Facing Freedom's Challenge

Lawrence Summers never got it right.

2010-09-29T15:39:00.000-07:00

As Larry Summers makes his way through the evolving door, readying himself to promote the next great disaster, Obama is left to find someone equally as incompetent to fill his shoes. Sadly though, Obama has a lot of ready candidates who carry these same character traits and flaws. And Washington is, after all, an equal opportunity employer, which, in substance, means they hire the mentally challenged without regard to their station in life.

Summers career in Washington is filled with so many misjudgments that the “science” he professes can be summed up with just two words --“VooDoo Science.” His legacy will be an embarrassment for two presidents, Clinton and Obama. Hopefully, he will retire from politics permanently, although it is doubtful. In Washington, the inept are rewarded with promotions and longevity.

In the view of Summers, both unemployment insurance and welfare payments are major contributors to unemployment. His position was an advocacy for their reduction.

This view is held by many economists today. However, their view is narrow and nearsighted. Unemployment and welfare payments do not contribute to or create unemployment; they only support those who are unemployed. But then no one has ever claimed economists are very bright.

As a perfect example, with 17- plus million Americans out of work, does Summers presume to think that by eliminating unemployment insurance they will suddenly find work?

Summers background was a perfect match for a government position as he has never gotten it right. And, after all, isn’t that how government really works? While at the World Bank in December 1991, Summers proposed dumping toxic waste in third world countries for economic reasons. Jose Lutzenberger, a Brazilian environmentalist, wrote to Summers that his proposal was “perfectly logical but totally insane” and showed how out of touch with reality economists are.

Summers, while in the Clinton White House, argued against American leadership in greenhouse gas reductions and against U.S. participation in the Kyoto Protocol. Summers also supported the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999, which lifted more than six decades of restrictions against banks offering commercial banking, insurance, and investment services. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed key provisions of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act, which has been acknowledged to have been the catalyst for the financial crisis.

Many critics, including President Obama, have suggested the subprime mortgage financial crisis of 2007 was caused by the partial repeal of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. Yet, Obama retained Summers in his White House staff. Even though Summers had discredited himself, Obama continued to use him as an advisor.

It was Summers, along with Arthur Levitt, (SEC) Chairman; Alan Greenspan, Fed Chairman, and Secretary Rubin, who together prevented all efforts to regulate the derivatives (Credit Default Swaps) that many blame for bringing the financial market down in Fall 2008. These derivatives are still wringing the financial necks of most U.S. Banks. So, to all these problems Summers has created, we now bid a fond ado. He will be sorely missed in Washington, but not by Main Street.

Why American Jobs are being outsourced

2010-09-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

America once the epitome of the free enterprise system and capitalism has over the years fallen from grace, in fact over the past 10 years the fall has been substantial.

How did we decline so far so fast?

The beginning of the end really began as a part and parcel of Reaganomics, building an American empire, and the capitalist version of it. The idea was that business could prosper better in third world environments where laws were lax, and child labor protection was non existent, In short America prior to 1938.

During the early part of the 20th century states attempted to pass laws protecting children, however as we are finding today, the Supreme Court was out of step with the times. In each instance, the case brought before the Supreme Court was ruled against the state interest and the interest of the children. It wasn’t until 1941 that an act of the US congress passed in 1938 was found to be constitutional “The Fair Labor Standards Act”

For the next 40 years, manufacturers were required to hire children only over age of 16, and they were limited in the number of hours, and type of jobs they were allowed to work.

In addition environmental laws made it too expensive to operate some businesses in the States. So under Reagan a plan was developed which promoted outsourcing of American jobs, they went first to South America . Under Reagan more than 2200 businesses representing several million workers were displaced

Today in developing countries 250 million children age 5 to 14 are working without child labor law protections, and they are producing almost every product we purchase. With capitalism, there is a tremendous advantage and reason to move to these countries, it’s called profits!

As manufacturers began to move out of the United States there developed a worker backlash. Detroit began with its concept of planned obsolescence, as early as the 1920’s, to produce a product that would last for only a short time, then requiring new purchases.

This manufacture model allowed Japan to gain a real foothold on the American consumer and the auto industry began a decline in earnest in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Planned obsolescence was a concept that came about in the US as early as the 1920’s, and 30’s the real and secret logic behind it was to conceal the real cost of the object, by giving the consumer a product that had a limited life expectancy.

By the 1960’s and 1970’s American consumers were turning to Japanese automobiles which offered a longer life product use, and a cheaper price tag.

Today consumers still have no idea they are being abused by capitalist theories of profits. Just what it will take to wake us up is the all time question?

What we should have learned from 9-11?

2010-09-10T14:05:00.000-07:00

Certainly 9-11 was a tragic event, and no doubt will go down in the annuals of history equal to that of Pearl Harbor .

But the times are very different, and the reasons are also very different.

Yet there is some commonality to both. The “facts” submitted by conspiracy theorists, and there are as many as the days of the year, present the same scenario with logic and common sense to both.

With the events of Pearl Harbor, theorists present evidence that the government knew about the pending Japanese attack, and even forced Japan ’s hand by threatening them to give up Manchuria .

They theorize with logic, that this was the only way to unite the American people to go to war!

That was December 7 1941…

Sixty years later September 11, 2001…

The world trade center is attacked allegedly by 12 men from Saudi Arabia , with suspicion, theorist’s question how the passports of four (4) alleged hijackers were found intact Satam al Suqami's passport was found slightly charred in rubble that had been completely reduced to dust.

Two passports were alleged to have been recovered from the crash site of UA93 in Pennsylvania and the fourth from the alleged hijacker on AA11

There is enough facts to warrant suspicion of the governments account.

All in all 9-11 has made American’s aware that their own government can’t be trusted, and if we achieve no other benefit from 9-11 that in itself is an important milestone.

Five (5) years after 9-11 Scripps Howard took a poll of America ’s belief about the attack, more than one third of America believes the Federal government is implicated, either assisting, or aiding in the events.

In support of this theory fingers are pointed to insider knowledge, there was an uncanny amount of money invested in put options placed for United Airlines 4,744 "put" option contracts and 4,516 “put” options for American airlines stocks. Somebody or group knew in advance and acted to reap the benefits.

Setting aside for the moment the potential issues those “found” Passports represent. What have we as a people learned? What could make men so willing to give up their lives for a cause, and what might that cause be?

Tyranny and oppression Reigns so freely around the world, with 1989 presenting a prime example. Tiananmen Square, China .

Tiananmen Square was a stand by an oppressed people seeking democracy, 3000 student protestors were killed by their own countrymen, because they wanted freedom.

And our counterpart, Kent State , May 4, 1970, the Ohio National guard opened fire on peaceful student demonstrators killing 4, and wounding scores. Why because of Vietnam , a war the people didn’t want.

But these are symbols of oppression; the reality is that any oppressed people will act out. The common dream of “all” humanity is freedom. Without freedom, there is only slavery, and in that case, what is a life worth?

When the most powerful, and most influential nation in the world supports governments which are viewed by their own people as tyrants and dictators, America is setting itself up to be a target. And we have done just that.

Unfortunately we seem to have lost the spirit necessary to remain a free and democratic society. And as we have lost the spirit, we have lost the will to remain what we once stood for.

When America supports a regime that is oppressive we give the world the wrong message. If you recall February 21, 1972, with the Chinese economy and very government on the verge of collapse, Nixon makes a seven (7) day visit and supports the communist’s government.

The Hungarian revolution of 1956-57, was also about the dream of freedom.

Yet when we dream of freedom today, it seems to take a back seat to survival, this leaves us with the standing question, are we being used for capitalists as pawns in an elaborate game of world domination, or have we as a nation just been unlucky in those we choose to lead us.

Is This The Reason They Want All The Wild Horses Gone?!

2010-09-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

Goldman Sachs behind major land grab in Nevada worth billions.

As the BLM removed the wild mustangs from their Northern Nevada Range land, and opened it up to solar energy companies, one that has NO experience in this area, Goldman Sachs, through one of its subsidiaries, grabbed up nearly half the land. Two GS subsidiaries filed 52 claims, obtaining the rights to more than 123,000 acres.

GS subsidiary, Cogentrix Solar Services LLC, which has NO solar experience, has a pending application for 13,440 acres on one site in northern Nevada and a second site claim for 22,400 acres in the same area.

GS holds a total of 10 out of 123 claims, which cover the 123,000 acres, half of the land the BLM plans to lease for solar energy production in the state. GS has not begun any of these projects. However, the BLM leases, although they cannot be sold outright, can be sold with a sale of the company, and that is where the scam is suspected. These claims could potentially be worth billions!

Is this some payback for the SEC fine levied against GS due to their fraud in dealing with their own investors? Or is this another fraud that has even pulled the wool over the eyes of an agency that already appears to be blind?. Stay Tuned!

Ben Bernanke, The Man in the Mirror!

2010-08-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

When most of us look in the mirror what we see is the reverse image of our self, but sometimes we even miss that reality.

And this is exactly the problem that Bernanke and the FED are experiencing, the illusion, that he can save the economy by taking the country further into debt. The more money the FED creates becomes a larger burden on us, the US taxpayers.

How much can we undertake while the economy languished on the edge of total collapse?

Psychiatrists agree that our government is actually insane, why? Because the very definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and to expect a different outcome, surely Ben Bernanke and the FED meet this standard.

Through the first quarter of this year, Bernanke printed $1.5 trillion of paper currency and promptly bought $1.5 trillion in mortgage bonds, government agency bonds, and Treasury bonds. Now these bonds are an obligation imposed on the US taxpayers, who by the way are mainly economically indisposed.

But even as the entire effort was a failure, Bernanke is at it again.

If Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke honestly believes what he said at Jackson Hole on Friday — that he can save the economy by printing more money and buying more bonds — he needs to see a psychiatrists, the indication of this attempt to bolster the economy by acquiring more of the banks products, hasn’t stimulated the economy one bit. In fact the opposite has actually occurred, and hiding the true numbers of America’s unemployed is like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. Unemployment doesn’t go away simply because of wishful thinking.

America needs jobs, real jobs to jump start the economy, and the illusion that jobs are being created won’t make the economy stronger. But where will these jobs come from?

One approach is to make it more expensive for companies that are outsourcing American jobs, through higher taxation, this is a real solution! Inflating the economy will have a dire consequence, higher prices and a deeper prolonged depression, that’s right depression!

Lessons were learned from the 1930’s but it takes an intellect to read what the government did to stimulate the economy, and after all what it took in the end hasn’t worked today, it took a world war… today our war efforts haven’t been able to stimulate the economy even though we have become a nation perpetually at war, why, because even our weapons and weaponry are outsourced, it appears even our own government has a greater interest in the world economy, lacking a real insight or concern for its own people!

Bernanke is a man that sees a different image in the mirror, and that image speaks a different language.

It will take a different administration to solve the problems facing America, doing the same thing over and over always results in the same outcome and Obama has yet to understand economics 101, but then, neither has our economist Bernanke.

NATO Alliance appears to be falling apart

2010-08-13T18:32:00.000-07:00

The Netherlands has become the first country to actually end hostilities in Afghanistan , but they are not alone.

Canada is withdrawing troops next year, the UK has downsized its forces but is considering downsizing additional involvement, and Poland is pulling out by 2012. Germany is also considering scaling back their forces.

The NATO countries with the exception of the US no longer see the wisdom of a struggle that appears to be unwinnable. We are not winning the hearts and minds of the people, by killing them!

Civilian causalities in July alone number 270 and more than 600 wounded. And we are loosing the prime of America , our service men and women who are struggling to understand why they are there. Those that survive will carry the scars of war.

Afghanistan is no stranger to war, having achieved independence in 1919, yet while so many countries having invaded it; no country has been able to defeat it. With over two decades of wars, Afghanistan is left with a legacy of landmines that kill and maim Afghanistan civilians every month.

Countries that have tried and failed; The Persians, Greeks, Arabs, British, Mongols, Russians and now Americans have all in their turn tried to defeat these people, each has failed. But America has made the greatest mistake in failing to understand the resolve of these people. America was an invader, but more than that America has killed more than 20,000 civilians which are considered “collateral damage” a house could be considered collateral damage, but certainly we care more about humans, or at least we should.

America has made the grandest of mistakes, forging a war based on a lie, the so called War on Terror was not about 9-11 so much as the oil pipeline across the country. Now after civilian deaths are mounting and resentment is building among the people, other countries want out, but America has invested billions of dollars in Afghanistan infrastructure, with the view to remaining in the country indefinitely.

As Davis Petraeus, recently said of the Afghanistan struggle, "If we kill civilians or damage their property in the course of our operations, we will create more enemies than our operations eliminate,"

This we have done, we have created more terrorists than we have eliminated, and have been the best recruitment vehicle for the Taliban. Families are carrying photos of children maimed by US led NATO forces, chanting “Death to America ! Death to NATO”

Yes General Petraeus you are so right! What we have accomplished in the Mideast . We have made enemies that will last for two or more generations, and we have made the world less safe for Americans.

What’s left to accomplish?

It’s now time to bring our troops home!

War is America’s greatest export

2010-08-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

We have been at war almost every year since the founding of the republic. War has become our way of life, viewed in its greatest light from movies, to video games to the ROTC it is never out of our range of vision

But most of these wars have been illegal, like Korea - Vietnam - Cambodia - Granada - Panama - Kosovo - Afghanistan - and twice with Iraq, yet there were many more, the side excursions and support operations in a dozen other places around the globe.

American presidents have declared war in each instance or declared a “police Action” where America service personnel have been deployed to foreign places without congresses participation, yet to declare war is a function of congress and any attempt to pass that responsibility to the president is an act considered to be ultra vires, yet our people continue to go where they are sent and to die there! We ask for what cause?

Did we protect our freedom by invading Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Granada, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq? Or was there some ulterior motive for our wars of choice?

Like resources?

War has always been our way of life. War is our culture. War is our industry and our chief export. And as long as Americans are willing to fight and die for causes they don’t understand it will remain our heritage.

War simply, is about everything and yet about nothing, it is the essence of historical fabrication. War has always lacked honesty and integrity! War requires propaganda to incite the population, and that means that the Media Must be controlled!

War is for the large corporations who profit from our death, the banks that finance this travesty, and unconscionably for oil and drugs, the resource that draws us in.

War is a travesty that we force upon nation. It is a mockery of modern civilizations. War promotes no just end but brings suffering and spreads violence, because for every one America kills dozens will spring forth to revenge them, and so we are perpetually fighting a cause that we as a nation are too ignorant to understand. Violence will always be met with violence. Just as intellect will be met with speech!

Perhaps the way to peace is to have the leaders of the country’s embittered to stand against each other and spare the populations a needless letting of their blood.

Perhaps, just perhaps, we as a people will see through this charade and say, we have had enough, NO more!

Obama gives Due Process a new meaning

2010-08-13T18:13:00.000-07:00

Since the founding of our republic due process has meant an established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual. These safeguards comport with our constitutional provisions regarding criminal procedure and are found in Amendments IV, V, VI, and VIII.

When an official of government becomes a judge, a jury and an executioner, there has been no justice, and therefore No Due Process.

This has now become the state of our law.

President Obama, who is himself an attorney, has authorized our CIA to assassinate an American citizen without providing this individual his day in court, indeed this is a very dangerous precedent.

Anwar al-Awlaki, is a Muslim cleric, born in New Mexico US, he is an American Citizen by birth. He stands accused of having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United States last year.

Awlaki may stand accused of these crimes but has not been convicted in any court of law, indeed he has not even been tried in absentia. The CIA has added Awlaki to a growing list of about two dozen people targeted for assassination. Several are Americans.

Both Bush and Obama have justified these lethal policies under what they perceive to be “the laws of war” which they premise allows them to use lethal force against enemy combatants. However, Enemy combatant is a term historically referring to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. But Awlaki has not been personally involved in attacks against either American’s or our interests, neither has he been involved in armed confrontations with US or NATO forces. So to apply this term against Awlaki may be an abuse of a political discretion and policy.

Of concern is that these death lists may be used to kill individuals far from any battlefield or when they are not presenting an immediate threat.

As for Awlaki, it is also unclear what intelligence exists that would justify CIA and military forces to hunt him down and kill him without any judicial review.

In February, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who has become a champion of Civil rights, offered his opinion, “American citizens have the same protections whether on US soil or not”, pointing to Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957),

This round of assassinations is yet another thorn prodding the American psyche. It is a dangerous precedent and should not be employed except as a last resort, and then only in an unusual circumstance with undisputed, verified and collaborated evidence.

The danger that emanates from this policy is that any American may be placed on this list even while living in the US, merely because he speaks out against government policy, this is not China or Russia, this is the United States, and so far we retain that right to descent.

As far as political expediency this is truly a step back through that portal leading to a medieval time, and the end result will be the creation of another Martyr eliciting more anger toward the US.

Wake Up People!

2010-08-09T19:07:00.000-07:00

People just don’t get it!

A recent Rasmussen Poll shows that 58% of American consumers are against an Obama administration plan for partial mortgage forgiveness.

Their reasoning, which really escapes me, is that it will be unfair for those who are making their payments on time!

As Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz once said, “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

People are way and afar upside down in their mortgages because banks like Countrywide scammed them into taking out loans that bank executives and their colleagues knew were for more than the properties were worth.

Appraisers were even in on the scams. They were paid by the banks to overvalue these properties, and why? Because the banks were making points based on the amounts of the loans they made.

Now, for the first time during the Obama administration, the President comes up with an idea that will really help the economy and the American people, in their insatiable need to profess ignorance, don’t get it.

Even the homeowners it would help don’t get it. It makes me wonder if perhaps the fluoride in America’s drinking water has really destroyed too many brain cells and America simply can’t think.

It was the banks that brought the mortgage value to its current low level, not the homeowners. You cannot continue to foreclose at the level the banks were without dropping the entire market. In Las Vegas alone, there were, at one point, 80,000 foreclosures pending and more than 1,000 occurring daily.

To add to the picture, the subprime loans made to prime borrowers had payments that reset higher -- in some cases, the mortgage payment actually doubled. Is this the borrowers fault? I think not, as evidenced by recent litigation proving that bank fraud was overwhelmingly evident with ALL banks. Yet, the government bailed out the financial institutions and consumers applauded. But now that Obama finally appears to have taken an interest in saving borrowers along with the economy, America can’t see the forest for the trees.

Please explain to me why the majority of Americans simply don’t understand that the massively high foreclosure rate has destroyed not only the mortgage values in the surrounding areas of these homes but the economy itself. How does it benefit society to have more than 4% of U.S. homes sitting vacant while families are forced to live in tent cities?

One of the major obstacles to sustained job growth is the lack of a semblance of stability in the economy. Keeping people in their homes would be a good beginning.

Foreclosures have dragged the economy to its current low. The subprime interest rate, with its variable teaser – which, by the way, was given to prime borrowers -- has drained society of money that could have sustained the economy without us ever having had to get into this crisis. This financial crisis has been based on greed, and we, the unassuming public, have been the pawns of an elite financial society that feeds on us.

Come on America. Wake up, the roses are dying!

As an interesting side note, I took a poll in an office with 32 employees and all were in favor of the President’s plan!

Obama takes cronyism to a new level surpassing George W. Bush

2010-08-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

In the midst of the worst “depression” since the 1930’s, President Obama, already considered a puppet of big business and discredited as a real president, has used $17,000,000 in stimulus money to create jobs. But not as you would expect!

It appears that the president’s wife has a brother.

The First Lady’s brother just happens to be Craig Robinson, basketball coach at Oregon State University. He is, of course, related to the President by marriage.

Obama’s Undersecretary of Education, Martha Kanter, upon learning of the termination of the President’s brother-in- law, was immediately dispatched by Obama to the University with a check in hand for $17,000,000 to give to the University’s Athletic Director, Bob DeCarolis, so that Robinson could retain his job!.

And, yes, the president’s brother-in -law is still employed.

It all goes to show that stimulus money can save jobs -- but only if you are related to the president!

NATO Alliance appears to be falling apart

2010-08-02T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Netherlands has become the first country to actually end hostilities in Afghanistan , but they are not alone.

Canada is withdrawing troops next year, the UK has downsized its forces but is considering downsizing additional involvement, and Poland is pulling out by 2012. Germany is also considering scaling back their forces.

The NATO countries with the exception of the US no longer see the wisdom of a struggle that appears to be unwinnable. We are not winning the hearts and minds of the people, by killing them!

Civilian causalities in July alone number 270 and more than 600 wounded. And we are loosing the prime of America , our service men and women who are struggling to understand why they are there. Those that survive will carry the scars of war.

Afghanistan is no stranger to war, having achieved independence in 1919, yet while so many countries having invaded it; no country has been able to defeat it. With over two decades of wars, Afghanistan is left with a legacy of landmines that kill and maim Afghanistan civilians every month.

Countries that have tried and failed; The Persians, Greeks, Arabs, British, Mongols, Russians and now Americans have all in their turn tried to defeat these people, each has failed. But America has made the greatest mistake in failing to understand the resolve of these people. America was an invader, but more than that America has killed more than 20,000 civilians which are considered “collateral damage” a house could be considered collateral damage, but certainly we care more about humans, or at least we should. America has made the grandest of mistakes, forging a war based on a lie, the so called War on Terror was not about 9-11 so much as the oil pipeline across the country. Now after civilian deaths are mounting and resentment is building among the people, other countries want out, but America has invested billions of dollars in Afghanistan infrastructure, with the view to remaining in the country indefinitely.

As Davis Petraeus, recently said of the Afghanistan struggle, "If we kill civilians or damage their property in the course of our operations, we will create more enemies than our operations eliminate,"

This we have done, we have created more terrorists than we have eliminated, and have been the best recruitment vehicle for the Taliban. Families are carrying photos of children maimed by US led NATO forces, chanting “Death to America ! Death to NATO” Yes General Petraeus you are so right!

What we have accomplished in the Mideast . We have made enemies that will last for two or more generations, and we have made the world less safe for Americans. What’s left to accomplish? It’s now time to bring our troops home!

Every Five Minutes an American wild horse is slaughtered for Human consumption

2010-07-13T17:40:00.000-07:00

" America 's horses are being beaten and dragged across the border into Mexico and Canada so that they can be inhumanely slaughtered for food.” Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., January 2010

“We need the tonic of wildness." Henry David Thoreau

In 2009 alone some 31,584 wild horses were sent to Mexico for slaughter and an additional 31,140 were transported to Canada to slaughter houses there.

In 2007 the last year the US allowed horses to be slaughtered domestically 29,761 wild horses were slaughtered for food, but an additional 45,609, were shipped to Mexico and slaughtered there, and to Canada for slaughter another 45,828

In 1989 slaughter houses in the US inhumanely slaughtered more than 348,000 wild horses and close to the same number in 1990.

During the period beginning in 1989 through 2007 the last year horses were slaughtered legally in the US we killed more than 2,434,373 horses, during 2006 and through this date in 2010 the slaughter houses of Mexico and Canada have taken over this cruel and inhumane destruction of America’s beautiful creatures, which they purchase from the BLM or state auctions, transport to their home country and slaughter these animals for food.

Congress and the Horse disgrace

On March 26, 2009 the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act was introduced in congress, it still has not passed Why?

On January 26 2010 At a press conference, representatives from The Humane Society of the United States, members of Congress, celebrities, and representatives from agriculture and the horse industry showed their support of the Prevention of Equine Cruelty Act (H.R. 503/S. 727), the federal bill stalled in congress which would prohibit the trafficking in horses for slaughter for human consumption in the United States and the export of horses for this purpose.

The group also called attention to the Bureau of Land Management's cruel and unnecessary wild horse roundups, calling on BLM to place a moratorium on these roundups until it has a plan in place for contraception and release or adoption of these horses.

While there are currently no operational horse slaughter plants in the United States , tens of thousands of healthy, young American horses are still being trucked thousands of miles without food, water or rest to plants across the border into Mexico and Canada . Former show horses, race horses, lesson ponies, even wild horses and heavily pregnant mares—meet this fate!

There is no humane way to slaughter horses for human consumption!

Horse slaughter is cruel, and is by no means humane: Horses suffer immensely while being transported in cramped carriers to foreign slaughterhouses, and, when they arrive, meet a grisly death unfit for these loyal and noble creatures.

Animals are the most defenseless creatures of out time, all need our support.

And they say there is no Horse Saint!

2010-07-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

California winery owners and Madeleine Pickens came through in time to save 174 wild mustangs headed for the slaughter house.

Wild Mustangs are a mixed lot of wild horses that have no ownership!

These horses were subject to being acquired by slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada . Before being put up for auction they were roaming free on the open range where they and their ancestors had survived for perhaps a century, yet the BLM did not consider them a protected species and were allowing slaughter houses to acquire them for meat. Today with the various breeds and mixes of wild horses the BLM does not consider any horse to be protected, but all are considered fair game for slaughter.

Stephanie Hoefener of the Lancaster, Calif.-based Livesavers Wild Horse Rescue group said activists purchased 172 horses for $31,415. The other two horses were acquired by private individuals for their personal use, she said

Excited that so many people came together to save the horses Hoefener said. "This is amazing, and we all feel joyful."

The horses were rounded up by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management last month with helicopters that scared many to death; this was near the Nevada-Utah line. The horses in the roundup were then turned over to the Nevada Department of Agriculture for disposal, with the operative word being disposal. Slaughter houses were provided a list of the horses and were welcomed to present their bids.

Agriculture department officials acknowledge the stray horses could have wound up at slaughterhouses because they did not have the federal protections afforded to wild-roaming horses, (even though they were ‘wild roaming horses’). In analyzing their statement, I feel like my head just did a 180 degree turn. It makes about as much sense as Snow White marrying Dopey.

The horses are believed to be strays or descendants of horses abandoned by private owners over the years in Pilot Valley north of West Wendover , which is how most horses became wild!

Many were set free by the Union army after the Civil War and another grouping were set free after WW1, now the mix is known as Wild Mustangs!

With the no child left behind act, a failure, we can fully understand the new government hiring practice!

Jill Starr, president of Lifesavers, said the purchase of the horses at the Fallon auction was made possible by the financial backing of Ellie Phipps Price, owner of Sand Hill Durell Vineyards in Sonoma , Calif. Madeleine Pickens, wife of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, also contributed financially to the rescue.

Starr said high bidders of such horses usually are representatives of slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada . The meat of the horses is processed for sale in Europe and Asia , where it fetches as much as $25 a pound, she added.

"We showed the BLM and the Nevada Department of Agriculture that we will not let them throw our wild horses away like yesterday's news," Starr said. "They are important to every American and hold high value as part of our country's history." This author adds their heritage beauty, grace and intelligence must be preserved and many are more intelligent that government workers.

BLM spokeswoman JoLynn Worley said her agency didn't consider the 174 horses as federally protected mustangs because they came from a valley with more than 200 landowners. But her argument lacked intellectual balance where the heritage of these animals is considered.

The truth; The BLM has launched an effort to remove thousands of wild horses from the range across the West, saying the roundups are necessary because the mustang population is growing so rapidly that the animals are running out of food and damaging the range. How do you damage a range?

NOTE: BLM open ranges are used for cattle grazing, and there are currently more than 2,000,000 cattle grazing on BLM land in the Nevada Utah area, this is shared with some 30,000 wild horses!

The real truth is; Activists have sued over the roundups, contending the agency is removing the mustangs to make room for more than 2,000,000 head of cattle currently grazing on BLM land, and other interests such as the BP’s gas pipeline under construction.

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."; - Mahatma Gandhi; Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi [October 2, 1869 – January 30, 1948] What more needs to be said?

The US government is determined to exterminate the mustang simply because they are in the way of the cattle barons, just as the sheep herders of a century ago.

We as a nation must take a stand to save our own heritage; the wild horse is a beautiful and graceful animal that must be preserved not exterminated!

Where is the Humane Society when animals need protecting?

2010-07-10T19:56:00.000-07:00

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” Mahatma Gandhi

If this saying is true, we are a nation lacking in moral progress, we lack care about ourselves, let alone our animals. Our food chain, cattle pigs and sheep are tortured as they are slaughtered in order that we can feed on their remains; ghoulish as this may sound it is appropriate. We have no compassion or conscience for ourselves let alone our chain of food, and the animals that we kill that we can be nourished.

Even as the Humane Society has gone international, it still lacks clout to make a difference, and animal abuse and suffering is on the rise world wide.

Whether it’s deer in Utah , wolves in Alaska or dogs in Iraq , or China a country that peddles cat and dog fur, or slaughters these animals for meat. Or Koreans who claim that eating dogs and cats is a cultural right or the several locations in Africa and Latin America who also report eating cats and dogs. We as a people interfere with the natural cycle of life and endanger our own environment. We allow species in some cases to overpopulate by removing the balance nature put in place. Then we answer the dilemma we ourselves created with violence.

In Alaska it was hunting wolves from helicopters, in Utah it’s an open season on deer hunting, and in Iraq is killing dogs with poisoned meat and shooting them almost like a sport. 58,000 stray dogs have been hunted down and killed in Iraq over the past three months with the approval of the US government.

But there is so much more to tell about a civilization that has become so out of touch with nature, in Northern Nevada right now Wild Mustangs are being rounded up and slaughtered with the aid of the BLM( Bureau of Land Management) and BP. They are being shipped off as horse meat, their numbers diminishing to less than 30,000 roaming free on the open range. Why is this happening? Because there is a cattle range war going on that we aren’t even aware of, it’s a remake of the 1880’s cattle sheep herder’s wars, being played out with more than 2,000,000 head of cattle roaming BLM land and there isn’t room for a mere 30,000 wild mustangs! So the mustangs must become extinct.

But add to this insult on reality that BP, remember them, that oil company that single handedly destroyed an entire ocean, BP is developing a pipeline for natural gas across 4 western states, over BLM controlled land including Nevada and Utah, so these majestic animals must go, and no one really cares where, apparently though BLM and BP believe the safest place for these beautiful intelligent animals is a slaughter house. The horses are rounded up and scared to death by helicopters. Many die as they are run for miles to a fenced off area where they are penned in, some are auctioned off; some are heading to a slaughter house.

And not the least important chickens.... they are killed in an inhumane manner .... and in Japan they slaughter dolphins and whales....In the quiet harbor town of Taiji, Japan , between early September and March each year, the fishermen and local community engage in a tradition that goes back centuries, the mass slaughter of up to twenty thousand small whales and dolphins ~intelligent creatures. The majority of the world is unaware this is happening. The cove is blocked off from public access. Press and cameras are not allowed inside and the local media does not cover the event.

The human race has been lost; we aren’t even in a second place. We have become the race of bullies where animals stand, while they are in tune with nature, we are not!

Where is the humane society when animals need protecting?

Going by the numbers it’s apparent; somebody is fibbing

2010-07-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

If we accept the results of the labor department as true, their own numbers show that someone is fibbing. According to their figures: Employers cut 125,000 jobs last month; and businesses added a net total of 83,000 workers, but the unemployment rate dropped to 9.5%-- from 9.7% that’s an old Barnum and bailey trick!

And this was what President Obama also reported, perhaps that’s the problem with this administration, they don’t think for themselves, they leave the thinking to the banks, the insurance companies and to the military industrial complex, and guess who is expected to pay for their folly and blunders, us!

I’m sorry but if more people lost a job than were hired the unemployment rate would go up not down. What this says is we are being fed false numbers by the government, believing we don’t have the intelligence to catch their fibs. They skew the numbers by removing from the unemployment rolls anyone who is no longer collecting benefits, so we may really never know how badly our economy has been decimated by both Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue .

The drop in the unemployment rate was because more than 650,000 people last month gave up looking for jobs and according to the Labor Department they left the labor force. People who are no longer looking for work aren't counted as unemployed!!!!!!!

Even though they are unemployed, so what are the real numbers Mr. Obama! Have we reached 40% unemployed, looking around America , it sure feels as if we have!!!!!

Perhaps in the next 12 months as the 17 million the government acknowledges are unemployed give up looking for a job that doesn’t exist, we will be told we are at full employment of down to only 1% unemployment, its time we demanded to know the true numbers and some accountability

The Second Amendment will it fall in face of the UN Small arms treaty?

2010-06-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton signed the UN Small Arms Treaty on behalf of President Obama, but what does it really mean. The U.N. claims that guns used in armed conflicts cause 300,000 deaths worldwide every year, an inordinate number of which are the result of internal civil strife within individual nations. The solution proposed by transnationalists to keep rebels from getting guns is to make the global pool of weapons smaller through government action.

But there is an ever more stunning element to consider, the US government for example has caused more deaths than rebels. In Iraq alone the American Military has caused the death of at least 655,000 civilians; In Afghanistan in excess of 5,000; In Vietnam 316,000; and the Second World War, 45,000,000;

A vowed purpose of the UN Treaty; According to recent deliberations regarding the treaty, signatory countries would be required to "prevent, combat and eradicate" various classes of guns to undermine the alleged” illicit trade in small arms." Such a plan whether or not based on a valid concept would of necessity lead to confiscation of personal firearms.

But what about the safeguards against confiscation embedded in the US Constitution?

The Second Amendment to the US Constitution had a devout purpose; it was passed at a time when the new nation had an inherent distrust of government. This single Amendment was added to insure that the Federal Government, instituted for the colonies, would remain limited and as an assurance for the people that they would remain free. Weapons in the form of arms were the means allocated for that purpose.

Since the adoption of the Constitution there have been forces at work behind the scenes, intent to take control of America, however before they can achieve this monumental goal they had to eliminate what has been described as the most important safeguard for America, the right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. This right has been under attack for scores of generations.

This UN Treaty signed now by the US represents a dangerous disregard for the safety and freedom of everybody. First of all, it mischaracterizes all insurgencies as bad. As U.S. history shows, one way to get rid of a despotic regime is to rise up against it. Our founding fathers were insurgents, and they laid the foundation and framework for what remains of our democracy.

That threat, the ability to over throw despotic governments, is why authoritarian regimes such as Syria, Cuba, Rwanda, Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone endorsed gun control. Without weapons, the citizens become slaves to a government master, this is not what America stands for, but it is a road we transverse today.

Political scientist Rudy Rummel estimates that the 15 worst regimes during the 20th century killed 151 million of their own citizens, this amounts to 1.5 million victims per year. Even if all 300,000 annual deaths from armed conflicts can be blamed on the small-arms trade (which they cannot), governments are a bigger threat to their citizens than their neighbors.

The problem and real concern: American gun owners today are besieged by a government that fears for its own existence. Hillary Clinton on Behalf of President Obama signed the UN Small arms treaty, believing that the treaty effectively placed the right to keep and bear arms outside of the protective gambit of the second Amendments sweeping protection. Their view is historically invalid. Treaties do not supersede the Constitution.

The Constitution provides that they are "the supreme law of the land." That has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to give treaties the same status as federal law, not as the constitution.

Treaties are made under powers delegated to the President and Congress by the Constitution, such powers cannot overrule the Constitution from where that power emanates.

That is as long as we have a valid court system, which unfortunately has been placed in question by the Bush appointees.

See: Foster & Elam v. Neilson, 27 U.S. 2 Pet. 253 (1829), a treaty must "be regarded in courts...as equivalent to an act of the legislature" page 254

Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957) No treaty "can confer power on the Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution." page 16

Congress gives themselves a raise while denying one for SS recipients.

2010-06-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

Congress and a double Standard:

It appears that congress is still stuck in that childhood ego, the ME syndrome. They make sure to take care of themselves in more ways than one, but as for the rest of us, it appears we are mere peasants, or as the attitude permeates around Washington, “let them eat cake” So it’s little wonder congress has an overall rating of only 22%, and the majority of Americans want to remove the existing congress of and start anew next term. Both the republicans and democrats have one agenda, it’s called the ME agenda, ME first, and it’s all about ME, a syndrome that most of us outgrow with age, but unfortunately politicians never seem to grow up.

The base salary for US Congressmen is $174,000 plus benefits, plus official expenses (such as for staff, travel, office equipment supplies, totaling around $1.5 million per year

The current salary (2010) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year.

Members are free to turn down pay increase and some choose to do so.
In a complex system of calculations, administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, congressional pay rates also affect the salaries for federal judges and other senior government executives.
During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin considered proposing that elected government officials not be paid for their service. Other Founding Fathers, however, decided otherwise.
From 1789 to 1855, members of Congress received only a per diem (daily payment) of $6.00 while in session, except for a period from December 1815 to March 1817, when they received $1,500 a year. Members began receiving an annual salary in 1855, when they were paid $3,000 per year.

Congress: Leadership Members' Salary (2010)
Leaders of the House and Senate are paid a higher salary than rank-and-file members.

Senate Leadership
Majority Party Leader - $193,400
Minority Party Leader - $193,400
House Leadership
Speaker of the House - $223,500 (Nancy Pelosi)

A cost-of-living-adjustment (COLA) increase takes effect annually unless Congress votes to not accept it. They accepted it!

There is no reason they are paid any sum in excess of the $3,000 they were paid in 1855, they receive much more from speaking engagements, and outright graft.

It seems the more they are paid the worst they become as legislatures.

A backlash appears to be growing all across the country. But it is not based on their attitude about us their constituents. Instead it is a broad based dissent about the Democratic Party, which has given the impression of a wishy washy party, that even though they held control over both houses they were still unable to get their act together, that is except to give themselves more money.

Republican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, June 13. That ties the GOP's largest ever lead, first reached in April, since it first edged ahead of the Democrats a year ago.

While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support the candidates of their own party, the plurality (47%) of voters not affiliated with either major party prefer the Republican candidate, while 19% like the Democrat. These findings have remained fairly consistent for months now.

However what would be best for the country; remove them all and start over.

“The New Trend: Default On Your Mortgage And Stay In Your House”

2010-06-14T14:49:00.000-07:00

I read Reuters Blogger Felix Salmon’s article entitled “The New Trend: Default On Your Mortgage And Stay In Your House” my comments follow!

I was truly amazed at the comments from his readers who simply don’t get it, and it is frightening to say the least about the level of unawareness that prevails among our culture.

As I stated in a similar article: “Living rent free and loving it”

“The Obama administration was more intent to save the banks, and did so against the very interest of the American family. Why do I say this, the government came to the rescue of the very culprit that caused the problem, (the Banks) with an astonishing $787 bn., and the insurance carrier that was allowing the foreclosures to continue, AIG with an additional $180bn.

“AIG was the guarantor of the Derivatives that paid the banks when a borrower defaulted. By providing AIG some 180 Billion dollars, the government not only allowed the banks to continue foreclosing on American borrowers, but promoted it, because when a default was reported to AIG, they paid the full amount of the loss, thanks to Timothy Geithner. If AIG would have been allowed to collapse, or paid to Wall Street insiders 25 cents on the dollar there would have been NO incentive to foreclose in the volume the banks pursued.

“Now another scenario presents itself in retrospect, the main problem facing borrowers today is the high interest rates, and over valuations of their property. In short most borrowers are under water, in some areas, like Nevada, this state of mortgage reality is as much as 80%. If the administration and indeed congress gave a rats hair about America rather that their beneficiaries, they would have made the money available to borrowers to pay to the banks for a loan modification and principal reduction. If they had Washington Mutual would still be around, as would Indymac. What congress in their ignorance have done, is to guarantee that the too big to fail got even larger.

“But they didn’t have the American public’s interest on their mind did they? And bank failures and consolidation is ongoing. If they had both the Banks and the public interest on their compass they would have been bailed out simultaneously, and then there would have been no depression. A much lower level of foreclosures, and sanity would have prevailed.

“As it now stands, millions of homes have already been foreclosed and millions more are waiting in the wings, the unemployment level is a real 63million representing 40% of the workforce. The economy is trudging along on one foot as those who have stopped making mortgage payments are actually, bless them, spending their money buying things they had put off to make instead their overpriced mortgage, and 30,000 good people are filing bankruptcy each and every week.

Now something to think about: what value did America have invested in Wall Street? And what advantage did America receive from Wall Street being bailed out for a second time?

And everyone knows it will happen again!”

Anyone who really believes that the public was wrong and the banks were the good guys, should read all the information that has been developed about the Banks and the FRAUD they perpetuated on an “unsuspecting” Public, the banks knew these loans would never be repaid, and they didn’t care as they sold these loans as securities and took out default insurance, think “CDS” consumers basically uneducated to the intricate mortgage loan documents relied on their bank or mortgage company, and a lot of seniors also did. And they were conned!

Countrywide and several other banks have already been sued by the Attorneys General of several states over “Fraudulent intent” and they are making modifications with principal reductions under court orders.

The Banks failed to explain the ramifications on such loans as option arms where the borrower only qualified for a payment less than his interest and the difference was added back increasing the principal of the loan. The Banks didn’t care as they planned this bubble to continue indefinitely and were looking already to a refinance where they made additional points.

For those who still side with the banks, try studying the history of banking, it has always been laden with unscrupulous individuals; perhaps it will enlighten you, or perhaps not!

Phil Angelides

2010-06-14T14:44:00.000-07:00

Phil Angelides, crisis commission investigation, is centered on the cause of the financial crisis but in simple terms it boils down to one word “GREED”

Phil Angelides, chairs the panel, that opened the hearing into the credit rating agencies shortcomings, his first comments were critical of Moody's for bestowing thousands of high ratings on risky debt that later became unhinged.

The shortcomings of the Wall Street insiders and the rating agencies come down to this simply but understated term, Profits. Ratings were hyped in order to meet Wall Street’s primary motivation and objective, profits and more profits. Investors were the catalyst by which those profits were obtained and as such ratings had to be exploited to draw them in.

But unfortunately Greed is not legislate-able, nor is it a crime unless it involves fraud, and in the case of the financial crisis fraud may have been a big participant.

Eric Kolchinsky one time manager of Moody's Investors Service unit, the division that rated subprime collateralized debt obligations (CDO) is now a "whistleblower" he has testified about being intimidated by management to provide high ratings for these inferior debt obligations. In a prepared comment, former Moody's derivatives vice president Mark Froeba supporting Kolchinsky, said “management used intimidation to create a docile population of analysts afraid to upset investment bankers and ready to cooperate to the maximum extent possible."

Moody's Corp, McGraw-Hill Cos' Standard & Poor's and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings have been widely faulted for fueling the crisis by assigning unreasonably high ratings for too long, and then downgrading them too fast. The commission is looking into just how close to the Investment banks these ratings agencies really were.

There have been several class action lawsuits filed against the rating agencies over the financial collapse and their roll in investor related losses. Credit raters are now trying to fend off lawsuits including fraud claims brought by their own shareholders.

Many financial companies, including banks and lenders, have been sued following the housing market bust; but the cases against ratings agencies may be among the most closely watched.

That's because the three biggest agencies Moody's Corp , McGraw-Hill Cos Inc's Standard & Poor's division and Fitch Ratings, part of Fimalac SA, have drawn fire from politicians and investors for awarding top marks to subprime-linked securities that later disintegrated. They've also been criticized as being too close to issuers who foot the bill for their ratings.

Politicians and Bribery, go hand in hand

2010-06-14T14:40:00.000-07:00

Arizona : In 1991 a scandal resulting from the government sting known as AzScam exposed the sewer of corruption and blind ambition that remains Arizona politics even today, but its not just Arizona , this sewer of corruption and blind ambition is part and parcel of the American political system; it’s really how Washington works at its best.

Joseph Stedino working with the Phoenix District Attorney's office set up Operation "Desert Sting." Stedino, an ex-Mafia crony and Las Vegas talk show host, became Tony Vincent, a flashy, free spending Mafia capo looking to ensure the passage of a bill to legalize gambling in Arizona . As word of Vincent's willingness to buy votes spread among Arizona politicians, they eagerly lined up to have him grease their palms. Some he bought for as little as $600. Others, like Representative Don Kenney, the conservative Mormon chairman of the Arizona House Judiciary Committee, exacted over $50,000 in bribes. Over seventeen months, Vincent doled out a total of more than $300,000 in bribes, while police and prosecutors recorded it all on tape, ensuring that this sting would be one of the most successful ever.

Ultimately, twenty legislators, lobbyists, and political insiders would be indicted as a result of Desert Sting.

But what did they do that was so different than what goes on every day in Washington ?

Capital Hill: In 2007 and 2008, charges were filed against several well-connected Washington D.C. lobbyists, including counts of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion, most of them related to work performed for Native American-owned casinos.

In the center of the scandal were former lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his colleagues. Former Ohio Republican congressman Robert W. Ney was sentenced to 30 months in prison for receiving gifts in exchange for deals with Abramoff.

Lobbying is a form of bribery that is promoted by the US Congress, this form of selling their votes is to obtain financial support, it goes on every day yet we don’t complain or insist it stop.

It’s called K Street : a line of sparkling office blocks and fancy restaurants north of the White House. It is the heart of the lobbying industry in Washington DC , servicing clients and politicians from all over America and one of the most powerful stretches of tarmac in the world.

It also might be said to be one of the most corrupt: how corrupt was revealed when the Abramoff scandal exploded through the halls of power exposing the ugly role of lobbying in US politics and threatened to bring down some of the biggest names in public life.

The Abramoff scandal had put a rare spotlight on the entire lobbying system and some of the most powerful men in Washington began running for cover. They stretched from President George Bush himself, to top Republican officials, to the heads of think tanks, to senior congressmen from both parties.

Some, including Bush, began giving back money they got from him or donating it to charity. It was a far cry from when Abramoff would wine and dine clients at top restaurants, take them on golfing trips to Scotland or give them tickets to sporting events.

But the fact remains that Abramoff was one man. The real story is that he represents how much of Washington works. That system is fuelled by two things: money and lobbyists, and they are both related. 'Make no mistake: Abramoff was a crook. But crooks like Abramoff can only flourish in an environment where lobbyists and their clients offer lawmakers campaign contributions and gifts,' There are over 30,000 Lobbyists in Washington they outnumber federal elected officials 60 to one. And their money is still sough after daily.

Selling votes is how Washington works, it’s always that back room deal, a hand shake and a roll of bills wrapped with a rubber band. This is the reason America has been for sale, and is often sold cheaper that we would believe, sometime its just an apartment with free rent, or tickets to a ball game, or financial support for an office, but there is always that expectation that the money or trip or tickets just bought that individual. And that expectation has always been warranted.

Economics 101 why America can’t get out of this depression

2010-06-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

Economists are touting the great strides consumers are making in paying down their debt, but in prompting this illusion they have tuned to the wrong channel.

The real reason many Americans’ went into debt was because their wages didn't keep up with the costs of goods and services. The median wage (adjusted for inflation) dropped between 2001 and 2007, the last purported economic expansion. And that was one of the primary reasons America began borrowing the equity out of their homes, in many cases it was to be able to make the payments and retain some semblance of a purchasing power.

A recession had already begun in 2000, and by September 11, the economy came to an abrupt stand still. What brought us out of that bog was the ability to draw on our own assets. That is what actually maintained the appearance of a robust economy, but that was an appearance only!

As the bubble began to burst, most of the borrowers; that class between poverty and abundance all but threw in the towel

The common wisdom today among Wall Street’s elite is that excessive debt-financed spending was one of the causes of the recent recession; to the contrary, that was what brought America out of the last recession. It was when the ability of borrowers to refinance their assets in order to maintain the economy fell apart that we dropped right back into the fan.

So now Americans out of work and living with much less income from working fewer hours have no choice but to cut back their debt load and perhaps this is why millions have either stopping making their mortgage payments, and in some cases actually filed for bankruptcy.

Consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. Since consumers had until the financial collapse traditionally lived with their credit cards outstretched, it helps explain why so few jobs are being created, aside from the fact that everything has been outsourced; and it explains why we can't escape the gravitational pull of this Depression without far more government spending. However should government continue to spend like a drunken sailor it will inevitable crush the US economy even further, it seems to be an impasse we are disaster-prone either way we go.

It's also a bad prophecy for the future.

BP, the CIA, Whistle Blowers, the Alaska Pipeline, and political payoffs, make for a toxic mix.

2010-06-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

BP who was involved in the free rent for political elitist Rahm Emanuel, has a history of “negligence” which is now primed to cause more than the deepwater horizon catastrophe, it has expanded to the Alaska pipeline, again!

BP owns the controlling interest in the trans-Alaska pipeline, and Tuesday it ruptured spilling over 100,000 gallons of crude. Now this is leaving us to wonder which one of BP’s projects will be next. The pipe was not properly maintained by BP, and there could be other fractured areas from the over 1000 miles the pipe line stretches also stressed and primed to burst.

As it now turns out, BP’s management of the trans-Alaska pipeline is more illusionary than real. It's corroded, it's undermanned and "basic maintenance" is completely lacking.

BP’s claim to fame has been to through money at politicians, and to use coercive tactics to intimidate anyone who would blow the whistle on what can only be characterized as the intentional mismanagement of their sites. Rather than actually maintain the sites, they have apparently skimped on expensive hardware, and failed to hire or pay for adequate supervision, all part of a company bottom line at the expense of us.

Most are afraid to cross swords with BP, who has a habit of hunting down and destroying the careers of those who attempt to warn of pipeline problems.

In one case, BP's CEO of Alaskan operations hired a former CIA expert to break into the home of a whistleblower, Chuck Hamel, who had complained of conditions at the pipe's tanker facility. BP tapped his phone calls with a US congressman and ran a surveillance and smear campaign against him. When caught, a US federal judge said BP's acts were "reminiscent of Nazi Germany."

On August 6 2006 questions were then raised about BP and the Alaska pipeline, and their skimping on the necessary additives.

“Did BP Purposefully Allow its Alaska Pipeline to Corrode in Order to Shut it Down and Boost Oil Prices?” until the shutdown, the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in northern Alaska produced 400,000 barrels of oil a day. Once it was shut the price of oil surged three percent. However the real issue may be are they merely skimping to save money for their bottom line or is there something more sinister going on?

Once shut down, North America’s largest oilfield remained shut for several months. BP closed the oilfield “allegedly” after discovering what it described as "unexpectedly severe corrosion" of the oil pipeline. Questions were then raised about whether BP purposely allowed the pipeline to become corroded as longtime oil industry watchdog, Chuck Hamel stated that BP had been warned and ignored those warnings.

It began even prior to 2004 but in 2004 Chuck Hamel warned BP about corrosion problems.

In 2004 he wrote a letter to the BP Board of Directors that said workers at Prudhoe Bay were concerned about safety, health and threats to the environment at the oilfield. Hamel wrote that the workers "seek to see the corrosion problem addressed and corrective action undertaken without further delay and before any of their colleagues at Prudhoe are harmed."

Since 1999 Hamel had been tracking the corrosion control program by BP for the thousands of miles of flow line that BP had. He found that they have been cutting corners, budget problems. And the first document that came to his hands from the workers was in 1999, that they were not injecting the sufficient amount of chemical inhibitors to prevent the rusting.

The pipeline is like a radiator in your car. You have to add antifreeze which has chemical components that prevent rusting. Just picture part of the months of the year you switch over to plain water. Your radiator’s going to rust. It’s not very complicated. There’s so much water in the system in the Alaska field that comes out of the ground formation with the oil and along the way it rusts the pipes unless anti corrosives are added.

BP has had a long-running series of problems, had been fined on several occasions, some very large fines for failing to properly keep up its lines, so why have we allowed them to continue in control? Who has been paid what? These are fundamental questions that lay at the doorstep of congress.

BP engineers, and BP corrosion experts, have left the company because they wouldn’t participate in BP’s look the other way corrosion program, and now we have to deal with the mess they have created.

Everyone who didn’t want to be part of it, those that didn’t, were independently coming to Hamel—he was their outlet—anonymous complaints were made through him, back to the company, and when BP didn’t do the right thing, he went public.

Chuck Hamel has had a long history watching BP, over, more than 15 years. In fact, he settled a case with BP, when they hired Wackenhut to investigate and discredit him

BP, engaged the Wackenhut Security Company, and five undercover women, and men, for surveillance of Hamel and his wife, they tried to discredit him, hidden cameras were placed in hotel rooms. Eventually all five of the ladies realized that he wasn’t the bad person BP tried to make him out to be, and they all came over to his side. 60 Minutes in a segment called them "Chucky’s Angels." When BP was discovered, they attacked him. $18 million invested by BP to destroy his credibility, including a van parked in front of his home, picking up phones conversations, and they even picked up his trash.

This was not an isolated case. Captain James Woodle, once in charge of the pipe's Valdez terminus, was blackmailed into resigning the post when he complained of disastrous conditions there. The weapon on Woodle was a file of faked evidence of marital infidelity.

And this is a company that is close to the Obama Administration and gave Obama some $77,000 for his presidential bid, and provided a rent free apartment for Rohm Emmanuel for 5 years. Who else in Washington do they control?

The US Economy is on life support

2010-06-11T17:37:00.000-07:00

The Commerce Department said today that retail sales fell by 1.2 percent in May. Although this was a surprise to many economists it has been no surprise to the millions of Americans who are looking for a job, or those that have already thrown in the towel and given up, or for the millions still facing foreclosure.

The US economy has been brought to its knees by the inevitable failure of any meaningful and insightful judgment coming from the Obama administration. Both the president and congress have thrown money in the wrong direction, wasting resources that may cause the US government to find itself in the same place as Greece within the next few years. Yes the banks were saved but at the expense of the US population.

Now after throwing trillions at the banks and a small token at the people, the Federal Reserve under Bernanke is completely lost in its own quagmire of confusion; the system is so completely over run by the bank elite that there is no place in this administration for common sense.

Five banks that set this collapse in motion each KNEW Obama would bring taxpayer aid to their survival. Those banks were Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Deutsche Bank AG, Bear Stearns Cos, Citigroup Inc., and JP Morgan Chase & Co., traders from these banks actually met and devised the instruments to bet against the subprime securities they were themselves promoting, and by playing both sides of the table they couldn’t lose. It was a Las Vegas style Gamble and they took out insurance, literally, taking down AIG and a host of other smaller insurance companies.

Why then did they need a government bailout? Primarily because they actually bankrupted AIG which caused Timothy Geithner from the New York Fed to coerce AIG to pay the banks in full for their second party CDS’s, thus allowing these same banks to be made whole with the exception of Bear Stearns. Why was Bear allowed to fall when the others were not?

Former Bear Stearns chief executive James Cayne, the chairman and CEO said the firm became the first major victim of the financial crisis due to “unfounded rumors”, not because of risky exposures to mortgage-related products with free-falling values.

Bear Stearns in March 2008 experienced essentially a run on the bank as creditors and the markets lost confidence in the institution. Regulators scrambled to find a buyer for the collapsing firm, resulting in a sale to none other than JPMorgan Chase & Co for $10 a share.

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that Bear Stearns was brought to its knees by rumors and ended up in the hands of JP Morgan. In 1907 JP Morgan began a series of rumors that the New York Banks were insolvent causing a similar run which essentially gave Morgan control, and what was accomplished was that which Morgan sought the beginning of the Federal Reserve System where Wall Street actually took control of the US Government.

The belief is that J.P. Morgan actually wanted Bear Stearns. So they arranged it by rumors and a sale, just as they did with Washington Mutual.

On April 17, 2010 the former head of the chief banking regulatory agency that oversaw failed Washington Mutual told lawmakers that the giant savings and loan collapsed because of a run on the bank, not failures by him or other regulators.

Who started the rumors that cause a run on Washington Mutual? Another coincidence Washington Mutual was taken over by non other that JP Morgan Chase who bought it for $2 billion.

Phil Angelides (Crisis Commission) in January accused Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein of treating clients unfairly for creating -- and then betting against -- subprime mortgage-backed securities. And this is essentially what each of these banks did.

Could the US economy have been saved?

Absolutely if that were the real intent of the Obama Administration! But Obama and Congress were to focused on their financial backers to see the forest for the trees, they threw money at the banks, and AIG with the latter allowing the foreclosures to continue, thus giving the banks a twofold profit, the bail out money allowing them to loan it back to the government and the foreclosure where they were paid by AIG and the other institutions that were foolish enough to guarantee these insane investments.

Obama and Congress could have used the same money to bailout both the Banks and the Borrowers, they could have provided the money to the banks per each loan that was modified to reduce the principal and interest. Thereby stopping the onslaught of foreclosures and maintaining a jobs market because there would not have been the financial impact on the economy.

The US Government because they have been substantially absorbed by Wall Street, is now tinkering on the brink of financial collapse. And this collapse is what should have allowed of Wall Street.

Living rent free and loving it, a tale of a Washington Insider

2010-06-09T16:59:00.000-07:00

Never has an administration been so callous in hiding corruption as this one.

This is the first administration I have observed that Flaunts corruption in our face and has no concern for being outed. At least Bush tried to hide it!

Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama has a few skeletons in his closet. But then who in Washington doesn’t. For example he received free rent for his D.C. apartment from a BP advisor.

This little-known corporate political connection is the quiet way the inner political circles intersect, and protect one another, it’s not unusual, and it’s Washington at its finest.

BP and its executives were significant contributors to the record $750-million war chest of Barack Obama's 2007-08 campaign, and from previous experience we know Obama takes care of his financial supporters.

Now, we learn the inside details of a connection Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago mayoral wannabe, current Obama chief of staff, ex-representative, ex-Clinton money man and ex-Windy City political machine go-fer and BP.

Shortly after Obama's inauguration, eyebrows rose slightly upon word that, as a House member, Emanuel had lived the last five years rent-free in a D.C. apartment of Democratic colleague Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and her husband, Stanley Greenberg.

For an ordinary American, that would have raised some obvious questions and a potential tax liability, but not for Emanuel, the guy overseeing the Internal Revenue Service, and now an Obama insider.

Tim Geithner, who had his own outstanding tax problems skated through confirmation anyway by the Democratic-controlled Congress.

Greenberg's consulting firm was a prime architect of BP's recent rebranding drive as a green petroleum company, down to green signs and the slogan "Beyond Petroleum."

Greenberg's company is also closely tied to a sister Democratic outfit -- GCS, named for the last initials of Greenberg, James Carville, another Clinton advisor, and Bob Shrum, John Kerry's 2004 campaign manager.

According to published reports, GCS received hundreds of thousands of dollars in political polling contracts in recent years from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Probably just a crazy coincidence. But you'll never guess who was the chairman of that Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee dispensing those huge polling contracts to his kindly rent-free landlord.

Well consider this; BP's favorite politician, If you're just going by the numbers, it's none other than President Barack Obama, who leads BP's lifetime campaign donation list with $77,051. That puts him just ahead of reliable oilmen such as Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, his retired colleague Sen. Ted Stevens, and George W. Bush.

According to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, BP and its employees have given more than $3.4 million to federal candidates since 1990, with much of their largesse going to these 20:
President Barack Obama (D)$77,051;
Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) $73,300;
Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska, ret.) $53,200;
President George W Bush $47,388;
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) $44,899;
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) $41,400;
Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio, ret.) $37,550;
Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) $31,000;
Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) $28,200;
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) $27,350;
Sen. Daniel Coats (R-Ind., ret.) $25,000;
Rep. Lynn Martin (R-Ill., ret.) $24,450;
Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) $24,000;
Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) $23,800;
Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla., ret.) $23,750;
Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) $22,300;
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) $22,000;
Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) $21,100;
Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas) $20,950;
Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) $20,800

Moving out of a recession and into a recovery?

2010-06-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

If you love a good story you’ll love the latest novelette published by the FED. It’s full of hope and optimism, and dreams and imaginings and its heart wrenching. If only it were true!

According to the latest vision of the FED who now claims to have conducted a poll, the FED found that we are moving out of a recession and into a recovery. What a great story and I only wish it was true, but as I am not an ostrich I don’t buy it.

Just like GM paid off their obligation to the US government was supposed to make us believe that GM had turned around, those who read my articles know I called the shot on what really occurred. GM paid back the government with the money it borrowed from the government.

Now the real polls taken in the past couple of days show a much different story, and it’s one that is much more pessimistic. Only 29% of Adults now believe the economy is getting better. That’s down from 34% before the jobs report last week. But these are the 10% at the top; a remarkable 71% of the population isn’t buying into the propaganda.

And it’s the same among investors, 36% believe the economy is getting better while 42% say it’s getting worse. Before Friday’s report, investors were more evenly divided with 41% thinking that the economy is getting better and 39% offering the more realistic and sadly pessimistic view.

On the night that Lehman Brothers collapsed to begin the financial industry meltdown, 43% of Americans rated their own personal finances as good or excellent. Just 31% of Americans are now that upbeat about their own financial situation.

Today, only 24% believe their personal finances are getting better while 46% say they are getting worse with 30% remaining constant fairly equal to those who currently believe the economy is improving. And the FED acknowledged, economic growth won't be strong enough to bring speedy relief to millions of out-of-work Americans. Growth in the early stages of economic recoveries is usually much stronger. That's not happening this time because consumers and businesses haven't shown signs that they are inclined to go on spending sprees. There continues to be one important element that remains elusive, it’s called JOBS!

Without them there can’t be a real and meaningful recovery, what the FED fails to mention in its work of fiction is that what economy there is has been created by what his Wall Street friends have characterized as “Strategic Defaulters” home mortgage borrowers who have intentionally made a decision to stop making their mortgage payments and are instead spending the money.

The Difference between Bribery and Lobbying; a conundrum

2010-06-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

While shades of Jack Abramoff still cover the windows of congress what they fail to illustrate is just how far lobbyists can go. What remain still unaddressed are the ramifications of the money Wall Street pumps into the coffers of our legislators. A congressman or woman can enter Washington Politics with mediocre means and leave a multi millionaire.

But, Power, money, and politics always have the potential to mix into a toxic brew, and for those looking to gain the legislative edge; the rules leave enough loopholes to do so within the bounds of the law, a law designed specifically for that purpose.

Lobbying is a broad based concept, so broad, and ambiguous that lobbyists actually have the edge, including the ability to have their own attorneys draft legislation that becomes law.

And the rewards for our politically privileged are ominous, for example:

The American Bankers Association invested $1.8 million lobbying the federal government in the first quarter to prevent several key issues of sweeping legislation to overhaul financial institutions from being passed by the House and Senate.

The banking industry's biggest trade group lobbied Congress and federal agencies on the financial overhaul legislation as well as accounting rules, new requirements for credit card issuers, small business lending, bankruptcy legislation, insurance, retirement savings and taxes. In addition to the House and Senate, the bankers' group also had lobbying contacts with the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the White House, according to a disclosure form filed April 20 with the Senate's public records office.

Among the group's members are Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and U.S. Bancorp. The association represents major financial institutions as well as regional, community and small banks.

Paying someone for their vote even though it is considered lobbying is just another way to say Bribery even if no money is exchanged at the moment, but only a promise for future support.

Lobbyists are like insects, they multiply and there is no clear method to exterminate them.

Can the Strategic Defaulters save the US Economy?

2010-06-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

The private sector remains in a catatonic state, searching for a bottom line to justify the reemployment of American workers. Yet even as the economy is temporarily jarred by strategic defaulters, the concern of economists has been, will they be enough to sustain the economy long term?

And as serious as this question is, it boils down once again to Wall Street. Whether these strategic defaulters can save the economy long term will depend on the banks, the longer they take to foreclose and evict the more than 8 million homeowners now in default, and those who come after them, the longer the temporary surge in retail sales will be sustained, although it has been flat for the past 3 months, it is sustaining some semblance of an economic recovery even without job growth.

The Banks are so over whelmed with the volume of defaults that the time to foreclose has been extended, now exceeding 14 and approaching 20 months. But as more homeowners make that decision to join in the movement and stop making their mortgage payments the time to foreclose will only be extended until Wall Street finally concedes.

And amid the volume of defaults banks like BoA have begun to rethink what they have done to us, and in an effort to make peach with their borrowers and avert a real back lash they are attempting to initiate a real loan modification program. They are reducing not only the interest rate, and the monthly payment but the principal to a more realistic valuation. If their program is successful, which every consideration says it should be BoA could be the first bank to actually help put America back to work.

Defaulting loans are placing a financial strain on all banks, and perhaps this is really sending a message to Wall Street. Meanwhile those who make that determination to simply stop making their mortgage payments have become the new American Heroes.

We need time, and the strategic defaulters may have just bought it for us.

Scratch one whole ocean! Maybe?

2010-06-01T09:23:00.000-07:00

I have really only one question, please someone tell me why we are drilling offshore when we don’t have a technology to stop disasters like BP, and its close relative Ixtoc 1?

Apparently we are destroying the oceans one well at a time, Ixtoc 1 was a disaster from a Mexican rig that eventually dumped 140 million gallons off the Yucatan Peninsula. It took nearly 10 months beginning in the summer of 1979 to plug that leak. Now 140 million gallons may not seem like a lot in an ocean, perhaps like a glass of coke in a swimming pool. But these continuing well disasters are polluting our oceans and our food chain. In fact it is contaminating potential drinking water, which is being desalinated off the California coast and the entire mid east for beginners.

Desalination is a process that removes dissolved minerals (including but not limited to salt) from seawater, brackish water, or treated wastewater. A number of technologies have been developed for desalination, including reverse osmosis (RO), distillation, electro dialysis, and vacuum freezing. So why is seawater such an attractive water resource?

Here are a few reasons why...Seawater provides an unlimited, reliable water supply for coastal populations worldwide; brackish water is a plentiful, relatively drought-proof water resource for inland populations and reduces dependency on imported water. And, of all the Earth's water, 97 percent is salt water, only 1 percent is fresh water available for humans to drink, and 2 percent is frozen. Of the more than 7,500 desalination plants in operation worldwide, 60% are located in the Middle East. The world's largest plant in Saudi Arabia produces 128 MGD of desalted water. In contrast, 12% of the world's capacity is produced in the Americas, with most of the plants located in the Caribbean and Florida.

You got it, the Gulf coast! And that is where Florida lays dead ahead waiting for the BP oil slick to destroy its desalination plants.

So far, the Gulf oil Spill has leaked about 43 million gallons, according to government estimates. But it could be much higher, and now stopping this leak could possibly take months if ever. These oil disasters could end our ability to obtain a needed food source, and needed drinking water, it poses a threat to all life forms.

It really is time to rethink off shore drilling.

The Federal Minerals Management Service

2010-06-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Federal Minerals Management Service the Oil industry watchdog, was compromised which may have led to the BP disaster

The Federal agency overseeing the Oil industry looked the other way as BP and other off shore companies violated safety laws because of the $13bn in taxes the government receives annually. Because of this very tidy sum and what may be considered as bribes the agency allowed unsafe conditions to exist.

A report from the Federal Agency, the Minerals Management Service suggests that Washington Politicians allowed themselves to be seduced by the big oil companies because of tax money provided by BP and the rest of Big Oil. It seems to be the norm in Washington, money talks loud and clear, and federal employees look the other way.

Oversight was completely lacking, instead the department's acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, outlined how staff at the oil industry's chief safety watchdog, MMS, accepted tickets to sporting events, lunches and hunting trips from oil and gas firms. The question is what was expected of these employees in return?

According to Kendall, Pornography being viewed on government computers was a normal event and one of a number of violations at the Louisiana office of the MMS. But what is even more alarming is the fact that the multibillion dollar oil industry exercised a strong grip on MMS by way of their employees, MMS is the agency charged with an obligation to regulate oil company drilling and other operations.

There are examples of companies filling in their own safety forms and thwarting attempts by the MMS to tighten offshore regulations, but the agency was more compromised by conflicts of interest, looking after and balancing both safety and tax revenues at the same time.

And these gifts bestowed by Oil companies could be considered bribes.

The oil industry; like Banks control the White House and congress. Big Oil firms, like Big Banks, are too big to regulate or control, their money pays the way for congress to run elections. And where money is involved Washington will always look the other way.

BP Oil leak may destroy the world’s major source of food

2010-06-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

BP Oil leak may destroy the world’s major source of food for more than 4.5 billion people

AS BP’S latest effort to stop the world’s worst environmental catastrophe fails, implications demand concern over the pending collapse of the world’s major food supply.

Fish is the staple of some 2.5 billion people on the planet!

There has been a global increase in fish consumption among both rural and city populations in the last few decades. The trend is because Nutritional standards have shown positive long-term trends, with worldwide increases in the average global calorie supply per person and in the quantity of proteins per person. However, many countries continue to face food shortages and nutrient inadequacies, and major inequalities exist in access to food, mainly owing to very weak economic growth and rapid population expansion, yet the majority of undernourished people in the world live in Asia and the Pacific, with the highest prevalence of undernourishment found in SSA, and to a large extent in the South of America

The global population in 2005 consumed over 107 million tonnes of fish, the latest date figures were available for this report.

Asia accounted for two-thirds of the total consumption, of which 36.9 million tons were consumed outside China (13.9 kg per capita), with 33.6 million tonnes in China alone (26.1 kg per capita). The corresponding per capita consumption figures for Oceania, North America, Europe, Central America and the Caribbean, and South America were 24.5, 24.1, 20.8, 9.5 and 8.4 kg, respectively.

It is estimated that fish contributes to at least 50 percent of total animal protein intake in some small island developing states, as well as in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Equatorial Guinea, French Guiana, the Gambia, Ghana, Indonesia and Sierra Leone. The contribution of fish proteins to total world animal protein supplies rose from 13.7 percent in 1961 to a peak of 16.0 percent in 1996, before declining to 15.3 percent in 2005. Corresponding figures for the world, excluding China, show an increase from 12.9 percent in 1961 to 15.4 percent in 1989, then declining slightly to 14.7 percent in 2005. Figures for 2005 indicate that fish provided about 7.6 percent of animal protein in North and Central America and more than 11 percent in Europe. In Africa, it supplied about 19 percent, in Asia nearly 21 percent, in the LIFDCs including China about 19 percent and in the LIFDCs excluding China 20 percent. Globally, fish provides more than 1.5 billion people with almost 20 percent of their average per capita intake of animal protein, and nearly 3.0 billion people with 15 percent of such protein.

Many cultures rely on fish and other sea creatures for their survival, and this BP disaster has the potential to reduce many cultures to near starvation if not worse.

Because of our greed we have placed the earth in an untenable position, with a potential to destroy all life forms. Even if we as a race are lucky enough to get beyond this BP disaster, there will be another, and another, as long as we elect officials who cater to the moneyed monopoly, rather to their own survival and ours.

How do we define Courage?

2010-05-28T07:57:00.000-07:00

Start with a 19 year old kid. It's November 11, 1967

He’s critically wounded and dying in the jungle somewhere in the Central Highlands of Viet Nam LZ (landing zone) X-ray. His unit is outnumbered 8-1 and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 yards away, that his CO (commanding officer) has ordered the MedEvac helicopters to stop coming in.

He’s lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns and he knows he’s not getting out. His family is half way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and he'll never see them again.

As the world starts to fade in and out, he knows this is the day. Then, suddenly - over the machine gun noise - faintly heard is the sound of a helicopter. He looks up to see a Huey coming in. But ... It doesn't seem real because no MedEvac markings are on it.

Captain Ed Freeman is coming in to take out the wounded. He's not MedEvac so it's not his job, but he heard the radio call and decided he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire anyway.

Even after the MedEvacs were ordered not to come. He's coming anyway. And he drops it in and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 3 wounded at a time on board. Then he flies this kid up and out through the gunfire to the doctors and nurses and safety.

And, he kept coming back!! 13 more times!! Until all the wounded were out. No one knew until the mission was over that the Captain had been hit 4 times in the legs and left arm.

He took 29 wounded GI’s out that day. Some would not have made it without the Captain and his Huey.

Medal of Honor Recipient, Captain Ed Freeman,United States Air Force, died April 21, 2101 at the age of 70, in Boise , Idaho ..

Where was the Media Report?

Too busy I guess reporting on the important things, like Lindsey Lohen, or Paris Hilton!

China to teach Geithner business strategy.

2010-05-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the Chinese government can teach Geithner a thing or two about how to support business.

While Washington and business groups have for some time expressed anxiety over Beijing's "indigenous innovation" policy, meant to promote “Chinese technology” by favoring domestically developed products in government procurement and other areas, which the US does not, Chinese citizens are working and US Citizens aren’t.

According to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) world factbook for 2010 China has a 4.30% unemployment rate compared to the US currently over 11.44%

Perhaps that’s the reason why so many American jobs have been lost since the mid 1980’s, our Bank bred Government economists, are lost as to how business should be supported by government because they are watching their bottom line, and not looking in the faces of Americas workers.

Government teaches that the economy is like war. And as such you never look in the face of the enemy, but the working poor in America aren’t the enemy! Those in government that support outsourcing are! Governments MUST support domestically manufactured products and technology, as China has set as a world example. By outsourcing even the weapons our service personnel use in day to day combat as well as the parts for military equipment, which is a part of the US Strategy, the government, creates a dead zone in the US economy, which has allowed a free fall in the US unemployment numbers.

All the talk in the world isn’t going to find jobs in America for Americans. And there will be no change in the US Economy until the government strategy, supported by big business, and their profit motivation, comes to grips with the reality that by sending jobs across the vast reaches of the globe, America is being reduced to yet another third world economy, while China once looked at as a back woods nation is strong enough today to financially support the US by buying our deficits financed through Bond sales.

While the Banks control Congress, the American people remain the real losers.

2010-05-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

“The bold effort the present (central) bank had made to control the government ... are but premonitions of the fate that await the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment of another like it.” Andrew Jackson

It was 1836, and the central bank had attempted to take control of the Federal government, sensing the power the bank asserted over the nation and the influence its money contained over the destiny of its citizens Jackson vowed to shut the bank. He succeeded!

Now more than170 years later we find ourselves once more embroiled in a struggle against the banking interest over control of the US government and even the destiny of America as a nation. We are failing! And as we fail, we present a new decade of enslavement for not only ourselves but a season of global instability.

It was 1907, and 71 years after Jackson made the nation aware, when JP Morgan set in motion one of the greatest scams America could ever envision, the great panic leading to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, where Wall Street took control of America.

Until this panic congress had been reluctant to allow the Banks to control the issuance of our money, mainly due to the constituency who at the time understood the real nature of Bankers and mainly held them to a high level of distrust. Morgan and his allies set in motion rumors that created an atmosphere of fright, the rumors were calculated to cause a run on New York’s prominent banks. Morgan then rode to the rescue bringing in some 100, million of Rothschild’s gold to save the day, his white horse made him a stunning figure, and continued his legend as the leading banker of his day.

But it didn’t stop there JP Morgan Jr. attempted the unthinkable, too actually over through the US government. It was 1934 and Morgan led and financed the failed attempt to over through the legitimate presidency of Franklin Roosevelt, though it failed it showed the true character of Americas leading bankers, and showed them as the real villains of American free enterprise, Morgan and his other allies such as chemical industrialist Irénée du Pont, their avowed purpose to form a fascist government.

Now that fight continues at the treasury where some want what Obama and his co-harts don’t, real Bank reform. Let’s face it Congress is completely dominated by Wall Street money and that money means influence amounting to control. Today Money buys loyalty, and there is little money on Main Street to even buy a hot dog. So the loyalty of congress and yes even the president himself goes to Wall Street insiders. Like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.

Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin reiterated Thursday that he would like to see the "Volcker rule" included in the bank reform bill now being finalized, and reconciled in congress, the thrust of the “Volcker rule” would separate banking from proprietary trading, a revisit to Glass Steagall. Since the FED under Greenspan and as he was directed by his association with JP Morgan, Glass Steagall was dumped by the FED and later by Congress and Clinton.

Yes to reinstate Glass Steagall would be a beginning, but there is so much more required. And America sadly lacks the stomach for a real fight.

Wall Street Reforms Congress

2010-05-24T20:03:00.000-07:00

The legislation intended to reform the financial system and as it passed the Senate and House have so many loopholes place in it by congresses Wall Street handlers, that this legislation is a complete sham.

Not only will it not prevent other crises and more taxpayer bailouts in the future, but it guarantees it.

The legislation is full of gaps, and loopholes, but more importantly many provisions of the Law depend on the “effectiveness” of regulatory agencies, who failed to over see the financial sector and mishandled the blooming bubble that took Wall Street and America to the brink of collapse.

A big reason for the bill's limitations is that Wall Street banks and industry groups lobbied against rules they felt would reduce Wall Streets profit-making ability, such things as derivatives, those same instruments that collapsed the mortgage security network. The financial sector's influence in Washington reflects its massive donations and lobbying efforts, what you and I ceremoniously call Bribes.

Over the past two decades, the Banks and their lobbyists have given more than $2.3 billion to federal candidates; one more time, $2.3 Billion dollars to bribe Federal Candidates.

Since 1998, this group has invested $3.8 billion in “gifts” in the form of Bribes to Washington ’s most elite,

Is there any wonder, when Congress finds itself dealing with Insurance companies, Big Pharma, Wall Street, or the Military Industrial Complex, America looses.

America needs a lobby in Washington , but not the kind we see controlling congress with lavish bribes. America needs a lobby that will intimidate the insiders, by giving money to their opposition Office seekers seem to understand one thing, ”Money” because to Washington Money brings power.

Is High Frequency Trading “Insider Trading?”

2010-05-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

Looking through the secret profit center behind Wall Street is like looking at wonderland through the eyes of Alice . It’s an amazing picture few ever get to see and fewer will ever understand. There are mega bucks floating everywhere. That is except into the pockets of those of us on Main Street who could use a little green coloring.

These HFT’s have been around since the 1990’s, ever fine tuning their computer software, searching for deals where the investors have not yet realized a stock is about to rise or fall, or where an exchange hasn’t provided consumers notice of a recent stock trade.

While billions of dollars are churned in mega seconds sometimes a million dollars and more in a fraction of a millisecond and on only a fraction of a penny profit. The stock market has become a fools paradise, left to the big hedge funds and their inside investors.

How do they work?

One way these traders make money is by exploiting the fact that stock indexes sometimes don't immediately reflect falling or rising prices of their component stocks. If GM shares for example rise 5 percent but an index fund that includes it such as the SPDR S&P 500 lags by a fraction of second to adjust, these HFT computers pick up the lag and buy or sell the stock in fractions of a second reaping large profits. HFT computers will “automatically” buy shares of SPDR S&P 500 at the lower price and then sell them again when they are fully valued, in other words, when the information is released to the general public.

Is this really Insider Trading, we believe it is because the information has not yet been released to the public!

This reminds me of the old days and Ben Siegel, who charged fees from bookmakers for a wire service that transmitted horse racing results. Often allowing bookmakers to lay off bets from a direct source after the race had been concluded.

It appears to be time that the SEC took a real hard look at these high frequency traders to determine if in fact they are trading on information that has not yet been made public.

Since Goldman Sachs is a part of this trading mechanism we need to take a hard look at its legitimacy.

Political Payoff

2010-05-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

Obama has Kept One Campaign Promise: He Shower His Friends with Money, our money!

George Soros Obama’s largest campaign contributor has become even wealthier thanks to President Obama and his share the wealth platform, unfortunately his platform doesn’t include average America .

The U.S. loaned billions of dollars to Brazil ’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil ’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro .

The dichotomy was that at the time America was facing its worst financial crisis, and Americans were not only losing their jobs but their homes as well. And to add insult to the injury, all oil discovered is under contract to China , so there is absolutely no benefit to America .

And what makes this even more interesting Soros Hedge Fund Bought Petrobras Stake Worth $811 Million

But it wasn’t really a surprise! In 2008 Michelle Malkin penned a column in which she described the payoffs in store for George Soros and friends if Obama were elected! Those friend’s unfortunately Waller around Wall Street.

George Soros is on target to make hundreds of millions in profit from the loan by the U.S. to Petrobas for its offshore drilling especially now.

This may be one of the biggest political payoffs by any administration that has occupied the White House.

Also of note: Stimulus spending also went largely to areas that supported Obama’s election.

But even more striking is the reality that Petrobras, Brazil 's oil conglomerate announced that it has set a single-day record for oil output producing 2.08 million barrels on April 24.

The state-controlled energy agency says it also set a monthly record for output in April by pumping an average of 2.03 million barrels of crude per day.

The company goal for the year is to average 2.1 million barrels per day once two more facilities come online this year.

As for George Soros, what a lucky break! He will now have a lot more money to provide to his favorite charity, the Democratic Party.

Afghanistan has become a clash of egos.

2010-05-14T09:41:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan has become a battleground over an oil pipeline that could have been negotiated. Instead we are involved in a crisis from which 1752 NATO forces have already died and among them 1,061 US soldiers.

Afghanistan has little value other than strategic. Unless we consider the lavish poppy fields that dot the landscape and are a source of funding the war against the US occupation. Strangely these fields have multiplied since the CIA entered the picture, offering an observation that can’t be dismissed. Are these fields under CIA guardianship?

Given the history of the CIA, as has come to light from Vietnam and the golden triangle, and then under Oliver North, and Iran Contra, this question seems one that could have real significance.

Note: the war against the Taliban had been planned long before the world trade center attack. It was and always has been over resources, and poppy seeds are a resource, and a very valuable one. But even more valuable is the pipeline for oil which has now been completed. What few know is that talks with the Taliban over the pipeline were ongoing to the date of the invasion, and even after.

The US ousted the Taliban, but did we have that right? This is a question we must in the long term ask ourselves.

Since the Taliban were ousted the poppy farms have expanded markedly, now exceeding 100,000 acres. But even more strikingly we invaded Afghanistan under a false plethora of evidence as the Taliban had actually offered to turn Bin Laden over to the US .

Instead we invaded Afghanistan ! We must now step back and ask ourselves why? When we can look at the whole picture with our own introspect we will have a full understanding of what we have become

America has become egocentric, it is what we want that matters. And it has become easier to simply take it rather than to negotiate and pay for it. But in the long run it costs us more.

America ’s ego thought that our military power would crush any opposition, but what this ego failed to understand was that we have been fighting a ghost of ourselves. The lessons we knew from our own history, learned gallantly form the American Revolution.

No enemy can long endure when they are fighting on our shores, just as America is learning today. The Taliban are not the enemy to expel, we have become that enemy.

And with this in mind, the Taliban have planned an offensive against the US , it has been code named “al-Fatah”, which is the Arabic word for "victory".

The target, US forces, security contractors and Afghans working for them who are considered "the ears and eyes of the foreigners”

The new Taliban operation is to begin May 10, the day Hamid Karzai , Afghanistan 's president, arrives in Washington for a four day visit. Karzai wants to convince Obama that peace with the Taliban is the only real and long term solution.

Even as we agree, the question: Will Washington ’s ego allow this resolution of a confrontation that all evidence suggests we are losing?

Bank Reform

2010-05-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo invest over 6 million dollars to defeat major bank reform.

The nation's five largest and (as consumers feel), least credible banks which currently dominate the derivatives market; are in Washington armed with carpet bags full of cash. They have marshaled a contingency of trade groups, paid lobbyists and their own executives to convince senators that excluding banks from the derivatives business would make markets less safe.

Just how, is a curious oddity?

The banks reason, that the derivatives are a way of protecting their investments from failure, as they lay off the question of performance on third parties, like AIG for example, well that may be a bad example! But we get the point.

But the notion of excluding banks from the derivative market isn’t the issue. The issue is regulation and transparency of this 100 trillion dollar market.

The financial legislation proposed by the Obama administration and as passed by the House would require “most derivatives” to trade on public exchanges, in the belief that a transparent marketplace will be safer and cheaper. The scope of the exchange trading requirement has been the focus of the debate for months. Opponents argue that the bill would limit the industry's ability to customize derivatives to match the needs of clients. But in most cases they are their own client, except when they sell an instrument that an investor questions.

But, so far it has been the banks that have made small fortunes from the derivatives market, the most recent reminder AIG counterparty contracts with these same 5 banks receiving a concealed bailout from the Obama administration, and timothy Geithner’s requirement that AIG pay the banks 100 cents on the dollar. (Another story here)

According to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Banks reported $22.6 billion in derivatives revenue in 2009. No doubt they used taxpayer bailout money to invest. Goldman Sachs was paid $13bn alone from AIG in 2009

Derivatives are contracts whose value is determined by something else. Trading in derivatives is dominated by these five banks, they were largely used in connection with Mortgage securitization instruments and were a form of insurance against a mortgage default, it is because of this “insurance” that the banks were made whole after a borrower defaulted, and it is because of these same instruments that the banks have NO incentive to work out a loan modification with a defaulting borrower, as they are made whole by these CDS’s (credit default swaps)

The five banks together have assembled more than 130 registered lobbyists, including 40 former Senate staff members and one retired senator, Trent Lott to water down and in most cases, (after their success in defeating the most concerting elements of the reform bill circulating congress), to defeat the latest round, unregistered Derivatives. Included in the list are also former staff members for the Senate majority and minority leaders, the chairmen and ranking members of the banking and finance committees, and more than 15 other senators.

The real issue and the one the banks are prepared to fight no matter how much money they have to throw at our congress, is control of their industry, this is something they will not tolerate, and after all they “are” the real masters of Washington .

US Wars of Choice may cause the dollar’s collapse

2010-05-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

US Involvement across the globe in its numerous war settings has placed a heavy financial burden on US taxpayers who are no longer capable of carrying this debt level.

As with all past attempts of governance, war has been the mechanism to both unite the people and provide for an economy, in short it didn’t work for the Roman or Grecian empires and it won’t work for the American empire either.

Using history as a reference, we have experienced no less than 212 different empires attempt to rule, with the US included that number is 213, each failed. And America is failing as this article is written.

What is bringing America to its knees is ego. Ego is an exaggerated sense of self-importance; the self, especially as distinct from the world and other selves.

What we want, we take, and that is not how to make peace in the world. It is how to turn the world against us. And we are already witnessing a growing discontent.

And now because of ego, we are caught up in struggles across the globe, mostly for oil, but also for control and to expand our footprint, and oh yes, and for profit, a military war complex, and machine that grinds our tax dollars into weapons, for war.

One look at the Pentagon’s "base budget" request for fiscal 2011 (which begins October 1) calls for some $549 billion, an increase of $18 billion over the appropriation for the current fiscal year.

But that is only the beginning. The administration is in addition requesting another $160 billion for "Overseas Contingency Operations" (OCO) that’s to pay for wars and occupations in Iraq , Afghanistan , and elsewhere.

But there is more, $25 billion plus in military spending outside the "Department of Defense," much of that for nuclear weapons included in the Department of Energy's budget. (This $25 billion could be much larger, depending on what is included.)

The grand total - comes to at least $734 billion. There is an additional $33 billion "emergency supplemental" appropriation to pay for the Afghanistan escalation; it's said to cost $1 million to maintain one soldier there for a year. That $33 billion would be counted as part of FY 2010 spending, and, of course, there may be a supplemental in 2011 as well. The total has more than doubled in the last decade and continues to rise. It may well top (1) trillion this fiscal year.

What has this budget accomplished?

Wars make people less safe, if that is the purpose of this and the past administration, they have accomplished their goal. But in doing so, they may have created a dichotomy from which our dollar may well collapse.

Bank control of congress and the White House, pays off big time for Wall Street

2010-05-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

The US Senate has more interest in the big pools of money the banks funnel for campaigns through their lobbyists, than for the people who elect them to office.

This was exemplified last night (May 7) when the Senate rejected the single most important element of Wall Street reform, being able to break up the “too big to fail banks” the Senate rejected this provision by a vote of 33 to 61; 27 Democrats joined all but three Republicans to vote against breaking up the banks.

The 61 votes against the measure are votes in favor of Wall Street's continuing stranglehold over our economy. But more importantly it allows business as usual on Wall Street, and without fear of government reprisal. It also guarantees future bail outs when they become necessary. (And they will)

At the same time, the Senate also voted down a $50 billion Wall Street tax that would have been used to fund the cost of shutting down a major failing bank, assuring future taxpayer funding when a “too big to fail” bank again finds itself in trouble.

By rejecting both the break-up bill and the bank tax, Wall Street has emerged as a clear winner and shown what clout and control they have over the US political system and particularly over congress, and the president.

President Obama who strongly opposed both the tax and the break-up measures, hosted J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon for dinner at the White House on Monday. J.P. Morgan is the largest U.S. bank, and spent more money on lobbying in 2009 than any other bank. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has aggressively courted Dimon for campaign cash, as has Obama

It seems that money is more important to congress and the president, that the interests of the nation!

The failure of congress to address the banking problems in the US and to protect the interest of the American people over their benefactors, have assured further reckless behavior from these mega financial institutions.

By allowing the megabanks to remain super-sized, Congress has insulated them from the fallout associated with the Fed disclosures, and given them a tool to fight other reforms. Our giant financial institutions are not only too-big-to-fail they are now too-big-to-regulate!

No matter what else Congress may “ultimately” enact, in the name of Bank reform, Congress has decided that it will not confront the single greatest problem and threat to the U.S. economy: the “Too Big To Fail banks”.

If any meaningful legislation is passed it will be a total surprise.

Perhaps the issue of “too big to fail” will ultimately be address by a different forum, the American People themselves who after all have the last word.

Following is a list of Senators, who voted to protect the banks against the interest of the American people, its time to retire each and ever one of them.
Akaka (D-HI);
Alexander (R-TN);
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT);
Bayh (D-IN);
Bennet (D-CO);
Bond (R-MO);
Brown (R-MA);
Brownback (R-KS);
Burr (R-NC);
Carper (D-DE);
Chambliss (R-GA);
Cochran (R-MS);
Collins (R-ME);
Conrad (D-ND);
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX);
Crapo (R-ID);
Dodd (D-CT);
Enzi (R-WY);
Feinstein (D-CA);
Gillibrand (D-NY);
Graham (R-SC);
Grassley (R-IA);
Gregg (R-NH);
Hagan (D-NC)
Hatch (R-UT);
Hutchison (R-TX);
Inhofe (R-OK);
Inouye (D-HI);
Isakson (R-GA);
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (D-SD);
Kerry (D-MA);
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI);
Kyl (R-AZ);
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ);
LeMieux (R-FL);
Lieberman (ID-CT);
McCain (R-AZ);
McCaskill (D-MO);
McConnell (R-KY);
Menendez (D-NJ);
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL);
Nelson (D-NE);
Reed (D-RI);
Risch (R-ID);
Roberts (R-KS);
Schumer (D-NY);
Sessions (R-AL);
Shaheen (D-NH);
Snowe (R-ME);
Tester (D-MT);
Thune (R-SD);
Udall (D-CO);
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (D-VA);
Wicker (R-MS)

But equally important remember that Obama as well is financially beholden to the mega bank interests.

Rush Limbaugh, and The Third Gulf War?

2010-05-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

Generally I take Rush Limbaugh with strong bourbon, or a dose of anything that will kill the pain.

Unfortunately after the tranquilizer wears off, Rush Limbaugh is still there and I find that he is more than a bad illusion, he is real, and that scares me.

I have found that Idiots evolve from imbeciles, (or is it the other way around) and certainly Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are far ahead of the pack here. And their latest rambling, stresses just how far south of the border their mind has wondered.

The latest triad of thought seems demented but it is also strikingly within the realm of possibility. The neoconservative mind set theorizes a war front, and as a part of this chimera they have conceived that the gulf BP Rig was attacked and was the subject of eco-terrorism from some enemy nation. They even theorize that nation!

Does this make sense, certainly to some conspiracy theorists it does, is this alleged attack a possibility, certainly it is within the realm of prospect.

The theory is not exclusive of Limbaugh and is furthered by web and blog sites such as WhatDoesItMean.com which contains an article titled "US Orders Media Blackout Over North Korean Torpedoing of Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig"

Does this give credence to Limbaugh and his followers, apparently it does. As for me, I’ll just have “one” more bourbon and sleep Limbaugh off.

Another major fiasco by the Obama Administration coming soon to a bank near you

2010-05-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration now proposes a new bailout for small and medium sized banks. This new bank bailout is in the form of a $30bn support program aimed at helping small business.

First and foremost $30bn will barely cover lunch! And certainly it won’t cover the executive bonus pools.

However setting that aside if this were really a plan to help small business, the appropriate source to provide these funds to would be the SBA, Small Business Administration. Or, The Small Business Investment Companies, (SBIC’s).

By providing the funds to small and medium sized banks, with the idea that they will loan the money to businesses, is like betting against the odds in Las Vegas, “it ain’t gonna happen” and either President Obama is a slow learner, as we just tried this concept with the Wall Street Banks, (and they have been using the money to play the Market) or there is an intent here to bail out these small and medium sized banks and possibly to prevent the remainder of the 700 still primed and ready to fail, from actually failing.

In remarks to reporters at the White House, President Obama said that the program had been expanded to include a new state “small business credit” that would support efforts by state governments to provide loans to small businesses. But where that money will come from is anybody’s guess. The states are still struggling just to stay afloat. So far President Obama has designed one failed program after another, and we are left to pick up the pieces.

In any event with Washington Politics, things are never as they seem.

A Rising Unemployment Rate is NOT Good News!

2010-05-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

I read with interest an article by US News this morning that made me wonder what some people put in their coffee.

The headline was “Why a Rising Unemployment Rate is Good News”

Well a rising unemployment rate is definitely not good news! Especially for those who recently lost a job, or for those who had given up looking for work.

Let’s take a hard look at the real numbers:

First the true number of unemployed Americans is 11.44% not the 9.9% that other sources are misquoting. Their “misquote” has been based on their acceptance without question the numbers from the Department of Labor, which were misleading, “I am being kind”.

Currently we have 154,715,000 people employed in the US aged16 and over, while 17.7 million are unemployed. 15.3 million Americans unemployed and acknowledged by the labor department and another 2.4 million marginally attached and not counted, but never the less a part of the “real” work force.

The method to determine the unemployment rate is to take the total number of unemployed and divide it by the total number of employed. In short 17.7 million divided by 154,715,000 gives us the 11.44% unemployment rate.

In Simple terms the Unemployment Rate = 'Unemployed Workers' divided by 'Total Labor Force'.

In fact the true numbers of unemployed may even be higher than 11.44% because there are millions of workers that have given up and lost hope.

What these other sources failed to incorporate in their elucidations was that we had 444,000 initial claims filed against a backdrop of an alleged 290,000 hiring’s, this is still a net loss of 154,000 jobs! But don’t forget that 66,000 were temporary workers hired by the US government for the census. If we remove them from the count because they are not full time the picture gets even worse! The net loss goes up to 220,000 net job losses.

A net loss is a net loss no matter how you skin the orange!

America is still shedding jobs!!

The economy is being carried by Americans, some 8 million strong who have given up on any idea of saving their homes, and are spending their money purchasing things they have done without for the past two years, this support is a temporary measure at best.

When we can see 300,000 jobs created each month, over and above job losses, we will see a real recovery. However the Fed itself feels that may be a decade away.

News should be accurate, and give facts. Not a false sense of hope!

Financial Reform

2010-04-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of lobbyists for banks and Wall Street, working with Republicans, have been working to block the reform bill currently winding its way through congress.

If ever bank reform is needed it’s now!

But Wall Street has not come to grips with the possibility that if a bill could pass in its current form, Wall Street will be restrained form gambling with our money! So far the banks that were provided Taxpayer assistance to prevent their filing bankruptcy have accumulatively invested more than $9 million to “bribe” congress to fight this bill.

A recent Fox report says, "About 25 Wall Street executives, many of them hedge fund managers, sat down for a private meeting with two of the most powerful Republican lawmakers in Congress: Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and John Cornyn, the senior senator from Texas who runs the National Republican Senatorial Committee, one of the primary fundraising arms of the Republican Party." (View the broadcast) http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/government/street-execs-pols-earful-financial-reform/

The Banks and their lobbyists are aligning themselves with the republican constituent in congress. Believing they are their best hope of watering down a bill that seeks to place them under control.

Under attack appears to be several important areas of concern that the Republicans, under the Banks influence will fight to their death. Those areas are (i) a 50 Billion dollar fund to break up “too big to fail banks” (ii) visibility for the lucrative derivatives market, and (iii) on how to protect consumers and (iv) how to set limits on previously unregulated exotic instruments such as derivatives.

Lobbying spending to block the bill by some of the biggest firms:
JP Morgan Chase & Co.; First quarter, 2010: $1,510,000 First quarter, 2009: $1,310,000 Citigroup: First quarter, 2010: $1,310,000, First quarter, 2009: $1,250,000;
Credit Suisse. First quarter, 2010: $1,190,000, First quarter, 2009: $470,000;
Goldman Sachs First quarter, 2010: $1,150,000, First quarter, 2009: $670,000
Wells Fargo; First quarter, 2010: $1,020,000, First quarter, 2009: $700,000;
Bank of America, First quarter, 2010: $940,000, First quarter, 2009: $820,000,
Morgan Stanley, First quarter, 2010: $810,000, First quarter, 2009: $540,000;
State Street First quarter, 2010: $380,000, First quarter, 2009: $210,000

CNN during a recent panel discussion described the lobbying process on Capitol Hill as the "Blob." Congressional staffers and lobbyists are the ones hashing out the final details of the financial reform bill. These same Congressional staffers and their bosses are indebted to the lobbyists, having accepted tens of millions in campaign contributions. There is absolutely no adversarial relationship on capital hill - everybody is on the same side of the page - and rarely is anybody at the table even an elected official.

Think about this, if the banks and those beholden to them in congress don’t want this bill passed, we do!!!

Legal chicanery and pitch darkness are the banker's stoutest allies.

2010-04-30T07:33:00.000-07:00

Its show time again on Capital Hill, but this second round of show and tell won’t cut the muster! It will end as it always has, back to business as usual. Wall Street has gained to large a footprint in congress to be chastised in any meaningful manner. And there is no Ferdinand Pecora to take on the banks.

The hearings, like their counter part in the UK were and are for appearances, to placate rather than prosecute.

This show lacks the credibility of its famous counter part Ferdinand Pecora, and “sadly” there appears to be no real intent to prosecute anyone for anything, and there are a lot of good reasons to bring criminal charges.

What we are witnessing on Capital Hill is a fusillade to give the uneducated observer the appearance that something is going to be done about the banks and their reprehensible behavior. But don’t be misled! It will be back to business as usual as it has since the founding of the banking system. Banks tend to be corrupt, it is in their nature.

This is not the first time the Banks have produced chaos within our economy, and it will no doubt not be the last!

The bankers are involved in every aspect of their business even the agencies that oversee and control them, and from political office and its revolving door. Its always been the fox guarding the chickens, and over seeing other foxes. One has only to look back to the last fiasco the banks engineered to see where we are today.

Pecora launched a real investigation and interviewed such high-profile luminaries as Wall Street personalities Richard Whitney, president of the New York Stock Exchange, his brother, George Whitney (a partner in J.P. Morgan & Co.) and investment bankers Thomas W. Lamont, Otto H. Kahn, Albert H. Wiggin of Chase National Bank, and Charles E. Mitchell of National City Bank (now Citibank).

Even then Congress was on the payroll of the Morgan interests. But public outrage brought congress to its knees and meaningful regulation was passed. Glass Steagall held the banks in check until Greenspan watered it down on behalf of his real bosses, JP Morgan, and Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. another JP Morgan Company.

In his role at the FED, his primary function was to water down and rescind the Glass Steagall act, which he successfully accomplished.

Pecora's investigation unearthed evidence of irregular practices in the financial markets that benefited the rich at the expense of ordinary investors, (sound familiar?) including exposure of Morgan’s “preferred list” by which the bank’s influential friends (including Calvin Coolidge, the former president, and Owen J. Roberts, a justice of Supreme Court of the United States) participated in stock offerings at steeply discounted rates.

Pecora also revealed that National City sold off bad loans to Latin American countries by packing them into securities and selling them to unsuspecting investors, (as Goldman Sachs now stands accused) that Wiggin had shorted Chase shares during the crash, profiting from falling prices, and that Mitchell and top officers at National City had helped themselves to $2.4 million in interest-free loans from the bank’s coffers.

Pecora's investigations highlighted the contrast between the lives of millions of Americans living in abject poverty and the high-rolling lives of such financiers as J.P. Morgan, Jr.

Under Pecora's insistent questioning, Morgan and many of his partners admitted that they had paid no income tax in 1931 and 1932;

And there were bombshells! New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s revelations that a corporate publicist had over a ten-year period stuffed nearly $300,000 in the pocket of various journalists to ensure flattering coverage of certain companies. Today it’s members of Congress that accept money from the powerful Banking contingent.

Ferdinand Pecora, meticulously exposed Wall Street’s role in the crash. His famous inquisition of J.P. ‘Jack’ Morgan Jr., son of the financial titan, revealed the House of Morgan’s control over other financial institutions. There is no difference today, just different faces but the same mindset, and the same exertion of control by the same players. It will never end, until the American people stand up in numbers and say STOP.

Economic Activity

2010-04-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

All indications are that the recession is alive and well, but unfortunately the economy of 49 states and the US isn’t!

While Wall Street, which America now views, in a real life tragedy, as their nemeses, appears to have recovered from their implicit collapse, America is still wallowing in a quagmire of deception.

If we look beyond the plethora of media hyperbole, and go to the source, we find that based on February 2010 economic indicators provided by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia , which appears to be very reliable. 49 out of the 50 U.S. states are still showing less economic activity than a year ago, That means in short and plain language, that there is “NO” recovery occurring. The Economy is in fact getting worse!

The only state to show an increase of economic activity was North Dakota which with its vestige of a population stands at 633,837. Its February 2010 economic activity was 1.1% higher than February 2009, yet North Dakota is not a prime example of economic growth.

On the plateau cattle graze, and large ranges are an economic necessity. In the northwestern area of the state oil was discovered in 1951, and petroleum is now North Dakota's leading mineral product, ahead of sand and gravel, lime, and salt. There are also natural-gas fields. Underlying the western counties are lignite reserves; close to the lignite beds are deposits of clay of such varied types that they serve as both construction and pottery materials.

Despite mineral production and some manufacturing, agriculture continues to be North Dakota 's principal pursuit, and the processing of grain, meat, and dairy products is vital. North Dakota also has casinos on the Native American Reservations, and their take is still above $577 million annually. In short a small population and a lot of items of value.

The report also states that 28 out of the 50 states exhibited less economic activity in February 2010 than just three months earlier. This means they are still hemorrhaging jobs, and financial resources.

Economic activity is the production and distribution of goods and services. Economic Activity is also correlated with Employment. If unemployment increases than the demand for goods and services decrease, however, if it decreases than on the other hand we have a higher demand for goods and services. This also benefits the triad nations as international business increases between members ( USA , EU & JAPAN).

But the evidence shows that we are still in the midst of a deep and still spiraling recession that has the appearance of getting even worse before it gets any better.

Real economic activity can’t improve without putting America back to work, and we have a long way before that will happen. Estimates are that it may take a decade or two if ever.

Wall Street’s culture of Deception (Part 1)

2010-04-24T19:15:00.000-07:00

The unwary investor is made to believe - by a press owned by the very people who are part of the Wall Street scam that they can make a killing in the stock market if they get lucky. Over the years’ “outsiders”, small-time investors have lost billions of dollars to the “insiders” who control and manipulate the stock market.

The small time investor believes that the stock market goes up and down according to what he or she reads in the Wall Street Journal or hears about on their evening NEWS program: interest rates, inflation rates, wholesale prices, gross national product, public fears about foreign and domestic events, and the ranting of the head of the "Federal" Reserve Board.

This is all a game, a con to make the hapless investor believe that the rise and fall in stock prices is not being manipulated by the specialists. The fact is that specialists, working at the largest firms and hedge funds are creating the ups and downs of the market to bring them profits at the expense of the rest of us. In reality it’s the bankers and investment houses against the working class of America, and Congress and the While House allow this SCAM to continue.

This is how the Stock SCAM works

The insider buys stocks at the lowest possible price, using one of the magic tricks of the market called short selling (selling stocks you don't yet own in the hopes that the price will drop, so that you can purchase it back at a lower price; the difference between what you sold it for and what you purchased it back at is your profit): This parable was made famous by John D Rockefeller

Since they control the stock prices, they simply begin lowering the prices
They "borrow" the stock from their or another brokerage firm's pool, with the understanding that at a later date they will return the shares
The Wall Street Con Game News will announce that stock prices dropped sharply on light trading, which is a cover for the insiders' actual manipulation of the decrease in stock prices. The Insiders don't want heavy trading and straight-line lowering of stock prices, else they might have to buy a lot of stock at a higher price than desired. So they usually lower prices through a series of ups and downs of the market, dealing with small investors' shares as they go.
The SEC rules prohibit NYSE members from "demoralizing the market by effecting short sales at or below a price lower than that of the last sale." But insiders have an “insider loophole” allowing them to sell short on downticks (drops in stock prices) without having to report these transactions as short sales. Those same SEC rules force the unsuspecting, small-time investor to sell short only on upticks - when stock prices are higher than the last preceding price. This is a very neat scam, and small time investors aren’t even aware that they have been had.

When the insiders have purchased their inventories of stocks at the lowest possible price (let's say a million shares at an average of $20 a share: $20,000,000 investment), they then begin increasing stock prices.

They will wait until the stock prices reach a top price where they can realize windfall profits - let's say the stock reaches the price of $40 a share.
At this point the insiders sell their million shares at $40 a share and receive $40,000,000. A profit of $20 million is easy if the con game is fixed in your favor.

When the insiders want to buy stocks, they lower prices - and wait till the stocks are at the lowest price possible before buying. The investors have been herded into "panic buying" as the prices drop. When the specialists want to sell stocks, they raise prices and sell at the highest price. The uninformed investor is told that he or she must get in on the skyrocketing market boom. The roller-coaster of the stock market is not a natural phenomenon at all, as the Wall Street con game would have us believe. It's simply the Insiders doing their thing making billions of dollars from unsuspecting investors.

That $20 million has to come from somewhere – and it does, it comes from the small investors who didn't have a clue about what was going on.

As an example, the Panamanian-registered Pilgrim Investment Trust, controlled by the Bush family, in April 2000 was about 78% long. By the end of 2000, they were 78% short, and, by the end of 2001, that trust was 98% short. In essentially the same short position was the Houston Energy Trust, another deep offshore Republican trust whose investors include Henry Kissinger, Paul Bremer, James Baker, and George Schultz.

Get the picture.

Wall Street’s culture of Deception (Part 2)

2010-04-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

Bank Stock Value Manipulation:

We are now aware of Lehman Bros SCAM, where they would hide billions of dollars of bad debts by selling them prior to a required reporting period and buy them back directly after the report was filed. This is known now as end-of-quarter balance sheet manipulation, the purpose was to trick investors into thinking the Bank or investment house was less leveraged than it was.

This was a form of stock value manipulation, which is illegal! It also constitutes FRAUD on the investors, who would have sold their stock had they known the truth. It is concealing the true nature and value of the company and of its stock value.

Now as it turns out, almost of all of Wall Street is based on this same phony perception, having been caught using this same Ploy, Bank of America now claims there is nothing wrong with concealing in this manner its bad assets. We respectfully disagree!

Comparing Bank of America's "average quarterly assets" and "end of quarter assets" found that, in each quarter, billions of dollars of assets conveniently disappeared briefly at the end of the quarter, only to return again at the start of the next one.

Like Lehman, Bank of America found some legal loophole in some country somewhere that allowed them to momentarily hide tens of billions of dollars of assets somewhere where Wall Street wouldn't see them. And, naturally, Bank of America thinks it's perfectly acceptable: We believe this has been a common practice on Wall Street for sometime

For those that don’t know Repo 105, Lehman Bros asset disappearance program, it was a sale and repurchase agreement by which Lehman parked about 50 billion in assets (presumably assets they did not want to discuss) overnight via a repo transaction so they would not appear on the balance sheet. Who the counter party was has still not been disclosed.

But unfortunately the Lehman executives do have one point. Repo 105 type balance sheet faking was “an old trick” and well known to anyone who cared to read balance sheets (very) carefully.

With BoA they did the very same thing, the end period assets were always lower than the average assets. Moreover it was not obvious unless you really looked because the quarterly earnings releases did not include average assets (but you could work it out because they stated return on average assets.

Bank of America was parking its assets off balance sheet at the end of every quarter for some time and had been obscuring the fact.

There must be a Counterparty

If Bank of America wanted to shove the assets off balance sheet someone (credit worthy) needed to be found to house the assets overnight. There are not that many parties credit worthy for $50 billion or more of overnight repos.

Well BoA found such a willing participant the counterparty was MUFJ. If you look you can see – the same way that MUFJ had end period assets higher than average assets and that the differences and timing roughly match. Someone had to assist BofA in its financial manipulation and that was MUFJ. MUFJ stands for (Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group)

About MUFJ

Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFJ), incorporated on April 2, 2001, they are a holding company for The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, Ltd. (BTMU), Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB), Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Co., Ltd. (MUS), Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS Co., Ltd. (Mitsubishi UFJ NICOS), and other subsidiaries.

Through its subsidiaries and affiliated companies, MUFG engages in a range of financial operations, including commercial banking, investment banking, trust banking and asset management services, securities businesses, and credit card businesses, and provides related services to individual and corporate customers. In July 2008, BTMU acquired 49.375% interest in JALCARD, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Japan Airlines International Co., Ltd. In November 2008, BTMU completed the acquisition of all the interest in UnionBanCal Corporation (UNBC), and as a result, UNBC became a wholly owned indirect subsidiary of MUFG.

The Company manages the underwriting of debt and equity instruments for large corporations. It also provides arrangement services relating to private placements primarily for medium-sized enterprise issuers and institutional investors. The Company advises on financing methods to meet various financing needs, including loans with derivatives, corporate bonds, commercial paper, asset-backed securities, securitization programs and syndicated loans. It also offers a range of products to meet fund management needs, such as deposits with derivatives, government bonds, debenture notes and investment funds. It also offers swaps, options and other risk-hedge programs to customers.

Well this is just the second Scam uncovered in the series, stay tuned.

The Gods of Finance speak softly but carry a big “Carpet Bag”

2010-04-24T19:02:00.000-07:00

Wall Street appears primed to surpass even the carpetbaggers of the 1860”s and 70’s with the number of foreclosures actually occurring and yet in the works.

During the civil war Reconstruction Period (1865-1870) many people from the Northern States went south because it was so pitiable that there were many opportunities for a person with even a little money.

For example you could own a farm with hundreds of acres by paying the past due taxes, often as little as $25. The carpet bags these men carried were laden with money.

Those Opportunities attracted all sorts of people, from honest hard working farmers, to crooks, charlatans, con artist and of course crooked politicians, and bankers. All these outsiders were (identified by their Carpetbag) and were called “Carpetbaggers”, then and still, in many parts of the south.

Probably the worst Carpetbaggers were the politicians who used their positions in the corrupt Reconstruction Government to enrich themselves through bribes, graft and other contemptible acts at the expense of native Southerners.

Today the dictionary defines a Carpetbagger as “an outsider involved in politics”. And appropriate describes the Wall Street Titans, who no longer carrying their identifiable carpet bag still lavish their money on politicians and control the US Congress and even the White House!

These new Carpet baggers now control every facet of the US Economy, they own more than 7 million private residences, which they have foreclosed, and they are in the process of foreclosing on another 8 million and there are still some 15 million directly behind these.

Through their corruption they have divested the states of their ability to support government by reducing the tax roles and the numbers of employed, and have driven the US government to the verge of bankruptcy, yet these same carpet baggers provide themselves a life of luxury with grandeur and bonuses that are surreal in a lifestyle that most of us could only live in a dream.

The carpet baggers were evil in the 1860’s and they are more evil today!

Yet in the midst of this evil the American people want and deserve to reform a system that has always been corrupt. A movement is afoot in congress but as always the carpet baggers will prevail and no meaningful legislation will pass. To insure this failure according to the Center for Responsive Politics, JP Morgan Chase spent $1.5 million on lobbying during the first quarter of the year, Citigroup spent $1.4 million and Goldman Sachs spent $1.15 million –

Lobbying is a legal form of bribery!

Reasonable people might ask: Why all the worry?

Today most Americans are inclined to see Wall Street as they are a predatory and all-devouring reprobate. That is all but those who are on the banks payroll as are a substantial part of Congress.

An illusion of recovery, is still an illusion

2010-04-15T18:55:00.000-07:00

The illusion of recovery has stimulated a false sense of confidence in a segment of our society, that group of us who renounce common sense in favor of mob rule. They are being led to the slaughter just as surely as cattle, and they just as often don’t realize it.

The stock market is out of whack with earnings and real value, it is being played with a hope and prayer, and as such, it is primed to take down thousands of small investors when those minions on Wall Street, who control it, reverse their play and begin to short sell.

The market is a bubble set to implode just as surely as the real estate bubble imploded only a short while ago.

Yes consumers are spending, but it is only a temporary binge, 7.8 million Americans have stopped making their mortgage payments in lieu of buying what they have foregone over the past two years. They will inevitably stop.

There will be NO real recovery until Americans find work, and that is not expected for at least a generation, yet to be born.

The stock market has become a remnant of a past time in America when fortunes were made, it is now a relic of an era that no longer exists, except in hope and prayers of those who have no connection and remain on the outside looking in.

Time out for common sense

2010-04-15T18:51:00.000-07:00

The Fed and their economists and the media are reporting that we are in a recovery mode, merchants are selling products and consumers are spending money, and overall we are up 1%. Based on this information a stock market bubble has expanded, potentially ruining thousands of investors when this new bubble deflates abruptly.

And it will!

Common sense dictates that while we are given positive information, and especially where the government is concerned, there is always a flip side to analyze. That is unless you enjoy being led once again to the slaughter.

The Flip Side

The FED also reports that the job market hasn’t improved and remains at 9.7 percent, which equates to more than 17.3 million people still looking for a job. Yes we hear about the 162 thousands jobs created, such hyperbole has not gone unchallenged, the flip side was that another 430,000 new filings for unemployment also occurred at the same time.

Additionally the government acknowledges that there are 8.9 million borrowers currently in default, and facing foreclosure.

Economist further estimate that a percent of these 8.9 million homeowners that are in default are spending money in aid of the economy because they aren’t making their mortgage payments, and the figure, they believe represents 1% increase in consumer spending, coincidence?

Ok, time to use common sense, that sound judgment we were all born with.

Given the real facts, it is obvious there is NO recovery, but the illusion of a recovery which is based of a false assumption. When we see real jobs being created, and that number MUST exceed 300,000 net jobs a month then we can say a real recovery has begun.

FDIC accused of seizing Washington Mutual to enhance JP Morgan

2010-04-15T18:47:00.000-07:00

Washing Mutual former executive Kerry Killinger has accuses the FDIC of seizing the company to enhance JP Morgan, and not because the savings and loan was insolvent.

Killinger appearing before a congressional committee investigating the financial crisis (the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations) charged regulators unfairly seized the thrift in September 2008.

Killinger stated that, while the company had suffered from rising loan losses, Wamu was working its way through the financial crisis, even as Morgan and many other banks were doing.

On September 25, 2008, JPMorgan Chase & Co bought WaMu's banking operations from regulators for $1.9 billion. Everyone has prompted that the sale was grossly undervalued in Morgan’s favor, even as Washington Mutual was solvent.

If this is true, JP Morgan Chase got the "steal" of a lifetime while WaMu shareholders and bondholders were wiped out.

Reports that have surfaced after the seizure and sale provoke an image of FDIC collusion in the seizure of WaMu.. The largest S and L has since been proven to have been solvent at the time of its seizure, and had plenty of cash on hand, even more than the FDIC requires.

An interesting side note:

Just six business days after the seizure of WaMu, the government initiated a $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, (TARP) and an increase in bank deposit insurance limits to $250,000 from $100,000, a move that helped stop panic withdrawals at all banks.

The government also refused, despite pleas from WaMu executives, to put WaMu on a list of banks in which short-selling of stock was prohibited. That decision contributed to a downward spiral of the stock price, which mirrored dwindling confidence in the bank. Other banks were placed on the list, why not the largest?

It appears that the seizure and sale of WaMu to Morgan, was a gift or payoff or? We just don’t know what for, yet! Stay tuned for the next episode!

Banks have made every excuse not to help borrowers stay in their home

2010-04-13T20:07:00.000-07:00

Four major banks have made every excuse not to help borrowers stay in their home, but this excuse will make your day.

First we need to understand the real problem!

Beginning around 2003 every bank began to make creative loans. Loans that they knew would never be repaid. They created ARM and option ARM loans, no doc loans and like the military, don’t ask and don’t tell loans, these were also no qualifying loans, stated loans, and if you were breathing you got a loan.

In fact one potential borrower actually had a heart attack while signing his mortgage papers, and the first question from the borrower when they were advised of the incident, “did he sign the loan docs”

In short it didn’t matter whether the borrower was even alive as long as the docs were signed the deal would be funded.

Washington Mutual even loaned money to an unlawful immigrant making $900.00 a month, he was financed for a $616,000 mortgage in southern California

But even better, New Century Mortgage actually loaned several million to a prison inmate in Colorado based on a no qualifying loan

All of these loans were sold up line to companies like JP Morgan, Citigroup, and Deutsch Bank. The loans were then securitized as mortgage backed securities and packaged into trusts where they were sold to anxious investors. However, since all these banks knew the loans were in reality NO good they opted to take out insurance. These policies came in two different formats, one was a derivative now known as a Credit Default Swap, the other was a standard form of default insurance.

Most borrowers were placed in ARM type of loans, ARM is an acronym for Adjustable Rate Mortgage.

By 2007 when these rates began to adjust upward, borrowers began a systematic default. That was when the banks began their ferocious bout of foreclosures.

Between 2007 and 2010 we can only speculate on the number of properties the banks have taken back. Why, because sufficient information to make a tally is being withheld. However we can approximate that number to have been realistically more than 7million. We do know that currently 7.9 million homes are seriously behind with their payments. And from information released recently another 15 million are right behind this group.

Ok now you have the picture.

The banks created the problem, and just about every bank was on the verge of collapse, they borrowed from the FED and they borrowed from us, the US taxpayer to stay afloat.

The Federal government came to the banks rescue, providing $787bn in funds, to bail out the entire financial community and the Federal Government failed to attach, as they usually do, any strings to these funds.

Who is suffering? All of America!

The banks used their own appraisers to establish the then current home Value, those appraisals were inflated because the banks wanted to loan as much as they could, the more they loaned the more they made.

The true value of the property was obscured by the appraisal, and without doubt most all properties were at least 30% to 40% over appraised.

As borrowers sought help from the banks, they found themselves speaking to deaf ears. No one was listening, and no one at the banks even cared, instead the Banks, began a systemic liquidation of the property through the foreclosure process. In short, the banks foreclosed on so many homes in such a short time that they actually ran down the values of these properties below their norm.

All the borrowers were asking for was some help and some decency and integrity, they found none. Instead borrowers were foreclosed, many were then sued for a deficiency and if there was a second mortgage, which there was in most cases, they sued for breach of contract. These punitive acts on the part of the banks forced hundreds of thousands of borrowers into bankruptcy, currently there are some 6,000 filings a day.

Now we understand what happened, we understand who created this financial disaster, and we would expect that after bailing out the major banks, that\ they would reciprocate. But alas, that is not their agenda.

Obama has come up with several plans, yet none have been a success. The banks don’t want to keep borrowers in their homes, they want those homes. Apparently it is more profitable for the bank to foreclose than to help the borrower. Evidence of this has become apparent when we look at the FDIC sales agreement with these banks that are now deemed “too big to fail”

Now for the part that you have been waiting for!

JP Morgan, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Bank of America feel that to reduce the mortgage amount on home loans for borrowers currently behind, or in fact to offer any help to borrowers, is not in the best interest of those who are making their payments. Consumers they say, who are paying their mortgages on time, are likely to see such reductions as unfair. In short, these illustrious banks would continue to take the homes away from the very people they defrauded. And they will continue to come up with excuse after excuse for not offering any real help. That is unless forced to help, and sadly the likelihood of that in this administration is a far fetched illusion.

7.9 Million Americans have stopped making Mortgage payments!

2010-04-12T14:43:00.000-07:00

In the wake of this unprecedented epidemic, the government has no concept how to help the homeowner, instead the Obama administration comes up with one empty program after another, and none have worked!

Why? Because they were not intended to!

This administration has gone out of its way to help the banks foreclose on America. Providing a bailout for the financial sector, without the taxpayers or the borrowers in mind, as such we have already witnessed over 7 million properties taken over by bankers, and now we see the possibility that another 7.9 million are about to go, and right behind them is anticipated to be another 15 million homes.

The rate of foreclosure is currently accelerating faster than lenders are capable of going through the process to take them back. It currently takes well over a year, in some cases nearly two years, to go from missing a payment to being foreclosed and evicted.

As this article is written, 7.9 almost 8 million borrowers have stopped making payments to their lender, instead they are spending what they perceive to otherwise be dead money, paying in essence for what many believe to be a dead horse.

In most areas of the country borrowers are figuratively speaking, under water with their loans, in Las Vegas alone, the most severely damaged city in America more than 81% of borrowers are upside down. On any given street there are between 2 and 4 homes already foreclosed, and “vacant”

This 2 year period gives the borrower ample time to purchase items that their mortgage payments had otherwise prevented. Accordingly we are witnessing a new thinking process as borrowers are retiring other forms of debt, and acquire things they otherwise could not afford.

On the bright side, this could help to generate a sort of financial recovery on the back of the banks who created the problem -- they may inadvertently be helping to solve it.

It’s time to look in the mirror and witness what we have become

2010-04-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

The moment of truth has arrived from a perspective we would never have imagined, an Apache helicopter over Iraq. Recent revelations in the form of Video footage, provides a dismal and stark reality of what America now stands for, we kill the innocent without provocation, children, women, and even news reporters, and there appears to be no one big enough or strong enough or with the resolve to stand against us. So we march to ourselves in a melodrama of our own creation.

We have become a nation insensitive to death and killing, whether hunting deer, or wolves, from a helicopter and now humans! This has become the reality of war and a blemish on the soul of humankind.

In July 2007 soldiers aboard an Apache helicopter shot and killed 12 people, among the dead were two reporters from Reuters News Agency and two children. They were no threat! But this was not uncommon. Reports of random killings of civilians are boundless, and had almost risen to a level of sport.

It was an unprovoked slaughter!

It was a defining moment for us, and we failed that test. On Monday, April 5, Wikileaks.org posted video of this haunting footage from Iraq. The footage has been authenticated by our own Military

War is not a game; it is also not a time for the opportunistic slaughter of the innocents. Surely we are responsible for crimes that are equated to those against humanity, and surely we must answer to them before some forum.

Iraq was a war of choice, and based on the grandest of frauds we have bought a nation by design.

Obama Gives Due Process a New Meaning

2010-04-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

Since the founding of our republic due process has meant an established course for judicial proceedings or other governmental activities designed to safeguard the legal rights of the individual. These safeguards comport with our constitutional provisions regarding criminal procedure and are found in Amendments IV, V, VI, and VIII.

When an official of government becomes a judge, a jury and an executioner, there has been no justice, and therefore No Due Process. This has now become the state of our law.

President Obama, who is himself an attorney, has authorized our CIA to assassinate an American citizen without providing this individual his day in court, indeed this is a very dangerous precedent.

Anwar al-Awlaki, is a Muslim cleric, born in New Mexico US, he is an American Citizen by birth. He stands accused of having ties to al-Qaeda in Yemen and links to two attacks inside the United States last year.

Awlaki may stand accused of these crimes but has not been convicted in any court of law, indeed he has not even been tried in absentia. The CIA has added Awlaki to a growing list of about two dozen people targeted for assassination. Several are Americans.

Both Bush and Obama have justified these lethal policies under what they perceive to be “the laws of war” which they premise allows them to use lethal force against enemy combatants. However, Enemy combatant is a term historically referring to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. But Awlaki has not been personally involved in attacks against either American’s or our interests, neither has he been involved in armed confrontations with US or NATO forces. So to apply this term against Awlaki may be an abuse of a political discretion and policy.

Of concern is that these death lists may be used to kill individuals far from any battlefield or when they are not presenting an immediate threat.

As for Awlaki, it is also unclear what intelligence exists that would justify CIA and military forces to hunt him down and kill him without any judicial review.

In February, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who has become a champion of Civil rights, offered his opinion, “American citizens have the same protections whether on US soil or not”, pointing to Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957),

This round of assassinations is yet another thorn prodding the American psyche. It is a dangerous precedent and should not be employed except as a last resort, and then only in an unusual circumstance with undisputed, verified and collaborated evidence.

The danger that emanates from this policy is that any American may be placed on this list even while living in the US, merely because he speaks out against government policy, this is not China or Russia, this is the United States, and so far we retain that right to descent.

As far as political expediency this is truly a step back through that portal leading to a medieval time, and the end result will be the creation of another Martyr eliciting more anger toward the US.

How do we get America moving again?

2010-04-06T09:10:00.000-07:00

17.3 million Americans need jobs.

Vacant storefronts abandoned and often shuttered homes and schools tell the story of the economy in real life 3rd dimension.

Wherever we go from one coast to another, this is the reality for many towns and cities across America , a nation no longer reminiscent of its better days, a nation of shrinking tax rolls and migration.

For many and for generations yet to come, there will be a different face peering out from the murky windows, staring as in a translucent state of amnesia

We as a nation have been in a decline since the 1980’s but is was so gradual a decline that we didn’t notice until the fan turned brown from our splattered remnants.

And now that we see the picture that has so assiduously unfolded, how do we as a people get out from under this elegantly conceived effrontery to not only us, but to a lifestyle that made us a great people?

Yes America was forced to transition, to pick up roots planted while the nation appeared to be on a forward momentum, but that roll wasn’t a boom and prosper roll, at least not for us.

We were used, we had become, somehow in the darkness and shadows, the mere pawns of those who consider themselves the elite of our society, and we as a people now at the hands of a government that has joined in league with them, have found ourselves without recourse to recover the government we had believed was ours.

Instead we find ourselves at the mercy of a street in New York , where the enterprises of capitalism have abandoned American principles and churned from democracies ashes a new form of governance, and it is not one with our assent.

However, there is something that remains more pressing to our society; can we yet emerge from this creative captivity unscathed?

In common parlance, what America needs is jobs, and there is one concept that may work, a return to a form of isolationism, but in trade only.

It is suggested that for America to recover, drastic measures are required, and are offered for consideration in this article:

First; no imports would be allowed unless we as a society require them, as such oil would be allowed, while all manufactured items would not. Whether it would be autos or clothing or appliances, they would be disallowed.

Second; our large corporations will be required to open plants in America and to hire Americans or their products would be denied sales in the US .

Third; these multinational corporations would be taxed 90 percent on all goods manufactured and sold abroad, giving them incentive to reverse the trend begun under the Reagan/Bush administration which promoted the exit of jobs and businesses in America in favor of a service oriented society.

And finally: there will be no additional bailouts for the financial sector, if they lose our money again they will like any other criminal be dealt with in a similar fashion.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Report for March 2010 is flawed.

2010-04-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

March 2010: the facts; 17.3 million Americans remain out of work

In March The Government reports that Nonfarm payroll employment increase by 162,000, (and we will discuss this below), yet the number of unemployed persons was little changed at 15.0 million, while the unemployment rate remained constant at 9.7 percent.

However there are another 2.3 Million Americans that are not counted as they are classified as “marginally attached to the labor force” bringing the real unemployment total to 17.3 million, and over 10%.

Marginally attached means: These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Temporary help services and health care did add jobs over the month. Employment in federal government also rose, reflecting the hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010, some 48,000. Employment however declined in the financial and the information sector.

The picture is not as colossal as one would like to see, when we consider that 40,000 jobs that were added were part time, and another 48,000 were also part time government jobs, and two sectors shed a total of 33,000 jobs. If there was a gain it was a very small gain of only 41,000, but even that is disputed by a more reliable report from the ADP Employer Services report which is unbiased, gives a different picture, it showed today that employers actually shed another 23,000 jobs in March, who do you believe?

The Labor department states: Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.8 per-cent), blacks (16.5 percent), and Hispanics (12.6 percent) showed little or no change in March. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) increased by 414,000 over the month to 6.5 million. In March, 44.1 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.9 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.6 percent) continued to edge up in March.

The number of persons working part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased to 9.1 million in March. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.

About 2.3 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in March, compared with 2.1 million a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.)These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.0 million discouraged workers in March, up by 309,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Labor Department Survey Data

Temporary help services added 40,000 jobs in March. Since September 2009, temporary help services employment has risen by 313,000.

Employment in health care continued to increase in March (27,000), with the largest gains occurring in ambulatory health care services (16,000) and in nursing and residential care facilities (9,000).

In March, employment in mining increased by 8,000. Monthly job gains in mining have averaged 6,000 over the past 5 months.

Employment in federal government was up over the month, reflecting the hiring of 48,000 temporary workers for the decennial census, and additional employees for other government agencies.

Manufacturing employment continued to trend up in March (17,000); the industry has added 45,000 jobs in the first 3 months of 2010. Over the month, job gains were concentrated in fabricated metal products (9,000) and in machinery (6,000).

Employment in construction held steady (15,000) in March. The industry had lost an average of 72,000 jobs per month in the prior 12 months.

Over the month, employment changed little in transportation and warehousing, leisure and hospitality, retail trade, and wholesale trade, where the majority of job losses have occurred.

In March, financial activities shed 21,000 jobs, with the largest losses occurring in insurance carriers and related activities (-9,000). Employment in the information industry decreased by 12,000, as did retail.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was up by 0.1 hour to 34.0 hours in March. The manufacturing workweek for all employees increased by 0.2 hour to 39.9 hours, and factory overtime was up by 0.1 hour over the month. In March, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.2 hour to 33.3 hours.

In March, average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $22.47, following a 4-cent gain in February. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by 1.8 percent. In March, average hourly earnings of private production and nonsupervisory employees fell by 2 cents, or 0.1 percent, to $18.90.

American Jobs that have gone to China.

Between 2001 and 2008, 2.4 million jobs were lost or displaced with losses occurring in every Congressional district. (Note - This does not include service industry job losses, and does not include indirect job losses which would multiply the total by 5.)

Since 2001 we have lost (to China) more tech jobs than manufacturing jobs! -- We lost 628,000 tech jobs -26 percent of all jobs displaced by trade- between 2001 and 2008.

The main advantages China uses to its advantage are:

1) Currency manipulation. China "pegs" its currency at a very low, or "weak" rate, so goods from China cost up to 40% less than they otherwise should.

2) Labor-rights suppression has lowered manufacturing wages of Chinese workers by 47% to 86%.

3) There is massive direct government subsidization of export production in many key industries.

4) China allows environmental degradation that ends up affecting all of us.

5) Intellectual property theft and piracy mean that American products that could be sold are stolen instead.

6) China has a number of policies that block U.S. firms from market access

Obama and the Titanic

2010-04-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

The current administration has hit an ice berg and placed Middle Class America in the steerage section of the Titanic

For most of America it feels like April 15, 1912, that’s the date the Titanic hit an ice berg in the Atlantic and within hours went down taking 1,517 people with it. But this time an entire nation could go down and when America sinks it will take practically the entire world with it. The question is no longer if, but when.

Regardless of the lucidity of the administration’s propaganda, we as a nation have been struck by an ice berg and we are sinking, audibly drowning in an abyss of debt.

While the Obama administration helped the large banks step into the life boats, our citizens were relegated to the lower lever steerage where lifeboats were not available.

Yes the banks have rebounded, and yes they will continue financing their cluster of relationships, rewarding those who have allowed the impenitent greed that surrounds Wall Street to go on, even while Middle Class America struggles to hold onto the remnants of a broken ship’s bowl.

We are told that everything is rosy and America is moving ahead, yet the unemployment figures (11 million unemployed) don’t reflect those sentiments. Neither does the current bankruptcy filings (6,000 a day).

The current US Debt is a staggering 12 .6 trillion and growing, at the rate of $4.02 billion per day

Inflation and depreciation of our currency is an inevitable as the looming debt crisis, even as the stock market is overvalued and an adjustment is also eminent.

It’s time to put on the life jacket!

Nobody will bail out America

2010-04-01T08:37:00.000-07:00

Regardless of the Stock Market bubble and the reports that “attempt” to paint the economy in a favorable light, financially we are close to the tipping point from where there is no return.

America's swelling long-term debt, which is increasing daily, is close to passing that point, the "tipping point" that could trigger soaring interest rates and a plummeting dollar, that could trigger a "global depression," and we are about there!

The U.S. is facing $50 trillion in unfunded liabilities and around $62 trillion in total long-term debt, how can we pull out of the maze this administration has created? Simply we can’t!

What's ultimately at stake, Americans' faith in government and our standard of living!

Both may collapse unless we can find some 12 million jobs immediately, and that likelihood of that is untenable.

America has reached its pinnacle. We cannot assuage this tremendous debt this administration has burdened us with unless we have a tax base, but a realistic tax base. That means getting America back to work.

Even more importantly, these extravagant wars of choice are draining the economy, and financed through deficits, but enhancing the large corporate structure that surrounds the military Industrial War Complex.

Since 2001, to date, the total cost of war that has been allocated by Congress is $1.05 trillion, with $747.3 to Iraq and $299 to Afghanistan. The numbers include both military and non-military spending such as reconstruction.

These expenditures include only incremental costs, those additional funds that are expended due to the war. For example, soldiers' regular pay is not included but combat pay is included. Potential future costs, such as future medical care for soldiers and veterans wounded in the war, are not included. These numbers do not account for the wars being deficit-financed or that taxpayers will need to make additional interest payments on the national debt due to these deficits.

But the war is a hands’ off topic, even aware that these wars of choice have made America and Americans and the World less safe.

When Obama took office he had a choice, a fork in the road, to the right were initiatives to put America to work, to end these wars, and make peach in the world, and to the left was health care, although both were a necessary goal the agenda should have involved each road, and not just the one to the left. While congress and the President invested a full year attempting to author a Health Care Bill, that has already met with challenges and surely will fail, America still requires jobs, and an end to foreign hostilities.

But even more, aside from needing jobs, Americans require help to retain their homes.

While the government bailed the Banks out, it left Main Street America to fall on its face.

30 million Americans are underemployed, another 9 million are unemployed, The Bank REO’S are estimated to be around 7 million, with another 7 million in default and another 15 million potentially ready to walk away. Bankruptcy’s are at 6,000 a day and business failures remain on the rise, and in the end we as a nation have lost faith in our own government, both in its integrity and its ability to solve the issues facing all of us.

In the final analysis, the entire globe is in a similar state, there is no nation that has the ability to bail out America when we fall.

Threats against Members of Congress Mount over Health Care Vote

2010-03-25T10:28:00.000-07:00

America is taking its frustrations to heart, attacking at least four Democratic offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas while at least 10 members of Congress have reported some sort of threats, including obscenity-laced phone messages.

Both sides of the American landscape are involved in this Republican generated, exaggerated and overblown debate, which has been exacerbated by FOX news semi conscience semi anchor Glenn Beck, and the Tea Party whose leaders have a track record of deception, including the infamous Edwin Meese III, the former Attorney General under Ronald Reagan who was forced to resign over several inappropriate acts.

Amazingly the people haven’t taken to the streets over the corruption emanating from congress and the white house over the Lobbying efforts of the Banks and the insurance companies, which created an atmosphere of crisis, a situation from which America has now become another financially devastated nation.

But for some reason the health care bill has evoked extreme emotions and deep rooted feelings all across America. As reports from both Democrats and Republicans are increasing, partly to blame is Sarah Palin.

Gun imagery was used in a posting on the Facebook page of Sarah Palin urging people to organize against 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill and whose districts went for the John McCain-Palin ticket two years ago. Palin's post featured a U.S. map with circles and cross hairs over the 20 districts.

Of course McCain defended Palin, saying it was commonplace practice and "part of the lexicon" to refer to "targeted" congressional districts.

If America is going to riot, it should be over a real not a perceived issue. Health Care is without doubt a payback for Big Insurance companies, but America needs a real solution to our insurance dilemma, unfortunately this administration is committed to big business.

In today's financial world borrowing and lending billions of dollars is standard practice. When the lenders become fearful that a lot of that debt can't be repaid, they stop lending. Commercial paper, the main instruments through which businesses finance their daily operations, becomes suspect. This explains why the Federal Reserve Bank, the European Central Bank, and other national banks stepped in to pump money into the financial markets.

Those actions have at least temporarily averted a much more defined crisis, but, there could be a good deal more trouble in store for the insurance industry, who insured loans against default, so how do we avert such a looming and pending environment, we structure a scheme where the insurance industry has a hidden bailout.

Americas may not stand idly by and accept another massive bailout, financially we can’t! So government created an illusion and called it health care!

The Health Care Bill, Why Are So Many Against It?

2010-03-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

Look around and you see and hear so many voices that are outraged over “passage” of this House bill.

Why?

Because the nature of human society now at its lowest level is rearing its ugly head in opposition, but in a demeaning manner, with sneers, and snickers, and prejudices.

What have we done?

In the manner of our dissent, America has shown the world our true nature. We are not the intellectual society we had believed we were. In fact we aren’t even adults.

The Bill has Obvious Problems

I would be the first to agree that this bill isn’t the greatest, it is lopsidedly in favor or the insurance companies, and parts are definitely unconstitutional, but as of now 38 Attorneys General appear ready to challenge the Bill and their likelihood of prevailing in litigation seems all but given.

I am still at a loss as to why America appears to oppose health care!

Health Care, like the right to earn a livelihood, to marry, and to have and raise children, these are basic Human Rights! Yet we accept most but not all!

And what is really interesting, those who need health care are the very ones who have seemingly been brainwashed by the Republican propaganda machine to oppose it.

Yes that part of the bill requiring all Americans to carry insurance or face a fine is unconstitutional, as the AG’s lawsuit properly addresses.

Congress’s authority stems from the interstate commerce clause, and unless somewhere else in the constitution or its Amendments there is authority given or granted Congress, it is powerless to act.

A prime example is Congress ability to tax, before the passage of the 16Th Amendment, Congress was required to tax the states not to directly tax the people

The Sixteenth Amendment to the US Constitution allows Congress now to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states.

The Supreme Court to Rule on this Legislation

No doubt if we have a legitimate Supreme Court, (which question haunts us), that part will be struck from the bill.

Unfortunately, however our Supreme Court is made up of Lawyers, who as a group, their honesty and integrity have been called into question on more than one occasion. And their sphere of knowledge is just as inventive as their imagination. However assuming even a marginal intelligence pervades this august body, logic may well prevail.

Every civilized nation provides this basic human right to its citizens, why is it that we have sought this right for ourselves for over 100 years, and even today with a bill partially passed, and though not the best it could be, we are antagonists of ourselves.

Health Care is a Right, Not a Privilege!

2010-03-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, proclaimed that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one’s family, including food, clothing, housing, and medical care.”

Although this statement of high principle was adopted at the urging of the “ United States ”, and although it reflects the truths of our nation’s founding documents, our government has achieved neither formal recognition nor practical realization of these rights!

Mass homelessness and the escalating health care crisis in the US are compelling evidence of our disregard for human rights. Sadly, our country is but one of many nations where grave offenses against the dignity of human beings are commonplace, and global enforcement of human rights remains a distant goal

Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Certainly health care falls into this category.

Proponents of the concept usually assert that all human being are endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being part of human society.

Even our Declaration of Independence proclaims this truth. “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their CREATOR, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty , and the Pursuit of Happiness”

219 years ago, Dec. 15, 1791, the Bill of Rights was ratified. Unalienable rights are not privileges. Depending on your ideology, rights are either granted to us by our Creator, or by nature, which to most people is one and the same. Privileges are granted by a society, or government entity, and are not the same as rights.

By the unalienable or "absolute rights" of individuals is meant those which are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. The rights of personal security, of personal liberty, and private property do not depend upon the Constitution for their existence. They existed before the Constitution was made, or the government was organized. These are what are termed the "absolute rights" of individuals, which belong to them independently of all government, and which all governments which derive their power from the consent of the governed were instituted to protect. People v. Berberrich (N. Y.) 20 Barb. 224, 229; McCartee v. Orphan Asylum Soc. (N. Y.) 9 Cow. 437, 511, 513, 18 Am. Dec. 516; People v. Toynbee (N. Y.) 2 Parker, Cr. R. 329, 369, 370 (quoting 1 Bl. Comm. 123).

Such entitlements are shared norms of actual human moralities, justified moral norms that all people everywhere share.

We are at the early stage of what may yet become Universal Health Care for all Americans. Health Care falls within the purview of natural or Human rights!

The House passed legislation extending health care to tens of millions of our uninsured, however, the Senate must still approve the plan!

Health care for “all” people is a “human right” and an entitlement that has taken too long to achieve.

While we have struggled to achieve this right for over a century other developed countries have had some form of social insurance (that later evolved into national insurance) for nearly as long as the US has been trying to obtain it.

Some European countries started with compulsory sickness insurance, one of the first systems, for workers beginning in Germany in 1883; other countries including Austria , Hungary , Norway , Britain , Russia , and the Netherlands followed all the way through 1912. Other European countries, including Sweden in 1891, Denmark in 1892, France in 1910, and Switzerland in 1912, subsidized the mutual benefit societies that workers formed among themselves.

So for a very long time, other countries have had some form of universal health care or at least the beginnings of it. The primary reason for the emergence of these programs in Europe was income stabilization and protection against the wage loss of sickness rather than payment for medical expenses, which came later. Programs were not universal to start with and were originally conceived as a means of maintaining incomes and buying the political allegiance of the workers.

Today after nearly a century of attempts and as many failures, we are at the closest point in our history of achieving a basic Human Right for our people, Health Care. And had it not been for the party of big business, the banks, insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical corporations this goal would have been realized some 60 years ago.

Health care as well as adequate food and shelter is a basic Human right.

10 States join forces to sue Federal Government over Health Care bill

2010-03-23T07:49:00.000-07:00

In a twist of fate several states have joined in a lawsuit challenging the Health Care Bill passed Sunday evening by the House of Representatives.

The Utah Attorney General's Office announced that it will join several states in a lawsuit challenging the health care reform legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

“This health care reform bill includes an unprecedented mandate that requires every U.S. citizen to buy health insurance or face a penalty. This mandate and other provisions violate the U.S. Constitution and infringe on individual and state rights,” said Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. Who believes “This lawsuit will help make sure the rights and the interests of American citizens are protected." Will it really?

The attorneys general of Utah, Alabama, Florida, South Carolina, Nebraska, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington have agreed to file the lawsuit if the president signs this bill into law. Other states are expected to join in the litigation.

This appears to be a dichotomy; the various states involved require every occupant of a motor vehicle to use a seat belt, or to be penalized if they don’t, in addition most require motor cycle riders to wear a helmet while operating their motorcycle, or they also face a penalty! We ask, “What is the difference?”

The States have enacted these forms of legislation under their assumed “police Powers”.

Knowing that the Courts generally review statutes in context to the Preamble to the US Constitution, we can consider the potential outcome of this planned litigation:

An example of the way courts utilize the Preamble is Ellis v. City of Grand Rapids 257 F. Supp. 564 (W.D. Mich. 1966) substantively, the case was about eminent domain. The City of Grand Rapids wanted to use eminent domain to force landowners to sell property in the city identified as "blighted", and convey the property to owners that would develop it in ostensibly beneficial ways: in this case, to St. Mary's Hospital, a Catholic organization. This area of substantive constitutional law is governed by the Fifth Amendment, which is understood to require that property acquired via eminent domain must be put to a "public use". (this concept has now been modified under the current supreme court) In interpreting whether the proposed project constituted a "public use", the court pointed to the Preamble's reference to "promot[ing] the general Welfare" as evidence that "[t]he health of the people was in the minds of our forefathers". "[T]he concerted effort for renewal and expansion of hospital and medical care centers, as a part of our nation's system of hospitals, is as a public service and use within the highest meaning of such terms. Surely this is in accord with an objective of the United States Constitution: '* * *to promote the general Welfare

However, the issue before us is more clearly defined, in promoting the General welfare of the people, can Congress require, then impose a penalty for a Citizens failure to obtain medical insurance? If the various Supreme courts have upheld the States right to require occupants of a motor vehicle to wear seat belts or to face a penalty, then certainly the US Government may hold this same right.

Yet, even if this provision should be struck down as being unconstitutional it will not affect the overall intent of the Health Care act.

War is America’s greatest export

2010-03-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

We have been at war almost every year since the founding of the republic. War has become our way of life, viewed in its greatest light from movies, to video games to the ROTC it is never out of our range of vision

But most of these wars have been illegal, like Korea - Vietnam - Cambodia - Granada - Panama - Kosovo - Afghanistan - and twice with Iraq, yet there were many more, the side excursions and support operations in a dozen other places around the globe.

American presidents have declared war in each instance or declared a “Police Action” where America service personnel have been deployed to foreign places without congresses participation, yet to declare war is a function of congress and any attempt to pass that responsibility to the president is an act considered to be ultra vires, yet our people continue to go where they are sent and to die there! We ask for what cause?

Did we protect our freedom by invading Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Granada, Panama, Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq? Or was there some ulterior motive for our wars of choice?

Like resources?

War has always been our way of life. War is our culture. War is our industry and our chief export. And as long as Americans are willing to fight and die for causes they don’t understand it will remain our heritage.

War simply, is about everything and yet about nothing, it is the essence of historical fabrication. War has always lacked honesty and integrity! War requires propaganda to incite the population, and that means that the Media Must be controlled!

War is for the large corporations who profit from our death, the banks that finance this travesty, and unconscionably for oil and drugs, the resource that draws us in.

War is a travesty that we force upon nation. It is a mockery of modern civilizations. War promotes no just end but brings suffering and spreads violence, because for every one America kills dozens will spring forth to revenge them, and so we are perpetually fighting a cause that we as a nation are too ignorant to understand. Violence will always be met with violence. Just as intellect will be met with speech!

Perhaps the way to peace is to have the leaders of the country’s embittered to stand against each other and spare the populations a needless letting of their blood. Perhaps, just perhaps, we as a people will see through this charade and say, we have had enough, NO more!

Health Care is a Human Right!

2010-03-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

Dennis Kucinich recently wrote an article where he characterized as a “civil right” Health Care, readers commented overwhelmingly that health care was not a civil right as civil rights are granted by government, how wrong they are!

Perhaps Representative Kucinich should have used a more appropriate term such as “Human Right”

Human rights are "basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled." Certainly health care falls into this category.

Proponents of the concept usually assert that all human being are endowed with certain entitlements merely by reason of being part of human society. Such entitlements can exist as shared norms of actual human moralities, as justified moral norms or natural rights supported by strong reasons, as legal rights at a national level, or as a legal right within international law.

However there is no consensus as to precise nature of what should or should not be regarded as a human right in any of the above senses and the abstract concept of human rights has been a subject of intense philosophical debate and criticism.

Certain human rights have been recognized irrespective of law. For example the Supreme Court has legally recognized some fundamental rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, including: the right to privacy, the right to marriage, the right to procreation, the right to interstate travel, the right to enter into contracts, freedom of thought, and the Right to direct a child's upbringing, these are rights so fundamental to society that No law is required to recognize them certainly as a member of the human race we are entitled to the right of health care. America is in a decline, because we as a people lack knowledge. Yet those who oppose Representative Kucinich have a right to be wrong!

Senator Salazar, the current United States Secretary of the Interior, and the travesty facing our wild mustangs

2010-03-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

Throughout his career, Senator Salazar, has campaigned on a pledge of support for 'our land, our water, and our people but that pledge doesn’t hold with his actions.

Salazar has been rewarded for going against the interest of America

In 2005, Salazar voted against increasing fuel-efficiency standards (CAFE) for cars and trucks, a vote that the League Of Conservation Voters notes is anti-environment. In the same year, Salazar voted against an amendment to repeal tax breaks for ExxonMobil and other major petroleum companies, against the interests of the land, the wildlife and the people.

In 2006, Salazar voted to end protections that limit off-shore oil drilling in Florida's Gulf Coast.

In 2007, Salazar was one of only a handful of Democrats to vote against a bill that would require the United States Army Corps of Engineers to consider global warming when planning water projects.

The Senate confirmed Salazar's nomination by voice vote on January 20, 2009, as Secretary Of The Interior. This was shortly after Obama was sworn in as President.

Salazar is in charge of the National Park Service, The Bureau Of Land Management, The United States Fish And Wildlife Service, The United States Geological Survey, The Bureau Of Indian Affairs, and other federal agencies overseen by the Interior Department. Each has its problems, and Salazar may be the biggest one of all.

Several prominent environmentalist groups are wary of Salazar, noting his strong ties with the coal and mining industries. Which have destroyed millions of acres of tribal land and BLM leased property. Property where our Wild Mustangs roam free, well, I stand corrected, where they used to roam free!

Kieran Suckling, executive director of The Center For Biological Diversity, which tracks endangered species and habitat issues states "He [Ken Salazar] is a right-of-center Democrat who often favors industry and big agriculture in battles over global warming, fuel efficiency and endangered species

We can see where this would fall into his pledge. Now what was that pledge again, oh yeah: support for our land, our water, and our people.

On March 6, 2009 Salazar agreed to move forward with The Fish And Wildlife Service's decision to remove The Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf from The Endangered Species List in Montana and Idaho

On May 9, 2009, Salazar announced upholding a Bush-era policy that prevents the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions via the Endangered Species Act (ESA), a policy he pledged to reevaluate when he took office in January. The policy which states that, despite the apparent negative impact global warming has on polar bears, an endangered species, greenhouse gasses cannot be regulated with the ESA. Salazar stated in a conference call announcing the decision that "The single greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of the arctic sea ice due to climate change," but the Endangered Species Act "is not the appropriate tool for us to deal with what is a global issue." The decision was met with criticism from environmental groups and praise from energy groups including The American Petroleum Institute and many Republicans. Salazar contended in the same conference call that the ESA was never intended to be used for the regulation of climate change, while sidestepping questions of how this situation is different from that of The Clean Air Act, which is currently being used by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate emissions

Well, now here in 2010, we have The BLM's assault on The Wild Horses. Our Wild Mustangs which are under the BLM’s Protection. The agency prohibits public comments and provides no documentation.

With the massive Calico wild horse roundup under way, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is expanding its assault on America's wild horses to Utah. On January 15, the BLM began the roundup of 200 horses in The Confusion Herd Management Area, leaving only 70-100 horses in the 235,000-acres public land area in Utah's Confusion Mountains. One wonders why the BLM is rounding up our Wild Mustangs when there is sufficient land and food to support the entire Herd!

The BLM's website invites the public to view the wild horses living in Confusion, but warns "it is unlawful to chase and/or catch them. Foals, pregnant mares and older horses are easily hurt when pursued, so please allow them to live a free and un- harassed life."

Yet, The BLM itself not only harassed, but terrorized these horses, by stampeding them with helicopters into capture pens. The BLM knows that pregnant mares, young foals, and older horses will be injured and/or killed, just as they have been in Calico. Please see IDA's blog, which documents The BLM's "euthanasia" by rifle of a mare, orphaning her foal, and the death of a foal who collapsed during the BLM's helicopter stampede.

This blog (also features a photo essay of the bittersweet story of the captured stallion Freedom, who scaled a six- foot fence and crashed through barbed wire to make his escape, forced to leave his family of eight mares and two colts behind.

Adding insult to injury, The BLM is not accepting public comments on the Confusion roundup and has provided no information to justify this wild horse capture.

This latest proposed BLM atrocity against wild horses is unnecessary and The BLM's closed-door conduct is counter to The Obama Administration's promise of transparency in government operations.

We the people have had enough. Although there has been a torrent of objections, it has fallen on deaf ears’ .People are sick and tired of politicians pretending that they are concerned about what the people think and want, just to have them turn around and do what they were going to do in the first place.

Why are these magnificent animals being rounded up and killed, Information has surfaced regarding an agreement between the BLM and a Canadian company that is slaughtering these animals and selling them off to third world countries for food, this is yet another disgrace, and Obama who sponsored Salazar may be implicated.

Stand by this isn’t over by a long shot!

Obama says it’s time to say Good-by and Move on

2010-03-13T13:45:00.000-08:00

The foreclosure crisis has been a challenge for this president, who has invested more than $787bn in Wall Street in hopes they would help keep Americans in their homes, now this administration has thrown in the towel, the new direction, help the banks to liquidate American homeowners. Obama’s new approach paying homeowners to leave quietly.

Taking effect on April 5, the new program hopes to encourage hundreds of thousands of delinquent borrowers who have not been rescued by the loan modification program, (which simply hasn’t worked), to shed their houses through a process known as a short sale, in which property is sold for less than the balance of the mortgage. Lenders will be compelled to accept that arrangement, forgiving the difference between the market price of the property and what they are owed.

However, this program like all the others is dependent on co-operation from the Banks and servicers of the loans, who so far have refused to participate in these types of government programs unless there is money in it for them. Short sales have been unsuccessfully tried for the past two years and very few have actually been accepted by the banks without the borrower agreeing to repay the short part of the mortgage, this plan is not expected to fare any better.

Under the new program, the servicing bank, as with all modifications, will get $1,000. Another $1,000 can go toward a second loan, if there is one. And for the first time the government would give money to the distressed homeowners themselves. They will get $1,500 in "relocation assistance."

However the servicer earns much more than $1000, by maintaining the borrower in a default status, and through the foreclosure.

This program is more like a slap in the face of the defaulting borrower! $1,500.00 won’t pay even a portion of the moving costs.

We are a disposable people and a disposable workforce!

2010-03-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

We built a great nation only to watch it collapse under the weight of corporate greed:

There was a joke that was told many years ago about the Lone Ranger and his sidekick Tonto, Tonto was an Indian, or now more correctly stated “a Native American” the story went like this: Both the Lone Ranger and Tonto were surrounded by hundreds of Indians and as the Lone Ranger ran out of ammunition he turned to Tonto and said, ” looks like we’re done Tonto”, Tonto turned back to the Lone Ranger and replied “what do you mean “we” white man”

And so it goes with Wall Street

Yes there is a recovery going on, but it’s not for middle class America, it’s for the big boys whom the government favors. Like our big global companies, Wall Street, and high-income Americans who hold their savings in financial instruments and in bonds and stocks, they are clearly doing better.

But take a drive down main street or look at any commercial center in any of the 50 states and we see empty stores that once contained mom and pop businesses, even franchises are folding. If there is as the government says a recovery, then why are businesses still closing?

Because Americans are not spending as the government claims, in fact Americans generally don’t have the money to spend. Indeed they don’t have the means to even pay their current debts. In fact since the first business day of January 2010, Americans are filing bankruptcies at the rate of 6,000 per day. That’s an annual filing rate of just over 1.5 million

The reason the Government puts out exaggerated figures is their belief the economy runs on optimism and that if the average consumer believes the economy is getting better, they'll spend more readily and- the economy will get better.

Only a pseudo intellect in today’s sad state of affairs could muster this reasoning

The government fails to understand that regardless of how people feel, they won't spend if they don't have the money, and Main Street doesn’t have the money! The 9 million unemployed along with 30 million underemployed and the growing number of College Graduates entering the workforce has crippled the economy and it is felt most by small business, the neighborhood business. Each unemployed and underemployed individual affects 5 others in the economy. This 39 million people who are earning less are spending less and they are affecting nearly 200,000,000 people. It is axiomatic that the economy will not improve for the average American until we begin to employ our own, and to regenerate and reinvigorate American Small business.

The government tells us that the US economy grew at a 5.9 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. That sounds good at first blush, until you realize GDP figures are badly distorted by structural changes in the economy. For example, part of the increase is due to rising health care costs, when WellPoint ratchets up premiums it enlarges the GDP. A separate part of the perceived growth in GDP is due to rising government expenditures, and the costs or gas at the pump.

Who is really doing better in America?

The people and private-sector institutions at the top!

Many of America's biggest companies are sitting on huge amounts of cash, but that says nothing about the health of the U.S. economy. Companies in the Standard & Poor 500 stock index had sales of $2.18 trillion in the fourth quarter, up from $2.02 trillion last year, and their earnings tripled. Why? Because they're global and selling into fast-growing markets in places like India, China, and Brazil!

America's biggest companies are also showing fat profits and productivity gains because they continue to slash payrolls and cut expenditures. Alcoa, for example, had $1.5 billion in cash at the end of last year, double what it had on hand at the end of 2008. Sounds terrific until you realize how it did it. By cutting 28,000 jobs - 32 percent of its workforce - and slashed capital expenditures 43 percent. Who suffered, middle class America, while those who owned Alcoa Stock benefited and so did Alcoa’s executives.

We have become a use then throw away work force!

Yes firms in S&P 500 are holding $932 billion in cash and short-term investments. And they can borrow money cheaply, corporate bond sales, that is buying into Corporate debt, so far in 2010, has topped $195.2 billion, excluding government-guaranteed bonds.

Does this spell a recovery? No, why? Because they're doing two things that don't help at all!

First, they're buying other companies. Walgreen last month spent $618 million for New York drugstore chain Duane Reade; Bank of New York Mellon, $2.3 billion for PNC Financial Services; Monster, $225 million for jobs.com; Diamond Foods, $615 million for Kettle Foods.

This buying doesn't create new jobs. In fact it creates a net loss of duplicate ones. One of the first things companies do when they buy other companies is fire people who are considered "redundant."

The second thing large companies are doing with all their cash is buying back their own stock, in order to boost their share prices. There were 62 such share buy-backs in February, valued at $40.1 billion. We're witnessing the biggest share buyback spree since Sept 2008. The major beneficiaries are current shareholders, including top executives, whose pay is linked to share prices. The buy-backs do absolutely nothing for most Americans.

The picture on Main Street is quite different. Small businesses aren't selling much because they have to rely on American consumers - rather than foreign consumers. And Americans still aren't buying much because they don’t have the financial resources.

Small businesses are also finding it difficult to get credit. Most of the 8000 American banks don’t have money to loan because of the large number of bad debts on their books. And some 700 banks are set to fail this year. Since small businesses are where the jobs are created in any recovery and we are losing small businesses, this recession will continue for a decade or longer. We won’t see a recovery until we have an administration with the foresight to care about us rather than Wall Street.

The traditional mom and pop business is closing at the rate of 40% (2 out of 5) during this recession if this continues we may lose most of our 28,000,000 small businesses that we had in 2007 during its peak.

Don’t believe the Government reports

The Federal Reserve recently reported that American consumers are shedding their debts. Total US household debt, the FED claims, “including mortgages and credit card balances, fell 1.7 percent last year”. Supposedly this was the first drop since the government began recording consumer debt in 1945.

What is the truth?

Much of the debt-shedding has been through default - consumers are simply not repaying their debts and walking away from homes and big-ticket purchases, cars and credit card balances.

End of story!

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal has its own take on the defaults: "the defaults are leaving many people with more cash to spend and save, jump-starting the financial rehabilitation of the economy”

Let’s get real: American consumers account for 70 percent of the total demand for goods and services if they don’t have the financial resources or the jobs, or are concerned about their retirement, who if not them will sustain the economy?

Let’s face the facts: This American economy was in trouble since the end of 2000, it took the real estate balloon (developing Bubble) to stimulate the economy, but there were NO real job growth even then, consumers were borrowing the equity from their homes merely to make the payments. The Banks knew it, the FED knew it, and they knew the bubble had to burst! That was one of the reasons the Credit Default Swaps were created, guaranteeing Mortgage loans that the Banks knew were worthless!

The daunting question must be considered? The US Economy has been imperiled through incompetent administrations, who have favored outsourcing American jobs, and it started with Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush. Now how will Main Street come back? How will we create jobs? Certainly not from big businesses that are outsourcing! Certainly not from Wall Street who considers itself above main street and has no concerned for what they consider a disposable work force. And certainly not from government who is so tied to the apron strings of Wall Street they appear to be tied at the hip!

Until there's an answer, an economic "recovery" for anyone other than big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy is an illusion, and more Americans will yet find themselves falling into dismay

The Allopathic Wars

2010-03-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

Allopathy, the treatment of a disease by using remedies whose effects differ from those produced by that disease. This is the principle of mainstream medical practice, as opposed to that of homeopathy.

Homeopathy is a complementary disease-treatment system in which a patient is given minute doses of natural substances that in larger doses would produce symptoms of the disease itself

Homeopathic medicine was first used for a wide-scale epidemic in 1801 when Samuel Hahnemann MD, observed that a child who was being treated with a homeopathic preparation of belladonna resisted scarlet fever even though all three siblings were affected. Wondering whether the belladonna had acted prophylactically, Hahnemann began giving it to children in other families when the first ones fell ill, and he found it to be protective despite a 90% attack rate among the untreated. The method was accepted by the regular doctors and the Prussian government

Homeopathy has been practiced in the United States for over 170 years.

Homeopathy is the preferred medicine by members of the Royal Family in England and homeopathy is widely prescribed by physicians in Europe and Asia .

Homeopathy has had an opportunity to prove its effectiveness in times of epidemics and contagious diseases. For example, during the cholera epidemics in Europe during the 1830's, homeopathic doctors had a recovery of 80% of their patients. This compared to conventional doctors' 50% recovery rate.

In 1850, a homeopathic college was founded in Ohio this was due to homeopathic success rates during the cholera epidemics in the United States .

Educated doctors abandoned bloodletting and administering large doses of poisons to purge the body. Doctors now began to use homeopathic remedies as a safe and more effective treatment against yellow fever, typhoid, and scarlet fever.

By 1900, 100 homeopathic hospitals existed. Popularity of homeopathy in all classes of society encouraged the development of 22 homeopathic medical schools, and the opening of over 1000 homeopathic pharmacies. Over 20% of doctors during this period considered themselves homeopaths.

The American Medical Association (AMA) was beginning to acquire its strong hold in medicine. Conventional medicine never ceased its attack on homeopathy. Dr. McCormack in the early 1900's said,
"We must admit that we have never fought the homeopath on community and got the business."
There are a number of alternative healing therapies that work so well and cost so little (compared to conventional treatment), that Organized Medicine, the Food & Drug Administration, and their overlords in the Pharmaceutical Industry (The Big Three) would rather the public not know about them. The reason is obvious: Alternative, non-toxic therapies represent a potential loss of billions of dollars to allopathic (drug) medicine and drug companies.

The Big Three have collectively engaged in a medical conspiracy for the better part of 70 years to influence legislative bodies on both the state and federal level to create regulations that promote the use of drug medicine while simultaneously creating restrictive, controlling mechanisms (licensing, government approval, etc) designed to limit and stifle the availability of non-drug, alternative modalities.

The conspiracy to limit and eliminate competition from non-drug therapies began with the Flexner Report of 1910. Abraham Flexner was engaged by John D. Rockefeller to scour the country and "evaluate" the effectiveness of therapies being taught in medical schools and other institutions of the healing arts. Rockefeller wanted to dominate control over petroleum, petrochemicals, and pharmaceuticals (which are derived from 'coal tars' or crude oil). He arranged for his company, Standard Oil of New Jersey to obtain a controlling interest in a huge German drug cartel called I. G Farben. (later During WWII I. G Farben manufactured the “Zyklon B” Gas use at Auschwitz and the other concentration camps) He pulled in his stronger competitors like Andrew Carnegie and JP Morgan as partners, while making other, less powerful players, stockholders in Standard Oil. Those who would not come into the fold "were crushed" according to a Rockefeller biographer (W. Hoffman, David: Report on a Rockefeller ( New York : Lyle Stuart, Inc., 1971} page 24.)

The report Flexner submitted to The Carnegie Foundation was titled "Medical Education in the United States and Canada ". Page 22 of the report said: "the privileges of the medical school can no longer be open to casual strollers from the highway.

The Carnegie Foundation in 1910 ran with the Flexner Report and issued its own version sanctioning allopathic (conventional) medical schools, at the same time condemning homeopathic schools.

This was based on the premise that homeopathic teachers were also practitioners and that courses in pharmacology were taught.

With newer medicines and $350 million being poured into allopathic medicine and hospitals by John D. Rockefeller, homeopathic schools began to close due to lack of support and money.

John D. Rockefeller destroyed the prevailing medical model and created a new one -- allopathic medicine.

The primary result of this activity was that his crude oil, worth perhaps a nickel per gallon, suddenly, turned into medical drugs, was worth millions of dollars per gallon. The initial changes in medicine seemed good, but the sinister and hidden purpose behind his millions of dollars of donations -- they are what we see today in the modern medical model -- based on drugs that don't cure, but increase the disease of mankind, in fact many kill rather than cure!

Homeopathy continues to struggle. This is due in part to state laws and the AMA. The current laws for licensing force physicians to practice according to acceptable and prevailing standards

Allopathic Medicine on the other hand has been burdened with Fraud, false reports, studies, and hidden accounts of lethal drugs being approved by the FDA resulting in patient death.

Now to broaden the picture, enter a pharmaceutical Shill, Dr. Scott Reuben, a former member of Pfizer's speakers' bureau, who has just agreed to plead guilty to faking dozens of research studies favorable to big Pharma that were published in medical journals.

The most haunting question, how did false reports become a credible report in a major Medical Journal?

Some of Ruben’s faked study data were about Bextra and Vioxx drugs.

As a result of Dr. Reuben's faked studies, the peer-reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia was forced to retract 10 "scientific" papers authored by Reuben. The Day of London reports that 21 articles written by Dr. Reuben that appear in medical journals have apparently been fabricated, too, and must be retracted.

Dr. Reuben's actions really aren't that extraordinary. Drug companies bribe researchers and doctors as a routine matter. Medical journals routinely publish false, fraudulent studies. FDA panel members regularly rely on falsified research in making their drug approval decisions, and the mainstream media regularly quotes falsified research in reporting the news.

Fraudulent research, in other words, is widespread in modern medicine. The pharmaceutical industry couldn't operate without it, actually. It is falsified research that gives the industry its best marketing claims and strongest FDA approvals. Quacks like Dr Scott Reuben are an important part of the pharmaceutical profit machine because without falsified research, bribery and corruption, the industry would have very little research at all.

While Drugs are questionable, it should be noted that Homeopathy works equally well for both viruses and for bacterial infections as well as diseases.

Home Bargains Fraught with Bank Caginess!

2010-03-04T08:26:00.000-08:00

Although banks are estimated to have some 7 million (foreclosed) homes in their inventory they are releasing only a few at a time running the cost to purchase these homes upward. To add insult to an already deep injury, investors are coming in with all cash offers which make buying a home for someone who wants to live there next to impossible.

Yet foreclosures are primed to rise as more than 5 million homeowners are currently facing foreclosure and the government programs aimed at keeping borrowers in their homes has failed miserable. Why? Because loan servicers make money while a property owner is in default, and the small amount the government offers these servicers doesn’t sway their interest.

Loan servicers have NO incentive to modify a loan for a borrower, accordingly only approximately 66,000 of the 750,000 homeowners who are allegedly otherwise qualified for a modified loan have actually received one.

The majority of borrowers seeking a loan modification are played with through a trial modified loan for periods of three months at a time, after completing this trial period, the loan modification may be denied and another trial period initiated. Meanwhile the servicer receives the benefit of these payments!

Borrowers acting in good faith often become frustrated and ultimately just give up, which appears to be just what the banks want!

Why do we say this?

The $787bn bank bailout was “allegedly” to stimulate the banks to make loans, now that the banks are rich with cash, Bernanke has instructed the banks NOT to make loans because as he said, ”loaning money into circulation will create inflation” instead Bernanke has devised a plan where the Banks will place blocks of cash totaling billions, with the FED keeping the funds out of the market place yet the FED will pay the banks interest on this money!

Let’s be real!

The reason for the all cash borrower being favored by the banks is that now this money is also taken out of circulation, and guess what- When the Banks place billions of dollars with the Fed and they draw interest, who do you think will pay that interest?

Yup, we’ve been had again!

Mitt Romney: A Poster Child of Inaccuracy

2010-02-28T09:47:00.000-08:00

In the last presidential race Mitt Romney was forced to drop out over his false claims and unjustified attacks, now attempting to set himself in motion for another bid, his false sense of memory is playing havoc with his image. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney declared, last week, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Democrats the party of "No!" — no to balanced budgets, limits on lawsuits, tax cuts and tough interrogations of terror suspects.

Romney's assertions lacked context at best and at worst were flat-out false, a stronger comment is being withheld. While Romney and his fellow Republicans were filling the air with fabrications liberal Democratic activists were torturing the true facts online.

Why do we have to expect politicians and their allies to fudge facts?

Even President Obama embellishes the number of jobs created by last year's stimulus bill.

Such distortion and dishonesty cause Americans to be increasingly skeptical of, and even cynical about their political institutions and leaders. Once people lose faith in the political system, they're less likely to vote, less willing to pay taxes to support government-run programs, less motivated to run for office themselves and — sociologists say — they're even less likely to get involved in their own communities.

Romney was deceitful about almost every claim (i) Democrats are opposed to tax cuts. Obama’s stimulus bill included $288 billion in tax benefits, (ii) Democrats are against balanced budgets, A Democratic president, Bill Clinton, oversaw surpluses and the nation's debt skyrocketed under President Bush, a conservative Republican. (iii) Democrats are against "tort reform," or the limiting of lawsuits. Obama has put this idea on the table in an effort to get Republicans to address the troubled health care system.

We don’t need one more politician in Washington who doesn’t know the truth from a lie, Romney has shot himself in the foot, again!

Exposing the supporters of “The Mount Vernon statement”: The Tea Party Manifesto

2010-02-24T09:39:00.000-08:00

The entire crust of the Tea Party movement has been a right wing sham. It might have made sense if not for its supporters, primarily Former Reagan administration Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III, who has become involved as a leader of sorts in the tea party movement. Meese who was forced to resign as attorney general in 1988 over his role in three scandals, the Wedtech scandal, the Hamilton Promise software scandal, and the Michael Reconisuito CIA Scandal, should have resigned himself to an early retirement, but instead he has aligned himself with an organization that has a strong potentials for another political scandal, “The Tea Party”. If not a further disgrace for the three men involved, Meese, Feulner, and Regnery.

Meese and his close associates, Heritage Foundation President Edwin Feulner Jr. which is financed by several far right leaning foundations such as: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Scaife Foundations, the John M. Olin Foundation, Inc., Castle Rock Foundation, JM Foundation, Claude R. Lambe Charitable Foundation, the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation, and the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation. Many of these same foundations are involved in the “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC) which wrote the hand book for wars of choice in the Middle East, namely a pre emptive attack against IRAN, IRAQ, SERIA, and Saudi Arabia.

The PNAC attempted to advise President Clinton to strike IRAQ. He “intelligently” denied their request.

Heritage has received donations from the East Asian nations of South Korea and Taiwan; SourceWatch reports that in 1988 Korean intelligence discovered that Heritage received $2.2 million from the South Korean National Assembly during the 1980's. Although Heritage denies this claim, they do admit to receiving a $400,000 grant from the Korean conglomerate Samsung.
The Korea Foundation, a conduit of the Korean government, has also donated almost $1 million to Heritage in the past three years.

Another associate is American Spectator publisher Alfred Regnery, Regnery served in the Justice Department during the Reagan Administration under Meese he and Meese are involved together is some questionable financial dealings involving their management of donations to The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.

Meese and Regnery: The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund.

The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund – is a right-wing Virginia non-profit organization overseen by Ed Meese, William Bradford Reynolds, and Al Regnery just what it does with the funds is a serious question? Most of the money collected has gone to collecting additional funds, salary for its leadership, and to prop up other right-wing organizations to which they have ties, like The American Spectator, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Federalist Society

Tens of thousands of Americans have contributed to the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. But while those donations total millions every year, the fund spends only pennies on the dollar directly assisting officers facing criminal charges.

Over the past five years, the charity collected more than $13 million, primarily through direct-mail pitches. But most of that money — more than $9 million — went right back to the professional fundraisers hired by the nonprofit legal defense fund.

Last year, for example, the group spent 81 cents on fundraising for every dollar collected, according to federal tax forms. After other expenses, the defense fund last year devoted only about 8 cents on the dollar to charitable grants, its tax forms show.

That grant money — about $275,000 — was less than the group's co-founders paid themselves in salary and benefits for the year. David H. Martin, a Washington lawyer who serves as chairman, collected $156,000, while Alfred Regnery, publisher of The American Spectator Magazine, received $81,000 for the part-time job of secretary-treasurer. In addition, the charity paid $54,000 into retirement accounts for Martin and Regnery.

Administrative costs have soared, particularly for salaries and rent. For years, the legal defense fund was run out of Martin's law office. But the nonprofit now subleases space at Regnery's financially strapped American Spectator. The initial rent in 2003 was $9,000 a year, but the nonprofit agreed last year to increase its payments to $42,000 a year — about a third of the total rent for the American Spectator's space.

And even as the charity devoted only a small fraction of its budget to grants, not all of the money doled out went to help accused officers. Instead, the charity's executives have sent a sizable and growing amount of cash to a small number of universities and conservative policy groups not mentioned in their fundraising pitches.

The charity's biggest beneficiary last year, for example, was not a police officer, but the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a national campus-based think tank that promotes "limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, the rule of law, market economy, and moral norms."

The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund sent $75,000 to the institute last year, part of at least $360,000 the defense fund has pledged. Regnery, secretary-treasurer of the defense fund, is chairman of the institute's board of trustees. The charity has also given tens of thousands of dollars to the Federalist Society, described by The American Conservative magazine as a "training ground for young conservative lawyers"; to the Law and Economics Center at George Mason University in Virginia, a leading center of conservative and libertarian legal studies; and to a project at McDaniel College — Martin's alma mater.

Wake up and look at who is behind any movement.

Lawyers, Americas Impaired Intellectuals

2010-02-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

"It has long been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression,... that the germ of dissolution of our Federal Government is in the constitution of the Federal Judiciary — an irresponsible body, working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief over the field of jurisdiction until all shall be usurped from the States and the government be consolidated into one. To this I am opposed." Thomas Jefferson 1821

Since judges are drawn from the ranks of lawyers, about whom former Chief Justice Warren Burger, U.S. Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986, has stated: "75 to 90 percent of American trial lawyers are incompetent, dishonest, or both," the incompetence and dishonesty levels of judges is certain to be at least this high.

In any given year, 10 practicing “insured” lawyers out of every 100 see a malpractice claim. And there are others that aren’t insured at all. With most people unable to find a qualified attorney who will sue a brother in arms, or have been forced into bankruptcy by their lawyer’s incompetence level, attorneys have become a Bastian of greed and corruption and lawbreakers who steal then slither away in the darkness.

And yet incompetence is generally rewarded in Washington .

Take for example the competency level of BUSH justice department lawyers John Yoo and Jay Bybee, each authorized the CIA to use torture methods of water-boarding and other extreme measures on captured suspects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, the word here is suspects of which most were innocent!

Bush administration officials at the time were so worried about the prospect that CIA officers might be criminally prosecuted for torture that one senior official - Attorney General John Ashcroft - even suggested that President Bush issue "advance pardons" for those engaging in water-boarding, a proposal that he was quickly told was not possible. John Ashcroft was the top lawyer in the US and he failed to understand the Constitutions limitations.

The views of former Justice lawyer John Yoo were deemed to be so extreme and out of step with legal precedents that they prompted the Justice Department's internal watchdog office to conclude last year that he committed "intentional professional misconduct" Yoo’s, position was strongly backed by David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney's legal counsel. What happened to them?

David S. Addington, who was a forceful voice in internal legal debates, as of March 2009 is said to still be looking for work.

As for Bybee and Yoo they were rewarded, Yoo, is now a Berkeley law professor, and his boss at the time, Jay Bybee, is now a federal judge, approved by congress!

Yoo was so out of step with his legal training that he either believed “Bush Could Order Civilians to Be 'Massacred' as he has stated, or so corrupt that his teaching at Berkley is a major concern for the future of this profession.

And as for Bybee, as a federal judge he wields a lot of power that directed against the constitution could endanger our remaining rights. And his appointment to the Supreme Court could mark the end of what remains of this tattered democracy.

False Prophets of War!

2010-02-18T18:01:00.000-08:00

Were the Taliban an enemy of the US?

Was Bin Laden responsible for the 9/11 World Trade Center attack?

These are two questions that have daunted the American psyche since the US attacked Iraq under “knowingly” false pretenses. Allegations of weapons of mass destruction, the US government knew did not exists, were the cause that beat a war drum and marshaled the might of our military against a lesser army, in short we wanted Iraq’s Oil and we took it.

We also wanted the Unocal Pipeline across Afghanistan, and as discussions faltered we forced the Taliban out to put our own puppet in, now that Pipeline has been secured.

Our latest focus, the Caspian Sea‘s rich oil resources, so Iran is another enemy that must be dealt with, allegations of uranium enrichment has become the drum beat and propaganda of this seemingly inevitable confrontation.

With war after war as our centerpiece, we have become bullies of the world, sacking the resources of nations at our will. As the early Roman warrior, and before them Alexander we seek global dominance. America does not free mankind through democracy it enslaves it through that illusion.

We have become that which we abhor most, terrorists, war mongers, and politically totalitarian. We are the American generation of imperialists who chant the illusion of democracy, while we torture our victims in the name of salvation.

Yet, just as war with Iran is not necessary, neither were Afghanistan or Iraq.

After almost 9 years of continuous war, documents have been declassified and released that establish, the US made a false case to attack not only the Taliban, and initiated a war of choice, but were actually the terrorists we seek to destroy.

Evidence is now available from multiple sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, which shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States.

The evidence contradicts claims by top Barack Obama administration officials that Mullah Omar was complicit in Osama bin Laden's involvement in the al Qaeda plot to carry out the Sep. 11, 2001 terrorist attack. It also bolsters the credibility of Taliban statements in recent months asserting that it has no interest in al Qaeda's global jihadist aims.

Mullah Omar's willingness to allow bin Laden to remain in Afghanistan was conditioned from the beginning, according to documents, on two prohibitions on his activities: bin Laden was forbidden to talk to the media without the consent of the Taliban regime or to make plans to attack U.S. targets.

In retaliation for the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in East Africa on Aug. 7, 1998 The US Government believing Bin Laden guilty, in August 1998 engaged in cruise missile strikes against bin Laden run training camps in Afghanistan. This attack by the US appears to have had a dramatic impact on Mullah Omar and the Taliban regime's policy toward bin Laden.

Two days after the strike, Omar unexpectedly entered into a phone conversation with a US State Department official and one of his aides, he told the U.S. official he was unaware of any evidence that bin Laden "had engaged in or planned terrorist acts while on Afghan soil". The Taliban leader said he was "open to dialogue" with the United States and asked for evidence of bin Laden's involvement, according to the State Department cable reporting the conversation.

Only three weeks after Omar asked for evidence against bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader sought to allay Taliban suspicions by appearing to accept the prohibition by Omar against planning any actions against the United States.

In an interview with al Jazeera, (The mid east version of CNN), bin Laden stated "There is an opinion among the Taliban that we should not move from within Afghanistan against any other state, he added "This was the decision of the Commander of the Faithful, as is known." Mullah Omar had taken the title "Commander of the Faithful"

During September and October 1998, the Taliban apparently sought to position itself to turn bin Laden over to the Saudi government by obtaining a ruling from the Afghan Supreme Court that bin Laden was guilty of the Embassy bombings.

In a conversation with the U.S. chargé in Islamabad on Nov. 28, 1998, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, Omar's spokesman and chief adviser on foreign affairs, referred to a previous Taliban request to the United States for evidence of bin Laden's guilt to be examined by the Afghan Supreme Court, (according to the U.S. diplomat's report to the State Department).

Accordingly with Omar’s request, the US failed to provide the Afghan Supreme Court such evidence supporting their claim that bin Laden was involved. The court thus ruled that no evidence had been presented warranted the conviction of bin Laden.

Muttawakil said the court trial approach had "not worked" but suggested that the Taliban regime was now carrying out a strategy to "restrict [bin Laden's] activities in such a way that he would decide to leave of his own volition."

Meanwhile, the US Media and public officials were blaming the Taliban of protecting bin Laden.

In the face of a new Taliban hostility, bin Laden sought to convince Mullah Omar that he had given his personal allegiance to Omar as a Muslim. In April 2001 bin Laden referred publicly to having sworn allegiance to Mullah Omar as the "Commander of the Faithful".

Even in summer 2001, as the Taliban regime became increasingly dependent on foreign jihadi troop contingents, including Arabs trained in bin Laden's camps, for its defense against the military advances of the Northern Alliance, Mullah Omar found yet another way to express his unhappiness with bin Laden's presence.

In Late January, Geoff Morrell, the spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates, suggested that the United States could not negotiate with Mullah Omar, because he has "the blood of thousands of Americans on his hands," implying that he had knowingly allowed bin Laden's planning of the 9/11 attacks. Yet no such evidence exists to support the US storyline. In fact this story seems to be wholly inaccurate in face of what we now know.

It is more likely that the US wanted to attack and remove the Taliban, and after we succeeded, the Taliban now appear to be waging war in retribution.

Why did we really invade Afghanistan?

We knew that the Taliban were not protecting Bin Laden and we had no information that Bin Laden was behind the World Trade Center attack, but we do know this the hijackers were all Saudi Nationals, and we needed oil and lots of it

In 2001, the U.S imported 54% of the oil it required, importing 11-12 million barrels a day and producing about 8-9 million a day. The US was consuming about 20 million barrels of oil daily.

Of those imports, 48% came from the Western Hemisphere and 30% came from the Persian Gulf region, with the rest came from Africa and Europe.

The Persian Gulf Region contains 590 billion barrels of known reserves. Add Iran, Libya and Algeria and you have another 130 billion barrels. This enormous pool of oil that stretches from Algeria to Iran is estimated at 720 billion barrels. The reserves expected from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia will be added to this total shortly. Those reserves are estimated to be another 44 billion barrels of oil reserves and possibly more.

The Afghanistan war is about securing the territory through which the oil and gas pipelines will have to pass through in order to ensure Russia, China and Iran are out-maneuvered in the last great wars for the last of the global oil supplies on planet Earth. Iran and Russia within the past month have secured a cooperative agreement over the Caspian oil reserves and have possibly out maneuvered the US interests.

Unocal a company now owned by Chevron in 1995, entered the picture and began negotiations with the Taliban to construct an oil pipeline:

Unocal signed a tentative agreement with the Turkmenistan government to research the possibilities of constructing an oil pipeline to Pakistan by way of Afghanistan. As the project developed, Unocal began to seek an agreement with the Taliban, who had recently risen to power, to construct a pipeline across their country. On two separate occasions, in February and December 1997, Taliban officials were flown to the US to meet with, and be wined and dined by, Unocal executives. One of those executives was claimed to have been Hamid Karzai (Currently the US Installed President of Afghanistan) Although Karzai denies his involvement with Unocal, there is strong evidence to support his connections.

Background on Karzai, Bush and UNOCAL

This information is quoted from an article by the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), globalresearch.ca, January 23, 2002 (Reprinted here with fair use permission)

According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contactor for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, and then Vice President George HW Bush, and the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service. Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA.

According to Middle East and South Asian sources Karzai serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal.

When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset, and why we invaded Afghanistan.

Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table.

Note: According to European intelligence sources; Meetings between the Taliban and the US Government over the pipe line are said to have continued even after the September 11, attack and the beginning of the war.

Governments lie, and we are the ultimate victims of their treachery.

Obama tied to FDIC, Wall Street Scam

2010-02-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

It all started in June 2008, when the FDIC took control of Indymac Bank, that of itself wasn’t strange as many large banks would collapse over the type of loans and the creative insurance programs these banks invested in.

But what occurred in March 2009 will make your hair stand on edge. It displays the open corruption between the White House, The Banks, and those so well connected to the current administration and Washington insiders.

In March 2009 Indymac Bank was sold to One West Bank, the sale was for 70% of the face value of the mortgages and the HELOC’S at 58%

But the government guaranteed 80% to 95% of the original loan amount, for a short sale or a foreclosure.

Example:
Loan Amount $ 478,000
Add six months interest for failed payments
$ 485,000
One West Bank paid FDIC $ 334,600
Short sale amount $ 241,000
FDIC Guarantee $ 388,000
FDIC paid One West Bank $ 147,000

One West Bank received for the short sale a total of:
$ 241,000
$ 147,000
__________
$ 388,000 a $53,400 windfall plus

The Bank on a short sale took a note from the seller for the shortfall in the amount of $90,000 for a profit of= $143,400

One West Bank made a hefty profit from the taxpayers on this one transaction and it worked the same way on a foreclosure

Now we can see why it benefits the banks to Foreclose or complete a short sale. But wait!

The owners of One West Bank are none other than:
1. George Soros - Obama’s main contributor whom he has already paid back with a 2bn dollar Grant to one of his corporations for off shore oil drilling, and the US has no benefit in the oil:
2. John Paulson - A relative of Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

And a former Goldman Sachs VP

Obama Takes good care of his financial supporters and often it’s with our money!

What The US Media is hiding: Blackwater’s role In Pakistan

2010-02-05T08:31:00.000-08:00

Two Pakistani employees of an American defense contractor engaged by the US Embassy in Islamabad have been linked to two attacks on Pakistani military and the assassination of a Brigadier general. If this is not alarming, then consider that US Ambassador Anne Patterson’s name has come up in an investigation where thousands of dollars were paid in bribes to Interior Ministry to smuggle illegal weapons into Pakistan.

Not to mention how Washington is empowering India in Afghanistan at Pakistan’s cost.

When Pakistan takes countermeasures the US officials like Mr. Gates and Mr. Holbrooke accuse Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassing US diplomats. A ploy often invoked by the former US President George Bush, you are either with us or against us!

It’s time for some straight talk.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted during an interview with a Pakistani TV station that Blackwater [now ‘Xe International’] and DynCorp are operating in Pakistan.

Immediately after that statement, The Pentagon attempted to put a spin on his words.

The US has posted private defense contractors under diplomatic cover at the US embassy. Some of these Americans have been caught disguised as Taliban in the heart of Islamabad. In recent months, several Pakistani citizens have even been manhandled by these American militiamen. These US covert operators were arrested.

The mainstream media in the US continues to keep the American people and the world in the dark. But this is probably one of the biggest untold stories in America’s war on terror.

This is about United States trying to put boots on the ground inside Pakistan through the help of a pro-US government in Islamabad that shares [or at least key figures in it] the US objective of containing and limiting the ability of Pakistan’s military to influence the country’s foreign policy. This is about Pakistan wanting to keep an independent foreign policy versus Pakistan blindly serving US policy on Afghanistan, India and China.

Mr. Gates tried to put a gloss on this US covert operations when he said, ‘Well, they’re [Blackwater and DynCorp] operating as individual companies here in Pakistan, in Afghanistan and in Iraq.’

Not true.

The truth is that the issue is so serious that, according to Pakistani investigators, US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson is a suspect in a case of bribes amounting to little over US $ 270,000 paid by DynCorp in 2009 to senior officials at the federal Interior Ministry in Pakistan.

The money was paid in exchange for allowing illegal weapons to be delivered to Pakistan to be used by private US defense contractors without informing the country’s security departments and intelligence agencies.

Ms. Patterson personally lobbied Pakistani officials for this concession to DynCorp. She even wrote a letter to Pakistani officials, followed by a letter by her Deputy Mr. Gerald Feierstein, asking Pakistani Interior Ministry officials to issue permits for weapons to be used by DynCorp in the ‘entire territory of Pakistan.’

The US ambassador is directly linked to the probe, which has resulted in the arrest of a key aide to Pakistan’s Minister of State for the Interior. But the government of President Zardari will not dare allow Pakistani investigators to pursue the US Ambassador’s role in the scandal.

A key question in the probe is how the US Embassy and DynCorp allowed the cargo of illegal weapons into Pakistan. According to one lead, a huge cache of weapons reached a Pakistani tribal leader on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, who in turn wrote to the Interior Ministry announcing he was ‘gifting’ the weapons to a Pakistani subcontractor of DynCorp.

Incidents like this and others raised alarm inside Pakistani security departments and the intelligence community. In effect, key figures in President Zardari’s government were found to have given approval for the entry of a large number of US citizens into Pakistan for ‘official US government business’ without explaining what that is.

When Pakistani authorities tried to get to the bottom of how private US defense contractors ended up inside Pakistan in large numbers and what they were doing there, US officials and media launched what appeared to be a media trial of Pakistan, accusing the country of ‘harassing’ US diplomats and denying visas to them because of alleged anti-Americanism.

The unwillingness of the Zardari government to confront Washington and Pakistan’s generally weak media outreach skills allowed Washington to proffer this as a case of anti-Americanism fueled by war on terror.

‘Conspiracy theory’ is another label that US officials and their media ally have used as a cover to hide these serious violations of diplomatic sovereignty.

The Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdock, and known for fabricating the news, tried to delegitimize Pakistan’s serious concerns which were “raised” during Mr. Gates’ visit. In a report filed from Islamabad the opening line read as follows, “U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is overseeing wars with Sunni militants in Iraq and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. In Pakistan, he’s facing a different foe: the pervasive conspiracy theories that fuel widespread anti-American feelings here.”

The truth is that there are no conspiracy theories but real events, reported and documented, that raise questions over US political, diplomatic, and covert operations inside Pakistan. Here is a list:
1. NUCLEAR ESPIONAGE: In July 2009, four US ‘diplomats’ were arrested inside the maximum security perimeter around Pakistan’s nuclear facility at Kahuta. They failed to tell Pakistani investigators what they were doing there and how they managed to slip through the security checkpoints in the area. The US Embassy intervened to rescue the four ‘diplomats’ after almost three hours in detention, citing diplomatic immunity. President Zardari’s government refused to let Pakistani security authorities press charges.
2. SUSPICIOUS CONDUCT: On Oct. 6, 2009, Pakistani police arrested two Dutch diplomats roaming the streets of Islamabad without a number plate carrying advanced weapons. Pakistani police were surprised when security personnel from the US Embassy reached the scene to rescue the Dutch. The Americans used their contacts within the Zardari government to get everyone released. Later, Pakistan Foreign Office summoned US and Dutch diplomats for a private meeting over the incident. But the Pakistani government refused to demand a public explanation from the US and Dutch diplomats despite recommendations from the police and security officials.
3. FACILITATING INDIAN ACTIVITIES: In this high profile case in May 2009, a US diplomat arranged a small meeting between an Indian diplomat and several senior Pakistani federal government officials at a private house. The invited Pakistanis worked in civilian positions, including one with access to Prime Minister’s Office. It appeared that the US diplomat was basically facilitating the Indian to meet senior officials who otherwise would be inaccessible for him. Pakistan Foreign Office took serious exception to the meeting, publicly reprimanded the Pakistani officials who attended the meeting but stopped short of seeking explanation from the US embassy. According to Pakistani investigators, for a US diplomat to indulge in facilitating possible espionage linked to an Indian diplomat was a matter of grave concern. It also fitted with the US policy of exercising tremendous pressure on the pro-US government in Islamabad to give concessions to India at the expense of Pakistani strategic interests.
4. COVERT US MILITIAS IN THE HEART OF PAKISTAN: In September 2009, undercover US agents were found to have recruited a total of 100 former elite Pakistani military commandos to create rapid-intervention teams for unknown purposes. A 100 more were under training at a secret facility camouflaged as a workshop on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital when it was raided by Pakistani police. It turned out that DynCorp was training the men. US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson brought DynCorp to Pakistan by telling Pakistani officials that the private defense contractor would provide security to embassy buildings. But she never explained why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias on Pakistani soil without informing the Pakistani government or military or the intelligence agencies. Some of those who were under training at the time of the raid said that DynCorp focused on recruiting retired officers who had links and contacts within the Pakistani military and could glean information from their sources.
5. Attempt to Control Pakistan’s Media: The US Embassy in Islamabad has made it its business to mount pressure on owners of Pakistani newspapers to curtail or expel columnists and commentators critical of US policy. Of special target are those who expose how US Embassy is meddling in Pakistani affairs and expanding the US footprint inside Pakistan. Last year, Ambassador Patterson sent a letter to one of the largest Pakistani media groups accusing a columnist of endangering American lives and succeeded in pushing her out. The US Embassy is also recruiting opinion makers within the Pakistani media, academia and military in order to promote the US agenda even at the cost of Pakistani interests, dismissing critics as ‘conspiracy theorists’ and accusing them of anti-Americanism. A senior Pakistani journalist Syed Talat Hussain exposed US activities in the following words, “Pro-American lobby in Pakistan is growing in direct proportion to the scaling up of suspicions about the US. The main task of this lobby is to reduce the complexity of the US’s objectives towards Pakistan to romantic levels of trust (…) A motley crew of former diplomats, retired generals, socialites, slick civil society begums, self-styled analysts, businessmen, journalists, and now also lawyers — they are the darlings of the US embassy staff. They are the instruments of positive outreach and public diplomacy that US diplomats are so keen to expand in Pakistan.”
6. HARASSING PAKISTANIS: Private US security contractors, or militiamen, have been involved in at least three incidents registered by the Pakistani police where armed Americans physically assaulted unarmed ordinary Pakistanis in public places. In one case, the nephew of a senior member of President Zardari’s own government was manhandled and locked up in the toilet of a gas station by men described as armed military-looking civilian Americans.
7. RESISTING POLICE CHECKS: In at least five incidents, US ‘diplomats’ disguised as Taliban, complete with beards and Pashto language skills, were stopped at several police checkpoints in Islamabad and Peshawar. In some cases, these American ‘diplomats’ tried to speed through police barriers. In one recent case, this resulted in a brief police chase, where a Pakistani officer dragged the US ‘diplomats’ back to the police picket and forced the Americans to apologize to Pakistani police officers. Again, no charges were pressed because these private US agents carried diplomatic passports.
8. ENGINEERING DOMESTIC POLITICS: As recently as December 2009, US ambassador in Islamabad was found meeting senior Pakistani politicians at private homes of mutual friends in unannounced meetings restricted to 3 to 4 persons. The ambassador asked her guests to publicly support the embattled pro-US President Zardari. US diplomats in Islamabad and officials in Washington have been blatantly interfering in Pakistani politics. In addition to helping form the incumbent coalition government in Islamabad, made up of pro-US parties, US officials have been busy trying to save both Mr. Zardari and his key political adviser and ambassador to Washington Husain Haqqani. US officials in Washington have been briefing sympathetic US journalists about this. In one case, columnist Trudy Rubin had this to say while discussing Pakistan in an article published last month: “Here is the first piece of good news: Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have weathered a campaign by opponents, including the military, to force him out of office. Zardari has deep flaws, but his ouster would have hampered efforts to fight the jihadis. So would the removal, now averted, of Pakistan’s effective ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom the Pakistani military had unfairly blamed for conditions that Congress imposed on aid to Pakistan.”
9. BRIBES AND ILLEGAL WEAPONS: This case is stunning because of the direct involvement of US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson in lobbying for DynCorp. The company ended up bribing Interior Ministry officials to smuggle banned weapons into Pakistan and then went on to raise private militias and hire retired Pakistani military officers to run rapid deployment teams and possibly even spy on the Pakistani military.
10. DEMONIZATION OF PAKISTAN: Since 2007, US officials and US media has systematically demonized Pakistan worldwide, creating false alarm over Pakistan’s strategic arsenal. US officials and media have also pushed to bracket Pakistan along with Iraq and Afghanistan in order to justify a possible military intervention. When Pakistan resisted US meddling recently, US media again went on rampage, accusing Pakistan of ‘anti-Americanism’ and harassment of US diplomats. Additionally, there has been a marked increase of lectures and studies by US think-tanks inviting unknown separatist individuals and groups to speak and fan ethnic separatism inside Pakistan and theorize on the breakup of the country.
11. ABETTING TERROR INSIDE PAKISTAN: The suspicions about why DynCorp was secretly raising private militias inside the Pakistani capital almost turned real when a suspect in the attack on the Pakistani military headquarters in October 2009 was allegedly found to have been recruited by DynCorp. In a second case, another suspected DynCorp recruit was found involved in assassinating a senior Pakistani military officer as he drove to work. In other words, two Pakistani employees of a US defense contractor engaged by the US embassy have been linked to two terrorist attacks on the Pakistani military. Add to this that Pakistan’s military and intelligence are a favorite punching bag for the United States and its allies, like India and Britain, and the picture of what the US is doing in Pakistan becomes even more disturbing.

These points explain how ill-motivated the US complaints about delaying visas and alleged anti-Americanism in Pakistan are. This is what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Mr. Holbrooke and Mr. Gates are loath to share with the American people and the world public opinion.

These shocking revelations by Pakistan officials make us wonder, it we are fighting a real enemy or our own byproduct to profit our own military complex, and Wall Street?

The Greatest Threat to America

2010-01-30T06:25:00.000-08:00

They have caused disruption to and destroyed American democracy and our fundamental freedoms more than any terrorist group in the world.

They have sanctioned the murders of more Americans than any terrorist group in the world.

They punish the innocent, but take extraordinary measures to protect the guilty.

They operate in shadowy black disguises.

They are known to the FBI, the CIA, the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security, yet none of these agencies have made the slightest effort to stop them.

They are Antonin Scalia, John Roberts, Anthony Kennedy, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, who currently comprise the “conservative” majority on the United States Supreme Court.

Before readers dismiss these opening paragraphs as mere hyperbole, they should examine some of the Supreme Court’s more egregious rulings.

This court endorsed the random drug testing of public school students who are not even suspected of abusing drugs, which means that thousands of innocent children across America are dragged from their classrooms everyday, ordered to reveal personal medical information, and forced to urinate as strangers listen to them doing so—intrusions into personal dignity and privacy that Scalia has described as “minimal.”

In addition, people arrested for certain crimes can be compelled to provide a sample of their DNA to government authorities, even though they have not been tried or convicted. Yet, in the case of District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne, the Supreme Court ruled that persons convicted of crimes have “no constitutional right to obtain post conviction access to the State’s evidence for DNA testing,” even though that testing could establish their innocence.

In other words, a system that claims people are “innocent until proven guilty” now requires people to provide DNA and/or other bodily fluids to prove their innocence, yet does not require the government to provide DNA evidence that could exonerate a wrongfully convicted person, even though a wrongful conviction means that the real perpetrator is free and potentially committing more crimes.

This is “judicial hypocrisy” and it’s tragic that karma isn’t more rapid and righteous, because nothing would be more beneficial than seeing Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas entombed in the worst of America’s prisons, begging their attorneys to obtain the DNA evidence that could free them, only to be told that the “State” has refused to provide it.

The racism of the Supreme Court has been apparent throughout its history, from the now infamous Dred Scott decision, which threatened to expand slavery throughout the United States, to Plessy v. Ferguson, which gave constitutional blessing to the segregationist doctrine of “separate but equal.” And Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas have continued this shameful tradition, in the cases of Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle and Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education, by endorsing the racial re-segregation of public schools. And, in an act of judicial callousness that insulted the memory of those who struggled and died during America’s civil rights movement, some of these so-called “justices” even defended their “racist opinion” by citing Brown v. Topeka, the landmark 1954 case that endorsed the desegregation of public schools.

Also, by upholding racial segregation in Plessy, the court essentially declared that African-Americans were second-class citizens. What followed from 1896, when Plessy was decided, until the civil rights era of the 1960s was a sordid history of lynching, beatings and other injustices directed primarily against African-Americans, as well as the denial of their most fundamental rights, including the right to vote, which supposedly had been guaranteed with the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870.

In Employment Division v. Smith freedom of religion came under attack when the court ruled that the government no longer had to prove it had a “compelling reason” to interfere with one’s religious practices. When the United States Congress attempted to restore this “compelling reason” requirement via the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), the court voided much of it on the grounds that Congress had exceeded its authority.

Three current members of the court - Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas - and two former members - O’Conner and Rehnquist - bloodied their hands, and (if there is such a thing as justice) damned themselves for all time, when they supported the coup of 2000 in the case of Bush v. Gore. Thanks to this corrupt decision, which illegally placed a sadistic, inept, venal and mendacious cabal of war criminals in the White House, thousands of Americans, and tens of thousands of Iraqis, have died in a war that was based upon nothing but lies. And in violation of UN resolution 1441, which DID not authorize war with Iraq.

But Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas were not satisfied with the partial destruction of democracy wrought by Bush v. Gore, particularly since democracy appeared to be restored during the 2008 presidential election. So, joining with Alito and Roberts, they decided to destroy it completely, along with most of the Bill of Rights, in the recent case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission by striking down laws that once limited the amount of money corporations could contribute to political campaigns.

Now corporations are free to buy and sell politicians like trading cards, and, since they control the bulk of the “mainstream” media, they can also ensure that any political messages contrary to theirs are unheard.

In other words, freedom now only belongs to those wealthy enough to afford it. This imposing body has determined that corporations were equal to natural citizens, and are entitled to the protections of the Bill of Rights. Overruling centuries of good law.

Although the Citizens United ruling is deplorable and deserving of contempt, it is not surprising. The unified Republican opposition to health care reform has already demonstrated how the bulk of America’s politicians are controlled by special interest groups. The fact that many Democrats refused to endorse any health care reform proposal that included a “public option” for people unable to purchase health insurance in the private sector further illustrates how corporate influence has already transcended party lines.

What Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas undoubtedly hope to accomplish by Citizens United is to purge the few politicians actually devoted to serving the public interest. Now these politicians will either succumb to the whims of their corporate masters, or find limitless amounts of money being provided to their political opponents.

In a nation of millions, it seems almost obscene that five biased, bigoted, corrupt, unethical and agenda driven individuals in black robes can destroy an entire system of government. And it is certainly contrary to what the Supreme Court was intended to be.

When the federal court system was created, a debate ensued over whether federal judges should be elected or appointed. It was ultimately decided that they would be appointed to lifetime tenures, removable only through death, retirement or impeachment. The hope was that federal judges would be immune from political party influences, act in accordance with the law, and protect the rights of racial, religious and political minorities, since they did not have to raise money in election campaigns or appease the majority in order to win the popular vote.

Unfortunately this hope was quixotic. The five so-called “justices” who weakened democracy in Bush v. Gore, and the five who destroyed it in Citizens United were all appointed by Republican presidents. In fact, Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney was even Scalia’s “hunting buddy.” So it was not surprising when they ignored legal precedent and common sense to ensure that corporate rights and profits supplanted individual rights and needs.

Even conservative columnist David Broder acknowledged that the Citizens United ruling “extended itself far beyond what was necessary” and “may well be the best news Republicans have received since the 2000 ruling in Bush v. Gore.”

In law schools throughout America, Supreme Court opinions are dissected and analyzed as though they were commandments from Mount Sinai.

Attorneys, after all, are supposed to deal in facts, not in suppositions. But, given the cases I have cited in this article, the harm they have caused, and the harm they will cause, I believe there is enough evidence to conclude that Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas are perhaps the most dangerous, despicable, conscienceless and evil individuals to ever disgrace the United States Supreme Court, and the biggest threat to democracy and the Bill of Rights in the history of the United States.

James Madison, one of America’s founding fathers, once said, “We are free today substantially, but the day will come when our Republic will be an impossibility . . . because wealth will be concentrated in the hands of a few. And when the day comes, when the wealth of the nation will be in the hands of the few, then we must rely on the best elements in the country to readjust the laws of the nation to the changed conditions.”

Some of the best elements in America did try to readjust the laws to minimize the potential for corporations to use their vast financial resources to purchase political influence. Unfortunately five of the worst elements in America - Scalia, Roberts, Kennedy, Alito and Thomas—have ensured (with apologies to Abraham Lincoln) that the government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations will cause the government of the people, by the people and for the people to perish from the earth.

This article was in part borrowed from an article by David R. Hoffman, an attorney and with which this author fully agrees.

American’s have lost those rights intended by and incorporated in our Constitution, exemplifying the basic traditions of our republic. We have lost those rights not by accident, but by design of evil men, and a court system that has floundered in inadequacy. The US Supreme court is an antiquated concept, controlled by politicians, who bestow the favors of unbridled terms of office to secure that which they support.

Why the surge in Afghanistan ? Conclusion

2010-01-28T09:35:00.000-08:00

Conclusion of this 6 Part series

War during the Bush administration was inevitable, even as Clinton had alienated all prospects of resolving issues with Bin Laden, Bush would take advantage of the mid east anger, which they held, more rightfully then wrong, over their perception of American imperialism.

Money and Oil, coupled with the mind set of the elitist, and the teachings of a man whose political insight was damaged, Leo Strauss, and his followers so firmly implanted in the Bush administration, set the stage to influence every corner of the Bush mania.

They created the mix and the primary ingredient, the excuse to attack some country in the mid east. Iraq had always been the country of choice, but the Unocal Oil Pipe line, became the first priority. Just as quickly as we went into Afghanistan we made an about face and went into Iraq . We stopped looking for Bin Laden because our intelligence knew he had died on December 16, 2001, but he was still of use even in his death.

In Afghanistan there was need of a scapegoat, why not Bin Laden? As plans for war were already on the table, and this was long before Bush assumed office.

Bin Laden could also be used, even knowing he was already dead, as a fear card to attack Iraq . After all as the media so eloquently disclosed, he was behind the attacks on our troops.

Contrary to media and Bush administration propaganda, our research failed to uncover any real evidence that Bin Laden admitted to the 9-11 attacks against the WTC. In fact some of the evidence was incredible, and not in a positive way.

Even as the passport of TWO 9-11 hijackers were found in the rubble intact. Intact while the rubble had been reduced to fine particulates of sand, unbelievable, yet so many of us fell into this intelligence void.

It’s as if the Passports belonging to the alleged hijackers, Satam al-Sugami, and Mohamed Atta were each placed, then found, on the street minutes after the planes they were aboard crashed into the World Trade Center towers. If in fact they were even aboard those planes. Passports could not have survived those crashes and the resultant fires.

The fireballs created by the WTC attacks melted structural steel that was designed to withstand heat of 2000 degrees F. They completely destroyed both airplanes and their cockpit voice-recorders (situated at front)*and* the black-box data recorders (located in the rear of the aircrafts). They vaporized human bone and flesh.

And yet those same fireballs somehow weren't strong enough to do anything to a pair of surviving passports found in pristine condition. No surface scratches, scuffs, abrasions or burns.

So consider, are we fools for not asking the right questions?

The media however in their frenzy to support the administration, gave up their right and entitlement, to investigate and report, instead read prepared scripts provided by the administration officials, just as they continue to this day. Never once did anyone from the media question the allegations that were used to support the war with Iraq . Let alone questioning the tapes where Bin Laden allegedly admitted his complicity in the planning and implementation of the WTC attack.

What Bush needed however, aside of an excuse, was a force to bring the nation together, that force was the Fundamental Christian Right, who fell right into the trap. Hitler used this same Christian following to support his political agenda along with his rise to power.

The republicans used religion and the tactic of fear to generate the fervor for war. No one questioned anything, the people fell right in line, and if you didn’t, there was the ongoing threat, supported by the patriot act! you are either with us or against us!

Wars are political devices that use religion to draw a nation together. This was personified during the 2000 to 2008 term of George W. Bush, and long before by Leo Strauss. Of the few books Bush is said to have read, one in particular was written by Strauss.

George W. Bush is the perfect example of a leader that used religion and deception to garner support for war, the neoconservative extreme right wing of the Fundamentalist Christian movement marshaled and motivated their own people to support the mid east war machine, then took control over the military, and combined patriotism, moral servitude, and the military to launch one of the greatest travesties of American history and with it a complete disenfranchisement of a people.

Obama will follow in the footsteps of Bush, he is after all the newly elected puppet, and we by now know who pulls those strings. His administration is a through over of the last. War will continue, until we as a people say stop, we have had enough. Until we refuse to accept the deception of those who seek to control us, and to place us in harms way. Until we learn to ask the right questions, and after we have received those answers, to seek the truth.

We in good conscience and in the name of the various gods we affirm have no right to take over governments, to marshal support for regime change, to put puppets in office to do our bidding, this is imperialism, and, we have become imperialists!

The Wall Street Bankers: Aaron Burr, and Alexander Hamilton

2010-01-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

Very few know its history: Chase traces its roots back to the founding of The Manhattan Company by Aaron Burr on September 1, 1799, in a house at 40 Wall Street.

After an epidemic of yellow fever in 1798, in which coffins had been sold by itinerant vendors on street corners, Aaron Burr established the Manhattan Company, with the ostensible aim of bringing clean water to the city from the Bronx River but in fact designed as a front for the creation of New York's second bank, rivaling Alexander Hamilton’s, Bank of New York.

In addition to being fierce political and personal rivals, Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton competed in business, with Burr's Bank of the Manhattan Company competing against Hamilton's Bank of New York. In 1804, their rivalry erupted into a duel, leading to the death of Alexander Hamilton. The dueling pistols are owned by the successor company of Chase Manhattan. They are currently on display on the executive conference floor of the JP Morgan Chase building at 277 Park Avenue in New York City.

Chase National Bank

Chase National Bank was formed in 1877 by John Thompson. It was named for former United States Treasury Secretary and Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, although Chase did not have a connection with the bank.

The Chase National Bank acquired a number of smaller banks in the 1920s, through its Chase Securities Corporation. In 1926, for instance, it acquired Mechanics and Metals National Bank.

It’s most significant acquisition though was the Equitable Trust Company of New York in 1930, the largest stockholder of which was John D. Rockefeller, Jr. This made it the largest bank in America and indeed the world.

Chase was primarily a wholesale bank, dealing with other prominent financial institutions and major corporate clients, such as General Electric, which had, through its RCA affiliate, leased prominent space and become a crucial first tenant of Rockefeller Center, rescuing that major project in 1930. The bank also is closely associated with and has financed the oil industry, having longstanding connections with its board of directors to the successor companies of Standard Oil, especially Exxon Mobil, which are also Rockefeller holdings.

Merger as Chase Manhattan

Bank In 1955, Chase National Bank and The Manhattan Company merged to create Chase Manhattan Bank. As Chase was a much larger bank, it was first intended that Chase acquire the "Bank of Manhattan", as it was nicknamed, but it transpired that Burr's original charter for the Manhattan Company had not only included the clause allowing it to start a bank with surplus funds, but another requiring unanimous consent of shareholders for the bank to be taken over. The deal was therefore structured as an acquisition by the Bank of the Manhattan Company of Chase National, with John J. McCloy becoming chairman of the merged entity. This avoided the requirement of unanimous consent by shareholders.

Under McCloy's successor, George Champion, the antiquated 1799 state charter was relinquished for a modern one. In 1969, under the leadership of David Rockefeller, the bank became part of a bank holding company, the Chase Manhattan Corporation.

Two famous American families the Burr’s and the Hamilton’s were Wall Street Bankers.

The Latest Supreme Court Ruling, May Protect Corporate Officers From Criminal Prosecution

2010-01-22T14:07:00.000-08:00

The US Supreme Court issued a landmark opinion on Thursday that over-turned the way American election campaigns are financed.

The Court has been considering whether to end long-standing limits on corporate and labor union spending in US political campaigns. But the decision has far reaching implications that go beyond campaign financing and include a broad sweeping protection for Corporate officers accused of fraud.

In America, political campaigns are big business, literally - they cost millions of dollars! The 2008 contest between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain for the White House was the most expensive in US election history, with both candidates raising more than a billion dollars between them, and much of that money was spent on relentless TV ads.

At the heart of the question the Supreme Court considered, should corporations be treated as persons under the US constitution and allowed to spend huge amounts of cash on political campaigns at state, and Federal Congressional and Presidential levels? Their decision, which granted citizenship to corporations, now requires that each of the Constitutional Amendments must be applied to the corporate existence. A potentially devastating blow to prosecutors and the Justice Department

Those in favor argued before the bench that not to include corporations would be a violation of the First Amendment which guarantees free speech. But that free speech has always been a right of the individual, not the corporation which derives its existence through state law!

Those against claimed it would be devastating for American democracy with a flood of corporate sponsored TV ads with big business way outspending individuals.

This intentional error of the Supreme Court will have a lasting impact on the US Constitution and for all Americans. Corporations prior to this ruling enjoyed NO other rights under the Federal Constitution, they had no right of privacy which Americans are entitled to under the Fourth Amendment, and they had no protection against Self incrimination which Americans enjoy under the Fifth Amendment.

Yet the Supreme Court has now leveled the playing field, this error has the propensity to undermine centuries of precedents, it will further cripple criminal cases against corporate officers, because if as the Supreme Court has now determined, “A corporation has the rights of a natural person” then all the rights of citizenship must now be provided to corporations and will effectively shield their officers who commit fraud, and perhaps, as the current investigation is being played out in the Congressional hearings, this was the Supreme Court’s real intent.

The Supreme Court ends Democracy in Favor Of Capitalists Rule

2010-01-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

It has been said that the end of our republic would come about through the courts! Today that proverb has come home to nest.

The US supreme court as expected has ended limits on corporate spending for US political campaigns, which will effect this year's congressional races and the 2012 presidential contest. This ruling marks the beginning of the end for our Republic.

The 5-4 ruling on Thursday was a defeat for the law's supporters who said that ending the limits would unleash a flood of corporate money into the political system to promote or defeat candidates. A further argument which seemed to also fail was that the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech did not guarantee that right to corporations.

The ruling by the Bush appointments, and conservative majority transformed the political landscape and the rules on how money can be spent in future presidential and congressional elections, which have already broken new spending records with each political cycle.

The justices on Thursday overturned supreme court precedents from 2003 and 1990 that upheld federal and state limits on independent expenditures by corporate treasuries to support or oppose candidates. The ultra conservative court has continually since the Bust appointments were first seated over turned precedents that were based on good and sound law.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy said the limits violated constitutional free-speech rights. "We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers," he wrote.

How the court determined that a Corporation was a natural person and had the rights of individuals is still an enigma. It is a stunning defeat for literacy.

A corporation is not a natural person it is a creation of law, and as such DOES not possess the rights garnered by the US Constitution, for example: Both the fifth and the fourth Amendment have been found not to apply to corporations: A recent 1st Circuit Court of Appeals case has a nice summary of the various decisions and doctrines preventing corporate entities from asserting 5th amendment privileges against self-incrimination. The case, Amato v. US, involved a subpoena to produce corporate records for a corporation whose sole shareholder, officer and employee was the target of a criminal investigation. The plaintiff in the case (who was the sole shareholder) attempted to quash a subpoena for corporate records by asserting 5th amendment privileges. The Appeals Court ultimately upheld the subpoena holding that corporations may not assert 5th amendment privileges to avoid producing documents.

But as the court today “incorrectly” noted: the same entity that does not possess constitutional rights now possesses the constitutional right of free speech?

Dissenting views

The court's conservative majority, with the addition of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both Bush appointees, previously voted to limit or strike down parts of the law designed to regulate the role of money in politics and prevent corruption.

The court's four liberals, including its newest member, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who was appointed by Obama, dissented.

In his sharply worded dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens said: "The court's ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions across the nation."

The case began when a conservative group, Citizens United, made a 90-minute film called “Hillary: The Movie” that was very critical of Hillary Clinton, now-secretary of state, as she sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

Film controversy

Citizens United wanted to air advertisements for the film and distribute it through video-on-demand services on local cable systems during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign.

But federal courts said the film looked and sounded like a long campaign
advert, and therefore should be regulated like one.

Hillary: The Movie was advertised on the internet, sold on DVD and shown in a few theaters.

Campaign regulations do not apply to DVDs, theaters or the internet.

The court first heard arguments in March, then asked for another round of arguments about whether corporations and unions should be treated differently from individuals when it comes to campaign spending.

After a special argument session in September, the conservative justices gave every indication that they were going to take the steps they did on Thursday.

Was the decision correct? The right of Free speech applies to individuals, not corporations, and it stems from the first amendment to the US Constitution:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

In an intelligent reading of the language of the First Amendment it is clear that it was meant strictly for individuals, “people” are individuals, not corporations” to interpret it otherwise as the Supreme Court has now done is to nullify the very existence of our republic. We will from this day forward no longer be a democracy; instead we are now to be ruled by “corporate control” through its vast economic resources, over our government. In short welcome to Fascist America.

It’s time to rethink a Supreme Court

2010-01-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

That the makeup of the Supreme Court can be controlled, and with it decisions rendered is not an issue, it’s a fact. Lincoln and Grant were two of the early presidents who learned how to stack the court with political appointments, lawyers who would hold in favor policies that were important to the administration, yet which were candidly unconstitutional.

The most inglorious example was the Legal Tender cases of Knox V lee 79 U.S. 457 (1870) and Hepburn v. Griswold, 75 U.S. 603 (1870)

Lincoln took office during one of the most tumultuous times in America’s history, the Treasury was out of money, the South was in the midst of succession and refused to pay its share of taxes, a war was inevitable, but how to finance that war?

Lincoln appointed Salmon Portland Chase as the Secretary of the Treasury and gave him a mandate; find a way to finance the war!

Chase was the architect of the United States Note, a forerunner to the Federal Reserve Note, but different. Chase made the US Notes a Legal Tender for the first time in US History, prior to this our legal tender was either Gold coin or Silver coin and the paper was a representative of value.

The new US Notes circulated as a debt of the United States, the government bought the horses and armaments using these notes, and all understood that at some point in time they would be redeemed in specie.

Lincoln was no fool, he was an astute lawyer who understood the US Constitution, and he knew that this law would be challenged.

Lincoln appointed Salmon Portland Chase first as his secretary of the treasury from 1861, to 1864 then elevated him to the Supreme Court as its chief justice in 1864, his intent was for Chase who had been the architect of the Legal Tender currency to uphold its constitutionality.

When the first case came before the Supreme Court in 1870 Hepburn v. Griswold, Chase writing for the court unconditionally stated that although during times of war the nation might do things not otherwise allowed or permitted, the US Government had no authority to make paper a legal tender.

This decision was adverse to the railroads which were heavily in debt, and this decision which would require their bond payments to be made in specie would drive them into bankruptcy.

In 1870 after the Chase ruling Ulysses S. Grant then the US President nominated two lawyers for the railroad interests to the Court, Joseph P. Bradley, and William Strong, changing the makeup and control of the Court

Directly after their seating, a second case was brought before them also engendering the very same issue the question of a paper currency as a Legal Tender, Knox V lee

The makeup of the court now changed favoring a paper currency, Bradley and Strong reversed the Chase holding.

What this lesson and the lesson of today where the Court has ruled 5 to 4 against the Constitution, have brought to our attention, the validity of the Supreme Court itself.

The Supreme Court has been so stacked against the interests of preserving the republic, that rulings are instrumental in reducing our rights and in fact calculated to over through the US Constitution, Our rights are continually being eroded by this august body!

Medical Malpractice

2010-01-14T16:24:00.000-08:00

An interesting side show

Hospital executives are now the latest group to flaunt their wealth in the face of the unemployed,

Wall Street isn’t the only ones taking down big bonuses. Hospital presidents and CEOs are also collecting fat bonuses and incentive payments, even as our health-care systems cry poverty, claiming they struggle to break even against government cutbacks, tightwad insurers and skyrocketing costs.

While hospitals have been laying off personnel in nursing, and warning of further layoffs and slashed patient services, many hospitals shower their top execs and department heads with bonuses and perks. They include housing allowances, chauffeurs, first-class air travel, tuition for their children and country-club memberships.

Under new IRS rules, effective 2008, the extras are now required to be disclosed for the first time.

The filings for the city’s biggest and most prestigious private, tax-exempt hospitals show at least a dozen CEOs got compensation of $1 million and up. Some also cash in early on million-dollar pre-retirement payouts while on the job.

Dr. Herbert Pardes, who runs the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and its health-care system -- the city's largest private hospital network, received a $1 million bonus in 2008 on top of his $1.67 million salary.

The hospital has a "pay for performance" philosophy but says even though Pardes met his goals, his bonus was smaller than 2007's to "reflect the current external environment."

Pardes' compensation totaled $9.8 million in 2008 because he vested in a retirement plan that will pay $6.8 million when he leaves in 2011. He also received a $93,500 housing allowance and the use of a car and driver.

The $4.2 million 2008 compensation for Steven Safyer, CEO of Montefiore Medical Center in The Bronx, another major teaching hospital, included a $1.2 million salary, a $452,789 bonus, a $6,000 college scholarship for his child and $2.1 million in pre-retirement cash.

A $1.2 million bonus went to Miguel Fuentes Jr., CEO of the 958-bed Bronx-Lebanon Hospital. His $4.8 million package included $878,024 in salary and an $858,000 pre-retirement payout. He's also set to get $1.8 million in retirement cash next year.

Execs cleaned up even at struggling hospitals. Despite years of losses, 513-bed Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side gave CEO Gladys George an early-retirement payment of $752,469 on top of her relatively modest $522,206 salary. Her salary still dwarfs that of Alvin Aviles, who makes $291,000 as CEO of the city's $6.3 billion Health and Hospitals Corp., the nation's largest public system with 39,000 employees at 11 hospitals, four nursing homes and many treatment centers.

Perhaps this is the reason our health care system is so over priced, and so ineffective
perhaps if there were less greed, and more concern for patients mal practice litigation might be less troublesome.

A few years back Harvard researchers found that 1% of a representative sample of patients treated in New York state hospitals in 1984 were injured, and one-quarter of those died, because of medical negligence. Nationwide, that would have translated into 234,000 injuries and 80,000 deaths in 1988 from negligence in American hospitals.

Most of this involves physicians. There is no clear evidence that there has been significant improvement since then.

A similar study conducted in California in 1974 found that 0.8% of hospital patients had either been injured by negligence in the hospital or had been hospitalized because of negligent care. Extrapolation of those findings would have yielded an estimate of 249,000 injuries and deaths from negligent medical practice in 1988.

In 1976 the HEW Malpractice Commission estimated similarly that one-half of 1% of all patients entering hospitals are injured there due to negligence. That estimate would have indicated 156,000 injuries and deaths resulting from doctor negligence in 1988.

Expanding these estimates to include general medical practice outside of a hospital, the potential abuse by physicians is even greater. An in-depth interview with 53 family physicians revealed that 47% of the doctors recalled a case in which the patient died due to physician error. Only four of the total reported errors led to malpractice suits, and none of these errors resulted in an action by a peer review organization.

Medical students at SUNY-Buffalo were asked to recall incidents during their clinical training that raised ethical concerns. More than 200 students responded (40% of total sample); the majority of instances they reported (60%) did not in the researchers’ opinions threaten the patient’s life, health or welfare. This, however, implies that potentially 40% did.

It is not unreasonable to estimate that at least 1 percent of doctors in this country deserve some serious disciplinary action each year. This would amount to 7,703 physicians being disciplined each year, a number that, unfortunately far exceeds the actual number of physicians disciplined.

Two studies surveyed residents to determine the incidence of substance use. Recent alcohol use was extremely high in both groups (87% within the last year for emergency medicine residents; 74% within the past 30 days for surgery residents).Additional findings proved extremely disturbing; although the emergency medicine program directors accurately determined the incidence of alcohol use amongst residents, they dramatically underestimated the percent who were actually impaired by the substance as indicated by diagnostic tests (1% estimate impaired vs. 13% diagnosed.)

This does not bode well for creating a medical system that prevents mishaps before they occur. And although the surgery residents reported negligible recent cocaine use, when employed, the drug was typically obtained from the hospital supply, indicating a greater ease of access than for the general population.

In order that Doctors and hospital staff can continue their addictive habits. It does appear that the higher salaries are necessary. Perhaps also, if we reduce those perks, and salaries, the addictions may subside, and we may have cheaper and more affective health care, perhaps not!

Why the surge in Afghanistan? Part 5 of 6

2010-01-14T16:09:00.000-08:00

The Project for a New American Century.

In early 1997 a very controversial group established itself in Washington DC, its purported goal was to promote “American Global Leadership” this organization was a neoconservative political think tank that followed the philosophy of a very dangerous thinker, Leo Strauss. The group is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project, funded by the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation.

The chairman was and is William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard (Financed by Rupert Murdock FOX TV and recent owner of the Wall Street Journal) Kristol is a regular contributor to the Fox News Channel. The Executive Director and chief operating officer has been Gary J. Schmitt.

In 1998, The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), developed a strategy for a series of pre-emptive wars. Those wars involved the oil rich nations of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.

William Kristol, and both HW and W Bush are followers of the philosophy of Leo Strauss, 1899-1973 Strauss was a philosopher and the originator of thought relating to neo-conservatism in the United States.

Strauss’s ideas governed several republican administrations from Reagan on, particularly its foreign policy and the Bush so-called "war on terror." Yet, beyond academic circles, most people know little about the man. Its time that we did!

As far as his politics, it came out of his experience in Nazi Germany. He saw the world, basically, as made up of groups that are pitted against each other in mutual hatred and animosity. You either destroy your enemy or you’re destroyed by your enemy. He believed that political society has to be organized in a way that makes the enemy very paramount, always somehow in view. Only the prevalence of the enemy will keep people united, will keep them together, will keep them strong. According to Strauss, if you don’t have any enemies then you better follow the advice of Macchiavelli and invent some. If we paid any attention to the Bush administration we witnessed Strauss philosophy in motion.

Strauss’ thought patterns were rather dark, his solutions are that the only way you can inspire hedonistic and slothful people to fight and die for their nation is to unite the nation with god, and with justice and with the absolute. So that nationalism and religion had to be united. The closer that you allied them the more likely you were going to get the military strength and people willing to die and sacrifice themselves for their country.

We found, for example, in the Bush administration, the Neo-Conservatives who were very much influenced by Strauss. People like Paul Wolfowitz, Abraham Schulsky, William Kristol, all of these were very prominent figures within the Bush administration. We saw the language of Strauss in the speeches of George W. Bush. When Bush said something like “The Hand of God is guiding the affairs of this nation.” This is really a Straussian alliance of religion and politics that was reflected in those speeches. Or for further example, when Bush portrayed the struggle between America and her enemies as a struggle between good and evil, between civilization and terrorism, democracy and tyranny, freedom and oppression. Following Strauss the concept of the enemy is paramount.

Politics is a deadly game. At the same time, the alliance of religion with it makes it even more deadly.

It’s not just Islam that’s disastrous for politics. Christianity has been just as deadly. When Bush talked about the enemy, for example, it’s true that America has enemies. But if you become too paranoid about the enemies, you exaggerate the enemy. As we saw with the Bush administration, there was so much fear in that administration. We heard them say, “Well, let’s kill our enemies before they do anything to us.” As if to say, “Let’s kill them before they even become our enemies.” “let’s get them over there so we don’t have to fight them here”

Strauss’s view of the management of society was as an elitist, and of course he was anti-democratic. He cultivated an elite mentality that was unscrupulous, duplicitous, and one that doesn’t care about ordinary people.

But Strauss had some very true things to say about Democracy. That democracy opens itself up to tyranny; it opens itself up to the rise of demagogues.

Strauss knew that it was in the context of a democratic regime in Weimar that Hitler emerged supreme. Strauss had a fear, and a rightful fear, of democracy and the fact democracy is vulnerable to this rise of demagoguery. His solution was to create, in his own words, an aristocracy in the midst of mass society. To have an elite of supposedly wise individuals who know the truth, who know what people need, who know what kind of noble lies and pious frauds they need. To rule behind the scenes.

In 1998, members of the PNAC, including Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, wrote to President Bill Clinton urging him to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The letter argued that Saddam would pose a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies and oil resources in the region. The letter also stated "American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council." The letter argues that an Iraq war would be justified by Hussein's defiance of UN "containment" policy and his persistent threat to US interests.

The 2000 Rebuilding America's Defenses report recommends improved planning, the report states:

"while the unresolved conflict in Iraq provides the immediate justification [for US military presence], the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein" and "Over the long term, Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region".

The interest discussed here is OIL.

The PNAC has been the subject of considerable criticism and controversy, both among members of the left and right. Critics dispute the premise that American "world leadership" is desirable for the world or even for the United States itself.

The PNAC's harshest critics claim it represents a disturbing step towards total world subjugation by America, motivated by an imperial and globalist agenda of global US military expansionism and dominance.

Supporters of the project believe that the PNAC's goals are not fundamentally different from past conservative foreign policy assessments. American conservatives have traditionally favored a militarily strong United States, and advocated the country take “aggressive” (preemptive) positions when its interests are threatened.

A line frequently quoted by critics from Rebuilding America's Defenses famously refers to the possibility of a "catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor" (page 51). This quote appears in Chapter V, entitled "Creating Tomorrow's Dominant Force", which discusses the perceived need for the Department of Defense to "move more aggressively to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts” (page 50). The full quote is as follows:

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor ."

This quote can be considered, if only circumstantial evidence, supporting other direct evidence, that the US government was complicit in the 9/11 terrorist attacks as a precursor to an invasion of Iraq. The World trade Center being the “new Pearl Harbor”, which would justify war on Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq, the "bullying" of the international community into supporting the 2003 war, and the fact that the war went ahead despite much international criticism, stem from the positions of prominent conservatives in the Bush administration. The invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion, as the 1998 letter evidences Rumsfeld's, Wolfowitz's and Perle's opinions, this was five years prior to the Iraq invasion. Other signatories of the letter include John Bolton and Zalmay Khalilzad, the former United States ' ambassadors to the United Nations and Iraq , respectively.

Rory Bremner, citing the letter, said:
"that's what they want — regime change — and nothing, not Blair, not the UN, not Hans Blix, not France, Germany, Russia, China, not the threat of terrorism, or Arab reservations, or lack of evidence or the Peace March, not even our own brave Jack Straw is going to stand in their way."

George Monbiot, citing the letter, said:
"To pretend that this battle begins and ends in Iraq requires a willful denial of the context in which it occurs. That context is a blunt attempt by the superpower to reshape the world to suit itself."

After the 2000 election of George W. Bush, many of the PNAC's members were appointed to key positions within the new President's administration:
Elliott Abrams, National Security Council, Representative for Middle Eastern Affairs
Richard Armitage, Department of State, Deputy Secretary of State
John R. Bolton, Department of State, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
Richard Cheney, Vice President
Seth Cropsey, Voice of America, Director of the International Broadcasting Bureau
Paula Dobriansky, Department of State, Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs
Francis Fukuyama, President's Council on Bioethics, Counsel Member
Bruce Jackson, U.S. Committee on NATO, President
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Embassy Baghdad , Iraq, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, previously served as Ambassador to Afghanistan still under W Bush
I. Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff for the Vice President
Peter W. Rodman, Department of Defense, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
Randy Scheunemann, U.S. Committee on NATO, Project on Transitional Democracies, International Republican Institute, Member
Paul Wolfowitz, President, World Bank
Dov S. Zakheim, Controller, Department of Defense
Robert B. Zoellick, Department of State, Deputy Secretary of State

With so many of the PNAC members in office and the philosophy of Leo Strauss being so closely followed, war in the Middle East was inevitable.

The Banks and their New SCAM - an industry laden with crooks!

2010-01-09T08:32:00.000-08:00

With Foreclosures topping 5 million and another 7 million in the wings, the banks now have a new SCAM. They foreclosed on our homes, taking the home at the bottom of the market. Collected the insurance on the difference between the Note (They didn’t Own) and the market value they created by the volume, velocity and volatility of their foreclosures. Initially dumping the home cheap to bring down the market even further, in order to acquire the properties at an even lower price, they now are holding several million homes off the market, to force the value of these properties back up in order to make an additional windfall.

Real Estate Brokers across America have stopped submitting offers to Banks relating to their REO’s because they have found that the banks are playing games with the potential buyers, the Banks have no interest in selling their foreclosed properties until the market returns, and they (the Banks) are the ones who can make it return.

Meanwhile the Banks have been made whole, and in some cases have not only collected the insurance, but sued the former homeowner for a deficiency, that difference between what the home was foreclosed for and the mortgaged amount.

We are in an inflationary market, and the Banks realize that they were the cause of the market collapse, by placing a volume of homes on the market they caused the value of the homes to fall, now by restricting the homes they place on the market the values are expected to rise, it’s the old game of supply and demand, a lot of money chasing a few homes will cause the value of the homes to rise, by releasing a few thousand homes at a time, the market will stabilize in the banks favor.

Initially, the Banks, because of this SCAM and their insatiable greed blocked the borrowers attempt to sell their home instead of it being foreclosed. They accomplished this by the shear volume of the foreclosure frenzy. Now the Banks are primed to reap the windfall of a market they created at the peril of the borrower.

There is a lot of money that has been created over the past 8 years. The market has inflated for almost every other commodity but Real Estate, now we can expect to see this market inflate again.