these commitments."
"Mr. President," Santorum said, "You don't understand America if you believe that," because it implies the United States wasn't great for most of the first 200 years of its history.
Santorum spoke for 14 minutes and Gingrich spoke nearly twice as long, telling the crowd that the 2012 presidential election is the most important in the country's history. Gingrich said the election will determine "whether we're going to remain a nation that believes our rights come from our creator."
Santorum, Gingrich and, later, freshman U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., spoke to NRA members mostly about general principles, including the concept of American exceptionalism. They defined it as not a claim to greatness because of pedigree, but because America is based on the idea that rights are God-given and inalienable — which they argued is meant to be reflected in limited government and maximum personal liberty.
"You loan power to the government. The government doesn't loan power to you," Gingrich said.
But the speakers also had specific criticisms of the current administration — from its views on the Second Amendment to foreign policy.
The White House referred a request for comment to the Democratic National Committee, which did not immediately return an e-mailed request for comment.
Earlier this week, the White House referred to a recent newspaper editorial by the president that stressed his views that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own guns and noting that, because of policy changes he approved, people can now pack guns in luggage on Amtrak trains and carry them in federal parks and lands.
Despite that, Gingrich called the Obama administration "the most consistently anti-gun, and anti-Second Amendment administration we've ever seen." He accused the administration of planning a "stealth" campaign to eliminate gun owners' rights not by laws, but through international treaties that he says judges will determine take precedence over the Constitution.
Gingrich said that's dangerous because he said the right to gun ownership is primarily a check on government power.
"The right to bear arms is not about hunting. It's not about target shooting," Gingrich said. "It is a political right of the deepest importance to the survival of freedom in America."
Santorum and Gingrich both criticized the administration's foreign policy as not reflecting American interests, and their view of the country's international identity.
"Our president has to believe in who we are and reflect those values to the world," Santorum said "Not see America as something broken, something that wasn't good or great before our big government policies were introduced and go around the world apologizing for American behavior."
Gingrich made much the same point, with more pointed language.
"It should not be an Arab League foreign policy. It should not be a United Nations foreign policy," Gingrich said. "It should not be a will-our-friends-like-us foreign policy."
Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, criticized remarks the president made about two weeks ago when he said America not only was a better country because of social programs like Medicare and Medicaid but said, "I'll go further — we would not be a great country without these commitments."
"Mr. President," Santorum said, "You don't understand America if you believe that," because it implies the United States wasn't great for most of the first 200 years of its history.
Santorum spoke for 14 minutes and Gingrich spoke nearly twice as long, telling the crowd that the 2012 presidential election is the most important in the country's history. Gingrich said the election will determine "whether we're going to remain a nation that believes our rights come from our creator."
Santorum, Gingrich and, later, freshman U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., spoke to NRA members mostly about general principles, including the concept of American exceptionalism. They defined it as not a claim to greatness because of pedigree, but because America is based on the idea that rights are God-given and inalienable — which they argued is meant to be reflected in limited government and maximum personal liberty.
"You loan power to the government. The government doesn't loan power to you," Gingrich said.
But the speakers also had specific criticisms of the current administration — from its views on the Second Amendment to foreign policy.
The White House referred a request for comment to the Democratic National Committee, which did not immediately return an e-mailed request for comment.
Earlier this week, the White House referred to a recent newspaper editorial by the president that stressed his views that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to own guns and noting that, because of policy changes he approved, people can now pack guns in luggage on Amtrak trains and carry them in federal parks and lands.
Despite that, Gingrich called the Obama administration "the most consistently anti-gun, and anti-Second Amendment administration we've ever seen." He accused the administration of planning a "stealth" campaign to eliminate gun owners' rights not by laws, but through international treaties that he says judges will determine take precedence over the Constitution.
Gingrich said that's dangerous because he said the right to gun ownership is primarily a check on government power.
"The right to bear arms is not about hunting. It's not about target shooting," Gingrich said. "It is a political right of the deepest importance to the survival of freedom in America."
Santorum and Gingrich both criticized the administration's foreign policy as not reflecting American interests, and their view of the country's international identity.
"Our president has to believe in who we are and reflect those values to the world," Santorum said "Not see America as something broken, something that wasn't good or great before our big government policies were introduced and go around the world apologizing for American behavior."
Gingrich made much the same point, with more pointed language.
"It should not be an Arab League foreign policy. It should not be a United Nations foreign policy," Gingrich said. "It should not be a will-our-friends-like-us foreign policy."
Friday, April 29, 2011
NRA to Call for Holder's Resignation Over 'Project Gunrunner' Allegations
Having deflected questions so far regarding how much he knew about a federal project suspected of allowing guns sold in the U.S. to be illegally smuggled to Mexico, Attorney General Eric Holder is under fire again, this time from the National Rifle Association, a conservative group with a loud voice and influence in Washington.
Sources tell Fox News that NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre will call for Holder's resignation in a Saturday morning speech at the NRA's annual meeting in Pittsburgh.
LaPierre has criticized Holder's handling of "Project Gunrunner." The program of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico, but whistleblowers claim the bureau actually encouraged the illegal sale of firearms to known criminals, then allowed those guns to be smuggled to Mexico and tracked.
The practice of knowingly allowing guns to "walk" -- or be sold to straw buyers and then transferred to criminal organizations -- is against ATF policy. However, at least 15 ATF whistleblowers claim the agency, with the approval of Holder's Department of Justice, encouraged gun stores to make sales to questionable buyers, then failed to interdict the weapons.
According to Mexican authorities, at least 1,800 of those weapons were successfully smuggled into Mexico, where the cartels used them to commit crimes and foment violence.
What especially galls and upsets U.S. gun owners is this: While the ATF was allegedly sending guns south, hoping to eventually bust the entire trafficking organization, Obama administration officials, including President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were partly blaming U.S. gun stores for the violence in Mexico.
"This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States. ... More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border," President Obama said on a visit to Mexico on April 16, 2009.
That statement, which Holder expanded on a month later, laid the groundwork for the anger felt by U.S. gun owners. Many of them even accuse the administration of purposely fueling the violence in Mexico to justify tighter controls on the type of guns sold in the U.S. and where they can be sold.
"When does it stop being law enforcement and start being a criminal enterprise," La Pierre told CBS News. "Innocent people are dying. I mean artificially they set up straw man sales, to prove what? It is all under their watch."
Attorney General Holder has asked his department's inspector general to investigate the allegations.
But many say that isn't good enough, fearing the Justice Department will sweep serious allegations under the rug and allow guilty department officials to go unnamed.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., have each initiated congressional investigations that the ATF and DOJ have so far stonewalled. Issa has threatened to hold contempt hearings if subpoenaed documents are not handed over to his House Oversight Committee.
Holder is expected to appear before Congress this week on related issues.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Justice told CBS, "We have invited the NRA to join us and other stakeholders from across the spectrum in working to find common-sense solutions to keep guns out of the hands of people who are not legally allowed to possess them. They have yet to come to the table with any productive suggestions, but we hope they will reconsider."
LaPierre has said: "Why should I or the NRA go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?"
The NRA consistently ranks as one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington. It spent $10 million in the 2008 Presidential election.
Sources tell Fox News that NRA Executive Director Wayne LaPierre will call for Holder's resignation in a Saturday morning speech at the NRA's annual meeting in Pittsburgh.
LaPierre has criticized Holder's handling of "Project Gunrunner." The program of the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is intended to stop the flow of guns to criminals in Mexico, but whistleblowers claim the bureau actually encouraged the illegal sale of firearms to known criminals, then allowed those guns to be smuggled to Mexico and tracked.
The practice of knowingly allowing guns to "walk" -- or be sold to straw buyers and then transferred to criminal organizations -- is against ATF policy. However, at least 15 ATF whistleblowers claim the agency, with the approval of Holder's Department of Justice, encouraged gun stores to make sales to questionable buyers, then failed to interdict the weapons.
According to Mexican authorities, at least 1,800 of those weapons were successfully smuggled into Mexico, where the cartels used them to commit crimes and foment violence.
What especially galls and upsets U.S. gun owners is this: While the ATF was allegedly sending guns south, hoping to eventually bust the entire trafficking organization, Obama administration officials, including President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, were partly blaming U.S. gun stores for the violence in Mexico.
"This war is being waged with guns purchased not here but in the United States. ... More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States, many from gun shops that lay in our shared border," President Obama said on a visit to Mexico on April 16, 2009.
That statement, which Holder expanded on a month later, laid the groundwork for the anger felt by U.S. gun owners. Many of them even accuse the administration of purposely fueling the violence in Mexico to justify tighter controls on the type of guns sold in the U.S. and where they can be sold.
"When does it stop being law enforcement and start being a criminal enterprise," La Pierre told CBS News. "Innocent people are dying. I mean artificially they set up straw man sales, to prove what? It is all under their watch."
Attorney General Holder has asked his department's inspector general to investigate the allegations.
But many say that isn't good enough, fearing the Justice Department will sweep serious allegations under the rug and allow guilty department officials to go unnamed.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., have each initiated congressional investigations that the ATF and DOJ have so far stonewalled. Issa has threatened to hold contempt hearings if subpoenaed documents are not handed over to his House Oversight Committee.
Holder is expected to appear before Congress this week on related issues.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Justice told CBS, "We have invited the NRA to join us and other stakeholders from across the spectrum in working to find common-sense solutions to keep guns out of the hands of people who are not legally allowed to possess them. They have yet to come to the table with any productive suggestions, but we hope they will reconsider."
LaPierre has said: "Why should I or the NRA go sit down with a group of people that have spent a lifetime trying to destroy the Second Amendment in the United States?"
The NRA consistently ranks as one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington. It spent $10 million in the 2008 Presidential election.
VIDEO: When William F. Buckley met Saul Alinsky
When William F. Buckley met Saul Alinsky, one of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s biggest influences. Unfortunately, only five minutes of this December 1967 edition of Buckley’s seminal Firing Line program is online the above clip, but you can read a transcript of the entire interview at the Hoover Institute, or buy a DVD of the program for ten bucks from Amazon. At one point, Buckley describes Alinsky’s philosophy:
Look, this is a program of things we want, if you don’t give it to us, we’re going to make it impossible for Chicago to continue commercial or civic life at all.
Alinsky eventually argues:
I’ll put it another way. I said that evolution is a chronological term used by non-participating historians to denote a time sequence of a whole series of revolutions which synthesize into a major change — then they call it evolution.
Change? Say, somebody should use that word as a campaign slogan!
And note this exchange:
ALINSKY: Controversy ranges. It ranges all through various levels of life. I would consider, for example, the same thing on revolution. I think Social Security was revolutionary.
BUCKLEY: Yeah.
ALINSKY: I think Medicare was revolutionary. You see the problem is every –
BUCKLEY: It does seem that we have a semantic difficulty.
ALINSKY: All words in the whole arena of action are all loaded. (Announcer breaks in)
ANNOUNCER: Our debate on these varied issues will continue after this brief pause.
ALINSKY: (Continuing but some of his remarks lost during simultaneous announcement) — gets an idea of blood and barricades, and that sort. And then you say, power — it’s sinister word, you know.
BUCKLEY: But for instance, we got Medicare in this country, and we got it as a result of discussion. Now, mightn’t Alinsky students have felt that you would need to shoot a few doctors, or let people die for lack of medical attention, before you’d have the kind of conflict that’s necessary to midwife for Medicare?
ALINSKY: Buckley, I’ve been fascinated by your eyes in previous shows I’ve watched you on, and will you look at me and tell me whether you believe what you’re saying?
Ahh, the old “do you really believe what you’re saying?”dodge. Also, Alinsky’s hatred of traditional religion becomes increasingly palpable as the interview goes on; something that appears to have carried over to his most famous acolyte and his own, well, shall we say, spiritual issues.
Read the transcript online as a PDF file here — you’ll definitely read quotes from Alinsky that rhyme with more than a few recent events.
Look, this is a program of things we want, if you don’t give it to us, we’re going to make it impossible for Chicago to continue commercial or civic life at all.
Alinsky eventually argues:
I’ll put it another way. I said that evolution is a chronological term used by non-participating historians to denote a time sequence of a whole series of revolutions which synthesize into a major change — then they call it evolution.
Change? Say, somebody should use that word as a campaign slogan!
And note this exchange:
ALINSKY: Controversy ranges. It ranges all through various levels of life. I would consider, for example, the same thing on revolution. I think Social Security was revolutionary.
BUCKLEY: Yeah.
ALINSKY: I think Medicare was revolutionary. You see the problem is every –
BUCKLEY: It does seem that we have a semantic difficulty.
ALINSKY: All words in the whole arena of action are all loaded. (Announcer breaks in)
ANNOUNCER: Our debate on these varied issues will continue after this brief pause.
ALINSKY: (Continuing but some of his remarks lost during simultaneous announcement) — gets an idea of blood and barricades, and that sort. And then you say, power — it’s sinister word, you know.
BUCKLEY: But for instance, we got Medicare in this country, and we got it as a result of discussion. Now, mightn’t Alinsky students have felt that you would need to shoot a few doctors, or let people die for lack of medical attention, before you’d have the kind of conflict that’s necessary to midwife for Medicare?
ALINSKY: Buckley, I’ve been fascinated by your eyes in previous shows I’ve watched you on, and will you look at me and tell me whether you believe what you’re saying?
Ahh, the old “do you really believe what you’re saying?”dodge. Also, Alinsky’s hatred of traditional religion becomes increasingly palpable as the interview goes on; something that appears to have carried over to his most famous acolyte and his own, well, shall we say, spiritual issues.
Read the transcript online as a PDF file here — you’ll definitely read quotes from Alinsky that rhyme with more than a few recent events.
Feds sting Amish farmer selling raw milk locally
A yearlong sting operation, including aliases, a 5 a.m. surprise inspection and surreptitious purchases from an Amish farm in Pennsylvania, culminated in the federal government announcing this week that it has gone to court to stop Rainbow Acres Farm from selling its contraband to willing customers in the Washington area.
The product in question: unpasteurized milk.
It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA, whose investigators have been looking into Rainbow Acres for months, and who finally last week filed a 10-page complaint in federal court in Pennsylvania seeking an order to stop the farm from shipping across state lines any more raw milk or dairy products made from it.
The farm’s owner, Dan Allgyer, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment, but his customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland were furious at what they said was government overreach.
“I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys directly from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go to shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”
The FDA’s actions stand in contrast to other areas where the Obama administration has said it will take a hands-off approach to violations of the law, including the use of medical marijuana in states that have approved it, and illegal-immigrant students and youths, whom the administration said recently will not be targets of their enforcement efforts.
Raw-milk devotees say pasteurization, the process of heating food to kill harmful organisms, eliminates good bacteria as well, and changes the taste and health benefits of the milk. Many raw-milk drinkers say they feel much healthier after changing over to it, and insist they should have the freedom of choice regarding their food.
One defense group says there are as many as 10 million raw-milk consumers in the country. Sales are perfectly legal in 10 states but illegal in 11 states and the District, with the other states having varying restrictions on purchase or consumption.
Many food safety researchers say pasteurization, which became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, dramatically reduced instances of milk-transmitted diseases such as typhoid fever and diphtheria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no health benefit from raw milk that cannot be obtained from pasteurized milk.
Acting on those conclusions, the FDA uses its regulatory powers over food safety to ban interstate sales of raw milk and has warned several farms to change their practices.
According to the complaint the FDA filed in court, the agency began to look into Mr. Allgyer’s farm in late 2009, when an investigator in their Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group for Rainbow Acres’ customers, and began to place orders under the assumed names for unpasteurized milk.
The orders were delivered to private residences in Maryland, where the investigator, whose name was not disclosed in the documents, would pick them up. By crossing state lines the milk became part of interstate commerce, thus subject to the FDA’s ban on interstate sales of raw milk. The court papers note that the jugs of milk were not labeled - another violation of FDA regulations.
Armed with that information, investigators visited the farm in February 2010, but Mr. Allgyer turned them away. They returned two months later with a warrant, U.S. marshals and a state police trooper, arriving at 5 a.m. for what Mr. Allgyer’s backers called a “raid,” but the FDA said was a lawful inspection.
The investigators said they saw coolers labeled with Maryland town names, and the coolers appeared to contain dairy products. The inspection led to an April 20, 2010, letter from FDA telling Mr. Allgyer to stop selling across state lines.
He instead formed a club and had customers sign an agreement stating they supported his operation, weren’t trying to entrap the owners, and that they would be shareholders in the farm’s produce, paying only for the farmer’s labor.
Customers hoped that would get around the FDA’s definition of “commerce,” putting the exchange outside of the federal government’s purview.
The FDA investigators continued to take shipments, though, and last week went to court to stop the operation.
Ms. Ward, the FDA spokeswoman, didn’t say exactly why they targeted Mr. Allgyer’s farm, but that violations generally are determined either by FDA investigations or by state-obtained evidence.
Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said undercover stings are not unheard of.
“It happens quite a bit. It’s almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It’s happened in a number of states, and at the federal level,” he said.
His organization has sued to try to halt FDA enforcement, and the case is pending in federal court in Iowa.
Mr. Allgyer’s customers declined to talk about the operations, and when asked whether they knew what would happen to the farm’s distribution, they said they would have to wait and see.
One of those customers, Liz Reitzig, president of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, said she started looking for raw milk when her oldest daughter began to show signs of not being able to tolerate pasteurized milk.
She first did what’s called cow sharing, which is when a group of people buy shares in owning a cow, and pay a farmer to board and milk the cow. But Maryland outlawed that practice and she was forced to look elsewhere for raw milk, and turned to Mr. Allgyer’s farm.
“We like the way they farm, we love their product, it’s super-high-quality, they’re wonderful. It’s just a wonderful arrangement,” she said.
“FDA really has no idea what they’re talking about when they’re talking about fresh milk. They have no concept - they really don’t understand what it’s like for people like me who have friends and family who can’t drink conventional milk,” Ms. Reitzig said.
The product in question: unpasteurized milk.
It’s a battle that’s been going on behind the scenes for years, with natural foods advocates arguing that raw milk, as it’s also known, is healthier than the pasteurized product, while the Food and Drug Administration says raw milk can carry harmful bacteria such as salmonella, E. coli and listeria.
“It is the FDA’s position that raw milk should never be consumed,” said Tamara N. Ward, spokeswoman for the FDA, whose investigators have been looking into Rainbow Acres for months, and who finally last week filed a 10-page complaint in federal court in Pennsylvania seeking an order to stop the farm from shipping across state lines any more raw milk or dairy products made from it.
The farm’s owner, Dan Allgyer, didn’t respond to a message seeking comment, but his customers in the District of Columbia and Maryland were furious at what they said was government overreach.
“I look at this as the FDA is in cahoots with the large milk producers,” said Karin Edgett, a D.C. resident who buys directly from Rainbow Acres. “I don’t want the FDA and my tax dollars to go to shut down a farm that hasn’t had any complaints against it. They’re producing good food, and the consumers are extremely happy with it.”
The FDA’s actions stand in contrast to other areas where the Obama administration has said it will take a hands-off approach to violations of the law, including the use of medical marijuana in states that have approved it, and illegal-immigrant students and youths, whom the administration said recently will not be targets of their enforcement efforts.
Raw-milk devotees say pasteurization, the process of heating food to kill harmful organisms, eliminates good bacteria as well, and changes the taste and health benefits of the milk. Many raw-milk drinkers say they feel much healthier after changing over to it, and insist they should have the freedom of choice regarding their food.
One defense group says there are as many as 10 million raw-milk consumers in the country. Sales are perfectly legal in 10 states but illegal in 11 states and the District, with the other states having varying restrictions on purchase or consumption.
Many food safety researchers say pasteurization, which became widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, dramatically reduced instances of milk-transmitted diseases such as typhoid fever and diphtheria. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is no health benefit from raw milk that cannot be obtained from pasteurized milk.
Acting on those conclusions, the FDA uses its regulatory powers over food safety to ban interstate sales of raw milk and has warned several farms to change their practices.
According to the complaint the FDA filed in court, the agency began to look into Mr. Allgyer’s farm in late 2009, when an investigator in their Baltimore office used aliases to sign up for a Yahoo user group for Rainbow Acres’ customers, and began to place orders under the assumed names for unpasteurized milk.
The orders were delivered to private residences in Maryland, where the investigator, whose name was not disclosed in the documents, would pick them up. By crossing state lines the milk became part of interstate commerce, thus subject to the FDA’s ban on interstate sales of raw milk. The court papers note that the jugs of milk were not labeled - another violation of FDA regulations.
Armed with that information, investigators visited the farm in February 2010, but Mr. Allgyer turned them away. They returned two months later with a warrant, U.S. marshals and a state police trooper, arriving at 5 a.m. for what Mr. Allgyer’s backers called a “raid,” but the FDA said was a lawful inspection.
The investigators said they saw coolers labeled with Maryland town names, and the coolers appeared to contain dairy products. The inspection led to an April 20, 2010, letter from FDA telling Mr. Allgyer to stop selling across state lines.
He instead formed a club and had customers sign an agreement stating they supported his operation, weren’t trying to entrap the owners, and that they would be shareholders in the farm’s produce, paying only for the farmer’s labor.
Customers hoped that would get around the FDA’s definition of “commerce,” putting the exchange outside of the federal government’s purview.
The FDA investigators continued to take shipments, though, and last week went to court to stop the operation.
Ms. Ward, the FDA spokeswoman, didn’t say exactly why they targeted Mr. Allgyer’s farm, but that violations generally are determined either by FDA investigations or by state-obtained evidence.
Pete Kennedy, president of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, said undercover stings are not unheard of.
“It happens quite a bit. It’s almost like they treat raw milk as crack. It’s happened in a number of states, and at the federal level,” he said.
His organization has sued to try to halt FDA enforcement, and the case is pending in federal court in Iowa.
Mr. Allgyer’s customers declined to talk about the operations, and when asked whether they knew what would happen to the farm’s distribution, they said they would have to wait and see.
One of those customers, Liz Reitzig, president of the Maryland Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, said she started looking for raw milk when her oldest daughter began to show signs of not being able to tolerate pasteurized milk.
She first did what’s called cow sharing, which is when a group of people buy shares in owning a cow, and pay a farmer to board and milk the cow. But Maryland outlawed that practice and she was forced to look elsewhere for raw milk, and turned to Mr. Allgyer’s farm.
“We like the way they farm, we love their product, it’s super-high-quality, they’re wonderful. It’s just a wonderful arrangement,” she said.
“FDA really has no idea what they’re talking about when they’re talking about fresh milk. They have no concept - they really don’t understand what it’s like for people like me who have friends and family who can’t drink conventional milk,” Ms. Reitzig said.
Ariz. governor signs bill authorizing border fence
PHOENIX (AP) -- Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill into law that authorizes the construction of a fence along the state's portion of the U.S.-Mexico border, either with other states or by itself.
She signed the bill Thursday, but her spokesman, Matt Benson, declined to comment Friday on why she signed it or whether she plans to invoke the authority.
The bill does not specify a cost or make an appropriation but says the state would use donations, inmate labor and private contractors.
Brewer has asked President Barack Obama to extend a National Guard deployment along the border and for more substantial fences to block smugglers. Arizona is a major gateway for illegal immigrants and marijuana smuggling.
An existing 646-mile fence covers about 30 percent of the 2,000-mile border.
She signed the bill Thursday, but her spokesman, Matt Benson, declined to comment Friday on why she signed it or whether she plans to invoke the authority.
The bill does not specify a cost or make an appropriation but says the state would use donations, inmate labor and private contractors.
Brewer has asked President Barack Obama to extend a National Guard deployment along the border and for more substantial fences to block smugglers. Arizona is a major gateway for illegal immigrants and marijuana smuggling.
An existing 646-mile fence covers about 30 percent of the 2,000-mile border.
Sarah Palin Video: “Hell no I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling!
Sarah Palin in an interview with Bret Baier was asked if she would remove the oil subsidies to oil companies and the short of her answer was probably not. She says that the four billion that Obama is wanting to strip from the oil companies may not have that much impact on the large oil companies, but would affect the smaller independent explorers who Palin says we want out there with their resources extracting for oil:
You have to remember that President Obama – and I’m going to say this with all due respect to the office of the Presidency – he doesn’t know what he’s doing when it comes to energy. He does not know, as I just pointed out, that the four billion dollars that he thinks he’s gonna stick it to Exxon, BP, Conaco, Phillips. No, it’s going to be the independent producers, the explorers that we want out there creating jobs that are going to be hit with an end of subsidy. So we really have to take a hard look at that.
When asked if she’d vote to raise the debt ceiling (if she were in congress) she replied:
“Hells no! I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling. Otherwise it just shows the American public we’re not serious yet, we’re gonna incur more debt. No. And we don’t have to increase the debt ceiling in the next few weeks. It turns my stomach to hear this…”
They talk about much more including her analyzing potential candidates for President and where she currently is in making her decision.
Great interview. Enjoy!
You have to remember that President Obama – and I’m going to say this with all due respect to the office of the Presidency – he doesn’t know what he’s doing when it comes to energy. He does not know, as I just pointed out, that the four billion dollars that he thinks he’s gonna stick it to Exxon, BP, Conaco, Phillips. No, it’s going to be the independent producers, the explorers that we want out there creating jobs that are going to be hit with an end of subsidy. So we really have to take a hard look at that.
When asked if she’d vote to raise the debt ceiling (if she were in congress) she replied:
“Hells no! I would not vote to increase that debt ceiling. Otherwise it just shows the American public we’re not serious yet, we’re gonna incur more debt. No. And we don’t have to increase the debt ceiling in the next few weeks. It turns my stomach to hear this…”
They talk about much more including her analyzing potential candidates for President and where she currently is in making her decision.
Great interview. Enjoy!
A New U.S. Energy Plan: Sell Oil Reserves, Use Profits to Invest in Clean Tech
Presidents and politicians of all political affiliations have said for decades the U.S. must find an energy source that can serve as a viable alternative to crude oil imports from foreign nations -- a fair number of which aren't exactly gushing supporters of the red, white and blue.
That talk hasn't translated into much action, however. Now oil prices are up again, holding above $110 a barrel, which is sending gas prices higher and weighing on consumers. Finding a solution we can all agree on regarding America's energy future isn't going to be easy. Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, believes his group has the answer.
"There's a few things we have to do to fight the recent spike in oil prices," he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. "First, we need to crack down on speculators -- make sure that they're not intentionally driving up prices in order to make a quick buck. Second, let's eliminate the $40 billion in subsidies [over 10 years] for big oil companies that are going to make overwhelming profits anyway." (See: Tax Breaks for Big Oil Make "No Fiscal, Moral or Political Sense" )Additionally, Weiss is pushing for more fuel-efficient cars, specifically vehicles that would get 60-plus miles per gallon by 2025. He's also advocating a limit, starting in 2013, on the amount of foreign oil the U.S. imports each year and reducing that total by 5% a year.
"That will drive investment into oil-reduction technologies because they know that there will be a market for the product," he says. Weiss wants to increase "market demand" for clean energies such as wind and solar, but the question of practicality arises.
For Weiss, the hope is that energy alternatives will continue their trend toward becoming less expensive. If traditional sources of power such as coal- and nuclear-generated electricity see their costs rise, wind and solar will become "more economical than they are today."
The U.S., he contends, is behind what other nations like China and Germany are doing, and that needs to change. "This is going to be a $2 trillion worldwide market," he says of clean energy. "It's important that we're competitive."
Weiss has also recommended that the White House consider selling up to 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then invest the proceeds in public transportation and energy alternatives.
"It would generate over $3 billion," he says. "We could invest that money in making transit much more accessible and affordable for people."
For more of his thoughts on energy and policy, be sure to watch the accompanying interview.
That talk hasn't translated into much action, however. Now oil prices are up again, holding above $110 a barrel, which is sending gas prices higher and weighing on consumers. Finding a solution we can all agree on regarding America's energy future isn't going to be easy. Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and director of climate strategy at the Center for American Progress, believes his group has the answer.
"There's a few things we have to do to fight the recent spike in oil prices," he tells Aaron in the accompanying clip. "First, we need to crack down on speculators -- make sure that they're not intentionally driving up prices in order to make a quick buck. Second, let's eliminate the $40 billion in subsidies [over 10 years] for big oil companies that are going to make overwhelming profits anyway." (See: Tax Breaks for Big Oil Make "No Fiscal, Moral or Political Sense" )Additionally, Weiss is pushing for more fuel-efficient cars, specifically vehicles that would get 60-plus miles per gallon by 2025. He's also advocating a limit, starting in 2013, on the amount of foreign oil the U.S. imports each year and reducing that total by 5% a year.
"That will drive investment into oil-reduction technologies because they know that there will be a market for the product," he says. Weiss wants to increase "market demand" for clean energies such as wind and solar, but the question of practicality arises.
For Weiss, the hope is that energy alternatives will continue their trend toward becoming less expensive. If traditional sources of power such as coal- and nuclear-generated electricity see their costs rise, wind and solar will become "more economical than they are today."
The U.S., he contends, is behind what other nations like China and Germany are doing, and that needs to change. "This is going to be a $2 trillion worldwide market," he says of clean energy. "It's important that we're competitive."
Weiss has also recommended that the White House consider selling up to 30 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and then invest the proceeds in public transportation and energy alternatives.
"It would generate over $3 billion," he says. "We could invest that money in making transit much more accessible and affordable for people."
For more of his thoughts on energy and policy, be sure to watch the accompanying interview.
Obama's Other Hand
Regulation: While we were distracted by the president's birth certificate show-and-tell, his EPA releases its guidelines for expanding federal power under the Clean Water Act. America's economy and freedom are at stake.
President Obama's long-form birth certificate wasn't the only thing released last Wednesday, but it was probably the least important. The Environmental Protection Agency also released its guidelines for expanding federal power over the nation's waterways, ponds and puddles.
These guidelines will take effect after a 60-day comment period and will serve as a reference for environmental agencies in determining their jurisdiction over a particular body of water, large or small. They will eventually morph into binding regulations as damaging to our economy and freedom as the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.
The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the "navigable waters of the United States" — you know, the kind boats travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of water in America capable of supporting a bathtub-variety boat.
The word "navigable" was forgotten and ignored, and the act's scope expanded to the point that water that collected after a rainstorm was considered a "wetland" worthy of environmental protection.
A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court case from Michigan produced five different opinions and no clear definition of which waterways were covered. This essentially left the government with a clean slate on which to write its own interpretation — just about everything.
House Agricultural Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., says the expanded EPA guidelines would let the government "regulate essentially any body of water, such as a farm pond or even a ditch." A bipartisan group of 170 congressmen wrote a letter to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers urging them not to issue the expanded guidelines.
The American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement that the guidelines "take an overly broad view of 'waters of the U.S.' It would serve as a road map for EPA and the Corps to designate nearly all water bodies, and even some on dry land, as subject to federal regulations that dictate land-use decisions."
Not just agriculture but energy production is affected. The EPA recently revoked the coal mining permit for Arch Coal's Spruce Mine No. 1 in Logan County, W.Va. The permit was issued four years ago and since then Arch Coal, which provides 16% of America's supply, has followed every jot and tittle of the rules it was told to operate under. It didn't matter.
After an investment of $250 million in the mountain-top mining operation, which when fully operational would have employed 215 miners directly and 300 indirect jobs in support services, it was ordered to shut down. These were, no pun intended, "shovel-ready" jobs.
As we have warned, the EPA said it was acting under the authority of the Clean Water Act, saying the mine employed "destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and clean water on which they depend."
The EPA is currently suspending 79 such surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. It says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she's not against coal mining, but wants to see it "done in a way that minimizes impact to water quality."
This is not about clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change. It's about increasing government power over our every aspect of our lives. The power to regulate is the power to destroy, and part of the administration's goal of raising energy prices to the point green energy looks acceptable if not attractive.
President Obama said the whole "birther" controversy was a distraction from other more important things. That's just the way he wanted it.
President Obama's long-form birth certificate wasn't the only thing released last Wednesday, but it was probably the least important. The Environmental Protection Agency also released its guidelines for expanding federal power over the nation's waterways, ponds and puddles.
These guidelines will take effect after a 60-day comment period and will serve as a reference for environmental agencies in determining their jurisdiction over a particular body of water, large or small. They will eventually morph into binding regulations as damaging to our economy and freedom as the EPA regulation of carbon dioxide emissions.
The 1972 Clean Water Act was originally intended to protect the "navigable waters of the United States" — you know, the kind boats travel down. It was broadly and quickly interpreted to any pool of water in America capable of supporting a bathtub-variety boat.
The word "navigable" was forgotten and ignored, and the act's scope expanded to the point that water that collected after a rainstorm was considered a "wetland" worthy of environmental protection.
A 2006 U.S. Supreme Court case from Michigan produced five different opinions and no clear definition of which waterways were covered. This essentially left the government with a clean slate on which to write its own interpretation — just about everything.
House Agricultural Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., says the expanded EPA guidelines would let the government "regulate essentially any body of water, such as a farm pond or even a ditch." A bipartisan group of 170 congressmen wrote a letter to the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers urging them not to issue the expanded guidelines.
The American Farm Bureau Federation said in a statement that the guidelines "take an overly broad view of 'waters of the U.S.' It would serve as a road map for EPA and the Corps to designate nearly all water bodies, and even some on dry land, as subject to federal regulations that dictate land-use decisions."
Not just agriculture but energy production is affected. The EPA recently revoked the coal mining permit for Arch Coal's Spruce Mine No. 1 in Logan County, W.Va. The permit was issued four years ago and since then Arch Coal, which provides 16% of America's supply, has followed every jot and tittle of the rules it was told to operate under. It didn't matter.
After an investment of $250 million in the mountain-top mining operation, which when fully operational would have employed 215 miners directly and 300 indirect jobs in support services, it was ordered to shut down. These were, no pun intended, "shovel-ready" jobs.
As we have warned, the EPA said it was acting under the authority of the Clean Water Act, saying the mine employed "destructive and unsustainable mining practices that jeopardize the health of Appalachian communities and clean water on which they depend."
The EPA is currently suspending 79 such surface mining permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. It says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant "enhanced" review. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she's not against coal mining, but wants to see it "done in a way that minimizes impact to water quality."
This is not about clean water any more than cap-and-trade is about climate change. It's about increasing government power over our every aspect of our lives. The power to regulate is the power to destroy, and part of the administration's goal of raising energy prices to the point green energy looks acceptable if not attractive.
President Obama said the whole "birther" controversy was a distraction from other more important things. That's just the way he wanted it.
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