PRESIDENT OBAMA TAKES THE OATH OF OFFICE AT THE U.S. CAPITOL AND DELIVERS HIS SECOND INAUGURAL ADDRESS JANUARY 21, 2013

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INAUGURAL ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA JANUARY 21, 2013

United States Capitol

Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.  We affirm the promise of our democracy.  We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.  What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“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.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.  For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  (Applause.)  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

And for more than two hundred years, we have.

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.  We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.  Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.  For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.  No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.  Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.  (Applause.)

This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience.  A decade of war is now ending.  (Applause.)  An economic recovery has begun.  (Applause.)  America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands:  youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.  My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it — so long as we seize it together.  (Applause.)

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.  (Applause.)  We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.  We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.  We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.  (Applause.)

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time.  So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher.  But while the means will change, our purpose endures:  a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American.  That is what this moment requires.  That is what will give real meaning to our creed.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.  We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.  But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  (Applause.)  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.

We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.  We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm.  The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.  (Applause.)  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.  (Applause.)

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.  We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  (Applause.)  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it.  We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise.  That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure — our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks.  That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.  (Applause.)  Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage.  (Applause.)  Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty.  The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war; who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends — and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.

We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law.  We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.  (Applause.)

America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe.  And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation.  We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.  And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes:  tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.  (Applause.)

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began.  For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law  –- (applause) — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity — (applause) — until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.  (Applause.)   Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

That is our generation’s task — to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.  Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.  Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.  (Applause.)

For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay.  We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.  (Applause.)  We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.  We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction.  And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.  But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream.  My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.

They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope.  You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.  You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time — not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.  (Applause.)

Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright.  With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.

Thank you.  God bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.  (Applause.)

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OBAMA’S INAUGURAL DEMAGOGY

Invokes principles of democracy and equality that bear no relation to the conditions that exist in America

By Barry Grey and David North | Global Research

In his inaugural address Monday, President Barack Obama reached new heights of demagogy, rhetorically invoking principles of democracy and equality that bear no relation either to the conditions that exist in America or the policies he has pursued and will continue to pursue in his second term.

Obama began by invoking the Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that “all men are created equal.” He returned several times to this theme, declaring that the country “cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.”

Upon hearing these words, one might be tempted to ask who was the occupant of the White House over the past four years, as corporate profits soared and Wall Street bankers enriched themselves.

And as for the ideals of democracy, these have been thoroughly repudiated by Obama and his predecessors, Republicans and Democrats alike, for more than three decades. The massive redistribution of wealth implemented since the early 1980s has produced, as intended, the greatest chasm between rich and poor in nearly a century. Obama accelerated this process in his first term, focusing his economic program on protecting and expanding the wealth of the financial elite and making the working class pay for the economic crisis that erupted in 2008.

In his speech, Obama portrayed his austerity agenda for the next four years as a defense of basic social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. “We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future,” he declared.

But that is precisely what he began to do in his first term, slashing hundreds of billions from Medicare as part of his health care overhaul and offering a “grand bargain” to the Republicans that included an increase in the Medicare eligibility age and severe cuts in Social Security benefits. Even in this inaugural address, Obama—in a brazen display of doubletalk—reaffirmed the need to do away with “outworn programs” and proclaimed, “We must take the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.”

At times his deceit assumed delusional proportions, as when he declared: “A decade of war is now ending. An economic recovery has begun.” Both claims are flat-out lies.

Even as Obama spoke, his advisers were locked in discussions over an expansion of US military support for the French invasion of Mali, itself an offshoot of the US-led war in Libya. And his administration continues its central role in the sectarian civil war in Syria and its preparations for military attacks on Iran.

As for economic recovery, to the extent there can be any talk of one, it is reserved for the wealthiest layers of the population. The broad mass of working people face continuing mass unemployment, declining wages, and spreading poverty, hunger and homelessness.

The reality of the policies of austerity and war that Obama will pursue in his second term was spelled out immediately after his speech, when he officially notified Congress of his nominees for CIA director and treasury secretary. For the former post he chose John Brennan, a defender of torture in the Bush administration and head of Obama’s drone assassination program. For the latter position he named Jacob Lew, a former Wall Street banker who was Obama’s point man in budget-cutting discussions with the Republicans.

Of course, the practice of bourgeois politics demands demagogy. The desperate condition of capitalist society must be hidden, or at least fumigated with perfumed phrases. But reality cannot be entirely suppressed, and it is reflected, if only indirectly, in the rhetorical materials with which the president constructed his inaugural address.

This speech, one must assume, was the product of exhaustive discussion, with every word selected for its political effect. The decision to employ left-sounding rhetoric certainly indicates awareness at the highest levels of the state that public frustration over economic and social conditions is approaching the boiling point.

At the same time, the absence of any reference to 9/11, the “war on terror,” or even the killing of Osama bin Laden—Obama’s favorite applause line—suggests a recognition that the global military operations lack broad support.

There was an obvious attempt to imbue the speech with a Lincolnesque aura, seen in the symbolism of Obama’s use of Lincoln’s bible for his oath of office and his many references to speeches by the 16th president, including the Gettysburg Address, the Cooper Union speech and Lincoln’s second inaugural. But the comparison between the latter speech in 1865 and Obama’s in 2013 only underscores the opposition between the two.

Lincoln used his second inaugural speech to identify the social and economic source of the tragedy that had befallen the American people. Without equivocation or obfuscation, he indicted the slave system as the cause of the Civil War. Lincoln’s speech identified and denounced the class oppression that was responsible for so much suffering. The power of Lincoln’s magnificent speech—a masterpiece of world literature—lay in its fusion of unflinching political honesty and democratic idealism.

Lincoln spoke as the leader of a rising democratic and progressive capitalist society. One hundred and fifty years later, Obama speaks as the representative of an economically decadent and politically reactionary social system. He does not dare say a single word that might attribute to capitalism any responsibility for widespread social misery.

Unable to identify capitalism as the cause of poverty and war, Obama, of course, cannot identify the dominant form of oppression in modern society—that is, the exploitation of the working class.

Both the ceremony and the speech reflected the completion of a process by which the political preoccupations of the privileged middle-class milieu that has long passed for the “left” in America—in particular, the politics of race, gender and sexual orientation—have been integrated into the official ideology of the ruling class. Ignoring the class divisions in society, Obama’s version of equality was couched almost exclusively in terms of identity politics. There is, in this fraudulent narrative, no exploited working class.

Thus, in accordance with the rules of contemporary capitalist politics, the speech contained not a single reference to class. Nor was there a reference to unemployment.

In Obama’s litany of social struggles that shaped America, he referred to Selma and Stonewall. But there was no reference to the Haymarket martyrs, the IWW, the Flint sit-down strike, the Memorial Day massacre, or any of the great struggles of the working class that wrested, at the cost of workers’ blood, concessions from big business, transforming conditions of life for the great mass of the American people.

The bankrupt conception behind Obama’s speech, that explosive social contradictions can somehow be bridged by means of demagogic evocations of democracy and equality, is itself an expression of the deepening political crisis of American capitalism. It will not take long for the chasm between words and deeds to become all too clear.

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ORGANIZING FOR ACTION: OBAMA LAUNCHES PROPAGANDA NONPROFIT TO SUPPORT HIS AGENDAS

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
January 22, 2013

On Sunday, Barack Obama stood before US Supreme Court John Roberts to be sworn in for a second term as President of the United States. Obama nixed his middle name, referring only to the first letter.

At the Inaugural Address, Obama invoked the US Constitution and paired it with communitarianism to redefine democracy. He said: “Each time we gather to inaugurate a president; we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution. We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: ‘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.’”

The economy, free market and compassion for “the vulnerable” were spoken of as responsibilities American citizens have to the State.

Obama said that his inauguration day would celebrate America’s “initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.”

By referring to the US Constitution as “our founding principles”, Obama said that there must be a “new response to new challenges” and that the preservation of our “individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

Pressing for collectivism, Obama went on: “the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.”

The dying Middle Class was referred to as “America’s prosperity”, yet a call to service was implied as Obama said that working was about “independence”, “pride” and “labor liberat[ion].”

It is Obama’s plan to “remake our government” with taxes, reformation of schools, education of the working populace to serve the State. By committing to socialization, we are “strengthened” to be a nation “free to take risks” because our needs are provided by the State. This means that Americans are obligated to the prosperity of the whole and not the individual.

Climate change and technologies to control it must be the leading focus of America. Obama said that America’s beauty must be preserved for the maintenance of our nation’s “economic vitality” as our “national treasure.”

Obama promised that he “will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.” He asserted that America will be the leader of renewable energy sources: “We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.”

Making a playing on the name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Obama remarked that “to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Obama demanded action regardless of its “imperfect” or “partial” success as the call of the president to American citizens during the next 4 years of his reign.

Mainstream media reported that a group of 50 or 60 protesters destroyed an ATM machine, threw yellow paint, and left anti-government and anti-police” pamphlets. This action was relayed by Officer Alali of the Metropolitan Police Department. Although the Civil Disturbance Unit was deployed, the protesters conveniently disbursed from the area before any arrests could be made.

Obama has created Organizing For Action (OFA), the propaganda arm of the administration’s efforts to coerce the American populace to support his agendas. Through local chapters strategically placed throughout the country, OFA will train volunteers to rally their local elected officials and state senate leaders to back Obama’s push for certain legislation; such as gun control laws, public education, Obamacare, environmental issues, renewable sources of energy and immigration reform.

OFA will devise a “plan for 2013” by conducting meetings to conceptualize how best to use their “grassroots” organization to vie for the Obama administration.

OFA is focused on “organizing for Action will support the legislative agenda we voted on, train the next generation of grassroots organizers and leaders, and organize around local issues in our communities.”

At their disposal is data collected on Obama supporters from two previous campaigns and a call to citizens to lead a fake grassroots effort that is not confined by the restrictions on Capital Hill.

Jim Messina, chair of OFA and former 2012 campaign manager, explains: “We’ll work on the key battles of our generation, train the next generation of grassroots organizers and leaders, and organize around local issues in our own communities. We’ll continue to support the President in creating jobs and growing the economy from the middle out, and in fighting for issues like immigration reform, climate change, balanced deficit reduction, and reducing gun violence.”

OFA is registered as a 501(c)4 nonprofit which gives the corporation the ability to raise unlimited amounts of money from any type of donor; whether it be an individual, corporation or union.

As a social welfare organization, OFA can and most likely will be used to funnel money through its doors as it is not required by law to disclose its donors. Although OFA claims to be by the people, for the people, they are clearly a tool to advance the legislative agendas of Obama for the next four years.

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ALEX JONES: OBAMA’S SECOND TERM AND THE INAUGURAL SPEECH OF FALSE HOPE

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OBAMA’S SOVIET STYLE PLAN TO DESTROY AMERICA REVEALED

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MAX KEISER AND ALEX JONES: THE THRESHOLD OF TYRANNY HAS BEEN PASSED IN THE UNITED STATES

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POLISH REFUGEE WARNS OF COMMUNISM TAKING OVER AMERICA

David Knight interviews polish refugee, Bert Pachulski who says america is very rapidly becoming like the soviet union he once lived in over 60 years ago.

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22 SIGNS THAT BARACK OBAMA IS TRANSFORMING AMERICA INTO A LARGER VERSION OF NORTH KOREA

Michael Snyder
The American Dream
Jan 29, 2013

If there is one country in the world that you would not want to live in, it would be North Korea.  Unfortunately, the United States of America is becoming more like North Korea with each passing day.  North Korea is a totalitarian police state hellhole where the state rules supreme, the “leader” is lavishly worshipped, no dissent is tolerated, and the government micromanages everything.  America is supposed to be the opposite of that, but now Barack Obama is implementing his version of “change” and he has promised to engage in the “remaking” of this nation and to transform it “brick by brick“.  A tremendous “cult of personality” has been built up around Obama, and under his leadership the U.S. government has become larger and more repressive than ever before.  But do we really want to “change” America so that it more closely resembles totalitarian regimes such as North Korea, communist China, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany?  After all, all of those regimes have a nightmarish history of brutality and death.  Even today, there are starving North Koreans that are eating their own children.  Is that really where we want to end up as a nation?

The truth is that we desperately need to take America in the opposite direction of where Barack Obama is trying to take us.  We need a much smaller federal government, a much greater emphasis on freedom and liberty, a return to true free market capitalism, and politicians that are willing to take a low profile and that are actually there to serve the American people.

But what we need and what we are getting are two very different things.

The following are 22 signs that Barack Obama is transforming America into a larger version of North Korea…

#1 Obama has appointed numerous socialists and communists to important positions in his administration.  The following are just a few examples that were highlighted in a recent article by John Perazzo…

• Obama named Van Jones, a longtime revolutionary communist who famously declared that “we [are] gonna change the whole [economic] system,” as his “green jobs czar” in 2009;
• he appointed Carol Browner, a former “commissioner” of the Socialist International, as his “environment czar”;
• he appointed John Holdren, who not only views capitalism as a system that is inherently destructive of the environment, but strongly favors the redistribution of wealth, both within the U.S. and across international borders, as his “science czar”;
• he named Hilda Solis, a former officer of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (the socialist wing of the House of Representatives), as his labor secretary;
• and he chose Anita Dunn, a woman who has cited Mao Zedong as one of her “favorite political philosophers,” to serve as White House communications director.

#2 As Paul Roderick Gregory demonstrated in an outstanding article for Forbes, Barack Obama’s economic agenda matches the November 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists almost point for point.

#3 If a totalitarian regime is going to be successful, it needs a massive government bureaucracy to run things.  Today, the number of employees of the federal government is roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States in 1776.

#4 In North Korea, dissent is brutally repressed.  In the United States, we have continued to move rapidly in that direction under Barack Obama.  In a recent article entitled “Obama’s War On Whistleblowers“, author Stephen Lendman wrote the following…

He said one thing. He did another. As president, he usurped diktat powers. He wages war on truth. He targets whistleblowers. He prioritizes surveillance powers.

They include warrantless wiretapping, accessing personal records, monitoring financial transactions, and tracking emails, Internet and cell phone use. It’s done lawlessly to gather secret evidence for prosecutions.

In his book “Necessary Secrets,” Gabriel Schoenfeld said he “presided over the most draconian crackdown on leaks in our history – even more so than Nixon.”

Rhetorically he supports civil liberties and transparency. “Such acts of courage and patriotism….should be encouraged rather than stifled,” he said.

At the same time, he betrayed the public trust. He targets free expression and dissent. He pursues police state prosecutions and intimidation.

He claims Justice Department immunity from illegal spying suits. He exceeds the worst of all previous administrations.

His national security state targets activists, political dissidents, anti-war protestors, Muslims, Latino immigrants, lawyers who defend them, whistleblowers, and investigative journalists.

Law Professor Jack Balkin expressed alarm, saying:

“We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimation of a national surveillance state.” Obama exceeded the worst of George Bush.

#5 Under Obama, the United States has been developing “Big Brother” surveillance technologies that dictators of the past never even dreamed were possible.  For example, a very highly sophisticated surveillance grid known as “Trapwire” is being installed in major cities and at “high value targets” all over the country.  Sadly, the mainstream media has not covered this at all, and most Americans still do not even realize that it exists.

#6 Under Obama, unmanned aerial vehicles are not just used for war anymore.  Police departments are now starting to deploy surveillance drones in the skies over their cities all over the nation.  In fact, this is something that the federal government is greatly encouraging.

#7 It was the Obama administration that came up with the “See Something, Say Something” campaign.  Now the federal government has even created an iPhone app that is designed to encourage all of us to take photos of “suspicious activity” and report our neighbors to the authorities.

#8 It was the Obama administration that first instituted “enhanced pat-downs” by TSA thugs at our airports.  As a result, countless numbers of men, women and children have had horrific experiences that they will remember for the rest of their lives.  You can read some of their horror stories right here.

#9 The U.S. military now has the authority to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinitely without trial.  The Obama administration has no problem with this horrible abuse of power.

#10 A key Obama ally in the U.S House of Representatives, Congressman José Serrano of New York, has introduced a measure that would repeal the 22nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution so that Barack Obama can continue to run for additional terms as president after his second term ends.

#11 The “cult of personality” that has built up around Barack Obama is getting quite ridiculous.  Shortly after he won the recent election, actor Jamie Foxx referred to Barack Obama as “our Lord and Savior Barack Obama” during a television broadcast of the 2012 Soul Train Awards in Las Vegas, Nevada.  Such “leader worship” would fit in very well in North Korea.

#12 Since Obama won in November, there has been an increasing number of incidences in which Obama has been referred to in religious terms.  For example, a recent Newsweek article referred to Barack Obama’s second term as “The Second Coming“.

#13 A painting by artist Michael D’Antuono that is now on display at Boston’s Bunker Hill Community College Art Gallery recently made headlines all over the United States.  In the painting, Barack Obama is wearing a crown of thorns on his head and his arms are stretched out as if he was being crucified.  In the background of the painting is the presidential seal…

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#14 Relentless praise from the mainstream media played a huge role in each of Obama’s election victories.  The mainstream media is supposed to be objective, but there have been reports of members of the media “swooning” in his presence, and most mainstream news broadcasts leave little doubt that Obama is the “good guy” and anyone opposed to him is the “bad guy”.

#15 The Obama organization has tirelessly gathered data on potential voters.  At this point, the amount of information that the Obama campaign has compiled on the American people is absolutely frightening…

If you voted this election season, President Obama almost certainly has a file on you. His vast campaign database includes information on voters’ magazine subscriptions, car registrations, housing values and hunting licenses, along with scores estimating how likely they were to cast ballots for his reelection.

#16 The Communist Party USA is cheering on Barack Obama’s efforts to disarm the American people.  According to one of their official publications, “the ability to live free from the fear or threat of gun violence is a fundamental democratic right — one that far supercedes any so-called personal gun rights allegedly contained in the Second Amendment.”

#17 Under Obama, the federal government is intruding in our personal lives like never before.  The following example is from a recent RT article…

Smokers, beware: tobacco penalties under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act could subject millions of smokers to fees costing thousands of dollars, making healthcare more expensive for them than Americans with other unhealthy habits.

The Affordable Care Act, which critics have also called “Obamacare”, could subject smokers to premiums that are 50 percent higher than usual, starting next Jan 1. Health insurers will be allowed to charge smokers penalties that overweight Americans or those with other health conditions would not be subjected to.

A 60-year-old smoker could pay penalties as high as $5,100, in addition to the premiums, the Associated Press reports. A 55-year-old smoker’s penalty could reach $4,250. The older a smoker is, the higher the penalty will be.

#18 Just as in North Korea, our lives are being increasingly micromanaged by a government that is packed with control freaks.  At this point they even are telling us what kind of light bulbs we are allowed to buy.

#19 Federal agencies have become increasingly brutal under Obama.  For example, if you milk your cow and sell some of that milk to your neighbor next door, you could end up having your home raided by federal agents.

#20 Obama has gone to great lengths to demonize his opposition.  Since he has been president, numerous government papers, studies and reports have been released that identify groups of people that are opposed to Obama as “potential terrorists”.  Some of the groups targeted as “potential terrorists” include those that “revere individual liberty”, “conspiracy theorists”, “returning veterans”, anti-abortion activists, those that visit “extremist websites”, those that are “fiercely nationalistic”, those that “believe in the right to bear arms”, anyone that is opposed to illegal immigration, anyone that is anti-UN, and anyone that is “suspicious of centralized federal authority”.  For much more on this, please seethis article.

#21 Obama’s abuse of power is not just limited to the United States.  The truth is that he has increasingly been acting like some type of imperial ruler that gets to tell everyone else in the world what they are supposed to do.  For example, according to a recent WND article Obama has actually promised to give eastern Jerusalem to the Palestinians even though Israel has already said that they will agree to no such thing…

Now that he has secured his second term, President Barack Obama has already secretly pledged to the Palestinians he will press Israel into a new round of so-called land-for-peace negotiations, a top Palestinian Authority negotiator told WND.

The negotiator said top members of the Obama administration told the Palestinians the U.S. president will renew talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the so-called 1967 borders – meaning in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and, notably, eastern Jerusalem.

#22 Many Obama supporters are becoming enamored with the idea that we should either start ignoring the Constitution or that we should get rid of it entirely.  For example, Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidmanrecently appeared on CBS and said the following to the American people…

“I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not.”

Hey, if we got rid of the pesky Constitution, we could have a dictatorship just like North Korea does!

Barack Obama could be our king, our lord and our savior for decades!

Of course I am being sarcastic, but this is the kind of dangerous thinking that leads to tyranny.

Let us learn the hard lessons that history has tried to teach us.  We don’t want to go down the same path that North Korea, Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and communist China have traveled.

There is an absolutely amazing National Geographic documentary that shows what life is like inside North Korea.  You can view it on YouTube right here.  We don’t want our children and our grandchildren to someday live in a nation like that.

Freedom and liberty are precious things.  They are very hard to win, and they are very easy to lose.

Let us not be the generation that loses everything that our forefathers worked so hard to build.

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THE COMMUNIST TAKEOVER OF AMERICA: 45 DECLARED GOALS

From Greg Swank

You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As you read this, 39 years later, you should be shocked by the events that have played themselves out. I first ran across this list 3 years ago but was unable to attain a copy and it has bothered me ever since. Recently, Jeff Rense posted it on his site and I would like to thank him for doing so.

Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963

Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, January 10, 1963 .

Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.

At Mrs. Nordman’s request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following “Current Communist Goals,” which she identifies as an excerpt from “The Naked Communist,” by Cleon Skousen:

[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev’s promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policy-making positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to “eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms.”

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. “Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art.”

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them “censorship” and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of “separation of church and state.”

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture–education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

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THE DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE PARTY OF EUROPEAN SOCIALISTS

By Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor , Forbes

The socialist parties of Europe trace their origins to reform Marxism. After Marx’s death in 1883, Europe’s Marxists rejected the Bolsheviks’ call for socialist revolution and worked within the political system for Marxist goals. Marxists, such as Karl Leibknecht, August Bebel, Paul Lafargue, Leon Blum, and others, formed the socialist parties that we know today. Most emerged from the trade-union movement, and they retain close ties with organized labor today, as does Obama’s Democrat Party.

Whereas, the eighteenth century liberalism of John Locke and Adam Smith gave us our constitution and limited government, Marxism provided the intellectual foundations of the European welfare state.

The European socialists have their welfare state. Even their conservative opponents no longer question the “social state,” despite rising concern about its affordability. In the United States, we are fighting the battle of the welfare state, and we do not know what the outcome will be.

The European welfare state takes one half of national output to provide state health care, pensions, extended unemployment benefits, income grants, and free higher education. Failed nationalizations taught European socialists to leave enterprise in private hands and coerce it through taxation and regulation to contribute to what the state deems the “social welfare.”

The November 2011 Declaration of Principles of the Party of European Socialists (PES) summarizes the European socialist agenda:

1. A democratic society means that democratic power prevails in all areas of life. It means that citizens are able to decide, not only to choose. Democracy must be pluralistic, truly representative of society’s diversity and enable everyone to participate, with an open public sphere and an independent media. The freedom of speech that exists in the physical world must also exist in the virtual world.

2. Democratic power requires a strong public authority at local, regional, national and European level. It preserves the public good, guarantees the common interest and promotes justice and solidarity in society. Public authority must be exercised according to principles of good governance, the rule of law and accountability.

3. Internationalism means our action is outward looking. Our solidarity goes beyond national borders. In today’s world, long lasting prosperity, stability and peace requires effective coordination as equals.

4. Giving back a real meaning, a real value and a real continuity to work in life is central to ensuring people’s emancipation. Work is our keystone to enable people to be the designers of their future and develop a sense of pride in society.

5. A society based on our values means a new economy that embodies them. In a values driven economy, environmental sustainability, human dignity and well being are inbuilt into wealth creation. This new economy fosters social progress.

6. Sustainability means lasting solidarity and justice for the future. It safeguards the planet and people against short-termism. It means we preserve the planet, protect the elderly and invest in youth to ensure intergenerational solidarity.

7. A strong and just society is one that instills confidence and inspires trust. To guarantee this trust and confidence, we must ensure that the wealth generated by all is shared fairly. This collective responsibility embodies our conviction that we are stronger when we work together.

8. Progressive societies can only be truly inclusive. An inclusive society does not single out targets. Rather it embraces its diversity. This means the same dignity and freedom for all men and women and equal access to rights, education, culture and public services.

9. We fight for a society that recognizes gender equality in full legacy of the feminist movement.  We want a society in which women and men share work, share time and share roles, in the public and private realms.

10. Our shared pride in society guarantees our shared security. A free, peaceful and just society is one in which people are safe as they go about their lives. We want to shape the future so that people regain control over their lives. In order to achieve progressive societies in the 21st century with our values at their heart, we need to adapt our action to the realities of today’s world according to three axes for change. We must create a new idea of richness that is much bigger than material wealth. We can only talk of society in so far as we formulate it for everyone. And we must be open and develop policy across the frontiers in Europe to regain lasting power at all levels.

Obama favors universal access to health care and associated benefits as a critical expansion of the welfare state.

He favors progressive taxes on the rich to redistribute income and wealth from winners to losers and to ensure that all pay their fair share. (As he has said: “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”)

Obama favors a collective responsibility (as defined by the federal government) to protect all from social risks through food stamps, welfare programs, extended unemployment benefits, guaranteed health care, the bailing out of big companies, forcing renegotiation of mortgages, class action law suits, and other measures. (Instead of opportunity and incentive to succeed, no one is allowed to fail).

He favors carbon taxes, higher energy prices, restricted drilling and refining, and subsidies of green technology for the “common good,” even at the expenses of higher conventional growth and jobs.

Obama shows a distrust of market forces and advocates selective regulation, subsidies, and taxation to persuade or coerce business to promote the general welfare as he defines it. Industries not part of his collective endeavor (oil and gas and coal) are penalized. Industries that serve his conception of “general welfare” (green technology) are to be promoted even if the market rejects them.

He places reliance on international institutions, international consensus, and mutual respect in the conduct of foreign policy. (The United States must coordinate its foreign policy with international organizations and treat even rogue nations with respect in the hope that they will voluntarily improve their behavior).

Obama advocates a strong state that offers the “positive right” of political and economic justice to its citizens. He complains that the U.S. Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties,” that dictates what government “can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.”

If the Party of European Socialists were to rate Obama, he would get a near perfect score. The political views and programs that Obama is pushing are consistent with those of European socialists. He is clearly a socialist in the European sense of the term.

America was founded on the principle that individuals should not be subject to the control of a powerful state. That founding idea has never before been in greater peril.

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THE COMMUNISTS HAVE WON IN AMERICA WITH OBAMA BUT FAILED MISERABLY IN RUSSIA

By Xavier Lerma | Pravda  <— A RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER

Putin in 2009 outlined his strategy for economic success. Alas, poor Obama did the opposite but nevertheless was re-elected. Bye, bye Miss American Pie. The Communists have won in America with Obama but failed miserably in Russia with Zyuganov who only received 17% of the vote. Vladimir Putin was re-elected as President keeping the New World Order out of Russia while America continues to repeat the Soviet mistake.

After Obama was elected in his first term as president the then Prime Minister of Russia, Vladimir Putin gave a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January of 2009. Ignored by the West as usual, Putin gave insightful and helpful advice to help the world economy and saying the world should avoid the Soviet mistake.

Recently, Obama has been re-elected for a 2nd term by an illiterate society and he is ready to continue his lies of less taxes while he raises them. He gives speeches of peace and love in the world while he promotes wars as he did in Egypt, Libya and Syria. He plans his next war with Iran as he fires or demotes his generals who get in the way.

Putin said regarding the military,

“…instead of solving the problem, militarization pushes it to a deeper level. It draws away from the economy immense financial and material resources, which could have been used much more efficiently elsewhere.”

Well, any normal individual understands that as true but liberalism is a psychosis . O’bomber even keeps the war going along the Mexican border with projects like “fast and furious” and there is still no sign of ending it.  He is a Communist without question promoting the Communist Manifesto without calling it so. How shrewd he is in America. His cult of personality mesmerizes those who cannot go beyond their ignorance. They will continue to follow him like those fools who still praise Lenin and Stalin in Russia.  Obama’s fools and Stalin’s fools share the same drink of illusion.

Reading Putin’s speech without knowing the author, one would think it was written by Reagan or another conservative in America. The speech promotes smaller government and less taxes. It comes as no surprise to those who know Putin as a conservative. Vladimir Putin went on to say:

“…we are reducing taxes on production, investing money in the economy. We are optimizing state expenses.

 The second possible mistake would be excessive interference into the economic life of the country and the absolute faith into the all-mightiness of the state.

There are no grounds to suggest that by putting the responsibility over to the state, one can achieve better results.

Unreasonable expansion of the budget deficit, accumulation of the national debt – are as destructive as an adventurous stock market game.

During the time of the Soviet Union the role of the state in economy was made absolute, which eventually lead to the total non-competitiveness of the economy. That lesson cost us very dearly. I am sure no one would want history to repeat itself.”

President Vladimir Putin could never have imagined anyone so ignorant or so willing to destroy their people like Obama much less seeing millions vote for someone like Obama. They read history in America don’t they? Alas, the schools in the U.S. were conquered by the Communists long ago and history was revised thus paving the way for their Communist presidents. Obama has bailed out those businesses that voted for him and increased the debt to over 16 trillion with an ever increasing unemployment rate especially among blacks and other minorities. All the while promoting his agenda.

“We must seek support in the moral values that have ensured the progress of our civilization. Honesty and hard work, responsibility and faith in our strength are bound to bring us success.”- Vladimir Putin

The red, white and blue still flies happily but only in Russia. Russia still has St George defeating the Dragon with the symbol of the cross on its’ flag. The ACLU and other atheist groups in America would never allow the US flag with such religious symbols. Lawsuits a plenty against religious freedom and expression in the land of the free. Christianity in the U.S. is under attack as it was during the early period of the Soviet Union when religious symbols were against the law.

Let’s give American voters the benefit of the doubt and say it was all voter fraud and not ignorance or stupidity in electing a man who does not even know what to do and refuses help from Russia when there was an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead we’ll say it’s true that the Communists usage of electronic voting was just a plan to manipulate the vote. Soros and his ownership of the company that counts the US votes in Spain helped put their puppet in power in the White House. According to the Huffington Post, residents in all 50 states have filed petitions to secede from the Unites States. We’ll say that these Americans are hostages to the Communists in power. How long will their government reign tyranny upon them?

Russia lost its’ civil war with the Reds and millions suffered torture and death for almost 75 years under the tyranny of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. Russians survived with a new and stronger faith in God and ever growing Christian Church. The question is how long will the once “Land of the Free” remain the United Socialist States of America?  Their suffering has only begun. Bye bye Miss American Pie!

How long will America suffer and to what depths?

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AMERICA IN CRISIS: THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF TYRANNY

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | Global Research

Republicans and conservative Americans are still fighting Big Government in its welfare state form. Apparently, they have never heard of the militarized police state form of Big Government, or, if they have, they are comfortable with it and have no objection.  

Republicans, including those in the House and Senate, are content for big government to initiate wars without a declaration of war or even Congress’ assent, and to murder with drones citizens of countries with which Washington is not at war.  Republicans do not mind that federal “security” agencies spy on American citizens without warrants and record every email, Internet site visited, Facebook posting, cell phone call, and credit card purchase. Republicans in Congress even voted to fund the massive structure in Utah in which this information is stored.

But heaven forbid that big government should do anything for a poor person.

Republicans have been fighting Social Security ever since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it into law in the 1930s, and they have been fighting Medicare ever since President Lyndon Johnson signed it into law in 1965 as part of the Great Society initiatives.

Conservatives accuse liberals of the “institutionalization of compassion.” Writing in the February, 2013, issue of Chronicles, John C. Seiler, Jr., damns Johnson’s Great Society as “a major force in turning a country that still enjoyed a modicum of republican liberty into the centralized, bureaucratized, degenerate, and bankrupt state we endure today.”

It doesn’t occur to conservatives that in Europe democracy, liberty, welfare, rich people, and national health services all coexist, but that somehow American liberty is so fragile that it is overturned by a limited health program only available to the elderly.

Neither does it occur to conservative Republicans that it is far better to institutionalize compassion than to institutionalize tyranny.

The institutionalization of tyranny is the achievement of the Bush/Obama regimes of the 21st century. This, and not the Great Society, is the decisive break from the American tradition. The Bush Republicans demolished almost all of the constitutional protections of liberty erected by the Founding Fathers.  The Obama Democrats codified Bush’s dismantling of the Constitution and removed the protection afforded to citizens from being murdered by the government without due process. One decade was time enough for two presidents to make Americans the least free people of any developed country, indeed, perhaps of any country.  In what other country or countries does the chief executive officer have the right to murder citizens without due process?

It turns one’s stomach to listen to conservatives bemoan the destruction of liberty by compassion while they institutionalize torture, indefinite detention in violation of habeas corpus, murder of citizens on suspicion and unproven accusation alone, complete and total violation of privacy, interference with the right to travel by unaccountable “no-fly” lists and highway check points, the brutalization of citizens and those exercising their right to protest by police, frame-ups of critics, and narrow the bounds of free speech.

In Amerika today only the executive branch of the federal government has any privacy. The privacy is institutional, not personal–witness the fate of CIA director Petraeus. While the executive branch destroys the privacy of every one else, it insists on its own privilege of privacy. National security is invoked to shield the executive branch from its criminal actions. Federal prosecutors actually conduct trials in which the evidence against defendants is classified and withheld from defendants’ attorneys. Attorneys such as Lynne Stewart have been imprisoned for not following orders from federal prosecutors to violate the attorney-client privilege.

Conservatives accept the monstrous police state that has been erected, because they think it makes them safe from “Muslim terrorism.”  They haven’t the wits to see that they are now open to terrorism by the government.

Consider, for example, the case of Bradley Manning.  He is accused of leaking confidential information that reveals US government war crimes despite the fact that it is the responsibility of every soldier to reveal war crimes.

Virtually every one of Manning’s constitutional rights has been violated by the US government. He has been tortured. In an effort to coerce Manning into admitting trumped-up charges and implicating WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, Manning had his right to a speedy trial violated by nearly three years of pre-trial custody and repeated trial delays by government prosecutors.

And now the judge, Col. Denise Lind, who comes across as a member of the prosecution rather than an impartial judge, has ruled that Manning cannot use as evidence the government’s own reports that the leaked information did not harm national security. Lind has also thrown out the legal principle of mens rea by ruling that Manning’s motive for leaking information about US war crimes cannot be presented as evidence in his trial. http://www.armytimes.com/news/2013/01/ap-judge-limits-motive-evidence-wikileaks-case-bradely-manning-011613/

Mens rea says that a crime requires criminal intent. By discarding this legal principle, Lind has prevented Manning from showing that his motive was to do his duty under the military code and reveal evidence of war crimes.  This allows prosecutors to turn a dutiful act into the crime of aiding the enemy by revealing classified information.

Of course, nothing that Manning allegedly revealed helped the enemy in any way as the enemy, having suffered the war crimes, was already aware of them.

Obama Democrats are no more disturbed than conservative Republicans that a dutiful American soldier is being prosecuted because he has a moral conscience. In Manning’s trial, the government’s definition of victory has nothing whatsoever to do with justice prevailing. For Washington, victory means stamping out moral conscience and protecting a corrupt government from public exposure of its war crimes.

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NEW YORK TIMES OP-ED: LET’S GIVE UP ON THE CONSTITUTION”

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg

This New York Times Op Ed by Louis Michael Seidman, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, is one of the most absurd and dangerous articles I have read in a very long time. This guy’s incredible conclusion is that it is the Constitution of the United States itself that is causing all that ails the nation at this time.  Not once did I read about the Federal Reserve, or the “war on terror,” or the banker bailouts, or the complete destruction of the rule of law in recent years.  Nope, none of that.  Instead, this scholar’s conclusion is that the founding document, which created the fertile breeding ground for freedom and free markets and led to tens of millions of people to flee to from all corners of the globe, is the problem.

I suppose someone failed to remind Mr. Seidman that the oath of office for the military and those that hold political office continues to be:

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

As I have said for years, a key part of the macro agenda of the corrupt elite has been and continues to be the destruction of the U.S. Constitution.  While the Bill of Rights is already being dismantled behind the scenes, Mr. Seidman is part of the effort to “sell” this concept to the sheeple  as I noted in my article: Here We Go…Slate Magazine Bashes the First Amendment. I expect more of this type of propaganda going forward.

From the New York Times:

As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.

The above paragraph is important for two reasons.  First, he picks and chooses what part of the Constitution he agrees with and then says those things are good and should remain.  More disturbingly, he then says we should defend freedom based on “respect not obligation.”  This is insane.  The reason the Bill of Rights exists is to enshrine the protection of civil rights under the law so that an authoritarian government cannot trample them.  Do you really expect government to protect civil rights out of “respect” if they are not obligated to by law?  Not a chance.  Then he concludes with:

But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.

Please pass this on to every freedom loving American you know.

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LAW PROFESSOR SAYS, ‘LET’S GIVE UP ON THE CONSTITUTION’ ON CBS

The following op-ed run on CBS’s 60 Minutes takes a backwards interpretation of the Constitution, perverting the document that enshrines and protects our civil rights by arguing that it allows people to control their own lives.

Breitbart.com has posted yet another scholar who advocates destroying a centuries-long battle to uphold protections for the individual and discourage despots. Louis Michael Seidman, a law professor from Georgetown University, shamelessly calls for tearing off the chains on government, joining a chorus of individuals ready to undo the country’s foundations in the wake of tragedy.

Shockingly, he advocates throwing the baby out with the bathwater all while trying to pacify the audience into believing that “giving up on the Constitution” is NOT a radical thing. Seidman argues that if President Obama wasn’t born in the country, it shouldn’t matter, and further claims that if people want to debate, or adopt, gun control, it should be within their rights to do so.

And yet Seidman has shown his disdain for individual rights by advocating the removal of those protections over our nation.

He is clearly not interested in weighing responsible revisions to create better government, but to disarm critics clinging to the Constitution, and that clear, pesky “shall not infringe” clause under the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Seidman states, in part, “Talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion.” The danger of taking his position in the name of keeping a cool demeanor holds an obvious danger.

Seidman’s real agenda is revealed by regurgitated talking points that have showed up over the years in the post-9/11 world to justify eviscerating protections for individuals from government. By de-legitimizing the argument to hold to the Constitution, this law professor is ushering in arbitrary law and a public opinion that could shift with the wind rather than uphold a principle, a key buffer set up by imperfect founders to try to stave off tyranny through a separation of power.

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TRANSCRIPT FROM GEORGETOWN LAW PROFESSOR LOUIS MICHAEL SEIDMAN

I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution. I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not. Constitutional disobedience is as American as apple pie. For example, most of our greatest Presidents — Jefferson, Lincoln, Wilson, and both Roosevelts — had doubts about the Constitution, and many of them disobeyed it when it got in their way.

To be clear, I don’t think we should give up on everything in the Constitution. The Constitution has many important and inspiring provisions, but we should obey these because they are important and inspiring, not because a bunch of people who are now long-dead favored them two centuries ago. Unfortunately, the Constitution also contains some provisions that are not so inspiring. For example, one allows a presidential candidate who is rejected by a majority of the American people to assume office. Suppose that Barack Obama really wasn’t a natural-born citizen. So what? Constitutional obedience has a pernicious impact on our political culture. Take the recent debate about gun control. None of my friends can believe it, but I happen to be skeptical of most forms of gun control. I understand, though, that’s not everyone’s view, and I’m eager to talk with people who disagree.

But what happens when the issue gets Constitutional-ized? Then we turn the question over to lawyers, and lawyers do with it what lawyers do. So instead of talking about whether gun control makes sense in our country, we talk about what people thought of it two centuries ago. Worse yet, talking about gun control in terms of constitutional obligation needlessly raises the temperature of political discussion. Instead of a question on policy, about which reasonable people can disagree, it becomes a test of one’s commitment to our foundational document and, so, to America itself.

This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today. If we are to take back our own country, we have to start making decisions for ourselves, and stop deferring to an ancient and outdated document.

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LET’S GIVE UP ON THE CONSTITUTION

By LOUIS MICHAEL SEIDMAN | The New York Times

Washington

AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.

Consider, for example, the assertion by the Senate minority leader last week that the House could not take up a plan by Senate Democrats to extend tax cuts on households making $250,000 or less because the Constitution requires that revenue measures originate in the lower chamber. Why should anyone care? Why should a lame-duck House, 27 members of which were defeated for re-election, have a stranglehold on our economy? Why does a grotesquely malapportioned Senate get to decide the nation’s fate?

Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago.

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?

Constitutional disobedience may seem radical, but it is as old as the Republic. In fact, the Constitution itself was born of constitutional disobedience. When George Washington and the other framers went to Philadelphia in 1787, they were instructed to suggest amendments to the Articles of Confederation, which would have had to be ratified by the legislatures of all 13 states. Instead, in violation of their mandate, they abandoned the Articles, wrote a new Constitution and provided that it would take effect after ratification by only nine states, and by conventions in those states rather than the state legislatures.

No sooner was the Constitution in place than our leaders began ignoring it. John Adams supported the Alien and Sedition Acts, which violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. Thomas Jefferson thought every constitution should expire after a single generation. He believed the most consequential act of his presidency — the purchase of the Louisiana Territory — exceeded his constitutional powers.

Before the Civil War, abolitionists like Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison conceded that the Constitution protected slavery, but denounced it as a pact with the devil that should be ignored. When Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — 150 years ago tomorrow — he justified it as a military necessity under his power as commander in chief. Eventually, though, he embraced the freeing of slaves as a central war aim, though nearly everyone conceded that the federal government lacked the constitutional power to disrupt slavery where it already existed. Moreover, when the law finally caught up with the facts on the ground through passage of the 13th Amendment, ratification was achieved in a manner at odds with constitutional requirements. (The Southern states were denied representation in Congress on the theory that they had left the Union, yet their reconstructed legislatures later provided the crucial votes to ratify the amendment.)

In his Constitution Day speech in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt professed devotion to the document, but as a statement of aspirations rather than obligations. This reading no doubt contributed to his willingness to extend federal power beyond anything the framers imagined, and to threaten the Supreme Court when it stood in the way of his New Deal legislation. In 1954, when the court decided Brown v. Board of Education, Justice Robert H. Jackson said he was voting for it as a moral and political necessity although he thought it had no basis in the Constitution. The list goes on and on.

The fact that dissenting justices regularly, publicly and vociferously assert that their colleagues have ignored the Constitution — in landmark cases from Miranda v. Arizona to Roe v. Wade to Romer v. Evans to Bush v. Gore — should give us pause. The two main rival interpretive methods, “originalism” (divining the framers’ intent) and “living constitutionalism” (reinterpreting the text in light of modern demands), cannot be reconciled. Some decisions have been grounded in one school of thought, and some in the other. Whichever your philosophy, many of the results — by definition — must be wrong.

IN the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text. Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.

This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.

Nor should we have a debate about, for instance, how long the president’s term should last or whether Congress should consist of two houses. Some matters are better left settled, even if not in exactly the way we favor. Nor, finally, should we have an all-powerful president free to do whatever he wants. Even without constitutional fealty, the president would still be checked by Congress and by the states. There is even something to be said for an elite body like the Supreme Court with the power to impose its views of political morality on the country.

What would change is not the existence of these institutions, but the basis on which they claim legitimacy. The president would have to justify military action against Iran solely on the merits, without shutting down the debate with a claim of unchallengeable constitutional power as commander in chief. Congress might well retain the power of the purse, but this power would have to be defended on contemporary policy grounds, not abstruse constitutional doctrine. The Supreme Court could stop pretending that its decisions protecting same-sex intimacy or limiting affirmative action were rooted in constitutional text.

The deep-seated fear that such disobedience would unravel our social fabric is mere superstition. As we have seen, the country has successfully survived numerous examples of constitutional infidelity. And as we see now, the failure of the Congress and the White House to agree has already destabilized the country. Countries like Britain and New Zealand have systems of parliamentary supremacy and no written constitution, but are held together by longstanding traditions, accepted modes of procedure and engaged citizens. We, too, could draw on these resources.

What has preserved our political stability is not a poetic piece of parchment, but entrenched institutions and habits of thought and, most important, the sense that we are one nation and must work out our differences. No one can predict in detail what our system of government would look like if we freed ourselves from the shackles of constitutional obligation, and I harbor no illusions that any of this will happen soon. But even if we can’t kick our constitutional-law addiction, we can soften the habit.

If we acknowledged what should be obvious — that much constitutional language is broad enough to encompass an almost infinitely wide range of positions — we might have a very different attitude about the obligation to obey. It would become apparent that people who disagree with us about the Constitution are not violating a sacred text or our core commitments. Instead, we are all invoking a common vocabulary to express aspirations that, at the broadest level, everyone can embrace. Of course, that does not mean that people agree at the ground level. If we are not to abandon constitutionalism entirely, then we might at least understand it as a place for discussion, a demand that we make a good-faith effort to understand the views of others, rather than as a tool to force others to give up their moral and political judgments.

If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by “We the people” is impossibly utopian. If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.

Louis Michael Seidman, a professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, is the author of the forthcoming book “On Constitutional Disobedience.”

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MEGYN KELLY CHALLENGES PROFESSOR WHO WANTS AMERICA TO ‘GIVE UP’ THE U.S. CONSTITUTION

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GEORGETOWN LAW PROFESSOR: SCRAP ‘ARCHAIC, IDIOSYNCRATIC AND DOWNRIGHT EVIL’ CONSTITUTION

Caroline May, Political Reporter | The Daily Caller

With hours to go before nation heads off the fiscal cliff, Georgetown Law professor Louis Michael Seidman writes that the time has come to scrap the Constitution.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times Monday, Seidman, a constitutional law professor, claimed that the nation’s foundational document is the real impediment to progress and solutions to America’s troubles.

“As the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken,” Seidman wrote. “But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.”

According to Seidman, the country’s insistence that it maintain the will of a centuries-old document “has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public.”

Seidman, author of the forthcoming book “On Constitutional Disobedience,” explained that adherence to constitutional law, which he has taught for over 40 years, is just “bizarre.”

“Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country,” he wrote. “Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?”

The Georgetown Law professor argued that disobedience to the Constitution is older than the document itself — noting that in 1787 the framers abandoned their mandate to amend the Articles of Confederation and instead created an entirely new document, the Constitution.

Seidman cited examples in which monumental figures in American history have turned their backs on the document, including John Adams’ support for the Alien and Sedition Acts, Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase, Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal expansion of federal powers.

“In the face of this long history of disobedience, it is hard to take seriously the claim by the Constitution’s defenders that we would be reduced to a Hobbesian state of nature if we asserted our freedom from this ancient text,” he added. “Our sometimes flagrant disregard of the Constitution has not produced chaos or totalitarianism; on the contrary, it has helped us to grow and prosper.”

Seidman concedes that his goal — to scrap the Constitution in favor of long standing institutions and good judgment — is likely not to happen anytime soon. Instead, he advocates beginning to “soften the habit.”

“If even this change is impossible, perhaps the dream of a country ruled by ‘We the people’ is impossibly utopian,” he concluded. “If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.”

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CBS: THE ANTI-CONSTITUTION NETWORK

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

This past Sunday, CBS ran an op-ed segment on its morning show called, “Let’s give up on the Constitution.”   It was written and delivered by Georgetown law professor Louis Michael Seidman.  Professor Seidman gave a longer version of this in print at the end of 2012 in the New York Times.  There, he said, “As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is.”  Really, it took 40 years to see the light?  On the CBS version, Seidman said, “I’ve got a simple idea: Let’s give up on the Constitution.  I know, it sounds radical, but it’s really not.”  Really?  It’s not a radical idea when the President of the United States just swore an oath to “uphold the Constitution” in his second term inauguration?

I don’t question professor Seidman’s knowledge of constitutional law.  What I question is his timing and his new awakening after a “40 year” haze.  I also question the decision CBS made to put this op-ed on the air.  Not because of what was said, but because CBS put this on without any rebuttal.  I wholeheartedly disagree with Seidman’s view, but I am steadfastly in favor of the First Amendment.   To me, CBS is the anti-Constitution network for allowing a radical one-sided view to go unchecked!  After all, it’s not “Freedom of Spin.”   This is how a group of outdated TV stations takes care of the public trust?

As far as professor Seidman, he should be “ashamed” for the sham of being a constitutional scholar for  decades who doesn’t believe in his field of study.  In Seidman’s CBS op-ed, he says he’s “eager to talk with people” about gun control, but if he had his wish, the conversation would start with people having no right to have a gun.  Let’s talk—yeah, right.

Seidman also contends, “This is not to say that we should disobey all constitutional commands. Freedom of speech and religion, equal protection of the laws and protections against governmental deprivation of life, liberty or property are important, whether or not they are in the Constitution. We should continue to follow those requirements out of respect, not obligation.”  Really, the government will take care of our freedoms out of “respect”?  Why isn’t the good professor doing an op-ed about the gutting of the due process clause of the 4^th Amendment?  The President can imprison anyone indefinitely and kill U.S. citizens without charge or trial.  (The President ordered execution via drone strikes of three U.S. born citizens suspected of helping al-Qaeda in 2011.)  I guess if you are giving up on the Constitution, those kinds of things are no longer an “obligation” and don’t interest you any longer.  Hey, and nothing is stopping CBS from allowing op-ed pieces or real reporting on any of those subjects either.  Instead, we get “Let’s give up on the Constitution.” 

Professor Seidman makes his main point by saying, “This is our country. We live in it, and we have a right to the kind of country we want. We would not allow the French or the United Nations to rule us, and neither should we allow people who died over two centuries ago and knew nothing of our country as it exists today.”  I guess, in Seidman’s 40 years of constitutional study, he just forgot the U. S. Constitution has been amended (or changed) 27 times.   It also appears Seidman doesn’t know much about “. . . our country as it exists today,” either.  Enormous fraud by bankers has gone completely unprosecuted.   There is the $800 trillion LIBOR rate rigging fraud, money laundering for Mexican drug cartels and terrorists, securities fraud, and foreclosure fraud.  Most recently, big banks paid an $8.5 billion fine for illegally foreclosing on millions of homes.  If that’s not a form of tyranny, I don’t know what is.  What world are you living in, professor Seidman?  Crime and fraud destroy confidence and trust in the financial system.  At some point, it will all melt down.  Where are the op-ed pieces for massive fraud and totally unprosecuted crime, CBS and professor Seidman?

Our Founding Fathers knew one thing when they penned the Constitution, and that is human nature does not change.  It hasn’t changed since the days of Jefferson and Adams or Adam and Eve.  Human nature is constant, and that is why the Founding Fathers put “Freedom of Speech” and “The Right to Bear Arms” number one and two in the U.S. Constitution.  Lastly, if CBS and professor Seidman had their way, a new document for governing the nation would probably start with the words, “The government says,” instead of, “We the People.”

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LET’S GIVE UP THE CONSTITUTION?

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ENEMIES OF THE CONSTITUTION

By Alan Caruba

Perhaps the stupidest idea given an airing in a recent edition of The New York Times is Prof. Louis Michael Seidman’s opinion, “Let’s Give Up on the Constitution.”

According to his commentary, Prof. Seidman has “taught constitutional law for almost 40 years” and he was “ashamed” it took him that long to conclude that it was an outdated, “bizarre” document.

Apparently President Obama, who was a lecturer in constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School, arrived at that conclusion more swiftly. His disregard for the Constitution recently got a slap down from the courts that ruled his recess appointments to the labor relations board were unconstitutional insofar as the Senate was not in recess.

I am not a constitutional scholar, but it should be self-evident that the oldest living constitution in the world has served to create and maintain the greatest republic in the world. Prof. Seidman asserts that Americans have “an obsession” with the Constitution and that is a very good thing indeed. Without it, we would likely have fallen prey to tyranny.

The framers of the Constitution did not spring it on their fellow citizens as a fait accompli, but rather as a new instrument of governance to replace the failed Articles of Confederation. A literate population was able to read the Federal Papers that argued for its various elements. It was submitted to the legislatures of the states for ratification.

We can thank those legislatures for the Bill of Rights because they insisted on amendments that would protect the right of free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, and other elements that protect the individual against abuses of power that we take for granted, but which exist throughout the world. It can be argued that the Arab Spring that overthrew a number of Middle Eastern despots are a reflection of those rights as understood by citizens in nations that have never enjoyed them.

We tend to forget that many nations even today are ruled by monarchs and others exercising power that denies their citizens any definition of freedom.  The Founding Fathers, having fought a long war against the English monarch and his parliament, were particularly sensitive to that, creating an instrument of governance that deliberately created a system of checks and balances to ensure that no President or Congress could act in a manner contrary to the intent of the Constitution.

The Constitution intended to slow down the process of legislation to ensure it received a full debate and was not subject to the whims of the times.  In a January 2011 policy analysis published by the Cato Institute, Marcus E. Ethridge noted that “In the wake of the 2010 elections, President Obama declared that voters did not give a mandate to gridlock. His statement reflects over a century of Progressive hostility to the inefficient and slow system of government created by the American Framers,” adding that “A large and growing body of evidence makes it clear that the public interest is most secure when government institutions are inefficient decision makers.”

The most recent example of this was the 2,000-plus page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). At the time, then Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, famously said that “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it.” That’s the opposite of what the Framers had in mind and is an example of what happens when a political party acts in a tyrannical manner. We are already finding out that Obamacare is causing healthcare insurance rates to increase and will deny healthcare to older Americans and others deemed by bureaucrats to be a burden on the system.

Even so, the Supreme Court which is supposed to protect Americans from abuses of the Constitution, deemed Obamacare to be a “tax” and thus legal. The Obama administration had argued that it was not a tax until it got in front of the Court. The Court had long since dropped the ball, allowing the Commerce Clause to be stretched beyond its intent to permit Congress to justify all manner of legislation and regulation of the nation’s economy.

The Framers had to compromise on the issue of slavery, in effect “kicking the can down the street” in order to get assent from the Southern States. The Supreme Court exacerbated this with the Dred Scott decision that ruled that blacks were property no matter where they were. The result was the Civil War.

The argument that the Constitution is an outdated document ignores the fact that it has been amended twenty-seven times and remains the gold standard of law in America.

There are many enemies of freedom and Prof. Seidman’s opinion is just one example, a reflection of the way some intellectuals hold the rest of us in contempt.

One of the greatest plagues on mankind was the notion of communism, the product of Karl Marx’s hatred of private property—the keystone of the Constitution—and the view that people should be seen as a collective, not as individuals. The Constitution affirms that the power of government resides in “the people” who, as individuals, determine who shall “represent” them and are to be protected against the arrogance of power that spawns the inclination to “rule” rather than represent.

The Framers of the Constitution understood this. It is the only thing that stands between us and a tyrannical government run by Progressives, Liberals, and Marxists.

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BRUCE FEIN: WE’VE CROSSED THE RUBICON INTO PSYCHOLOGICAL TYRANNY

Published on Feb 1, 2013

Alex talks with constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein. He is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy. Bruce breaks down just how bad and out of control the Obama administration has truly become since his 2nd term has begun.

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The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. – Thomas Jefferson

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UNDERSTANDING THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE: NINE KEY CONCEPTS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

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UNDERSTANDING THE U.S. CONSTITUTION: FIVE KEY CONCEPTS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW

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THE BILL OF RIGHTS

THE PREAMBLE

Congress of the United States
begun and held at the City of New-York, on Wednesday the fourth of March, one thousand seven hundred and eighty nine.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

RESOLVED by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, two thirds of both Houses concurring, that the following Articles be proposed to the Legislatures of the several States, as amendments to the Constitution of the United States, all, or any of which Articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said Legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said Constitution; viz.

ARTICLES in addition to, and Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, proposed by Congress, and ratified by the Legislatures of the several States, pursuant to the fifth Article of the original Constitution.

Amendment I

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.

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Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

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Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

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Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

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Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

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Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

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Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the peaople.

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Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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WHY ARE AMERICAN VOTERS SO UNINFORMED?

zerohedge.com
January 29, 2013

The sad fact is that it appears completely rational to be ignorant about politics. The cost of being an ‘informed’ voter – as opposed to a bigotted closed-minded ignoramus – is high, from the time spent following (and interpreting) the news in the paper, online, and on the television. As the following clip notes, “becoming an informed voter is competing with a lot of other needs in your life,” from American Idol watching to eating Cheetos in the bath. Of course, the sad truth is that it has never been more important to be ‘informed’ and so the ‘bread-and-circuses’ will continue lest we stumble upon the truth – but perhaps this brief clip will sway a few more to the dark side of ‘the informed’ – though just because ‘you’ are better-informed does not mean politicians will do a better job – as the probability of your vote changing the outcome of an election is for all practical purposes, zero!

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CHARLES HURT: OBAMA VICTORY MEANS FOUR MORE YEARS WITH NO HOPE OF CHANGE

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

By Charles Hurt | The Washington Times

All that for nothing. It was the billion-dollar election that did not decide one single damned thing.

Republicans control the House. Democrats control the Senate. And the White House remains in Democratic hands with absolutely no mandate whatsoever.

Another four years with no hope of change.

In this environment with this economy and all the gravely important matters pressing against the very existence of this country, it should have been a tsunami election. It should have been a landslide that sent President Obama into the dust heap of failed presidencies. Instead, the election was about Big Bird.

It was the rape election. The contraception election. The binders full of women election.

It was about who was born where and whether she really could claim to be a Cherokee Indian.

It was about former President George W. Bush. And it was about gay marriage.

It was about the 1 percent and the 99 percent and the 47 percent.

It was about dancing freaking horses, for crying out loud!

Just about the only thing the election wasn’t about was the economy, which everyone agrees was the only thing voters actually cared about. People tend to really care about the economy when real unemployment reaches double digits, welfare rolls fatten by one-third, politicians rack up $16 trillion in national debt and the largest tax hike in the history of the world looms just weeks away.

Yet that obviously is not what decided this election. Politicians were too busy talking all about Big Bird, rape and dancing horses.

The most disturbing issue of the election was how President Obama managed to win re-election in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania and Michigan by talking about the highly unpopular bailout of General Motors. By taking billions of dollars in hard-earned money from taxpayers during a deep recession and giving it to a couple of huge companies, Mr. Obama managed to buy the votes he needed to eke out re-election. Taxpayers remain on the hook to the tune of $25 billion.

This is the Achilles heel of a democracy. Politicians simply tax those who do not support them and give the money to those who do. Or give the money to those they would like to have support them. It is the end of the line. Game over.

The weeks to come will feature endless finger-pointing and blame about how Republicans do not know how to speak to non-white voters and women and all that nonsense.

What happened Tuesday night is the same thing that has been happening for decades in America. Politicians deploy all this highly precise technology to slice and dice voters into little micro-groups and then talk to them all about dancing horses or Big Bird.

The result is you have all these states vote for one side and all these other states vote for the other side and it all comes down to Florida and Ohio. You could have given me a lot less than a billion dollars and I could have told you that.

The only way this gridlock is finally broken is when politicians grow up and decide to put away Big Bird and dancing horses and seriously address like adults the $16 trillion in debts they have racked up on our credit card.

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HARLEY SCHLANGER: WE’VE LOST OUR SOVEREIGNTY TO CITY OF LONDON BANKS

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OBAMA WIN IS CONSTITUTION’S LOSS

Nat Hentoff shames Americans who have ‘discarded the Declaration of Independence’

by NAT HENTOFF | World Net Daily

On Sept. 12, 2001, President George W. Bush assured us: “We will not allow this enemy to win the war by changing our way of life or restricting our freedoms.”

The enemy has certainly tried, but it was President Bush, following the advice of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who began the extensive attack on our individual liberties through the Patriot Act, which passed on Oct. 26, 2001.

Then, President Barack Obama went far beyond his predecessor’s administration to become the most destructive uprooter of our Constitution in our nation’s history.

Growing up as a student at Boston Latin School, one of whose alumni was Samuel Adams, a firebrand of our American Revolution, I read American history with excitement. I learned how we always overcame grimly looming threats to our self-governing republic to become a beacon to the world.

But never did I even imagine that an American president, without insuring due process in a court of law, would – as Obama does – use a kill list to target suspected terrorists for assassination. So far this list has also included three American citizens.

Obama has taken advantage of ever-advancing digital technology, using bottomless databases that keep track of those Americans he considers persons of subversive interest. During the presidential debates, did you hear anything about our vanishing privacy?

The secrecy with which Obama discards the Constitution to rule over us is evident in his dictatorial use of the “state secrets” privilege, which actually prevents judges from even hearing cases brought by citizens who claim their fundamental constitutional rights have been expunged by the president’s censors.

I now share with you, fellow American citizens, this chilling description of the essence of four more years of our maximum leader. In a recent op-ed for the Washington Post, Kurt Volker shows what that portion of the electorate who cared enough to vote gave us and the rest of the world. This is what America has now come to stand for:

“What do we want to be as a nation? A country with a permanent kill list? A country where people go to the office, launch a few kill shots (from pilotless drones) and get home in time for dinner?

“A country that instructs workers in high-tech operations centers to kill human beings on the far side of the planet because some government agency determined that those individuals are terrorists?” (“What the U.S. risks by relying on drones,” Kurt Volker, The Washington Post, Oct. 26).

A country also where its president makes the final choice for his faceless killers to rub out their targets.

I was not surprised to learn from a recent Washington Times column by Ilana Freedman that “the latest (dictator) to publicly announce his support for the commander-in-chief’s re-election bid was Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, who … assured he’d vote for Obama if he were from the United States. …

“Earlier in the year the government-official daughter of Cuban military dictator Raul Castro proclaimed her country’s support for Obama during a visit to the U.S. ‘I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart’” (“Chavez, Castro, Putin: Four more years!” Ilana Freedman, times247.com, Oct. 2).

In that dictatorship, Raul’s daughter surely spoke with permission from her father and uncle. It takes one to know one.

Freedman’s news story includes Russia’s Vladimir Putin as a member of the professed group “Dictators for Obama.” But I have no direct evidence of that. I’ll keep you abreast of any other dictators joining the celebratory chorus.

In any case, Obama is once more exultantly justifying anything he chooses to do from now on, because “We won!”

The fateful questions for the future of this nation are why did he win, and will his re-election show the victorious way for future presidents to come?

Many Americans’ choice to discard the Declaration of Independence reveals an alarming ignorance of their history, including why their country is – or is supposed to be – unique among all other nations in the world.

The depth of this ignorance explains why throughout the long, fiercely divisive presidential and congressional campaigns, there were hardly any references to Obama’s persistent contempt for the Constitution. This was the case among loyal Obama Democrats, of course, but also among Republicans and independents.

What makes us Americans was not an issue!

How grotesque it was for Obama to say in September – as he presented his beliefs for maintaining the principles of America’s rule of law while strengthening national security – that in going after American citizens involved with al-Qaida: “They are subject to the protections of the Constitution and due process” (“Death from afar,” The Economist, Nov. 3).

Had I been there looking at him, how could I not have burst out laughing?

How can we specifically get our country back? Whether you’re elderly or not, keep in mind that Obamacare could soon be coming after you full force – as it decides whether it costs his government too much to keep you alive!

In January 2003, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg spoke about the balance between liberty and security. “The security side is going to outweigh the other” – unless “people come forward and say we are proud to be living in a land that has been more free, and we want to keep it that way” (my book, “The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance,” Seven Stories Press, 2003).

How many of us are ready to rebel against this new King George III?

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OBAMA VICTORY COMES WITH NO MANDATE

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

By Ron Fournier | National Journal

Barack Obama won a second term but no mandate. Thanks in part to his own small-bore and brutish campaign, victory guarantees the president nothing more than the headache of building consensus in a gridlocked capital on behalf of a polarized public.

If the president begins his second term under any delusion that voters rubber-stamped his agenda on Tuesday night, he is doomed to fail.

Mandates are rarely won on election night. They are earned after Inauguration Day by leaders who spend their political capital wisely, taking advantage of events without overreaching. Obama is capable—as evidenced by his first-term success with health care reform. But mandate-building requires humility, a trait not easily associated with him.

“The mandate is a myth,” said John Altman, associate professor of political science at York College of Pennsylvania. “But even if there was such a thing as a mandate, this clearly isn’t an election that would produce one.”

He pointed to Obama’s small margin of victory and the fact that U.S. voters are divided deeply by race, gender, spirituality, and party affiliation. You can’t claim to be carrying out the will of the people when the populous has little shared will.

Andrew Jackson was the first president to claim that the desires of the public overrode Congress’s constitutional prerogatives. Virtually every president since Jackson has claimed the mantle, even while lacking two ingredients of an electoral mandate: a landslide victory and a specific agenda. More often than not, Congress trims the president’s sails, leaving both the leader and his followers disappointed.

“Presidential claims to a mandate, such as President [George] W. Bush in 2004, are misleading to the public and the officeholder,” said Anthony Brunello, professor of political science at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Some mandates are easily and obviously claimed, usually as an extension of calamitous events. Examples: Franklin Roosevelt during the Great Depression, Lyndon Johnson after the assassination of John Kennedy, and Bush after 9/11.

Claiming a mandate can lead a president down policy paths that are reckless and unpopular. Bill Clinton overreached on health care reform in his first term and Bush misread his reelection as a mandate for Social Security reform in 2005.

In a capital as polarized as Washington, even a landslide victory and detailed campaign platform wouldn’t secure a president’s agenda.

“Mandates may not exist in Washington anymore with the hyper-partisanship we now see associated with every substantive or political move on the Hill,” said Steve McMahon, strategist for Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.

“I’m generally an optimist, but it’s hard to see how there is a mandate for anything other than more of what we’ve seen the last several years,” said GOP strategist Mark McKinnon, who helped elect and reelect the younger President Bush. “There’s not a good scenario for how this turns out.”

Obama hurt his cause by running a hard-edged and negative campaign against Republican Mitt Romney, hoping to convince recession-weary voters that his rival was unworthy of the job. He gave lip service to an agenda, publishing scaled-back and repackaged ideas from his first term in a 20-page pamphlet. Obama’s message was often microtargeted to Democratic coalitions rather than the broad electorate.

“To me, as a supporter, it’s been frustrating because President Obama had the opportunity … to make his campaign about something larger,” said Democratic consultant Carter Eskew, top strategist to Al Gore in 2000.

Mike McCurry, former press secretary for President Clinton, said it’s easy to criticize candidates for ducking solutions to the nation’s intractable problems such as budget deficits, social mobility, and poverty. But the fact is, any campaign proposal would have been grounds for attack.

“My guess is, neither candidate offered specifics because it would have been politically untenable,” McCurry said.

McKinnon said voters would have rewarded Obama or Romney for addressing hard truths. “People are hungry for an agenda, hungry for specifics, hungry for anything that looks like a solution,” McKinnon said. “I think there are ways to do it without painting yourself in a corner.”

So the vagaries of history, his times, and his message will deny Obama an automatic mandate. He has to earn it. The question is, how?

First, lower expectations. Obama promised voters he would change the nature of politics in his first term. He failed. Rather than promise the unattainable, Obama needs to acknowledge the difficulty of tasks ahead, starting with curbing the nation’s debt.

Eskew suggested Obama say something like: “Look, I learned some things in Washington. I thought we could all get along, and I learned that is not the case. I want to do some things for the country but I can’t do them unless people support me—not just in the election, but also after.”

Second, commit to the hard and humbling work of governing. Schmooze with lawmakers, hold regular news conferences, travel the country to tout legislation, and dig into the details of bills and regulations.

Karen Hughes, an adviser to George W. Bush, had this advice for the famously aloof president: “Get in the limo and go to the Hill and get seen working with lawmakers. People will appreciate the effort.”

Third, reach out to Republicans with concrete and symbolic gestures. “There is going to have to be compromise to get anything done, especially with big issues,” said Mike Feldman, another strategist on Gore’s 2000 campaign.

Obama may need to bring in new advisors who can work with Republicans. “He needs to ignore the blind partisans from either party, and find the uniters,” said Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis. “If he does he will become an even more historic president.”

McCurry noted that soon after his 1980 victory, Ronald Reagan reappointed popular former Democratic Sen. Mike Mansfield as ambassador to Japan. “Gestures like that build goodwill,” McCurry said. “It’s increasingly how you claim the mandate and how you move forward that determines the outcome.”

Altman, the political science professor from Pennsylvania, struggled for the advice he would give no-mandate Obama. “You are going to govern unsuccessfully. You are going to fail,” he said with a chuckle.

But then he hedged. Maybe expectations would be lower for Obama than they were in 2009, Altman said. “They expect him to just hang on for another four years and hopefully not screw it up too much,” Altman said. “They will take 2016 as a new day.”

That’s not much of a mandate. But it is a second chance.

Donna Brazile, campaign manager for Gore in 2000, said Obama should set his sights accordingly. “The only mandate that will be clear as daylight,” she said, “is to break the gridlock of Washington.”

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ANALYSIS: VICTORY PUTS OBAMA IN POSITION TO EXPAND GOVERNMENT’S REACH

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

By David Lindsey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Both sides called it a generation-defining race for the White House: a choice between Democrat Barack Obama’s brand of government activism and Republican Mitt Romney’s commitment to reducing Washington’s role in Americans’ daily lives.

Obama’s victory, however, did not settle that question.

Instead, the hard-fought battle for the White House exposed an electorate deeply divided by race, age and party.

Tuesday’s elections – in which Republicans kept control of the U.S. House and Obama’s Democrats held on to the Senate – suggested that bitter partisanship would likely remain very much alive in Washington in the new year. They also revealed that there was no broad mandate for much beyond the broadly shared goals of improving the economy and reducing government debt.

That means that undertaking bold new initiatives comparable to healthcare reform, financial regulation and economic stimulus programs will be a great deal more complicated for Obama 2012 than they were for Obama 2008.

Even so, Obama – now unfettered by not having to face voters again – is in position to pursue an ambitious agenda that could leave his mark on government for a generation or longer, including a move to revamp the nation’s immigration laws.

Some analysts believe Obama is likely to spend much of his second term “locking down the achievements of his first term,” including ensuring that “we will have a functioning national healthcare system,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

For some, that would be enough to secure his place in history.

“Just by re-electing Obama, that means the Affordable Care Act will continue to be implemented, and that’s very important because that’s one of the most important pieces of legislation in half a century,” Theda Skocpol, a political scientist at Harvard University, said of the law that helps extend health coverage to millions of uninsured Americans.

“Most of the action will occur between the president’s administration and states, and my guess is a lot of the Republican governors will find ways to accept parts of the Medicare expansion,” Skocpol said.

A BOOST FROM THE BAILOUT?

In at least one respect, Tuesday’s election results vindicated Obama’s belief in an activist government.

By supporting an $85 billion federal bailout of the auto industry in 2009, a measure that was not particularly popular at the time, Obama may have helped to save not just the industry, but his presidency.

The auto bailout – and the Obama campaign’s attacks on Romney over his opposition to it – appeared to be key factors in the president’s victory in the crucial battleground state of Ohio, where 1 in 8 jobs is connected to the auto industry.

Nationwide, Obama – the nation’s first black president – trailed Romney among working-class white male voters by 17 percentage points, according to Reuters/Ipsos Election Day polling.

But in Ohio, white men with incomes of $75,000 or less were split 49-49 between Obama and Romney in Reuters/Ipsos polling. Analysts said the disparity indicated that the auto bailout – which saved nearly 1.5 million jobs nationwide, according to the Center for Automotive Research – likely gave Obama a critical boost in just the right place.

“While Romney enjoys a large advantage among lower-income white males nationally, the trend reverses in Ohio,” Ipsos pollster Julia Clark said. “This underlines the importance of the auto bailout in Ohio, and perceptions of Romney as unsympathetic to the challenges faced by the working class in this state.”

SECOND-TERM AGENDA

Political analysts and strategists expect Obama’s second-term agenda to be layered with increased federal spending for education, job and energy programs.

But such an agenda will be complicated by the government’s $16 trillion debt and the looming “fiscal cliff” – a $600 billion tax increase scheduled to take effect along with mandatory spending cuts at the start of the new year unless Obama and Congress can agree on a deficit reduction deal.

Obama’s commitment to immigration reform – a key goal for Democrats who want to solidify their hold on the growing Latino vote – would seem to have an increasingly clear path to success, especially as Republicans seek ways to improve their appeal to that minority group.

But the biggest, most immediate challenge is the looming showdown with Republicans in Congress over spending and taxes, during which Obama will press to keep his campaign promise to raise taxes on the wealthy while retaining lower tax rates for others.

Obama has signaled he may try to force Republicans to accept his demand to increase taxes on those making $250,000 or more a year by threatening to veto any legislation aimed at preventing the tax increases and massive spending cuts that are slated kick in automatically at the end of the year.

The notion that one of Obama’s boldest second-term moves could be reinstating Clinton-era tax rates on the wealthy suggests that the president’s agenda could be significant but limited, some analysts say.

“It’s not like you’re going to have a new, New Deal,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University, referring to the broad array of social programs enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help the nation recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s.

During the presidential campaign, “the rhetoric is so dramatic, you think you’re deciding between FDR and a (staunchly conservative) candidate from the 19th century,” Zelizer said. “I’m sure most Republicans see Obama as a big-government liberal and most Democrats see Romney as a right-wing, Tea Party zealot.”

In fact, Zelizer said, both Obama and Romney were “relatively in the middle of the political spectrum, with limits on what they (could) achieve in a gridlocked Washington.”

CHALLENGE FOR REPUBLICANS

It may be too soon to tell whether the 2012 election will be a turning point in how Americans view the role of government in society. But the election does appear to mark another type of political transition.

Romney, 65, could be the last Republican of his generation to make a serious bid for the White House. The Republicans who appear to be in position to run for president in 2016 represent a new generation of leaders who generally are more conservative than their predecessors.

They include Romney’s running mate, Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan (42), Florida Senator Marco Rubio (41), Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (41), former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum (54), New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (50) and House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia (49).

For them and any other Republicans who might consider a run for the White House, Tuesday’s election results brought a sign of potential trouble ahead.

Obama won about 66 percent of the vote among Hispanics, who make up about 17 percent of the U.S. population and are projected by the Pew Research Center to account for nearly 30 percent by 2050.

The Republican Party’s harsh stance on immigration has hurt its ability to attract Latinos, according to analysts who say the new generation of Republican contenders will need to tone down the party’s harsh rhetoric on immigration or risk certain defeat in several states because of Hispanics siding with Democrats.

“We certainly seem to be at the end of something, and at the beginning of another, when it comes to Republican candidates,” SMU’s Jillson said. “The Republican Party is untenable in its current form and in serious trouble as a viable governing vehicle (because) the Democratic Party is more attractive to growing constituencies – anyone who feels vulnerable and as if they may need support.”

During the campaign, Obama signed an executive order granting temporary legal status and work permits to young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children. He also has said he would push Congress to pass the DREAM Act, which would make the order permanent and create a path to citizenship for many undocumented workers.

Romney said he opposed the DREAM Act and that he favored harsh immigration policies that would lead illegal immigrants to “self-deport.” He later seemed to back away from that stance, and said he would seek some form of immigration reform that tied U.S. citizenship to education and jobs.

If Republicans do not improve their image among Latinos, Jillson said, some solidly conservative states might not be that way much longer.

“The Republican Party absolutely will have to soften its message,” Jillson said. “Texas (now dominated by Republicans) is 15 years away from a two-party system” because of its growing Hispanic population.

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TEN DIRE CONSEQUENCES OF OBAMA’S RE-ELECTION VICTORY

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

(NaturalNews) What does an Obama re-election mean for the next four years in America? Now that he’s in his second and last term, of course, Obama no longer needs to restrain his actions according to popularity. He can simply unleash any desirable executive order and rule by decree, bypassing Congress as he has frequently promised to do.

This puts America in a very dangerous situation, given Obama’s well-demonstrated desire to destroy freedom and liberty in this nation. Remember: Obama is anti health freedom, anti food freedom, anti GMO labeling, anti medical freedom and anti farm freedom. He’s the one who issued an executive order claiming government ownership over all farms and farm equipment, in case you forgot that little fact.

He’s also the guy who just recently issued an executive order merging Homeland Security with local corporate entities to grant the executive branch of government a power monopoly over the nation, bypassing the courts and Congress. You probably haven’t even heard about that one, because he secretly signed it during Hurricane Sandy.

Given Obama’s atrocious track record on freedom during his first four years in the White House, here are my top 10 predictions for the next four (if America even lasts that long before ripping itself apart):

#1) Huge expansion of TSA and the surveillance state

Watch for TSA to expand its occupation of America by setting up checkpoints on roadways, sporting events, malls and “surprise” locations. Expect to see TSA agents become even more belligerent and lawless as they ramp up their sexual molestation of innocent victims.

#2) Expansion of secret arrests of American citizens

Obama secretly signed the NDAA, legalizing the secret arrests of U.S. citizens while denying them due process. Obama also authorized secret “kill lists” that claim to authorize the U.S. government to assassinate targeted individuals.

With his re-election in place, expect Obama to start issuing a mass of “kill orders” that will even start targeting political opponents.

#3) Acceleration of national debt blowout and endless fiat currency creation

Under Obama, the national debt experienced a massive blowout where Obama added trillions of dollars to the existing debt: http://www.USdebtclock.org

Right now, Obama is overseeing a trillion dollars a year in additional debt — an amount that simply cannot be sustained without running smack into a financial catastrophe. It now appears that financial collapse it going to occur under Obama, not Romney.

#4) Rapid expansion of GMOs and USDA collusion

Monsanto and the biotech corporations have thrived under the Obama administration thanks to USDA collusion and scientific fraud.

Over the next four years, expect GMOs to dominate the U.S. food supply while the Obama White House rejects any effort to try to label GMOs on a national basis.

#5) Increasingly dictatorial government health care

Obamacare will grow like a cancer, pushing Americans into mandatory vaccinations that inject children with mercury, formaldehyde, MSG and aluminum.

Look for the Obama administration to wage even more wars against raw milk freedom, farm freedom and food freedom, all while requiring yet more foods to be pasteurized or fumigated under the guise of “food safety.”

#6) Immediate surge in sales of guns and ammo

Obama has promised to try to destroy the Second Amendment and deny Americans the liberty to own firearms. With his re-election, expect to see a massive surge in gun sales as more people attempt to stock up in anticipation of gun bans (or government gun confiscation).

#7) Accelerated erosion of the Bill of Rights and civil liberties

Under Obama, civil rights, human rights and the Bill of Rights will be rapidly eroded. This goes hand in hand with the cancerous growth of government. As government expands its power and confiscates more economic resources, it simultaneously destroys individual liberties and due process.

This isn’t to say that Romney would have been any better, of course. Both candidates were philosophically invested in the rapid expansion of Big Government.

#8) Continued destruction and looting of the U.S. economy

Under Obama, the financial looting of the U.S. economy by the global bankster elite will continue. The same would have been true with Romney, by the way.

Under Obama, America’s unemployment rate will continue to head skyward, entitlements will be expanded, and the USA will be plunged into a tyrannical welfare state dominated by mindless zombies who have no cognitive grasp of reality.

#9) A “giant sucking sound” of employers leaving America

Ross Perot was right! That “giant sucking sound” is the sound of employers leaving America in droves, hiring offshore workers instead of creating jobs in the USA. And why? Because employers can’t afford to pay Obamacare mandates and still stay competitive in the global marketplace.

#10) Stepped-up attacks on veterans and preppers

Returning U.S. veterans will continue to be vilified by the Obama administration, to the point where even more veterans will be arrested as “terrorists” for engaging in fundamental preparedness strategies such as storing food, water, medicine and ammo.

Watch for the liberal media to join the White House in painting veterans as “dangerous” individuals needing psychiatric medications. Never mind the fact that the media owes preppers a huge apology in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

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POST-ELECTION PREDICTIONS FOR OBAMA’S SECOND TERM

1) Wall Street will reign supreme. During the debates it was made clear that no further action against Wall Street was necessary. But the banks are bigger under Obama than they were under Bush, which means they are still “too big to fail,” ensuring future bailouts paid by taxpayers. Federal Reserve policy is not controversial for either Republicans or Democrats: historic low interest rates combined with printing massive amounts of additional money — called “quantitative easing” — have both served the profits of Wall Street banks quite well, while everyone else sees their wages and benefits cut. Loans to working people are no easier to come by, while the banks and corporations are literally sitting on trillions of dollars of reserves in cash.

2) Post election national austerity cuts. The national deficit is the result of bank bailouts, foreign wars, and decades of continually lowering taxes for the rich and corporations. Obama and Romney both ignore these facts, and favor “trigger cuts” — massive cuts in jobs and social programs that would go into effect if Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on how many trillions of dollars of cuts to make (Obama’s proposed deficit cutting plan would make 4 $trillion in cuts; Paul Ryan wants 6 $trillion.)

And while Obama has made quite a bit of noise about “taxing the rich” to help fill the deficit gap, the same promises were made last election and amounted to naught when he extended Bush’s tax cuts.  Taxing the rich is the only alternative to making cuts, since working people have so little left to tax. Instead, Obama is using the deficit to justify massive cuts to Medicare, public education, unemployment insurance, and likely Social Security and other programs. The Obama/Romney “rift” over the deficit is, in reality, a polite discussion of how best to slash and burn social programs, while differences are exaggerated for the sake of their election campaigns.

3) Foreign wars will continue. Listening to Obama and Romney debate foreign war was very much a Pepsi/Coke style debate. Both candidates love Israel, hate Iran and Syria, lie about a “time table” for Afghanistan (no serious foreign policy pundit believes the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan in 2014). Both are for continued drone bombings of Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia which are obvious war crimes, while both candidates hypocritically accuse Syria of “human rights violations.” In short, both candidates argue over how best to push the Middle East and North Africa to the brink of regional war, without being blamed for it.

Ultimately, there do exist differences in social policy between President Obama and Mitt Romney. The above policies, however, will deeply affect all working people in the United States. The country is not in a typical recession. Most economists agree that, at best, the U.S. economy can expect a “lost decade” of economic stagnation — at worst, a double dip recession/depression.

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BIG BROTHER, KILL LISTS, AND SECRECY: WHAT TO EXPECT FROM OBAMA’S SECOND TERM

By Christian Stork | WhoWhatWhy.com

Nov 14, 2012

Following Barack Obama’s significant electoral victory, the ways in which the President will interpret his new “mandate” are still very much up for debate. While pundits, many of whom got the election seriously wrong, fumble to come up with new predictions, an analysis of Obama’s track record and statements on national security policy can be quite illuminating. Two momentous stories of the past few weeks can help us evaluate current and future prospects for our Constitutional rights, a year after Osama bin Laden’s death and a decade after 9/11. One grim harbinger of what’s to continue: a nighttime drone strike in Yemen that killed three “al-Qaida militants” was carried out within 24 hours of Obama’s victory speech.

But even more important was the bombshell story that appeared in the Washington Post on October 23, revealing the existence of a new database within the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) that will list suspected terrorists and militants slated for extrajudicial assassination. The article details the creation of a “next-generation targeting list called the ‘disposition matrix’” which “contains the names of terrorism suspects arrayed against an accounting of the resources being marshaled” to kill them, including the ability to map “plans for the ‘disposition’ of suspects beyond the reach of American drones.”

Additionally, on October 29, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Amnesty v. Clapper, evaluating a lawsuit filed by journalists, human rights workers, and lawyers, who claimed that their jobs are unnecessarily hampered by the specter of the National Security Agency eavesdropping on their communications with clients overseas. As described by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), “the [Supreme] Court will essentially determine whether any court… can rule on whether the [National Security Agency]’s targeted warrantless surveillance of Americans’ international communications violates the Constitution.”

What do NSA’s warrantless wiretapping program and the Obama administration’s recently developed “disposition matrix” have to do with one another? Two points resound in particular. First, both are only able to function in an environment of total secrecy. Also, they represent significant advances in the codification of a new norm for U.S. national security policy—one very much at odds with the constitutionally limited Commander-in-Chief of common lore.

Perhaps even more ominously, the infrastructure development of the Obama administration’s policy of targeted killing signals a creeping move toward domestic application. As drone technology continues to be imported home, the convergence of the kill-list(s) within the NCTC bureaucracy—which houses huge repositories of both domestic and foreign intelligence with no probable cause of criminality—is a foreboding development in this saga of eroding checks and disappearing balance.

Climbing Out of the Abyss, Jumping Back In

Unknown to the American people and to much of their government until the late 1970’s, NSA has enjoyed free rein to intercept the electronic communications of Americans and foreigners since its secret inception in 1952. To those who were familiar with it, the uniform joke was that NSA stood for “No Such Agency,” an indication of its covert and prized status within the intelligence community.

After media revelations of intelligence abuses by the Nixon administration began to mount in the wake of Watergate, NSA became the subject of Congressional ire in the form of the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities—commonly known as the “Church Committee” after its chair, Senator Frank Church (D-ID)—established on January 17, 1975. This ad-hoc investigative body found itself unearthing troves of classified records from the FBI, NSA, CIA and Pentagon that detailed the murky pursuits of each during the first decades of the Cold War. Under the mantle of defeating communism, internal documents confirmed the executive branch’s use of said agencies in some of the most fiendish acts of human imagination (including refined psychological torture techniques), particularly by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Cold War mindset had incurably infected the nation’s security apparatus, establishing extralegal subversion efforts at home and brutish control abroad. It was revealed that the FBI undertook a war to destroy homegrown movements such as the Black Liberation Movement (including Martin Luther King, Jr.), and that NSA had indiscriminately intercepted the communications of Americans without warrant, even without the President’s knowledge. When confronted with such nefarious enterprises, Congress sought to rein in the excesses of the intelligence community, notably those directed at the American public.

The committee chair, Senator Frank Church, then issued this warning about NSA’s power:

That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything. Telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.

The reforms that followed, as enshrined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, included the establishment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC): a specially-designated panel of judges who are allowed to review evidence before giving NSA a warrant to spy on Americans (only in the case of overseas communication). Hardly a contentious check or balance, FISC rejected zero warrant requests between its inception in 1979 and 2000, only asking that two warrants be “modified” out of an estimated 13,000.

In spite of FISC’s rubberstamping, following 9/11 the Bush administration began deliberately bypassing the court, because even its minimal evidentiary standard was too high a burden of proof for the blanket surveillance they wanted. So began the dragnet monitoring of the American public by tapping the country’s major electronic communication chokepoints in collusion with the nation’s largest telecommunications companies.

When confronted with the criminal conspiracy undertaken by the Bush administration and telecoms, Congress confirmed why it retains the lowest approval rating of any major American institution by “reforming” the statute to accommodate the massive law breaking. The 2008 FISA Amendments Act [FAA] entrenched the policy of mass eavesdropping and granted the telecoms retroactive immunity for their criminality, withdrawing even the negligible individual protections in effect since 1979. Despite initial opposition, then-presidential candidate Barack Obama voted for the act as one of his last deeds in the Senate. A few brave (and unsuccessful) lawsuits later, this policy remains the status quo.

Seemingly Impossible to Stand (Up For Your Rights)

The latest challenge to government snooping, Amnesty v. Clapper, isn’t even about Big Brother’s legality in the first place. The defendants are appealing a federal circuit court’s decision that granted legitimate “standing” to the plaintiffs to bring suit disputing the electronic surveillance program’s constitutionality.

The Justice Department maintains that the plaintiffs don’t have standing to challenge the powers granted in the FAA because they are unable to claim with certainty that they were specifically wiretapped in the first place. Such a determination is impossible to make because all attempts to gather said information have hitherto been quashed by federal courts. They have overwhelmingly agreed with the government’s assertion that disclosing such information would divulge state secrets. Thus the only way to prove aggrieved status, and then challenge government snooping, is through government admission.

Despite pledges to use the privilege sparingly, Barack Obama’s administration has enshrined the Kafkaesque nature of American judicial proceedings in the War on Terror: the government claims it is a state secret whether you’ve been targeted for surveillance, thereby invalidating any legal challenges you may present because you can’t even prove you’ve been a victim.

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it ten seconds into the Solicitor General’s argument: “General [Donald Verrelli], is there anybody who has standing?”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Amnesty v. Clapper has the potential to determine how far the government can extend the cloak of secrecy over its national security activities. Notwithstanding the tough questioning by Sotomayor and her liberal colleagues on the bench, legal scholars note that the court usually doesn’t hear a case unless it sees legitimate ground to overturn a circuit court’s decision—which in this case would mean denying that the plaintiffs had standing to bring suit.

National Clearinghouse for Treasonous Contentions

Surreal judicial machinations aside, what are the real threats of the government collecting all the communications and personal data that fall into NSA’s surveillance net?

The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) is a freshly minted bureaucracy—within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)—that houses and evaluates “terrorism” intelligence from the nation’s 16 other spy agencies, including NSA. It was created to streamline interagency intelligence sharing but ironically, or perhaps indicatively, has led to even more red tape.

Thanks to a series of new “guidelines” issued by the Attorney General, Director of National Intelligence (DNI), and head of NCTC in March of 2012, the center now also acquires information mined from any government database (ranging from local law-enforcement data to employment history and student records). It can also buy data from private sector aggregators—including millions upon millions of lawful commercial transactions over the past decade.

Previously, as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) noted, “the intelligence community was barred from collecting information about ordinary Americans unless the person was a terror suspect or part of an actual investigation.” When the NCTC acquired non-terrorism related data, such as that described above, it had to identify and discard it within 180 days. That regulation was scrapped in the new guidelines, which allow NCTC to collect innocuous data and “continually assess” information concerning innocent Americans for up to five years. The ACLU goes on to mention:

Perhaps most disturbing, once information is gathered (not necessarily connected to terrorism), in many cases it can be shared with “a federal, state, local, tribal or foreign or international entity, or to an individual or entity not part of a government”—literally anyone.

As revealed in a recent Washington Post expose, we now know the NCTC also coordinates counterterrorism operations such as the CIA’s targeted assassination program. As one anonymous official told the Post, “[i]t is the keeper of the criteria” that determine who is killed by the President. How is this designation reached? Presumably through the same ineffective algorithms and data-mining technology mentioned above.

FML: What Once Was TMI For TIA is Now A-OK

Immediately following 9/11, the Pentagon unveiled the closest thing to an actual “Big Brother” program that had ever earnestly been considered in the United States: Total Information Awareness (TIA). A pilot scheme designed to collate as much information as possible about as many people as possible within one massive database, TIA would have been accessible to government officials who could then extract actionable information about potential terrorists.

In 2003, Congress shut down the program after bipartisan objections to this massive domestic surveillance proposal reached a fever pitch. Among the concerns voiced was the need to protect the privacy of millions of Americans whose personal information – including “huge volumes of records of domestic emails and Internet searches as well as bank transfers, credit-card transactions, travel and telephone records”– would be stored and perused by deficient computer programs aimed at detecting suspicious activity patterns, without any probable cause to suspect criminal wrongdoing.

Regardless of the corporate rush to massage “big data” in order to target consumers, when such data-mining technologies are placed at the disposal of the state, the result is to contravene the protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures” enshrined in the Bill of Rights. The Fourth Amendment forbids the issuing of “warrants” that do not specify who is to be searched and for what purpose. But technological ubiquity and interconnectedness have called this fundamental Constitutional protection into question.

Despite the Congressional backlash against TIA, the government’s current data-mining operations represent the realization of TIA’s core purpose: the acquisition and storage of massive amounts of personal data that can be mined to determine everything the government would ever want to know about a person. By utilizing pattern recognition software, it can even lay out a timeline of your life’s activities: everything you’ve ever done since the program was initiated, with predictive (albeit fallible) algorithms used to foresee where or what you’ll be doing in the future.

The news of the Obama administration’s “disposition matrix” adds new icing to the cake. The Post’s article implies that the information culled from these databases can be used not just to track you, but to determine your “disposition” toward violence against the U.S. government: your predilection for terrorist activities—what could amount to a death sentence for crimes that have yet to be committed.

The only types of intelligence within these databases that can possibly be used to predict future criminal activity are suspicious commercial transactions (large bank transfers or the purchase of bomb-making materials, for example) or alarming speech. Despite assurances from the Obama administration that they’re simply targeting “bad guys,” the adoption of preventive counterterror measures requires the (currently secret) deployment of evidence against a suspect before they commit a crime. To borrow a phrase from the science-fiction dystopia Minority Report, it requires conviction of a “pre-crime.”

Because there have been notably few successful terrorist attacks on US interests (outside of declared war zones, like Iraq and Afghanistan, where the label “terrorist” lacks any objective meaning) since 9/11, it cannot conceivably be argued (nor has it) that the people the president is assassinating in Yemen and Pakistan have actually committed any acts of terrorism. So how did they get onto the list to begin with? Here, a close look at the most-discussed case arising from the targeted killing program is instructive.

I Left My Heart—and Right to Due Process—in Albuquerque?

Anwar al-Awlaki—the radical Islamist preacher from New Mexico who joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP)—was assassinated by a drone strike in Yemen on September 30, 2011. His case has been a centerpiece of debate regarding the kill-list because of his status as an American citizen outside a declared war zone, which many argue should make applicable Constitutional protections like the right to due process of law.

Less often discussed, because they can never be definitively known, are the criteria leading to his placement on the kill list. Few claim that Awlaki was an innocent bystander—he openly preached for violence against the US military in retaliation for what he saw as unbridled aggression against Muslims across the world—but aside from anonymous assertions made in the press and the flourish of speeches from the White House, no government official has ever presented any evidence that he was an “operational commander” in the organization. That is to say, it has never been determined or even legitimately claimed that he committed an act of terrorism or engaged in a conspiracy to commit such an act.

What we do know is this: he was a remarkably successful recruiter of Western Muslims to the cause of al-Qaeda. His English fluency in particular made his sermons and speeches quite palatable to disaffected Muslims in the U.S. and Great Britain, including (allegedly) the Fort Hood shooter and the Underwear Bomber.

Many will say, “But surely incitement to violence of this sort is a crime, right?” Well, the lack of charges against him notwithstanding, it depends.

In 1969 the Supreme Court heard the case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, in which an Ohio-based Klansman was arrested for making a speech that advocated violence against government officials who, along with various minorities, “suppress[ed] the white, Caucasian race.” The statute he allegedly violated was a remnant of the 1919 Red Scare that prohibited advocating for violence to achieve political or industrial reform.

Brandenburg’s lower-court conviction was overturned because his speech failed three elements of what later became known as “the Brandenburg test” for criminal incitement—intent, imminence, and likelihood. To hastily summarize, urging criminal activity against specific persons in a situation where it can be reasonably conceived such action will take place is a crime. However, championing violence as a general method of achieving political goals without a clear target, subjective intention, or reasonable presumption of accomplishment is not a crime and is protected under the First Amendment.

So, where does Awlaki figure into this precedent? To our knowledge, his speech did not meet the criteria set forth in the Brandenburg decision, and is thus protected by the Constitution.

Which adds another layer of intrigue to the equation: could he have been added to the kill list not because of his criminal actions but because what he was doing—as threatening as it was—was not illegal under the law? Was assassination a convenient method of bypassing an arduous, and potentially unsuccessful, prosecution while demonstrating that anyone who challenges US power can and will be killed?

We will never definitively know the answers to those questions because they were eviscerated with Anwar al-Awlaki’s flesh following the explosion of a Hellfire missile in Yemen 13 months ago. And not even the whisper campaign being conducted in the media against the dead cleric can explain why his son, an American minor, was killed in a separate drone strike some two weeks later.

Enter the Legal Labyrinth

Because the Obama administration insists on keeping its national security policies furtive, the criteria for placement on the kill list remain off-limits in a court of law. Even if those placed on such a list somehow found out about it, they would be unable to challenge it in court—since, according to the Catch-22 interpretation of the government’s state-secrets privilege, knowledge of that designation can be considered a state secret.

Prior to al-Awlaki’s assassination, the ACLU and  Nasser al-Awlaki, the slain preacher’s father, brought suit to have the government disclose its reasoning in putting his son on a kill list. Although narrowly focused, the court’s decisions, as well as the procedural hurdles faced by the plaintiffs, are an enlightening model of how such cases tend to be adjudicated in the federal judiciary.

Ten days after Nasser al-Awlaki retained counsel on his son’s behalf, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) placed the son, Anwar, on a list that labeled him a “specially designated global terrorist.” Placement there made “it a crime for lawyers to provide representation for his benefit without first seeking a license from OFAC.” Only after OFAC reluctantly gave lawyers the right to sue on behalf of their client (after being sued itself), was the case allowed to proceed.

The court determined that the elder Awlaki didn’t have standing to ask why his son was listed as a “specially designated global terrorist,” because technically Nasser wasn’t the party subject to assassination. The judge presiding over the case also found that cases like this could not be adjudicated the way retroactive habeas cases arising from Guantanamo Bay are, because of the “[im]propriety of a judge doing so in advance of what he characterizes as a military decision,” as noted by Adam Serwer of The American Prospect. In sum, it was decided the court couldn’t determine the legality of extrajudicial state murder until it occurs.

To recap: you are placed on a kill list, making your assassination a priority of the state. First, you must fight in court to receive permission to even have legal representation. Then you must present yourself and file suit in federal court, thereby disclosing your location and possibly enabling the very murder you’re trying to halt (or, in this case, simply trying to figure out the justifications for). Moreover, the court cannot suspend your execution order because doing so would be preemptively second-guessing the executive.

And even if you get that far, the government can still assert the state-secrets privilege to withhold vital information from the court and prevent meaningful challenge. If this warren of procedural minutiae and legal dilemmas seems designed to obstruct and preclude accountability, that’s because it is.

Same Wine, Different Bottles

Due process of law, as it pertains to national security, has now become a fictive concept only seen in the movies. “Pre-crime,” whether determined by computer algorithm or physical activity, is now a reality punishable by death.

With the knowledge that some of the nation’s largest domestic data-mining programs are now housed under the same roof as the “disposition matrix” for determining who is threatening enough to kill by Hellfire missile, Americans should be acutely aware of the danger this presents. The potential for abuse is grave, and will remain so until the legislative and judicial branches of government tasked with checking executive power re-assert their Constitutional prerogatives.

The partisan duopoly enjoyed by the Democrats and Republicans recently gave the American public a choice between two candidates who embraced a vast majority of the same policies, yet struck different tones and styles in their rhetorical delivery. Both parties have endorsed George W. Bush’s once-controversial executive power grab. It is up to the people to begin a process that will stop this wholesale violation of the Fourth Amendment’s “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments’ due process clause: “nor shall any person . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….”

Referencing the temporary suspension of habeas corpus in Britain during WWII, Winston Churchill famously remarked:

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.

George W. Bush, despite having a bust of the great English statesman, violated this maxim (and American law) by establishing a legal black hole for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Barack Obama doesn’t even bother with the challenges involved in kidnapping persons without due process; he just kills them.

With neither major political party willing to address this fundamental issue of our government’s relationship to its citizenry, and no endpoint in sight for the War on Terror that is used to justify the excesses of our current surveillance state, we may very well ask ourselves: What was this election for, anyway?

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THE OPEN-AND-SHUT ADMINISTRATION

By Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

“My administration,” President Obama wrote on his first day in office, “is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.”Those were strong and hopeful words. Four years later, it is becoming more and more clear that they were just words.

On Monday afternoon, open-government advocates assembled in a congressional hearing room to ponder what had become of the Obama administration’s lofty vows of transparency.

“It’s been a really tough slog,” said Anne Weismann of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The lack of effective leadership in the White House, in the executive branch, has really made it difficult to have more significant progress.”

“They’ve been reluctant to take positions,” said Hudson Hollister of the Data Transparency Coalition, “and translate that to real action.”

“In the beginning of 2010, [Obama] said he made a significant mistake by abandoning some of his pledges related to transparency,” said Josh Gerstein of Politico, “and that going forward they would do things differently. Seems to me we are forward and it seems to me we’re not doing things any differently.”

It was a more-in-sadness-than-in-anger critique of Obama often heard from the political left, and the moderator, theSunlight Foundation’s Daniel Schuman, was apologetic. “We’re placing a lot of blame at the administration,” he observed. “Or blame isn’t the right word — maybe responsibility.”

No, blame is just fine. The Obama administration’s high level of opacity, though typical of modern presidencies, is troubling precisely because the president was so clear about his determination to do things differently. As recently as early last year, some open-government advocates were still hopeful, presenting Obama with an anti-secrecy award at the White House. But even then, there were signs of trouble: The award presentation wasn’t on his schedule and was closed to reporters.

By certain measures, “overall secrecy has actually increased rather than declined,” said Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy. “Criminalization of unauthorized disclosures of information to the press has risen sharply, becoming a preferred tactic. Efforts to promote public accountability in controversial aspects of counterterrorism policy such as targeted killing have been blocked by threadbare, hardly credible national security secrecy claims.”

A Washington Post report from this past summer concluded that “by some measures the government is keeping more secrets than before.” Those making Freedom of Information Act requests in 2011 were less likely than in 2010 to get material from 10 of 15 Cabinet agencies, which were more likely to exploit the law’s exemptions.

Also, the National Declassification Center, which Obama established in 2009, had by the summer of 2012 reviewed only 14 percent of the pages it was assigned to review and declassify by the end of 2013.

Now the administration is maintaining silence as lawmakers prepare to pass one of the gravest threats to government transparency in years. A bill passed by the Senate intelligence committee would ban anybody but the top officials and public-relations staff at intelligence agencies from speaking to the media. The proposal, intended to crack down on classified leaks, would significantly set back freedom of the press, thwart whistle-blowers and squelch the airing of dissenting views on intelligence issues. This is part of a broader effort to make it a crime for national security officials to talk to reporters.

The Obama administration has, to its credit, made progress in a few areas: releasing more of the White House visitor logs, disseminating more information about nuclear weapons, disclosing more about intelligence spending, and declassifying more historical records.

But these don’t amount to the “unprecedented level of openness” Obama promised. The few advances that have been made are mostly administrative changes that will end with the Obama administration. “We haven’t seen that many, if any, legislative initiatives from the White House,” Weismann lamented at Monday’s gathering of the open-government advocates.

Consider the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, a bill with bipartisan support that would make it easier to track government spending by requiring agencies to report expenditures in a uniform way online. The legislation is so uncontroversial that it passed the House on a voice vote. But the Obama administration raised objections — and the transparency law has yet to see the light of day.

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THE SUSPENSION OF HABEAS CORPUS IN AMERICA

Obama: a President Who Places Himself Above the Law

By Jean-Claude Paye | Global Research

November 14, 2012

Far from having broken with his Republican predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama has now reinforced the law of exception that he criticised when he was a senator. It is now possible to deprive United States citizens of their fundamental rights because they have taken part in armed action against their own country, but also when they take a political position favourable to those who use military action to resist the Empire. Worse – Barack Obama has added to the law John Yoo’s “Unitary Executive theory,” which puts an end to the principles of the separation of powers as defined by Montesquieu. The security policy of the United States President now escapes all control.

The Presidential elections, and the game of a possible changeover between Democrats and Republicans, cannot hide a marked tendency towards mutation in the form of the United States executive, regardless of the colour of the Presidential ticket. And it seems that the most significant change in the law has taken place under President Obama.

Barack Obama was elected by evoking a future based on respect for the fundamental rights of individuals and nations. But assessment of his presidency reveals an entirely different picture. The visible aspects of this, such as the failure to close down Guantánamo Bay, the maintenance of exceptional military tribunals or the practice of torture in Afghanistan, are only the tip of the iceberg. These elements only allow us to note the continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations. However, there has been such reinforcement of the previous political structure that the form of the state has now changed, creating a hitherto unseen modification of the relation between the authorities and the citizens of the United States.

The possibility of treating US citizens as foreign ’terrorists’ has been a constant objective of the government executive since the attacks of 9/11. By the new prerogative which has been awarded him by the National Defense Authorization Act – that of being able to nullify Habeas Corpus for US citizens and not just for foreign nationals – the Obama administration has achieved what the previous government had only planned but never instituted.

End of Habeas Corpus for foreigners

The Patriot Act, which became effective on the 26th October 2001, already authorised indefinite detention without indictment for foreigners suspected of having links to terrorist organisations.

In order to finally bring these prisoners to justice, special tribunals and military commissions were created by Presidential decree, the Military Order of 13th November 2001 [1]. This executive act enables the trial, by these military tribunals, of foreigners suspected of being in contact with Al Qaeda, or having “committed, prepared or helped to devise acts of international terrorism against the USA”.

The state of war was invoked to justify the institution of these laws, which are so harmful to liberty that they even violate the Military Code itself. These tribunals were set up to judge foreigners suspected of terrorism, and no proof which could invalidate such charges is admissible by either civil or military tribunals.

By voting for the Military Commissions Act [2], in September 2006, the Congress chambers legitimised the military commissions. The law considerably extends the notion of “illegal enemy combatant”, which no longer describes only foreigners captured on the field of battle, but also foreigners or US citizens who have never left their country of origin. While US citizens indicted on the basis of this notion of illegal enemy combatant must be deferred before civil courts, it is not the case for foreigners, who may be judged by military commissions.

In these exceptional courts, defendants do not have the right to choose their own lawyer – instead, the defense lawyer will be a military person designated by the President, who also designates the military judges and determines the degree of “physical coercion” that can be applied to the prisoner. The lawyer also has no access to evidentiary elements of the case which may be classified as “secret”.
Inscription of the ’enemy’ in criminal law

The Military Commissions Act introduces the notion of enemy into criminal law. It gives the President of the United States the power to so designate not only his own citizens, but also any nationals of countries with which the USA is not at war. A person may be prosecuted as an “illegal enemy combatant” not on the basis of proof, but simply because they have been labelled as such by the executive of the United States. Integrated in the law, the charge no longer refers only to a state of emergency, like the Military Order of 2001, but becomes permanent. The inscription of this anomie into the law establishes the exception as a constant. It mutates the judicial and political order by creating a purely subjective law which is at the entire discretion of the executive.

On the 28th October 2009, President Obama signed the Military Commissions Act of 2009 [3] which amended the Military Commissions Act of 2006. The reform was formally necessary for the new administration, because in 2006, Barak Obama was one of 34 senators who opposed the old legislation.

The new law no longer mentions ’illegal enemy combatants’, but “hostile non-protected enemies”. However, the main thrust remains – the inscription of the notion of ’enemy’ into criminal law, and thus the fusion of criminal and military law. But the term “belligerent”, which characterises the notion of ’enemy’, widens the field of incrimination. It no longer concerns only combatants, but also “persons who are engaged in conflict against the USA”. The new definition also applies not only to people captured on or near a field of battle, but also to any individuals who act or even express solidarity with those opposing the US armed forces, or even simply the aggressive policies of the US governement.

The end of Habeas Corpus for US citizens

The National Defense Authorization Act [4] signed by President Obama on the 31st December 2011 authorises the indefinite detention, without trial or indictement, of any US citizens designated as enemies by the executive. The individuals concerned are not only those who have been captured on the field of battle, but also those who have never left the United States or participated in any military action. The law concerns any person designated by the administration as “a member of Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, and who takes part in hostile action against the United States”, but also anyone who “substantially supports these organisations”. This formula enables an extensive and flexible use of the law. For example, it would enable the government to lash out at any civil defence organisations who seek to protect the constitutional rights of US citizens who have been designated by the executive as enemies of the USA.

Primacy of values over the law

By signing this document, Obama has declared that his administration will not authorise the unlimited military detention without trial of US citizens, stating that this possibility would not be contrary to US law, but only to “American values”. It is in the name of these values that he will refrain from using the opportunity offered by the law, but not because this form of imprisonment would be unconstitutional. He confirms that the National Defense Authorization Act does not in fact provide any new prerogatives. The President has had these extraordinary powers since the 14th September 2001, when Congress adopted a resolution stipulating: “that the President is authorised to use all necessary and appropriate force against nations, organisations or persons who have planned, authorised, committed or assisted the terrorist attacks of the 11th September 2001….” So, in opposition to the framework of the text, he aligns himself with G. Bush’s statement that the agreement enabling the President to engage force offers him unlimited authority, in space and time, to act against any potential aggressor, and not only those implicated in the attacks of 9/11.

The authorisation itself is preceded by a foreword stating: “it is recognised that the President has the authority under the Constitution to dissuade and defend against acts of international terrorism against the United States”. G. Bush regularly used this phrase to justify the violations of constitutional rights of US citizens. President Obama has adopted the same interpretation in order to deny the innovative nature of a law which enables him to do away with Habeas Corpus for any US citizen.

A President who places himself above the law

Here, primacy no longer resides in the legal text, but in presidential initiative. It’s entirely at his own discretion that Obama may choose to refrain from using the authorisation, conferred by the law, to imprison US citizens indefinitely and without indictment. In the same way, he opposes the obligation for military detention of foreign terrorists. Speaking of this, he confirms that his administration will “interpret and apply the clauses described below in such a way as to preserve the flexibility upon which our security depends, and to maintain the values on which this country is founded”. Thus he has deliberately side-stepped the rule that once he has signed a text of law, the President will apply it loyally. Obama has reversed the restrictive character of the legal text in favour of Presidential freedom. In the same way, the concept of “American values” takes precedence over the law.

If the National Defense Authorization Act only serves to ratify the prerogatives already possessed by the executive, the problem only concerns the modalities of implementation. The President must not be limited in the fight against terrorism. For Obama, the disputed articles are unconstitutional, not because they concentrate power in his hands, but because they limit his field of action. The contested clauses institute military detention, which limits the required action “flexibility” on the part of the administration – for example, the possibility of detaining foreign prisoners in CIA camps. The articles in question would “contravene the principle of the separation of powers.”

A reversal of the principle of  separation of powers

Obama has reversed the method of organisation which was handed down by the Age of Enlightenment. For Montesquieu [5], the objective was to prevent the concentration of political power in a single authority. In order to do this, the powers balance and limit each other. Obama, on the contrary, has opened a breach in the exercise of state power in such a way that the legal authorities can no longer exercise control over the power of the executive. The separation of powers has been abandoned in favour of an absence of limits for Presidential action. This form of organisation is valid for a nation in a state of open war, whose existence is threatened by an external power. The Bush or Obama administrations consider that the authorisation granted by Congress in 2001 for the use of force against the authors of the 9/11 attacks is the equivalent of a declaration of war, like those which were voted during the Second World War. The field of application is however much wider, since the authorisation of 2001 permits the use of force not only against other nations, but also against organisations or even simple individuals.

The National Defense Authorization Act operates a mutation of the legal notion of hostility. Its declared aim is conflict against non-specified adversaries who do not threaten the integrity of the national territory. The struggle against terrorism provides a constantly renewed image of the enemy. It declares a permanent state of war, unbounded by frontiers, which blurs the distinction between interior and exterior, since it does not distinguish between US citizens and soldiers of a foreign power. The political and legal structure, built from this new and asymmetric war, reverses the form of the rule of law. The law is no longer a reduction of the exception, but its continual extension.

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TIME MAGAZINE PERSON OF THE YEAR: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “ARCHITECT OF THE NEW AMERICA”

Mac Slavo
shtfplan.com
December 19th, 2012

Editor’s note: No more Mister Hope and Change. The 2013 Obama is enshrined in the darkness of authoritarianism.

One of the most prestigious awards (in addition to a Noble Prize) that can be bestowed upon a member of the elite is Time Magazine’s Person of the Year.

This year, the award goes to the “Architect of a New America”, none other than Barack Obama.

The President joins such notable figures and social architects as Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939, 1942), Nikita Khrushchev (1957), Richard Nixon (1971, 1972), Henry Kissinger (1972), The Endangered Earth (1988), Ted Turner (1991), Bill Clinton (1992, 1998), George Bush (2000, 2004), Vladimir Putin (2007), and Ben Bernanke (2009).

Via SGT Report:

Kill lists, illegal detention, illegal torture, illegal wiretapping of citizens, endless unconstitutional wars, drone attacks on men, women and children… you’ve got to do a LOT to get this honor. Congrats Obama!

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OBAMA “FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”

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THE OBAMA DECEPTION

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FALL OF THE REPUBLIC

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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DECLARES ITSELF ROYAL!

Alex Jones
Infowars.com
January 27, 2013

This is not a joke.  The federal government is passing laws making itself exempt from every crime under the sun. This is one of the biggest problems free humanity has faced in history.

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Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 (U.S. Constitution)
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

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MARK LEVIN: “WE HAVE AN IMPERIAL PRESIDENT”

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MARK LEVIN: I’m not into imperial presidents who act imperial and speak imperial and Obama forgets there’s a Constitution. Yes, he keeps telling us he won reelection. Congratulations, but guess what? The Constitution wasn’t up for election, it’s not up for a referendum. He has to comply with it, too.

He was sent back to Washington, but he’s got a strict list of rules that he has to follow as president. When he gets up there and starts saying, if Congress doesn’t do this, I’m going to do this unilaterally, it violates separation of power a lot of the times. And this is a man pushing the edge of the envelope as far as I’m concerned, whether it’s the appointment clause, whether it’s his unilateral action on immigration, whether it’s trashing the commerce clause and the tax clauses under Obamacare. Now they’re talking about executive orders on the Second Amendment. They’ve issued regulations on First Amendment attacking religious liberty. This notion that he might be able to lift the debt ceiling, you know, unilaterally under the Fourteenth Amendment.

What the hell is this? He was elected president. Congratulations. This guy makes Richard Nixon look like a man who followed the law all the time. I think we have an imperial president, he sounds imperial, he’s arrogant as hell and I’m furious about this and I’m going to tell you why. We are a magnificent country. We don’t need to be turned upside down. We don’t need to run from crisis to crisis to crisis. He’s bankrupting this country.

He said we’ve had a discussion about the debt. When did we have a discussion about the debt? We’ve had a debate about taxes. The man’s never around to have a discussion about anything. So, yes, he causes me to be furious when I watch and listen to him. (FOX News Channel’s America Live with Megyn Kelly, January 14, 2013)

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6,125 PROPOSED REGULATIONS AND NOTIFICATIONS POSTED IN LAST 90 DAYS – AVERAGE 68 PER DAY

By Penny Starr | CNSNews.com

November 9, 2012

It’s Friday morning, and so far today, the Obama administration has posted 165 new regulations and notifications on its reguations.gov website.

In the past 90 days, it has posted 6,125 regulations and notices – an average of 68 a day.

The website allows visitors to find and comment on proposed regulations and related documents published by the U.S. federal government. “Help improve Federal regulations by submitting your comments,” the website says.

The thousands of entries run the gamut from meeting notifications to fee schedules to actual rules and proposed rule changes.

In recent days, for example, the EPA posted a proposed rule involving volatile organic compound emissions from architectural coatings: “We are approving a local rule that regulates these emission sources under the Clean Air Act (CAA or the Act),” the proposed rule states. “We are taking comments on this proposal and plan to follow with a final action.”

Another proposed rule will provide guidance for FDA staff on “enforcement criteria for canned ackee, frozen ackee, and other ackee products that contain hypoglycin A.”  (Ackee is the national fruit of Jamaica; unripened or inedible portions can be toxic.)

Some of the proposed regulations revise regulations already on the books.

The website also links to a video of a speech President Barack Obama gave at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 7, 2011, in which the president promised to remove “outdated and unnecessary regulations.”

“I’ve ordered a government-wide review, and if there are rules on the books that are needlessly stifling job creation and economic growth, we will fix them,” the president said.

A number of groups, including the Competitive Enterprise Institute, expect a rush of new regulations now that President Obama has won a second term:

CEI expects the EPA to move ahead on delayed rules on everything from greenhouse gas emissions to ozone standards.  “Rules from the health care bill and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill will also likely make themselves known in the weeks to come,” the group said on its website.

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THE CURRENT NUMBER OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS BY BARACK OBAMA (2009–PRESENT)

President Obama has signed 147 Executive Orders to date during his Administration.

Executive Orders become law if unchallenged by the Congress 30 days after they are submitted. They must also be published in the Federal Register.

The Listing of Executive orders in the Congressional Library runs in a numeric order starting with the first Executive orders passed until the most current. When President Barack Obama took office his EO list started from #EO-13489

No.	Title/Description	Date signed
13489	Presidential Records	2009-01-21
13490	Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel	2009-01-21
13491	Ensuring Lawful Interrogations	2009-01-22
13492	Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities	2009-01-22
13493	Review of Detention Policy Options	2009-01-22
13494	Economy in Government Contracting	2009-01-30
13495	Nondisplacement of Qualified Workers Under Service Contracts	2009-01-30
13496	Notification of Employee Rights Under Federal Labor Laws (Repealed Executive Order 13201	2009-01-30
13497	Revocation of Certain Executive Orders Concerning Regulatory Planning and Review	2009-02-05
13498	Amendments to Executive Order 13199 and Establishment of the President’s Advisory Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships	2009-02-06
13499	Further Amendments to Executive Order 12835, Establishment of the National Economic Council	2009-02-05
13500	Further Amendments to Executive Order 12859, Establishment of the Domestic Policy Council	2009-02-05
13501	Establishing the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board	2009-02-06
13502	Use of Project Labor Agreements for Federal Construction Projects	2009-02-06
13503	Establishment of the White House Office of Urban Affairs	2009-02-19
13504	Amending Executive Order 13390	2009-02-19
13505	Removing Barriers to Responsible Scientific Research Involving Human Stem Cells	2009-03-09
13506	Establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls	2009-03-11
13507	Establishment of the White House Office of Health Reform	2009-04-08
13508	Chesapeake Bay Protection and Restoration	2009-05-12
13509	Establishing a White House Council on Automotive Communities and Workers	2009-06-23
13510	Waiver Under the Trade Act of 1974 With Respect to the Republic of Belarus	2009-07-01
13511	Continuance of Certain Federal Advisory Committees	2009-09-29
13512	Amending Executive Order 13390	2009-09-29
13513	Federal Leadership on Reducing Text Messaging While Driving	2009-10-01
13514	Federal Leadership in Environmental, Energy, and Economic Performance	2009-10-05
13515	Increasing Participation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Federal Programs	2009-10-14
13516	Amending Executive Order 13462	2009-10-28
13517	Amendments to Executive Orders 13183 and 13494	2009-10-30
13518	Employment of Veterans in the Federal Government	2009-11-09
13519	Establishment of the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force	2009-11-17
13520	Reducing Improper Payments	2009-11-20
13521	Establishing the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues	2009-11-24
13522	Creating Labor-Management Forums to Improve Delivery of Government Services	2009-12-09
13523	Half-Day Closing of Executive Departments and Agencies on Thursday, December 24, 2009	2009-12-11
13524	Amending Executive Order 12425 Designating Interpol as a Public International Organization Entitled to Enjoy Certain Privileges, Exemptions, and Immunities	2009-12-17
13525	Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay	2009-12-23
13526	Classified National Security Information	2009-12-29
13527	Establishing Federal Capability for the Timely Provision of Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack	2009-12-30
13528	Establishment of the Council of Governors	2010-01-11
13529	Ordering the Selected Reserve and Certain Individual Ready Reserve Members of the Armed Forces to Active Duty	2010-01-16
13530	President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability	2010-01-29
13531	National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform	2010-02-18
13532	Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities	2010-02-26
13533	Providing an Order of Succession within the Department of Defense	2010-03-01
13534	National Export Initiative	2010-03-11
13535	Ensuring Enforcement and Implementation of Abortion Restrictions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act	2010-03-23
13536	Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the Conflict in Somalia	2010-04-12
13537	Interagency Group on Insular Areas	2010-04-14
13538	Establishing the President’s Management Advisory Board	2010-04-19
13539	President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology	2010-04-21
13540	Interagency Task Force on Veterans Small Business Development	2010-04-26
13541	Temporary Organization to Facilitate a Strategic Partnership with the Republic of Iraq	2010-05-07
13542	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Agriculture	2010-05-13
13543	National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling	2010-05-21
13544	Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council	2010-06-10
13545	President’s Council on Fitness, Sports, and Nutrition	2010-06-22
13546	Optimizing the Security of Biological Select Agents and Toxins in the United States	2010-07-02
13547	Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes	2010-07-19
13548	Increasing Federal Employment of Individuals With Disabilities	2010-07-26
13549	Classified National Security Information Program for State, Local, Tribal, and Private Sector Entities	2010-08-18
13550	Establishment of Pakistan and Afghanistan Support Office	2010-08-18
13551	Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to North Korea	2010-08-30
13552	2010 Amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States	2010-08-31
13553	Blocking Property of Certain Persons With Respect to Serious Human Rights Abuses by the Government of Iran and Taking Certain Other Actions	2010-09-28
13554	Establishing the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Task Force	2010-10-05
13555	White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics	2010-10-19
13556	Controlled Unclassified Information	2010-11-04
13557	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Justice	2010-11-04
13558	Export Enforcement Coordination Center	2010-11-09
13559	Fundamental Principles and Policymaking Criteria for Partnerships With Faith-Based and Other Neighborhood Organizations	2010-11-17
13560	White House Council for Community Solutions	2010-12-14
13561	Adjustments to Certain Rates of Pay	2010-12-22
13562	Recruiting and Hiring Students and Recent Graduates	2010-12-27
13563	Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review	2011-01-18
13564	Establishment of The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness	2011-01-31
13565	Establishment of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Advisory Committees	2011-02-08
13566	Blocking Property and Prohibiting Certain Transactions Related to Libya	2011-02-25
13567	Periodic Review of Individuals Detained at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station Pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force	2011-03-07
13568	Extending Provisions of the International Organization Immunities Act to the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International Civilian Office in Kosovo	2011-03-08
13569	Amendments to Executive Orders 12824, 12835, 12859, and 13532, Reestablishment Pursuant to Executive Order 13498, and Revocation of Executive Order 13507	2011-04-05
13570	Prohibiting Certain Transactions with Respect to North Korea	2011-04-18
13571	Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service	2011-04-27
13572	Blocking Property of Certain Persons with Respect to Human Rights Abuses in Syria	2011-04-29
13573	Blocking Property of Senior Officials of the Government of Syria	2011-05-18
13574	Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions Set Forth in the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, as Amended	2011-05-23
13575	Establishment of the White House Rural Council	2011-06-09
13576	Delivering an Efficient, Effective, and Accountable Government	2011-06-13
13577	Establishment of the SelectUSA Initiative	2011-06-15
13578	Coordinating Policies on Automotive Communities and Workers	2011-07-06
13579	Regulation and Independent Regulatory Agencies	2011-07-11
13580	Interagency Working Group on Coordination of Domestic Energy Development and Permitting in Alaska	2011-07-12
13581	Blocking Property of Transnational Criminal Organizations	2011-07-24
13582	Blocking Property of the Government of Syria and Prohibiting Certain Transactions With Respect to Syria	2011-08-17
13583	Establishing a Coordinated Government-Wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce	2011-08-18
13584	Developing an Integrated Strategic Counterterrorism Communications Initiative and Establishing a Temporary Organization to Support Certain Government-Wide Communications Activities Directed Abroad	2011-09-09
13585	Continuance of Certain Federal Advisory Committees	2011-09-30
13586	Establishing an Emergency Board to Investigate Disputes Between Certain Railroads Represented by the National Carriers’ Conference Committee of the National Railway Labor Conference and Their Employees Represented by Certain Labor Organizations	2011-10-06
13587	Structural Reforms to Improve the Security of Classified Networks and the Responsible Sharing and Safeguarding of Classified Information	2011-10-07
13588	Reducing Prescription Drug Shortages	2011-10-31
13589	Promoting Efficient Spending	2011-11-09
13590	Authorizing the Imposition of Certain Sanctions with Respect to the Provision of Goods, Services, Technology, or Support for Iran’s Energy and Petrochemical Sectors	2011-11-20
13591	Continuance of Certain Federal Advisory Committees	2011-11-23
13592	Improving American Indian and Alaska Native Educational Opportunities and Strengthening Tribal Colleges and Universities	2011-12-02
13593	2011 Amendments to the Manual for Courts-Martial, United States	2011-12-13
13594	Adustments of Certain Rates of Pay	2011-12-19
13595	Instituting a National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security	2011-12-19
13596	Amendments to Executive Orders 12131 and 13539	2011-12-19
13597	Establishing Visa and Foreign Visitor Processing Goals and the Task Force on Travel and Competitiveness	2012-01-19
13598	Assignment of Functions Relating to Certain Promotion and Appointment Actions in the Armed Forces	2012-01-27
13599	Blocking Property of the Government of Iran and Iranian Financial Institutions	2012-02-05
13600	Establishing the President’s Global Development Council	2012-02-09
13601	Establishment of the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center	2012-02-28
13602	Establishing a White House Council on Strong Cities, Strong Communities	2012-03-15
13603	National Defense Resources Preparedness	2012-03-16
13604	Improving Performance of Federal Permitting and Review of Infrastructure Projects	2012-03-22
13605	Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources	2012-04-13
13606	Blocking the Property and Suspending Entry into the United States of Certain Persons with Respect to Grave Human Rights Abuses by the Governments of Iran and Syria via Information Technology	2012-04-23
13607	Establishing Principles of Excellence for Educational Institutions Serving Service Members, Veterans, Spouses, and Other Family Members	2012-04-27
13608	Prohibiting Certain Transactions with and Suspending Entry into the United States of Foreign Sanctions Evaders with Respect to Iran and Syria	2012-05-01
13609	Promoting International Regulatory Cooperation	2012-05-01
13610	Identifying and Reducing Regulatory Burdens	2012-05-10
13611	Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen	2012-05-16
13612	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Agriculture	2012-05-21
13613	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Department of Commerce	2012-05-21
13614	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Environmental Protection Agency	2012-05-21
13615	Providing an Order of Succession Within the Office of Management and Budget	2012-05-21
13616	Accelerating Broadband Infrastructure Deployment	2012-06-14
13617	Blocking Property of the Government of the Russian Federation Relating to the Disposition of Highly Enriched Uranium Extracted From Nuclear Weapons	2012-06-25
13618	Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions	2012-07-06
13619	Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Burma	2012-07-11
13620	Taking Additional Steps to Address the National Emergency With Respect to Somalia	2012-07-20
13621	White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans	2012-07-26
13622	Authorizing Additional Sanctions With Respect to Iran	2012-07-30
13623	Preventing and Responding to Violence Against Women and Girls Globally	2012-08-10
13624	Accelerating Investment in Industrial Energy Efficiency	2012-08-30
13625	Improving Access to Mental Health Services for Veterans, Service Members, and Military Families	2012-08-31
13626	Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration	2012-09-10
13627	Strengthening Protections Against Trafficking In Persons In Federal Contracts	2012-09-25
13628	Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions Set Forth in the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 and Additional Sanctions with respect to Iran	2012-10-09

• 13629 Executive Oder — Establishing the White House Homeland Security Partnership Council October 26, 2012

• 13630 Executive Order — Establishment of an Interagency Task Force on Commercial Advocacy December 06, 2012
• 13631 Executive Order — Reestablishment of Advisory Group December 07, 2012
• 13632 Executive Order — Establishing the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force December 07, 2012
• 13633 Executive Order– Closing of Executive Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government on Monday, December 24, 2012 December 21, 2012
• 13634 Executive Order – Reestablishment of Advisory Commission December 21, 2012
• 13635 Executive Order — Adjustments of Certain Rates of Pay December 27, 2012

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PORTER STANSBERRY: GET READY FOR OBAMA’S THIRD TERM AS PRESIDENT IN 2016

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PORTER STANSBERRY: THE THIRD TERM – INSIDE THE SECRET PLAN FOR OBAMA TO RETAIN POWER THROUGH 2020

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THE TWENTY-SECOND AMENDMENT: No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.

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JOSE SERRANO INTRODUCES HR RES 15 THAT WOULD REPEAL THE 22ND AMENDMENT TO THE US CONSTITUTION

By Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
January 7, 2013

Representative Jose Serrano introduced HJ Res 15 last week which is a proposal to repeal the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution. Serrano has been trying to get such legislation passed since the 1990s. Serrano is bringing the proposal back; however it appears he no more wants Obama to extend his presidency than he wanted all the presidents before Obama to have a longer term.

The proposing and hopeful passage of HJ Res 15 is to install another aspect of social communism in America. Serrano is hoping to capitalize on the fear spreading throughout the population and get a bill passed that would transform our Constitutional Republic into a Communist dictatorship.

Serrano has a been involved in socialist organizations such as the Majority Coalition for a New New York which is a labor/community coalition that claims to have “the interests of working people at heart” while promoting socialist ideology.

In 2006, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Political Action Committee supported and endorsed Serrano for Congressional elections. Once in office, Serrano co-sponsored HR 950, the Job Creation and Infrastructure Restoration Act of 1997. This communist inspired legislation brought together federal jobs with worker unions to ensure equality of pay while funding other socialist programs such as public schools, libraries and public transportation with $250 billion in taxpayer money.

Obama has spoken at events for the DSA as a candidate for senator in 1996. The DSA Democratic works in tandem with the Communist Party USA, the Green Party USA, as well as having ties to ACORN.

Serrano has been an active supporter of Castro by seeking to end the embargo against Cuba by claiming the action hurts American businesses and farmers.

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PRESIDENT OBAMA COULD GET THREE TERMS IF H.J. RES 15 ABOLISHES THE TWENTY-SECOND AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

By: Angel Clark | The Examiner

January 5, 2013

Americans around the nation were shocked Friday as they heard about H.J.Res. 15. H.J.Res 15 proposes an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment. This would remove the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President. Rep. José Serrano (D- NY15) introduced the controversial joint resolution on Friday, the second day of the 2013 legislative session.

The last President to serve more than two terms was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt served three full terms as President and was elected to a fourth term. Roosevelt died 83 days into his fourth term in office.

Congress passed the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947. The required number of states ratified it in 1951. There have been numerous attempts to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment, including a previous attempt by Rep. José Serrano. Rep. Serrano attempted to repeal the Twenty-second Amendment with H.J.Res. 5 in 2009.

Opponents of H.J.Res. 15 are being urged to inform their representatives of their opinions and to voice their opinion on PopVox.com.

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H.J. RES. 15: PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES TO REPEAL THE TWENTY-SECOND ARTICLE OF AMENDMENT

Introduced: Jan 04, 2013 (113^th Congress, 2013–2015)

Sponsor: Rep. José Serrano [D-NY15]

Status: Referred to Committee

Status

This resolution was assigned to a congressional committee on January 4, 2013, which will consider it before possibly sending it on to the House or Senate as a whole.

Progress

Introduced	Jan 04, 2013
Referred to Committee	Jan 04, 2013
Reported by Committee	…
Passed House	…
Passed Senate	…
Signed by the President	…

Prognosis

0% chance of getting past committee.
0% chance of being enacted or passed.Only 15% of House joint resolutions made it past committee and only 10% were enacted or passed in 2009–2010. [show factors | methodology]

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SIX REASONS WHY BARACK OBAMA COULD BE ANOTHER THREE TERM POTUS IN THE MAKING

Author: Shred Pillai | Technocrati

For those who believe in celestial interventions in affairs on the earth, there were indications of the re election of President Barack Obama and even a third term in office. But for mundane observers, a look at the events to the run up of the presidential election, its conduct and the post election realities raise the question whether Barack Obama will be the next three term president of the U.S. In fact most of the issues Obama is likely to address might need well over a decade to solve and for a determined President too difficult to give up before he achieve.

A taller President.

By achieving the impossible and winning the re election, Barack Obama has grown taller in stature virtually dwarfing almost everyone else, not just in the U.S. but on the world scene.

“First, let’s remember what Obama did in the first term: he passed the most substantial new element in the American safety net in generations, Obamacare. He helped pass a massive re-regulation of the financial sector, the Dodd-Frank bill. He passed the biggest stimulus package in our history, which I believe–Ezra Klein convinced me of this–prevented the worst economic depression in four generations. He did these things in the first two years, of course, when Democrats controlled Congress, but he did them. They were not chopped liver, whether or not you liked them.” Q&As, Washington Post However, everyone tends to forget the enormity of the unprecedented Post Lehman gloom and doom and impending recession Barack Obama was send out to put right. What is not clear, at least to the rest of the world not familiar with the U.S. politics is the equally massive obstruction he faced from a republican majority in the House.

Add to all of those the spectacular annihilation of the number one enemy of the U.S.A he promised and carried out, matching the incredulity of the 9/11 attack on the nation which has raised the credibility and image of the US and its President as a force not to be taken lightly.

In short the stature of the President has grown beyond that of any of the potential contenders for a long time to come. If President Obama decides to contest a third term, for which he may have plenty of reasons, there won’t be many happy contenders.

Unique Bond of a Leader With His Social Web.

The truth is without the social web and its immense and electrifying power the mystery of Obama would never have happened. At least in such a short time. This special bond which shaped before the 2008 election, which owes to his youth and awareness of the potential of the social media to take his message to a young and savvy supporters will be stronger and forceful in imposing an obligation on himself to pursue the reforms and changing of the United States which he had undertaken but not quite finished. This is indeed the bond which has rendered Obama as the only a Super PAC slaying democrat. In fact, there is no leader in either party who can claim anything similar to this phenomenon which will end if Obama decides not to run for a third term. It is hard to see how the democrats will let that happen.

The Fiscal Deficit.

During the Democratic convention Bill Clinton asserted that one term is too short to remedy the fiscal damage created by the previous administration. But he didn’t say two terms are sufficient. Even the president estimates a minimum of a decade, that too if he can get on with it unhindered. As it is, with a majority in the house, it is questionable how much he can achieve. But if the electorate can see reason and buy the president’s argument to grant him a second term, they are very likely to go with him for a third if the going is good.

Will Hilary? Won’t Hilary?

The big question for the next election is who the Democratic Party candidate is going to be. It is said that Hilary Clinton will be the first choice if she will contest. But if she is ready for it, she couldn’t have stayed away from the campaign as she did, leaving Bill Clinton to let everyone second guess. If anything, Hilary has sent out the impression of an overworked diplomat who needs some rest and certainly not the sign of some one hungry for the power of the First Woman President of the U.S.A and ready to go for it. Hilary must know that at the age of seventy, putting up your feet is a lot more comfortable than the grueling chair in the oval office.

Changing Demographics.

“The demographic which gave the most support to the Republicans yesterday was elderly white people–not exactly the men and women of tomorrow. The age-group that gave Obama the most support was the young. White people supported Romney more than Obama; the country is becoming steadily less white. African-Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans overwhelmingly supported Obama. Latinos and Asian Americans are the fastest-growing categories of our population.”Much has been written about the demographic shift in the US electorate which has turned in favor of Obama on account of his policies and the indifference of the GOP. This shift which will widen in the next election will be another compulsion for a obliging and liberal president not to give up too soon.

Shrinking Election Cycle and The Number Crunchers.

“If only it was actually 4 years – 2 years is more like it. With so many people making a living talking and writing about politics, we’ll be starting the next election cycle in 2 years, max.”The impact of the social media, social web, and a huge number of people who have taken election related professions which consumed 2 Billion dollars in the recent election, the election cycle has been reduced to a perennial activity for analysts, strategists and others who predict the outcome. In a way, the next election cycle has already begun and an incumbent president becomes part of the cycle. President Obama has to weigh in if his next term will be enough, especially with the republican majority in the house and obvious absence of an able successor, to achieve his goals. Chances are he will see the need for a third term much like President Franklin Roosevelt before him.

For those willing to ponder, there could be any number of subtle signs of a prolonged Presidency of Barack Obama one can’t ignore. After all it is not as hard as searching for a needle in the hay stack.

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CONGRESSMAN WALTER B. JONES (NC-3) INTRODUCES H. CON. RES. 107 TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

Congressman Walter B. Jones (NC-3) introduced H. Con. Res. 107, legislation which would make clear that should President Obama — or any other president — initiate the use of offensive military force without prior and clear authorization through an Act of Congress, the action would constitute an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under Article II, Section IV of the Constitution.

“The issue of presidents taking this country to war without congressional approval is one that I have long been concerned about,” said Jones. “Just last week, President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the United States Senate that he only needed to seek ‘international’ approval prior to initiating yet another war, this time in Syria. Congress would merely need to be ‘informed.’ This action would clearly be a violation of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. I recently took President Obama to court over this issue, as I did earlier with President Clinton. Enough is enough. It is time this country upholds the Constitution and the principles upon which this country was founded.”

The text of H.Con.Res. 107 follows:

“Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.

Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress’s exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”

http://jones.house.gov/

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BARACK OBAMA GUILTY OF INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES

Alex Jones talks with Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) about Obama’s unconstitutional effort to involve the United States in a possible Syrian intervention under the guise of preventing the use of chemical weapons.

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BEN SWANN: ON THE MOVEMENT TO IMPEACH BARACK OBAMA

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CITIZENS FILE ARTICLES OF IMPEACHMENT AGAINST OBAMA

For sedition against the Constitution

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Alex Jones
Infowars.com
January 15, 2013

“When a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.

There can no longer be any doubt – the forces of tyranny are running wild across our once great Republic. The time has come for all good men and women to rally to the aid of their country. We have now entered a historic crossroads that will decide the destiny of the United States. Arrogance and corruption has long festered in Washington DC, but the last decade has seen an extreme acceleration of criminal looting and attacks on liberty – every freedom is under sustained assault.

We the People, the rightful masters of this Republic, will either rise up through Congress and the states or we can trade in our birthright of liberty for the chains of a technocratic slavery. Below we list some of the more egregious acts of seditious treason against the Republic of the United States. Anyone who wishes to continue to live in a free country and to pass that birthright on to their children must research this document and then lobby state legislatures and the Congress to do their duty and remove the would-be dictator.

The time has now come for a bill of impeachment to be introduced and debated in Congress. Obama’s crimes are public, and the debate in the House will serve as a court in which to display the tyrannical activities of President Obama and his cohorts. As in the case of Richard Nixon, the exposure of Obama’s crimes may cause him to resign in disgrace. If he does not step down, the full House will then vote to begin the impeachment trial in the US Senate. The time has now come to make your decision – to stand up to evil or get on your knees as a willing slave.

Articles of Impeachment Against Barack Hussein Obama – Filed by Citizen Alexander Emric Jones, January 15, 2013.

- He has clearly communicated his intent to eviscerate the second amendment rights of American citizens by pursuing executive orders to curtail the right to keep and bear arms without congressional authorization and in violation of the second amendment.

Below, Congressman Stockman has pledged to move for impeachment against Obama. I am standing up against Obama right beside him, will you?

“The President’s actions are an existential threat to this nation,” reads a statement by Rep. Steve Stockman. “The right of the people to keep and bear arms is what has kept this nation free and secure for over 200 years. The very purpose of the Second Amendment is to stop the government from disallowing people the means to defend themselves against tyranny. Any proposal to abuse executive power and infringe upon gun rights must be repelled with the stiffest legislative force possible.”

- He has aided America’s enemies, violating his oath, by sending funds to insurgents in Syria who are being commanded by Al-Qaeda terrorists.

- He has violated federal law by overseeing a cover-up surrounding Operation Fast and Furious, the transfer of guns to Mexican drug cartels direct from the federal government.

- He has lied to the American people by overseeing a cover-up of the Benghazi attack which directly led to the deaths of four American citizens. The cover-up has been called “Obama’s Watergate,” yet four months after the incident, no one in the administration has been held accountable.

- He has brazenly undermined the power of Congress by insisting his authority came from the United Nations Security Council prior to the attack on Libya and that Congressional approval was not necessary. “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question,” said Obama. This is an act that “constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution,” according to Congressman Walter Jones.

- He has ignored Congressional rejection of the cybersecurity bill and instead indicated he will pursue an unconstitutional executive order.

- He has signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act which includes provisions that permit the abduction and military detention without trial of U.S. citizens, violating Habeas Corpus. Despite Obama claiming he would not use the provisions to incarcerate U.S. citizens, it was his administration that specifically demanded these powers be included in the final NDAA bill.

- He has enacted universal health care mandates that force Americans to buy health insurance, a clear violation of the Constitution in exceeding congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. Obama has also handed outpreferential waivers to corporations friendly to his administration.

- He has declared war on America’s coal industry by promising to bankrupt any company that attempts to build a new coal plant while using unconstitutional EPA regulations to strangle competition, ensuring Americans see their energy costs rise year after year.

- He has violated the Constitution’s Takings and Due Process Clauses when he bullied the secured creditors of automaker Chrysler into accepting 30 cents on the dollar while politically connected labor unions and preferential others received better deals.

- He has violated Article II of the Constitution by using signing statements as part of his executive usurpation of power.

“I will seek to thwart this action by any means necessary, including but not limited to eliminating funding for implementation, defunding the White House, and even filing articles of impeachment.”

Rep. Steve Stockman, Texas.

For these, and other offenses which constitute high crimes and misdemeanors, including perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, conduct unbecoming and refusal to obey a lawful order, we call for the immediate impeachment of Barack H. Obama.

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Impeachment Clauses

Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5

The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Article 1, Section 3, Clauses 6 and 7

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried the Chief Justice shall preside; And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

Judgement in Cases of Impreachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement and Punishment, according to Law.

Article 2, Section 4

The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Article 3, Section 1

. . . The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour. . . .

1.	Jefferson’s Manual of Parliamentary Practice and Rules of the House of Representatives, sec. 53
2.	North Carolina Constitution of 1776, ART. 23
3.	Delaware Constitution of 1776, ART. 23
4.	Virginia Constitution of 1776
5.	New York Constitution of 1777, ARTS. 32–34
6.	Vermont Constitution of 1777, CH. 2, SEC. 20
7.	Records of the Federal Convention
8.	Luther Martin, Genuine Information, 1788
9.	Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 65, 439–45, 7 March 1788
10.	Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 66, 445–51, 8 March 1788
11.	Brutus, no. 15, 20 Mar. 1788
12.	A Native of Virginia, Observations upon the Proposed Plan of Federal Government, 1788
13.	Debate in North Carolina Ratifying Convention, 24–25, 28 July 1788
14.	James Madison, Observations on Jefferson’s Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, 15 Oct. 1788
15.	James Wilson, Legislative Department, Lectures on Law, 1791
16.	Luther Martin, Impeachment Trial of Justice Samuel Chase, Senate, 23 Feb. 1804
17.	William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States 210–19 1829 (2d ed.)
18.	Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution 2:§§ 758–69, 771–78, 780–803, 810–11, 1833

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OBAMA IMPEACHMENT 2012 WITH FILM DIRECTOR SEAN STONE

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OBAMA IMPEACHMENT 2012

By Kurt Nimmo and Alex Jones

Infowars.com
Aprill 11, 2012

We can only win by launching Impeach Obama 2012. Whether or not we fully impeach him, we are committed to rebuking these unconstitutional and criminal power grabs and are determined to take the case to the court of public opinion.

–Alex Jones

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Film director, producer, actor and writer Sean Stone has thrown his weight behind a resolution introduced in the House last month by North Carolina Republican Walter Jones. Resolution 107 states that should the president use offensive military force without the authorization of Congress that such an act would be “an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor.”

Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution reserves exclusively for Congress the power to declare war. Both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison argued that the power to declare war must reside in the legislative branch of government and the president will only act as the commander-in-chief and direct the war after it is declared by Congress.

“The constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature,” Madison wrote.

In the video, Stone notes Obama’s unconstitutional war on Libya was waged “despite the fact that the United States was neither attacked, nor threatened for attack by the nation of Libya.”

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said during questioning by Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama that the Obama administration does not believe Congress has the exclusive right to declare war and that the Pentagon answers to the United Nations, not the people of the United States.

The Obama administration “does not believe that the Congress has the exclusive power to declare war,” Stone notes, and “accordingly the president should be impeached.”

Stone also mentions Obama’s facilitation of the banker engineered 2008 “bailout” as an additiojnal reason he should be tried for High Crimes and Misdemeanors and impeached. Obama’s efforts worked in favor of the “consolidation of private banks, many of them in Europe.”

“There was no investment of any meaningful type in the physical economy, there was no protection of the American people,” Sean explains. “Rather, an illegal commitment made on behalf of private banking interests, to commit the American people to paying a debt that the American people did not accrue.”

He rightly notes that Obama’s actions “represent the most clear violation of the principal of the general welfare of the people in the preamble of the Constitution of the United States.”

In addition to setting the stage for the economic rape of the American people and waging illegal and unconstitutional wars, Obama has committed a number of other egregious violations of the Constitution.

Specifically, Obama violated the Constitution’s Takings and Due Process Clauses when he bullied the secured creditors of automaker Chrysler into accepting 30 cents on the dollar while politically connected labor unions and preferential others received better deals.

In addition, the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” bill created the so-called Financial Protection Bureau and Financial Stability Oversight Council, bureaucratic monstrosities that are now engaged in unchecked and unconstitutional economic action without consulting Congress. The Dodd-Frank bill also further empowers the bankster’s preferred cartel, the Federal Reserve (which has engaged in unconstitutional activity for nearly a hundred years).

The Obamacare mandate is the most obvious violation. “No list of President Obama’s constitutional violations would be complete without including the requirement that every American purchase health insurance, on penalty of civil fine. The individual mandate is unprecedented and exceeds Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce. If it is allowed to stand, Congress will be able to impose any kind of economic mandate as part of any kind of national regulatory scheme. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has a chance to strike this down during its current term,” writes Ilya Shapiro, a Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies, Cato Institute.

Obama signed into law the NDAA with a provision allowing the military to indefinitely detain American citizens. “He will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said the executive director of the ACLU, Anthony Romero.

Finally, Obama may be tried and impeached for signing a large number of executive orders. Article II of the Constitution provides the president with three options when presented with legislation – do nothing, sign the bill, or veto it in its entirety.

“Obama’s use of signing statements has clearly shown his willingness to continue the George W. Bush legacy – not only of torture and illegal detainment, but in the dangerous trend of de facto rule by ‘executive fiat.’ Worse, such signing statements put in place a precedent for future presidents to follow – or expand upon,” writes Aaron Dykes.

Obama is definitely a renegade president in violation of the law. He is guilty of treason and must be brought up on formal charges. The House must introduce a resolution for impeachment and a trial must be held in the Senate.

It can be argued that Obama has done little different than any number of presidents going back to Abraham Lincoln. Now is the time to put an end to this treasonous and tyrannical behavior. If we continue to allow the executive to flagrantly violate the Constitution, we will eventually end up with a full-blown dictatorship run out of the White House. Congress will become ceremonial and the will of the American people will be null and void once and for all.

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ARTICLE II HAS NOW BEEN ERASED

by Jon Christian Ryter on January 30, 2013

Barack Hussein Obama, the community organizer who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, got there by violating Article II of the Constitution of the United States not once but four times in four years. Add his four violations of Article II with two violations of Article I since becoming the “Occupier,” and we have six impeachable offenses that could, and should, land Mr. Obama in a federal penitentiary.

While any American with an IQ larger than their hat size who has read Lord Christopher Monckton’s Peer Review on Obama’s birth, or has studied Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s forensic report on the evidence which conclusively proves that the long form birth certificate that Obama claims as his long form birth certificate is a very amateurish forgery of the long form Hawaiian birth certificate of Virginia Sunahara, who was born at Wahiawa Hospital in Hawaii on August 4, 1961 and died of postnatal complications the following day at Kapi’olani Hospital. Her birth and death certificate number was 151-61 10641. That, of course as all of us now know, is the number that Obama’s political advocates in Gov. Neil Abercrombie’s [D-HI] liberal bureaucracy claims belongs to Obama.

But before dealing with the impeachable crimes that should remove Obama from the White House and transfer him to the Big House, let’s settle the birth certificate issue once and for all, since it’s this distraction that has kept the American people from coming to grips with the fact that Obama is not, and never was, a citizen of the United States. The birthers created an unnecessary distraction—the question whether Obama met the constitutional letter of the law needed to be deemed an Article II natural born citizen. Their argument muddied the water so much that most Americans through the birthers were splitting hairs because Obama’s father was a Kenyan citizen although his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham was born in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas on Nov. 29, 1942 and was an American citizen. In their mind, that settled the birth issue. The only problem is, according to US Citizenship law at the time of Obama’s birth, an American mother—unmarried, or at least not married to an American husband (and living outside of the United States at the time of the live birth of her baby)—had to be at least 19 years of age to transfer citizenship rights to her offspring. On Aug. 4, 1961 Stanley Ann Dunham was three months and 25 days shy of being able to legally transmit citizenship to her son, who was born in Kenya, not Hawaii—the claims and fabrications of the Obama people notwithstanding.

The fact that Obama does not possess a genuine United States birth certificate is the crux of the battle going on in the court in Honolulu at this time. Virginia Sunahara’s brother, Duncan Sunahara, has been trying to get a copy of his long dead sister’s birth certificate since the short copy version of Obama’s birth certificate popped up on the White House website in 2009. Oddly, the head of the Hawaii Dept. of Health, Loretta Fuddy, told Duncan Sunahara in 2010 that no birth or death record for Virginia Sunahara existed in the HDOH. As far as Fuddy was concerned, no such person had ever been born in Hawaii between 1960 and 1964—nor was there a record of anyone with that name having died, either.

Duncan knew from his elderly mother, who now suffers from dementia, that his sister was born in the same hospital where he was born a few years earlier—Wahiawa General Hospital. She had serious postnatal problems and was transferred to another hospital where she died. Duncan’s mother no longer remembered the name of the hospital. Duncan Sunahara checked both of them—Queen’s Hospital and the Kapi’olani Medical Center, but neither hospital would provide him with any information since he was not the parent of the deceased child and, therefore, was not legally entitled to the information..

It was not until Dean Haskins of the Birther Summit went to Hawaii and, with Sunahara, visited the HDOH. Figuring they would run into the Fuddy Stone Wall that blocked Duncan Sunahara a year earlier, Haskins was shocked that Duncan’s application, this time around, produced Virginia Sunahara’s short form (which the HDOH called her long form) birth certificate. But, a closer look at the document the HDOH gave Sunahara provided the answer. The number assigned by the HDOH to the newly “discovered” Sunahara birth/death certificate on Aug. 4/5, 1961 was 151-61 011080. The problem is, when you look at the birth progression you run into the Nordyke twins, Susan and Gretchen, the 10,637th and 10,638th babies born in Hawaii in 1961. They were born on August 5 (the day Virginia Sunahara’s birth/death certificate would have been certified). Virginia Sunahara’s birth death certificate should have been 61 10641. Instead it was 61 11080, or 339 births past the Nordyke twins. The problem with Obama having that number, 61 10641 is that he was theoretically also born on Aug. 4, 1961—after the Nordyke twins who were actually born after him. One of the 7 sextillion impossibilities that convinced forensic scientists in both Europe and Maricopa County, Arizona that the Obama birth certificate was a fraud, stolen from a dead baby found in the Hawaiian birth records on a date convenient enough to work for Kenyan born Barack Hussein Obama to make the British born citizen, Indonesian-adopted Negro baby appear—49 years after his birth—to be an African-American natural born United States citizen who was eligible to seek the office of President of the United States when he does not even have a Certificate of Citizenship (an immigration document for foreign born persons applying for citizenship) and, of course, a certified copy of Obama’s Oath of Allegiance to the United States—possessed by naturalized citizens, and even natural born citizen whose stepfathers renounced their natural citizenship rights in order to gain Indonesian citizenship privileges (the only way Obama would be allowed to attend any school in Indonesia). That, by the way, should be enough to convince any Congressman whose IQ is less than the number of his or her congressional district that Obama is not, nor ever was, a citizen of the United States

In a Honolulu, Hawaii court hearing in Sept., 2012—initiated by Duncan Sunahara to get his sister’s actual long form birth certificate—his lawyer argued to the court that his client was entitled to the long form, hospital version of his sister’s birth certificate. The State argued it had the right to provide whatever version it wished, and since taking photographs of 50 year old documents put them at risk of damage, the HDOH could issue whichever version they wanted. Hawaii Deputy Attorney General Jill Nagamine testified under oath in court that “…to get the long form you actually have to go to the vault. And the records that are in the vault have been stored in volumes—not just the one, not just the plaintiff’s sister’s records, but other records from around that time of birth…In this case, [Mr. Obama's] birth certificate—which we know is all about that!”

Here’s the serious problem with Ms. Nagamine’s brief argument that no one caught or everyone simply chose to ignore. Nagamine argued that the birth record of 61 10641 was Obama’s, and that Sunahara’s birth record was 61 011080. There were 17,616 births in Hawaii in 1961, with a statistical average of 48 births per day, which would have placed that birth 9 to 10 days after the Nordyke twins who were actually born a day after Virginia Sunahara was born, and on the day she died.) Nagamine knew if she was forced to produce the hospital record of 10 10641, the jury would not be looking at Barack Obama’s Hawaiian hospital long form birth certificate, they would be looking at Virginia Sunahara’s birth/death certificate—the document Gov. Neil Abercrombie and Obama’s cronies in the Hawaiian state government figured no one would ever come looking for. After all, who looks for the birth records of a baby no one ever heard of who died 52 years ago?

Since nothing in the Sunahara case mentioned the name of Barack Obama, what would make Nagamine blurt out, when Sunahara’s lawyer demanded they be allowed to look at the page where his sister’s long form hospital birth certificate was stored, only to receive the objection that Obama’s birth certificate was there, with the defiant comment that, “…we know this is all about that!”

In the book, “Fugitive Days” by former domestic terrorist and Obama-buddy Bill Ayers writing about changing one’s identity to avoid capture by law enforcement, wrote: “We soon figured out that the deepest and most foolproof ID had a government-issued Social Security card at its heart, and the best source of those were dead-baby birth certificates…available to us at any county courthouse for a couple of bucks.” Over the years Barack Hussein Obama has used at least 27 different social security numbers. The most recent one—and the one he is using to draw his paycheck at the White House is still officially listed as the Social Security card of Jean Paul Ludwig. Ludwig was born in Connecticut in 1890. He’s been dead for 32 years..

Snopes and Fact or Fiction both argue that Obama could not have been using Ludwig’s social security card because Ludwig was still alive when Obama registered for the draft. Jean Paul Ludwig died in June, 1981 in Hawaii. The part about Ludwig still be alive when Obama turned 18, is true. But, there’s still a problems with their argument.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio has forensically proved that Obama’s Selective Service Card was also a forgery. What does that mean? It means Obama never registered for the draft on Sept. 4, 1980. Since Obama did not possess a US birth certificate on Sept. 4, 1980, there were no documents advising the Selective Service System that there was a guy running around the country by the name of Barack Obama who had not registered for the draft. Since Obama did not have a birth record trail to worry about, and since foreign students with Indonesian passports studying in the United States are not obligated to register for induction into the US Army—nor were they required to produce evidence that they had applied for a Selective Service Card, Obama would have had no need to use Ludwig’s, or for that matter, anyone else’s Social Security card to register for the draft—at that moment. He would, however, in 1983. Ludwig died in 1982, so there was no one using his SSN in 1983 when Barack Obama appears to have replaced Barry Soetoro at Columbia University.

For all practical purposes, except in Kenya’s birth records at the Coast Provincial Hospital in Mombassa, and in Grandma Dunham’s heart, Barack Obama didn’t exist. Barry Soetoro was the Indonesia student who enrolled in Occidental College in 1978, not Barack Obama. It was not until Obama enrolled in Columbia that he would need a Selective Service Card. While Obama’s records, dates and names are deliberately skewed out of focus so the lens of history under the Barry Soetoro chapters of Obama’s life—the Indonesian chapters, could be erased and quietly replaced with the edited Barack Obama—the mulatto American—chapters that suggest that Obama was not born in Kenya but Hawaii. He was suddenly no longer the Wahabbi-trained Islamist raised in Indonesia where his step father traded his British citizenship for an Indonesian education since, in Indonesia, only citizens are awarded with an education. Now, through the opaque shroud of history the Wahabbi-trained Muslim from Kenya and Indonesia became the make-believe Christian from Hawaii.

Except to his closest friends who still called him Barry, Soetoro was being methodically erased because those who were retooling him for an American political career knew that a Shariah-indoctrinated radical Muslim didn’t fit in the pro-Israeli political landscape of the United States. Obama’s transitional year became 1982 when Barry Soetoro officially became Barack Obama when he entered Columbia University. Soetoro,who came to Occidental College in Los Angeles, California as an Indonesian Muslim, transferred in Sept. 1982 to Columbia University as a Hawaiian-born Christian American. It was at that time that Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah began Obama’s Manchurian Candidate makeover.

Barry Soetoro didn’t need a Selective Service Card since he was still a foreign student with an Indonesian passport. Barack Obama, on the other hand, could not legally enroll as an American student at Columbia University in 1982 without a Selective Service card because the law required it. When Barry Soetoro morphed into Barack Obama in what appears to be late 1982 or early 1983, Obama had a Selective Service Card which apparently contained Jean Paul Ludwig’s (now deceased) Social Security number. So, having Ludwig die during Obama’s “black hole” period was a stroke of luck for Obama. Between 1981 and 1983 Obama pretty much erased Barry Soetoro. The final vestiges of Soetoro were left behind when Obama went to Harvard Law School. He only had one bitter pill left to swallow when he graduated from Harvard and took his bar exam. He lied on his bar membership application. His supporters claim he lost his law license for inadvertently claiming he held he title of “Professor of Law” at Harvard when he fact he was a temporary part-time instructor. The real lie? He responded “no” to a question on the application which said: “Have you ever used an assumed name?” Michelle Obama surrendered her law license to avoid behind charged with insurance fraud. They’re a pair that belongs together. They just don’t belong together at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. The White House is the home of America’s patriots. The Obamas fit the crooked political lifestyle of Cook County, Illinois. I guess that’s why they call Chicago “home.” Both Snopes and Fact or Fiction goofed on the Ludwig social security card issue because they pinned their opinion on a date that proved not to have been important.

Add the Sunahara case to other cases filed by other plaintiffs, and a statement made by Alabama Supreme Court Judge Tom Parker concerning the criminal forensic investigation performed by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio on the short and long form birth certificates that Barack Obama claimed were his becomes paramount. Parker, in writing the court’s ruling, said that if “…the evidence Hugh McInnish presented had been presented in a proper evidentiary form, it would have raised serious questions about the authenticity of both Obama’s short and long form birth certificates.”

What does all of that mean? Put in simple terms that even a politician with a law degree from Harvard or a social progressive journalist with a liberal arts degree from Vanderbilt should be able to understand without a constitutional interpreter, Barack Hussein Obama does not possess a shred of unfabricated evidence that could withstand forensic scrutiny sufficiently enough for any honest law enforcement forensic scientist to claim, with integrity, that Obama qualifies as an Article II citizen of the United States. Shockingly, every honest law enforcement crime lab scientists who has forensically examined the photoshopped Virginia Sunahara birth certificate, 61 10641, called it a sloppy fake.

In a ruling given on March 27, 2012 the Alabama Supreme Court struck down a petition for a Writ of Mandamus against Barack Obama filed by an Alabama resident, Hugh McInnish against Alabama Secretary of State Beth Chapman. McInnish demanding that Barack Obama be required to prove he was eligible to serve in the office of President of the United States by producing a long form birth certificate for the court’s scrutiny before being placed on the ballot. In his petition, McInnish argued the State Supreme Court of Alabama had original jurisdiction in the case he presented pursuant to § 12-2-7(2), Ala.Code 1970 on all Writs of Mandamus and Writs of Quo Warranto. The all-Republican nine member court denied McInnish’s petition for a Writ of Mandamus not based on the lack of evidence of forgery presented to the court, but because a majority of the judges said they did not believe the State Supreme Court had legal jurisdiction to determine who is eligible to seek office in Alabama—even if fraud appears obvious..

Apparently none of the justices of Alabama’s Supreme Court have ever read Article I, Sec. 6 of the Constitution which reserves absolute jurisdiction to pick “The times, places and manner of holding elections” to the State election officials. Specifically, with regard to the office of President, the 10th Amendment makes it clear that any “…powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, are reserved for the States respectively, or to the people.” Absolutely nowhere—not one sentence, word, dot or tittle spells out who has the ultimate authority to vet candidates for President when they refuse to verify they are constitutionally eligible to serve. Based on the 10th Amendment, that power rests solely with the people who have a constitutional responsibility to make certain their national leaders are natural born Americans according to Article II, Section 1 § 6. Imagine what could happen if a illegal alien who was born in Kenya and was raised in a Muslim nation like, say Indonesia, and attended a Wahabbi school where he was taught Shariah Law, pretending to be a US citizen, came to the United States, became a State Congressman (even though he was not a US citizen), then became a US Senator (again, even though he was not a US citizen), and then stole two national elections with the unimaginable happening—he was able to steal 35 million votes in 2008 and 36 million votes in 2012 because no one took the time to properly vet him to make sure he was eligible to seek office in the United States (since, after all, that would be racist thing to do—actually making sure the guy was an actual citizen before allowing his name to be placed on the ballot…just because he was black. Shame on us. And, not just us, the common folk. Shame on the judges and lawyers and Congressmen and Senators who are sworn to protect the Constitution of the United States. Shame on them for exchanging career quid pro quos to protect an illegal alien posing as a US Senator or as the President of the United States..

Or like the judges on the Alabama high court deciding they didn’t want to lock horns with the more powerful politicians in the federal courts, believing from their liberal law school days that federal courts have the right to overrule State courts anytime they want, even on matters where the States are constitutionally supreme—in the way and manner that State elections are conducted.

That’s why when the Appellate Court to the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that the justices had no authority to examine and reject unqualified candidates in what each of them saw as the fraudulent Obama birth data presented by Hugh McInnish to support his argument, they did not deny him—or his assertions—standing. The court ruled that McInnish could refile his lawsuit in the Alabama District Court.

Lord Christopher Monckton noted in his Hereditary Peers Briefing Paper (which was sent, certified mail, to every member of Congress and scores of important people in the United States and in England (since Obama is still, primarily, a citizen of the British government). Lord Monckton pointed out that in light of Judge Tom Parker’s obiter dictum combined with the forensic evidence detailed in McInnish’s allegations, Hawaii cannot rely on the “full faith and credit” clause (Art. IV Sec. 1) to require other States to accept the birth certificate they produced for Obama as genuine. “If it is the forgery it appears to be,” Monckton said, “at least one person at the Hawaii Health Department knows it is a forgery.” Monckton also noted that “The attorneys for any person charged with a federal offense created as such under the Obama Administration have the right, under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, to request access, by their own forensic investigators, to the Hawaiian Health Department’s original birth record of Barack Obama to satisfy themselves that the man who claims to be the President of the United States is, in reality, the President of the United States”. But since Obama has already spent millions of dollars to prevent anyone access to the 151 61 10641 birth records will fight to make sure the lawyers for those charged with crimes will never see that document, either. It would be sheer insanity on his part to allow that to happen.

Why? Because it doesn’t exist. File 151 61-10641 is the long form birth and death certificate for Virginia Sunahara who was born on Aug. 4, 1961 and died on Aug. 5, 1961. This is what the evidence accumulated by McInnish and compiled by Paul Irey and Doug Vogt, retired US Navy Commander Charles Kerchner (who was a charter member of the birther movement with a series of ads in the Washington Times National Weekly Edition and a self-financed lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court), Helen Tanner and the Article II Political Action Committee, the Birther Summit, British Lord Christopher Monckton and Sheriff Joe Arpaio, his lead investigator Mike Zullo, and finally Dean Haskins and businessman Gary Laconis who followed the trail all the way to the courtroom in Honolulu where the battle to expose that the birth/death certificate of an infant named Virginia Sunahara ultimately became the photoshopped birth certificate of Barack Hussein Obama.

Alabama Supreme Court Justice Tom Parker wrote the opinion on the McInnish finding. In the official court ruling he said: “The language of the foregoing provision of the Alabama Constitution implies that this Court is without jurisdiction over McInnish’s original petition for a Writ of Mandamus. It is not our appellate jurisdiction that is being invoked, and this matter is not within original jurisdiction of the Court ‘to issue such remedial writs or orders as may be necessary to give it general supervision and control of courts of inferior jurisdiction.’ (Ala. Const. 1901, Art. VI, § 140.) The Office of Secretary of State of Alabama is not a court of inferior jurisdiction; that this court may control through the issuance of a writ in response to a petition first filed in this Court…” Parker stated that the evidence McInnish provided, along with findings of the Cold Case Posse makes Obama’s birth certificate highly suspect, and he questioned whether it would be able to stand up in a court of law. He also noted that he was experienced in computer science and indicated that he concurred with the conclusion of forgery made by Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse. “McInnish,” he said, “seeks from this Court a Writ of Mandamus directly ordering Beth Chapman, as Secretary of State for the State of Alabama, ‘to demand that Obama cause a certified copy of his bonifide birth certificate to be delivered to her direct from the government official who is in charge of the record in which it is stored, and to make the receipt of such a prerequisite to his name being placed on the Alabama ballot for the November 6, 2012 general election..’

“McInnish,”he continued, ” has attached certain documentation to his mandamus petition which, if presented in the appropriate forum as part of a proper evidentiary presentation, would raise serious questions about the authenticity of the both the ‘short form’ and the ‘long form’ birth certificates of [Obama] that have been made public.”

If Judge Parker and Lord Monckton are correct in their interpretation of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse information, and the materials collected by Irey, Doug Vogt and others, then the Alabama Supreme Court was the first United States court to actually see, examine and affirm that Barack Hussein Obama has violated Article II, Section 1§ 5. Not only is he not an Article II natural born citizen of the United States, the evidence appears to be saying he is not a citizen of the United States of any stripe.

Lord Monckton’s Peer Review points out that when the odds of each serious question against Obama are multiplied together, the proof emerges. Just as the Alabama State Supreme Court argued against their own jurisdiction to make a ruling on evidence which (they said) “…if presented in the appropriate forum…would raise serious questions about the authenticity of both the short for and the long-form birth certificates of…Obama…” the odds that all of these serious questions occurring as an accident in one document have an individual probability of one in 75 sextillion, or 0.000001.

If the whole body of evidence of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s criminal forensic investigation of Obama’s birth certificate, his social security card and his Selective Service Card did not scientifically prove that all three were layered in fraud, we could call those labeled as “birthers” by the liberal media as conspiracy nuts and hoaxers. However, when the entire body of evidence shows not only that the Obama White House has engaged in a fraud to make Barack Hussein Obama appear to be something he is not—a constitutional citizen of the United States of America, then the whole body of evidence screams for an immediate Congressional investigation not only of Barack Obama, but the leaders of the Democratic Party and the head of the Democratic National Committee who had a constitutional duty and responsibility to properly and thoroughly vet the candidate who was to head their Party, to make certain that his candidacy complied with Article II, Section 1 § 6 which requires every candidate for President to be a natural born citizen of the United States.

Furthermore—and equally as important as § 6—since this is how the Democratic Party has managed to steal control of the White House in both 2008 and 2012—and control of the House and Senate from 2006 to 2010,. is Article II, Section 1 § 5 which requires that all voting in our national election completely take place on one day, Article II, Section 1 § 5 gives the sole authority to Congress to determine the one day in which all of the voters shall cast their ballot for the office of President—noting that day shall be the same throughout the United States. Congress has the authority to change Election day from, say, the second Tuesday after the first Monday of November to third Tuesday after the second Monday of October, of the first Tuesday, or Wednesday, or the first Monday after Independence Day, or whatever. But, what the Constitution designates as Election Day is one day. Not three weeks or three months of “early voting,” since early voting is specifically designed for one thing—vote fraud. And, constitutionally, neither the States nor the federal legislature, nor the idiot in the White House who has convinced the idiots on main street America that Executive Orders grant presidents with legislative authority they are specifically denied in Article I, Section 1.

My God, I know schools in America no longer teach American history nor American government, nor anything about the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights, but you people have eyes even if you lack brains. Most Americans are Christian, and they are proud of the fact (and enjoy the bragging rights) that they’ve read the Holy Bible from cover-to-cover at least once—and some four or five times. Some of them even understand what they read. But how many times have you read the Constitution? The nice thing about the Founding Fathers is that they wrote a document that an uneducated farmer could understand. It does not require a lawyer to interpret it. The lawyers who have, and who created about 1.5 million pages of law from this simple document that easily fits on one side of an 24″ X 34″ sheet of paper, did so to make our rights so complicated that you would need a bevy of lawyers to understand them—although none of the lawyers would agree what they wrote actually meant.

When the Constitution says “The Congress may determine the Time of choosing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States,” the Constitution is not referring to the members of the Electoral College casting their votes for the President. Article II, Section 1 § 4 and 5 are a joint phrase. Whether you realize it or not, when you cast your vote for “President,” you are not actually casting your vote for, say, someone on the Democratic ticket named Barack Obama and someone on the Republican ticket named Mitt Romney.” (I ignored naming any third party candidates since the way our electoral system has evolved, only Candidate “D” and Candidate “R” can get elected. All third party candidates have been reduced to the role of “spoiler” to be used by the princes of industry and the barons of banking and business to guarantee that the candidate they invested hundreds of million of dollars in wins—and they get to control the agenda his Administration puts forth. Who you are actually electing on Election Day (Article II, Section 1 § 5) are the State “electors” (members of the Electoral College) who will meet in the United States Senate on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their votes for the candidate selected, by majority vote, by the voters in their States. (Title 3 § 6 of the US Code). So, regardless what your teachers at school tell you, or the politicians you email say, they are lying to you if they tell you anything different than you just read here.

The Social Progressives controlled the Congress of the United States during the Administrations of Teddy Roosevelt [R] (a Marxist socialist);. Thomas Woodrow Wilson [D] (a socialist); Franklin D. Roosevelt [D] (a Marxist socialist); Harry Truman [D] (a socialist); Jimmy Carter [D] (a Marxist socialist); and Barack Obama [D] (an Islamofacist Marxist). Beginning with FDR, the socialist Congresses each of those presidents controlled used the Executive Magic Eraser—unconstitutional Executive Orders—to erase those parts of Article I, Article II and Article III that interfered with the expansion of power of the three branches of the federal government. Not one American (except those branded as conspiracy nuts) complained. No newspaper, radio station or TV network—which the Founding Father protected with the 1st Amendment to prevent the federal government from ever stifling exposes of free speech. But, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who tried to enact laws to control the free press that would have allowed him to become the same type of dictator as Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Josef Stalin, was stopped by one man—legally blind US Senator Thomas D. Schall [R-MN] who aligned the media behind his effort to protect the 1st Amendment. Schall completely blocked Roosevelt’s attempt to regulate newspaper. But because “the press” didn’t not mention radio, television and the Internet which were over a century away when the Constitution was written, only newspapers and magazines—now the dying media—were protected by the 1st Amendment.

No Congressman or Senator except Schall tried to include radio under the umbrella of the 1st Amendment. And, although the United States Supreme Court has ruled three times that independent journalists writing in the blogsphere on the Internet are protected by the 1st Amendment Obama has already tried to regulate the Internet. After failing to regulate the Internet in 2007, 2009 and 2010 with absolute control over both Houses of Congress, and in 2011 with control of the Senate, Obama issued an unconstitutional Executive Order giving the FCC the authority to regulate the Internet and crack down on birther websites.

And Senator Schall? He successfully blocked Roosevelt from regulating the free press. When the New Deal Congress enacted the Federal Communications Commission Act if 1934 the newspaper industry was specifically excluded. All FDR got to regulate was radio because it was not specifically mentioned as “press” in a 1787 document. Schall, who lived in northeast DC off the Baltimore-DC Parkway, was struck down by a hit-and-run driver while crossing the street near his home on Dec. 19, 1935. He died in a DC hospital three days later. Schall’s opponent in 1936 was Floyd Olson, a Roosevelt flunkie from Minnesota. As the campaign heated up in 1935, Schall convinced Democrat Huey Long of Louisiana to come to Minnesota and campaign against both Olson and FDR, but Long was assassinated in September, 1935. About the same time, Olson was diagnosed with a fast-growing stomach cancer. Six months after Schall was runover by a speeding motorist, Olson died of cancer.. Schall began his House career as a noninterventionist Republican. In the Senate he saw government becoming too powerful, and too concentrated in the hands the of princes of industries, the barons of banking and statist politicians like FDR.

Every Congressman and Senator since the Roosevelt years who fought the princes of industry and the barons of banking and business have died—many of suspicious causes—pr they suddenly lost all donor support or, beginning in 1995, failed to get reelected as unions and leftwing special interest groups took control of the electronic voting systems in almost every voting precinct in the country. The money barons now control every facet of the media except the alternative news media in the blogsphere on the Internet. If the courts prevent them from censoring the blogsphere, Congress will likely assess an email postal charge per email sent (to protect the USPS) , killing the small, not-for-profit electronic news sites overnight, and crippling the largest blogs.

If the Democrats get one more seat on the US Supreme Court, crooked politicians and even more crooked judges will completely erase the Bill of Rights beginning with the 1st and 2nd Amendments, and then the balance of Articles I, II and III. The Constitution will exist in name only. The princes of industry and barons of banking were complicit in erasing Article II, Section 1 § 6 in 2008 and again in 2012 when they knowing backed a illegal alien for the White House. That task was simplified with the passage of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 which erased Article II, Section 1 § 5, creating early voting and an automated voter registration system that allowed those not eligible to vote to register—and vote…early—and often. When the fraudulent registrations were confirmed, the registrations were discarded but the fraudulent votes had already been blue-bagged and were counted as legitimate votes. In 2008, 96,992,000 registered voters (who actually voted) somehow cast 132,618,580 votes. In 2012, 90,682,968 registered voters (who actually voted) cast 136,985,809 votes. In 2008, Obama won 35 million nonexistent votes, defeating Sen. John McCain by 10 million votes that didn’t really exist. In 2012, Obama won 36 million nonexistent votes, and defeated Mitt Romney by less than 5 million votes—once again, with 36 million votes that didn’t exist. In addition, the Obama Campaign, convinced they would lose all of the battleground States to Romney, early voted Republicans in those States who historically voted on election day. When they went to their voting precincts to vote, they discovered someone had already voted their names. They were not allowed to vote..

The Founding Fathers created the only honest, failsafe method of voting ever devised by man. The names of the candidates appear on a paper ballot. With a black lead pencil, the voter indicates his choice by marking the candidate he was casting his vote for. There was never any guesswork who the voter was voting for. Which means the election were honest. If America does not return to its roots and restore the paper ballot and the #2 pencil, the princes of industry will always win the White House. And, with each new victory, just a little more liberty will vanish under the magic eraser of government.

Take Action -Select Here and Blast Faxes to Congress, demanding that they oppose Barack Obama’s unconstitutional January 16 actions by filing articles of impeachment!Select Here to Send Free Messages to your Representative and Senators only, telling them to file articles of impeachment against Barack Obama.

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JIM CORBETT: THE MOVEMENT TO IMPEACH OBAMA

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JUDICIARY RULES

Published on Jan 30, 2013

The case taken up by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, as published Friday the 25th, has the integrity of the Federal Republic as its subject. This potentially carries devastating consequences for the Barack Obama administration.

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NEW YORK CITY SCHILLER CONFERENCE UNANIMOUSLY ENDORSES REP. WALTER JONES CALL TO MOBILIZE FOR HCR 3 AND HR 129

January 28, 2013

Over 300 political activists and diplomats, gathering in New York City on Jan. 26 for a conference of the Schiller Institute, unanimously endorsed a call by Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) to mobilize support for two important legislative initiatives now before the 113th Congress.

In video-taped remarks to the New York City gathering, Rep. Jones conveyed his greetings and congratulations, declaring, “I am pleased to have this moment of time to welcome you to the conference on ‘A New Paradigm To Save Mankind.’ If there’s ever been a time that we need to have these types of discussions it’s now, not later.”

He continued, “I would like to start by explaining a couple of bills, one I have introduced, the second bill, I am a co-sponsor. The first bill is H. Con. Resolution 3. This basically says that any President without provocation, that bypasses Congress to bomb a foreign country, can be and should be impeached. I would really appreciate if those of you in this conference would join me in this effort by calling your member of Congress and ask that member of Congress if he or she would please join Walter Jones from North Carolina, in H. Con. Resolution 3. To me, the Constitution is like the Bible, it is sacred. And we need to follow the Constitution, especially when we decide to send our young men and women to war.

“The second bill I’d like to present to you, and ask your help, is introduced by my friend Marcy Kaptur. I have joined her in this bill H.R. 129. The reason for this legislation is to reinstate Glass-Steagall. I must tell you that one of the worst mistakes I’ve made, was, one, sending our troops to Iraq to an unnecessary war. And the second was to vote to repeal Glass-Steagall. And I join my friend Marcy Kaptur in trying to get the House of Representatives to bring this bill up for a hearing in the House and then a debate. But just like H. Con. Resolution 3, we need your help with H.R. 129, Marcy Kaptur’s bill to reinstate Glass-Steagall.

“I think these two bills are extremely important, but we cannot get these bills even heard in the Congress, unless you pick up the phone, or you email your member of Congress, and tell that member of Congress to join in H. Con. Resolution 3, that’s dealing with War Powers; and then, H.R. 129 which deals with the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall.

“This conference that you are a part of is very important and very special to the future of America. Thank you for being at this conference! When you leave this conference, please be energized to pick up the phone and let the people in Congress know, that you are aware of what’s happening, especially with these bills.”

Immediately following the playing of the video greetings by Rep. Jones, Bruce Fein, a former U.S. Department of Justice official and a renowned Constitutional lawyer, who addressed the Schiller Institute event earlier in the morning, rose to support and amplify on Rep. Jones’ remarks on the issue of War Powers.

He told the audience:

“I drafted the impeachment resolution for Congressman Jones. [applause] And I want to try to explain the background and the reason for its urgency.

“When the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia in 1776, these were people who were erudite, they had examined the history of conflict, and it appeared that it was the Executive branch that regularly was leading people into war, whether it was David, or otherwise, because, they concluded, during times of conflict, the executive gets all the power, the taxes, the money, the secrecy, the contracts, the footprints in the sands of time. And therefore, the executive had concocted danger out of thin air in order to justify warfare. Therefore, the members universally and unanimously insisted that only the Congress of the United States, which did not confront a conflict of interest in entering war, would not increase but would have its power diminished in times of war, could vote a war resolution. Only the Congress of the United States. And indeed, the first President, George Washington, who himself presided over the Constitutional Convention, stated, before any President can use the military offensively, Congress must provide a declaration of war.

“Thomas Jefferson needed ten statutes, to use force against the Barbary pirates who were engaged in an international crime of piracy.

“Now, why did the Founding Fathers believe it was very important to set a very exacting threshold, in order to move the country from a state of peace, to a state of war? The definition of war, ladies and gentlemen, is it makes what’s customarily murder, legal. It makes what’s customarily murder, legal: In other words, you return to a state of nature. As Cicero said, “In times of war, the law is silent.” It isn’t that there can never be occasions, that justify war. We couldn’t have responded to Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor with indifference. But you need to have very high and exacting standards of provocation, to justify war, because you return to a state of nature, where, as Thomas Hobbes wrote in The Leviathan, “life is poor, brutish, nasty, and short.” Even for the superpowers, ultimately, who will go the same way as the Roman and all other empires, unless they step back from the precipice.

“Because the Founding Fathers stated repeatedly, ‘freedom and liberty cannot exist in a state of perpetual warfare.’ Those instruments of authority and power that were initially concocted to fight foreign danger, will come back domestically and destroy liberty at home. Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what has happened since 9/11. We are told at the outside, ‘we must fight them in Kabul, we must fight them 6,000 miles away, or else we will end up fighting them in Washington, D.C.’ That justified Guantanamo, preventive detention without accusation or trial, unilateral use of force by the President in secrecy, intercepting our phone conversations, emails, and otherwise, without warrants.

“Now, over ten years later, the last iteration of the National Defense Authorization Act, one of the most vocal proponents of war and belligerency, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the famous state that shot the Union at Fort Sumter, he said, in defending the continuing authority of the President, to use not only law enforcement, but the military, to detain American citizens and to dispatch them to Guantanamo Bay, because they’re an ever-present danger to the country, if they were somehow ‘associated,’ whatever that means, with a group ‘associated’ with al-Qaeda, he said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen in the Senate, we need to bring the battlefield here to the United States! We can’t keep it in Kabul! Those terrible people come to the United States, and we know that they could be here, even if they’re in embryo, you can’t wait for that embryo to grow 60 years later and turn into a mushroom cloud — you need to stop now! We need to exterminate it, now! We may need to go to lobotomy, so they can’t learn chemistry and physics to develop these IEDs! We can’t be timid, you know, otherwise that mushroom cloud keeps comin’ up!’

“And that’s what we have.

“Now, what was initially created, to capture and detain persons abroad, now, right in the United States! And as far as legal architecture goes, the President’s claimed authority, to employ Predator drones, against anyone who he decides in secret is an imminent threat — and imminence no longer means, soon to happen; it could be a year from now, two years from now, three years from now. In other words, it means, ‘whatever the President wants it to mean,’ as he borrows from Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, which is where we are. It means he can use the Predator drones here! On us, on me, on anyone who says something, and he says, ‘well, you’re saying something that could be sympathetic to the enemy.’ Wow!

“That means, ladies and gentlemen, that all of our liberties, including our right to life, is not a matter of right, it’s the indulgence of the President. He has chosen for political reasons, not to vaporize us. It’s not something that should let you sit with equanimity: ‘Really?! That sounds like vassalage, rather than citizenry.’

“And even if we have a President, who, because of his own moral compass, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, would refrain from using Predator drones in the United States, think about the principle! It lies around like a loaded weapon, ready for any successor, and sometimes, at one point, it’ll be Caligula, to use, at the claim of any need.

“Is that what our posterity will inherit? Those yet to be born will inherit vassalage and serfdom, rather than citizenry? And I think about this daily, as to what historians will say about us, in this room and elsewhere in the United States: Will they say, what Tacitus wrote about Rome, as it degenerated from a Republic to an Empire. ‘The worst crimes were dared by a few, willed by more, tolerated by all.’ “

Immediately after Fein’s remarks, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder and Chair of the Schiller Institute called upon the conference attendees to endorse Rep. Jones’ call for a full mobilization in support of H.C.R. 3 and H.R. 129. By a resounding unanimous voice vote, the participants endorsed the motions and vowed in deeds, as well as words, to mobilize to pass both Congressional acts.

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IMPEACH OBAMA PETITION REACHES THRESHOLD FOR OFFICIAL RESPONSE

Effort dovetails secession fever sweeping America

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
November 16, 2012

A petition to impeach President Obama for repeatedly violating the Constitution has surpassed the required number of signatures to mandate an official White House response.

The petition, which is posted on the ‘We The People’ section of whitehouse.gov, lists four different examples of how Obama has acted unconstitutionally.

The primary reason is Obama’s failure to obtain congressional authorization for the war on Libya last year. Under Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution, the power to declare war lies with Congress.

In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question.”

In July 2011, Congress specifically rejected the Obama administration’s attempt to seek approval for war on Libya but the White House later supported a NATO-led assault anyway, terming it a “kinetic” action.

Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was “authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.”

In March, Congressman Walter Jones introduced a House Resolution which expressed, “The sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.”

The other reasons listed on the petition to impeach Obama include appointing so-called czars without Senate approval. When Obama signed a 2011 budget package into law which removed funding for Obama’s advisers on climate change, the auto industry, health care and urban affairs, Obama attached a signing statement indicating he would ignore this provision, prompting Rep. Steve Scalise to accuse the President of acting like a “dictator” in choosing which laws to follow and which to ignore.

The petition also notes that, “Forcing US citizens to get health insurance whether they want it or not,” under Obamacare is unconstitutional. When Obamacare was upheld by the Supreme Court last year, it was done so by classifying mandatory health insurance as a tax, otherwise the whole bill would have been unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito all argued that there was a “mountain of evidence” that the mandate is not a tax. “To say that the individual mandate merely imposes a tax is not to interpret the statute but to rewrite it,” they wrote.

The petition to impeach Obama has already surpassed 27,000 votes, meeting the 25,000 requirement to mandate a response by White House officials.

Days after Obama secured his second term in the White House, the call for impeachment was embraced by conservative groups, including the Conservative Majority Fund, which launched a phone call campaign accusing Obama of “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

“Our only recourse now is to move forward with the full impeachment of President Obama. We suspect that Obama is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and that there may be grounds for impeachment as is laid out in the constitution,” the phone message stated. “Further, he may not even be a U.S. citizen because nobody, I mean no one, has seen an actual physical copy of his birth certificate. Impeachment is our only option. And Republicans are already considering Obama investigations. As the nation’s most effective conservative group we are launching the official impeach Obama campaign.”

The Huffington Post scorned the campaign as “outlandish” and “fringe,” but now that the petition to impeach Obama has reached the necessary number of signatures to elicit a White House response, the Obama administration will be forced to at least address the issue.

During a recent appearance on Hannity, Republican Congressman Peter King also suggested that Obama should be impeached over the Benghazi cover up.

The campaign to impeach Obama is dovetailed by an even bigger effort to have states secede from the union, a move denounced by the establishment media as unpatriotic yet labeled by Congressman Ron Paul yesterday as an “important” constitutional principle that the founders believed in.

Radio host Alex Jones has launched a campaign to draft Paul as the head of a secession movement that is based around seceding not from the country, but from the federal government itself, a process which is clearly outlined in the Declaration of Independence.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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RELATED POST: CITIZENS DEMAND INVESTIGATION INTO OBAMA ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PRESIDENT AND SECOND TERM RUN; CONGRESSMAN WALTER B. JONES (NC-3) INTRODUCES H. CON. RES. 107 TO IMPEACH PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

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BARACK OBAMA’S SECOND TERM AS PRESIDENT WILL MARK THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF AMERICA AS THE WORLD’S LARGEST ECONOMY. AS AMERICA’S ECONOMY COLLAPSES, AND THE DOLLAR ENDS, CHINA’S ECONOMY WILL SURPASS THE UNITED STATES IN 2016.

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MOVES WILL CONTINUE BEING MADE TO MERGE THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, AND MEXICO INTO A NORTH AMERICAN UNION WHICH WILL THEN BECOME PART OF THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.

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GEORGE W. BUSH: ‘CANADA, MEXICO AND THE UNITED STATES SHOULD MERGE’

Daily Bell
December 6, 2012

Former President George W. Bush stressed the importance of immigration on Tuesday at a speech in Dallas, throwing himself back in the ring as the debate over reform heats up in Washington. “Immigrants come with new skills and new ideas. They fill a critical part in our labor market. They work hard for a better life,” Bush said at the event, hosted by the George W. Bush Institute and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. – Huffington Post

Dominant Social Theme: Immigrants reinvigorate our collective soul.

Free-Market Analysis: Okay, we made up the headline. George W. Bush has never publicly said that Canada, Mexico and the US should merge into one great big North American Union.

But in our view, he might as well have said it.

He spent a good bit of his second term sneaking around and holding confidential meetings with top leaders of Canada and Mexico. The security deals he made more closely combined civil and military policing, from what we can tell.

And today, of course, there is a “constitution free” zone between Canada and the US where authorities can act unimpeded by such pesky restraints as laws designed to protect people from unnecessary search and seizure.

Coincidence? Toward the end of his term, Bush made a desperate effort to further immigration reform in the US but was soundly rebuffed. What was not widely reported was that Bush’s public effort was merely the capstone of years of private efforts to apparently move the US, Canada and Mexico toward a closer “cooperation.”

And for those who still don’t believe that this is a deliberate and ongoing attempt to create a European-style union in the Americas, there is this report from 2007, courtesy of Webwire.com, excerpted as follows:

Los Angeles, CA (Oct. 10, 2007) – Speaking on the Larry King show, former Mexican President Vicente Fox confirmed every assertion made by Jerome Corsi in his new book, NY Times bestseller “The Late Great U.S.A.: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada” (WND Books, ISBNs 0-9790451-4-2, $25.95, July 2007). Not only did Fox admit that he and George W. Bush have “agreed” to create a common currency, the Amero, he contended that a North American Union is “inevitable.” That’s something that Jerry Corsi takes issue with while applauding Fox’s openness on national television.

“At last we have public confirmation of the pernicious secret activity that’s been going on towards merging Mexico, Canada and the United States,” declares Corsi, whose book became a bestseller shortly after publication. “Personally, I’d like to thank Vincente Fox. His candor about this merger is what’s going to stop it dead in its tracks.”

Corsi continues, “Fox’s appearance with Larry King and, of all places, on The Daily Show constitutes the first time a leader of Mexico, Canada or the U.S. has openly confirmed a plan to create a regional currency called the Amero – a plan I document in detail in ‘The Late Great U.S.A.’” Fox went on to explain how current regional trade agreements between the United States and its hopelessly corrupt neighbor to the south are intended to evolve into other previously hidden aspects of North American integration.

As reported in WorldNetDaily, Larry King, near the end of the broadcast, asked Fox a question e-mailed from a listener: “I would like to know how you feel about the possibility of having a Latin America united with one currency.”

Fox answered in the affirmative, admitting he and George W. Bush had “agreed” to pursue the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas – a free-trade zone extending throughout the Western Hemisphere – and that part of the plan was to institute a regional currency from Canada to the tip of South America!

“Long term, very long term” he said. “What we proposed together, President Bush and myself, it’s ALCA, which is a trade union for all the Americas.”

According to Corsi, Fox has indeed performed a public service. “George W. Bush is president of the United States, not king. He has utterly no right to enter into any such agreement with a foreign country, particularly a hostile one.” During Fox’s tenure as Mexican president, millions of Mexicans entered the United States illegally. In Corsi’s view, this constitutes an invasion that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars while destroying schools and bankrupting hospitals and municipal governments across the country…and is only a taste of what a merger would bring.

“Finally” says the author of “The Late Great U.S.A.,” “here is unequivocal proof, straight from the mouth of Mexico’s former president, that Bush’s goal is to erode United States sovereignty in order to create free movement for Mexico’s peasant class across our border, in the process flooding us with even more anchor babies and illiterates ready and willing to take advantage of our country’s all-too-generous welfare programs.”

To be clear, the above was from a press release about Jerome Corsi’s (then) new book, initiated by conservative website World Net Daily. But courageous reporting by Corsi and others stopped the move toward a NAU at the time.

Every day people pitched in, too. Citizens in Texas protested against the monster highway that was supposed to run to Canada, bisecting the US into two Balkanized nations.

And Bush himself slunk off into the arid, non-political evening after Obama‘s election with nary a peep. Like “gun control,” the meme of a “closer union” had become too public too quickly and the US electorate was overwhelmingly against it.

But now Obama has “won” a second term. (Of course, we don’t believe it for a minute. There was a reason electronic election machinery was installed over the past decade lacking paper trails. Who authorized them? No one seems to know.)

Here Obama goes … and here comes Bush suddenly making a reappearance.

Just coincidence, of course not!

All part of directed history, folks. Yes, Bush is back after modestly withdrawing as a public figure to give President Barack Obama time to be his own man and political figure.

Bush is back and so, seemingly, is the push for a North American Union with its own currency. Here’s some more from the Huffington Post article:

Bush pushed during his second term for comprehensive immigration reform, with the help of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). That bipartisan effort failed in 2007, and hasn’t been taken up again since. But now, after former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney suffered a crushing loss among Latino voters in the November election, a comprehensive immigration reform push will be taken up again, possibly along the lines of Bush’s framework.

Bush has mostly stayed out of the limelight and politics since his presidency ended in early 2009, but his new non-partisan institute may help him re-enter the fray on policy. In July the institute published The 4 Percent Solution, a book that focused on economic growth and partially touched on immigration reform.

Bush Institute executive director James K. Glassman said then that the book emphasizes the need for immigration policy that would “attract the smartest people from around the world.”

Bush is back … with a book!

This is a man who would not commute the death sentence of a young, born-again Christian woman who’d evidently and obviously changed her life in prison. As governor, he callously let her go to her death but now Bush has grown more merciful. This Bush wants immigrants to have the same chance for prosperity that US citizens do.

Of course, between Bush and Obama, there’s not much left of that prosperity. You see, the US’s standard-of-living has to be lowered if a merger is to be effectuated with Mexico.

And Mexico itself has to be destabilized. Drug war, anyone?

The power elite that wants nothing more dearly than global government works on a scale that is generally beyond human comprehension. They use dominant and subdominant social themes – fear-based promotions – to do this and influence billions to agree with one globalist policy or another.

But we analyze these themes and memes every day. You can, too! You see, the Internet has given us the ability to see the patterns and make a diagnosis. More and more people are doing this. We call it the “Internet Reformation.”

Protect yourself. Figure out what “they” are up to.

They may control the hundreds of trillions of central banking dollars, but they don’t control YOU.

Conclusion: We expect a renewed push for the never-admitted NAU. It won’t be presented in those terms, either, but as an immigration debate. For our Canadian friends … Hey, you´re on the menu, too!

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DR. JEROME CORSI: THE DANGERS OF A NORTH AMERICAN UNION

This Conservative Roundtable interview of Jerome Corsi by Howard Phillips reveals how behind closed doors, the US government has collaborated with the governments of Mexico and Canada to merge the three nations into one Socialist mega-state: the “North American Union” (NAU), also known as the “Security and Prosperity Partnership” (SPP).  Dr. Corsi is an investigative journalist for http://www.WND.com where you can find many of his articles exposing the NAU; and he is a best selling author of many books including “Obama Nation.” This interview was taped in 2006: the facts and the plan has not changed, however we have helped slow and stop some elements of this, and Obama has succeeded with enacting some elements of the plan.

Freedom and our Constitution will have no place in this grim Orwellian future. The Dollar could be scrapped for the “Amero” formed by including Mexican and Canadian currencies (or a global UN currency led by Red China, Russia and Venezuela), and Socialist economic policies.

There would be no First and Second Amendments and no limit on the power of government. This is following the exact same path as merging Europe into the European Union; abandoning sovereignty for Socialist conformity, and assigning convenience a far higher priority than freedom. The leaders of the US, Mexico and Canada meet often to enact the NAU: They met in 2011 in separate meetings with Mexican and Canadian leaders, and at joint secret summits in 2009 in Guadalajara Mexico, 2008 in New Orleans, and 2007 in Montebello Canada; each time advancing the cause of surrendering the nation our founding fathers built to secure our freedom.

President Obama abandoned his campaign promise to renegotiate NAFTA and is continuing to push the NAU. In early 2011 he signed an agreement which when implemented will effectively abolish the US/Canadian border, and approved Mexican trucks to take to our roads–and to take American trucking jobs. Obama’s apparent contempt for American patriotism and admiration for America’s enemies gives further cause for exposing the plan for a North American Union.

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UNITED WE FALL

A film by Bryan Law and Dan Dicks “United We Fall” is a documentary about the North American Union that is being developed right now between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. For years this topic has been debated in the news and in political circles as being a possible future for North America. In recent years, the mood has shifted and a rift is developing between those who want a Deeply Integrated North American Community, and those who wish to retain their national sovereignty. This film takes a look at both sides by interviewing both insiders and activists who have been at the heart of this heated debate. The film also looks to the broader agenda of building a world government and its implications.

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CHINA’S ECONOMY WILL SURPASS THE U.S. IN 2016

For the first time, the International Monetary Fund has set a date for the moment when the “Age of America” will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China. And it’s a lot closer than you may think. According to the latest IMF official forecasts, China’s economy will surpass that of America in real terms in 2016.

It provides a painful context for the budget wrangling taking place in Washington right now. It raises enormous questions about what the international security system is going to look like in just a handful of years. And it casts a deepening cloud over both the U.S. dollar and the giant Treasury market, which have been propped up for decades by their privileged status as the liabilities of the world’s hegemonic power.

According to the IMF forecast, whoever is elected U.S. president in 2012, that person will be the last one to preside over the world’s largest economy. Most people aren’t prepared for this. They aren’t even aware it’s that close.

Sadly, most Americans still cling to the hope that if the “next election” will just turn out the right way that things will get better. But the truth is that things are going to stay on the same course no matter who the American people put into office. For many years the status quo seemed to be just fine for most people, but now we are starting to reap the results of the economic seeds that we have sown.

The United States economic decline is starting to accelerate and people are starting to panic. Most Americans may not know why all of this is happening, but what many of them do know is that something in their gut is telling them that things have gone terribly, terribly wrong somehow.

The American Dream is dying. Every month more American families are slipping out of the middle class and into poverty.  The sad part is, very few people see it coming.

In a recent interview with Dmitry Orlov about the coming U.S. economic collapse that was posted on shtfplan.com:

“First you have financial collapse, which is basically the volume of debt that has to be taken on in order for the economy to continue functioning, cannot continue. We’re seeing that right now in Greece, we’re probably going to see that in Japan, we’re definitely at a point now in the United States where even if you raised the income tax to 100 percent, there’s absolutely no way of covering the liabilities of the U.S. federal government. So, we’re at that point now but the workout of the financial collapse is not all quite there. We don’t quite have a worthless currency but that’s also in the works.

That, of course, is followed by commercial collapse especially in a country like the United States that imports two thirds of its oil. A lot of that is on credit and if a little bit of that oil goes missing then the economy starts to fall apart because nothing moves unless you burn oil in the United States and, of course, a lot of goods that are sold everywhere are imported again, on credit.

When the U.S. dollar dies and our financial system collapses we are not going to be able to get all of the things that we need from the rest of the world so cheaply any longer. That is going to cause fundamental changes inside the United States. The U.S. economic news is getting worse and worse, but this is just the beginning. What is eventually going to happen in this country is going to be so nightmarish that most Americans can not even imagine it right now.”

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PENTAGON KNOWS CHINA WILL BE U.S. ENEMY NO. 1 STARTING IN 2017

The World Bank has a sobering forecast for the future of China’s economy. It’s produced a report saying without reform, the globe’s second biggest economy will suffer a major slowdown over the next 20 years. With major consequences for the whole world. Let’s get more on this from author and international consultant Adrian Salbucci, who joins RT from Buenos Aires in Argentina.

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INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY: U.S. OUT AS SOLE SUPERPOWER BY 2030

By BYRON TAU | Politico

A new report by the intelligence community projects that the United States will no longer be the world’s only superpower by 2030.

“In terms of the indices of overall power – GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment – Asia will surpass North America and Europe combined,” the report concludes.

“Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” — prepared by the office of the National Intelligence Council of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence — projects that the “unipolar” world that emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union will not continue.

“With the rapid rise of other countries, the ‘unipolar moment’ is over and no country – whether the U.S., China, or any other country – will be a hegemonic power,” the report argues.

“The United States’ relative economic decline vis-a-vis the rising states is inevitable and already occurring,but its future role in the international system is much harder to assess,” it argues.

“Global Trends” projects that the United States will retain a unique role in the international system — in part because of its history and past leadership.

“The U.S. most likely will remain ‘first among equals’ among the other great powers, due to the legacy of its leadership role in the world and the dominant role it has played in international politics across the board in both hard and soft power,” it argues.

And the intelligence community does not believe the United States will be supplanted as the world’s only superpower by another country.

“The replacement of the United States by another global power and erection of a new international order seems the least likely outcome in this time period,” the report projects.

The report argues that rising powers like China, India and Brazil are not unified by any common ideology and are more focused on their regional role. And the report warns against the consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from the world’s stage.

“A collapse or sudden retreat of US power would most likely result in an extended period of global anarchy,” it argues.

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NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL REPORT: ONLY GLOBALIZATION WILL SAVE THE FUTURE

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
December 11, 2012

In a new report entitled “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds”, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) says that due to global economic changes, shifting in investments and the sudden rise of other nations to buck the US as the world’s superpower, the balance of “megatrends” in sovereign countries is transforming the world. Intelligence agencies in the US consulted with private corporations, academia, think-tanks, those of political influence and leaders in 14 countries; as well as the European Union.
Global dominance is leaving American shores for other world leaders to come and claim their possible rise to power.

Christopher Kojm, chairman of the NIC states: “We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures.”

As the global economy redefines power throughout the world, vulnerabilities have cropped up which have inflated the fears of individual economies and stunted growth. Kojm refers to this symptom as “malleable” and encourages “decision-makers, whether in government or outside, to think and plan for the long term so that negative futures do not occur and positive ones have a better chance of unfolding.”

Matthew Burrows, lead author of the study for the NIC explains that 7 main issues are driving change and accelerating the “tectonic shifts” that are happening across the globe:

• Growth of the middle class
• Access to new technology
• Shifting economic power
• Aging populations
• Urbanization
• Demand for basic resources – food and water
• Energy dependence

The reverberation of the implosion of the euro, potential pandemics, the Chinese economy failures, nuclear war and the ever-present cyber-attack loom in the not-so-distant future and increasingly influence the course of national history for all nations.

The biggest debate implied in the report that if this continued course “will result in a global economic breakdown or whether the development of multiple growth centers will lead to resiliency.”

Constrains of a bourgeoning population continuing to rise is predicted to cause more strain all-around by 2030. The middle class, being a consumer-machine is viewed as unsustainable and a threat to life as we know it. Urbanization is the most logical “quick-fix” to this immediate problem; however there is also the issue of man-made climate change as well as resource allocation which is expected to be in short supply due to the effects of one another.

Resource management is a new concept beyond conservation ideals of the past. It is the mindset being spurred into the social meme to decrease the psychological pressure of the reality we face as access to food, water and energy is incrementally being taken from the general population.

Burrows states: “You have a huge problem on the resource side. How do you manage all this prosperity that is putting a lot of strain on the resources? You have to have collaboration on the technology, you have to have a big energy or water project the world is really geared up for, because otherwise it turns into a bad scenario.”

Governments are expected to coerce the public and private sector corporations into submitting to new constraints on resources as power moves into the hands of global governors and global action is used to maintain order and balance. Predictive models as well as data profiling will assist governmental bodies in tipping the scales and gaining “control over society.”

By making the changes appear to be tipping the scales “more in favor of the individual than the state” the general public is ever-fooled into following their government without question – even as those promises of more freedom are dwindled away to nothing and an all-encompassing control grid is unveiled.

The governing role of the United Nations (UN) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are expected to quell any “ambivalent” or “resentful” feelings that may develop between China and the US as leadership shifts occur. The expectation of a “cyber arms race” is coming into focus as cyber and bio-terror weapons become readily accessible, and national digital infrastructure begins to define how a nation will and is able to defend itself in this new electronic warfare age.

In the report, the necessity of “fusion” wherein the US and China meld into a collaborative global unity is viewed as the solution to the coming problems. Without this scenario, it is envisioned that “interstate conflict[s] increase” and “the US draws inward” which will halt all growth toward globalization.

Failing to fuse together will also result in a world where “inequalities explode as some countries become big winners and others fail. … Without completely disengaging, the US is no longer the ‘global policeman.’”

Communication dominated by social media and electronic signals is a drastic move from the physical realm, yet is projected to take over the world, leaving the stronger nations to battle out who will define the path way into the next century.

Megacities are the next phase of societal living as 2/3rds of the world’s population move into urbanized centers, connected through technological advances and protected by digitally controlled healthcare. In this respect, the current “death” of the middle class is simply viewed as a transformation with the rise of the global middle class wherein the better educated, technologically savvy and physically healthy are coalesced into a one-for-all mindset and the individual is fallen to the wayside for the achievements of humanity as a whole.

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SPECIAL GUEST DR. MATHEW BURROWS ON GLOBAL TRENDS 2030 AND ICT IMPACT

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ROBERT D. KAPLAN: THE RISE OF ASIA

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CHINESE BUYERS LEAD FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN US HOUSING MARKET

By Laura Prabucki | FoxNews

As the U.S. housing market slowly starts to recover, foreign investment is helping it along.

According to the National Association of Realtors, non-American buyers accounted for $82 billion in home sales last year. More than $7 billion of that is by the Chinese, who are now the second largest foreign home purchasers after Canadians. They’re buying high-end, multimillion-dollar homes from California to New York and paying cash.

“They’re probably the top 1 percent of the Mandarin speakers that are coming from China,” said Brent Chang, a Coldwell Banker realtor in Southern California. “They’re really the people who have their own businesses or maybe were part of the government.”

Some of these homes are specifically catered to Chinese buyers. Fox News visited a home listed at $8 million in Pasadena, Calif., that had two kitchens, the smaller one had ventilation for the cooking for aromatic or “stinky” foods like fish. It also has a lower level in-law suite and even a koi pond.

“People from China do a lot more business in their homes so they want their homes to really scream that they’ve made it and they’re successful, ” said Chang.

The Chinese like the U.S. because their money goes further. In Shanghai, $2 million might only get you a two-bedroom condo.

“You get a huge bang for your buck, you get land, you get good schools, you get a safe environment,  nice community life, ” said Linda Chang, a realtor who works with her son, Brent, in the San Marino and Pasadena areas of California.

Chang says while many other real estate markets have suffered, her area has flourished thanks to Chinese and other foreign buyers.

“It’s been fantastic for the U.S. housing market because we have not suffered as other communities have,” said the elder Chang. “In fact, our property values have increased.”

While some of the Chinese buyers live in the U.S. full or part-time, realtors estimate about 40 percent of the homes are for investments. They’re snapping up houses in states hit hard by foreclosures such as Nevada and Florida. Some are buying two or three homes at a time.

According to Shanghai magazine Hurun Report, mainland China has almost 1 million millionaires and nearly half of them say they want to invest in the United States.

“It’s a sign of their status,” said Betty Chan, who deals with Chinese buyers in Las Vegas. “You can show off to your friends and family that I can buy something overseas, not everybody can do it.”

Chan continued: “Most Chinese like to own a Mercedes … it doesn’t matter whether a Mercedes is a good car or not. It’s just showing their status in the community, so owning a foreign house is pretty much a prestigious status in China, so they’re proud to tell their friends: ‘Hey, I own a house overseas.’”

Buyers from China also invested almost $2 billion in commercial property in 2011, or quadruple what they spent several years ago.

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OBAMA HELPS CHINESE INVESTORS PURCHASE US REAL ESTATE TO COMPENSATE FOR 2008 CRASH

Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
December 11, 2012

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) is reporting that thanks to foreign investors, the housing market is beginning to make a recovery. These non-American buyers have purchased $82 billion worth of US homes with $7 billion being Chinese and the second largest investors to the Canadians.

Chinese business owners and possibly government representatives are acquiring a large amount of American real estate with $2 billion in commercial properties in 2011.

The NAR also says that Japanese investors are “buying up America’s landmarks” which has been hailed as an “economic miracle”. The Japanese are interested in owning “high-priced hotels, golf courses, office buildings and condominiums.”

Since 1993, the Japanese have been able to assist the American investor in purchasing “distressed assets” (i.e. foreclosed real estate) by lowering the market values which created astronomically low purchase prices. Now the Chinese from Hong Kong are bringing their money to American shores, buying up properties at an alarming rate.

Canadian investment in US real estate has between 1994 to 1998 to 20.0% along with Germany and the Netherlands.

The NAR praises this boom in foreign investors are a conceptual move from traditional to non-traditional investing. New York is seeing an obvious increase in sales to foreign investors which as contributed to the increasing pace of real estate transactions; while not increasing the value of those properties.

CB Richard Ellis, global real estate advisory firm, asserts that foreign money flooding the US real estate markets means a 1.5% increase to Americans. As property in America is moved into the hands of Asian business-owners and government representatives large portions of New York City, Washington DC, Boston and San Francisco are disappearing from the control of Americans.

In the Miami and Fort Lauderdale areas of Florida 10% of client investors are foreign which accounts for 50% of their business transactions. This trend has been going strong since 2010.

This move is touted as an attempt to turn foreign currency from the implosion being committed in the Euro-Zone. And in protecting their ability to use their fiat currency, investing in hard assets (i.e. property, land) is ensuring the wealthy remain so regardless of whether or not fiat currencies are destroyed across the globe.

The Obama administration is pushing for auctions of foreclosed to foreign investors in bulk sales. The foreclosed properties held by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the Federal Housing Agency (FHA) are of the utmost importance to unload onto foreign investors. By setting the stage for easy money from foreign investors, Obama ensures that those investments are given a major return as more properties are given up for rent rather than resold.

The largest banks in the US, controlled by the technocrats are staunchly opposed to this move by Obama. They include:

• Wells Fargo
• JPMorgan & Chase Co
• Bank of America
• Citigroup

Janet Seiberg of MF Global claims that these foreign investors are contributing billions of dollars to American housing markets and that this is “a great idea, and it’s one of the few things that we’ve heard in several years now that could really help housing in a meaningful way.”

Seiberg points out that Resolution Trust Corporation tried to liquidate real properties to stimulate the housing market – which was a scheme to put money into the pockets of their clients. Other distractions from the actual plot behind this move toward foreign money purchasing American property is purveyed by Morgan Stanley analysts who say that rental-trends have turned ownership of real property into “lower volatility and outsized returns vs. other major asset classes, even when accounting for the housing bubble and subsequent declines.”

Earlier this year, in cities like St. Paul Minnesota, Mayor John Zanmiller’s backed a law restricting the amount of rental space to no more than 10% in any given neighborhood. Zanmiller said in defense of this city action is his claim that, “ . . . Our concern is that Fannie and Freddie are going to start dumping bundles of properties. [Rental limits] ensure that there are not huge clusters of rentals popping up in one particular block or in one particular area of the city.”

The city officials justify this action as claiming the rental numbers bring the property values down. Opponents say there have not been any studies to prove this fact; that city officials are discriminating against the rental community. A 2003 study conducted by the Journal of Housing Research loosely alluded to a correlation between higher home ownership rates and higher home values, ye there was little to no mention of the causation being renters.

In 2008 our financial and monetary system completely collapsed. Since that time the technocrats have been “propping up the system” to make it appear as if everything was fine. In reality our stock market and monetary systems are fake; meaning that there is nothing holding them in place except the illusion that they have stabilized since the Stock Market Crash nearly 5 years ago.

Since this time, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in conjunction with FEMA and other federal agencies have been quickly working to set in place their directives of control under a silent martial law.

The cause for the bailout of the banks was a large sum of cash needed quickly to repay China who had purchased large quantities of mortgage-backed securities that went belly-up when the global scam was realized. When China realized that they had been duped into buying worthless securitized loans which would never be repaid, they demanded the actual property instead. The Chinese were prepared to send their “people” to American shores to seize property as allocated to them through the securitized loan contracts.

To stave this off, the American taxpayers were coerced by former President Bush and former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson. During that incident, the US Senate was told emphatically that they had to approve a $700 billion bailout or else martial law would be implemented immediately. That money was funneled through the Federal Reserve Bank and wired to China, as well as other countries that were demanding repayment for the fraudulent securitizations.

To further avert financial catastrophe, as well as more debt or property seizure threats by the Chinese, the Euro was imploded there by plunging most of the European countries into an insurmountable free-fall for which they were never intended to recover.

All the money that those banks claimed they needed to avert collapse was also sent to the Chinese to add to the trillions of dollars lost during the burst of the housing bubble on the global market.

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OBAMA LETS CHINESE OWN U.S. ENERGY RESOURCES

Beijing acquiring major ownership in oil, natural gas across nation

By Jerome Corsi | World Net Daily

January 26, 2013

NEW YORK – The Obama administration is quietly allowing China to acquire major ownership interests in oil and natural gas resources across the U.S.

The decision to allow China to compete for U.S. oil and natural gas resources appears to stem from a need to keep Beijing economically interested in lending to the U.S. The Obama administration has run $1-trillion-plus annual federal budget deficits since taking office that likely will continue in the second term.

Allowing China to have equity interests in U.S. energy production is a reversal of the Bush administration’s policy. In 2005, the Bush administration blocked China on grounds of national security from an $18.4 billion deal to purchase California-based Unocal Corp.

As WND reported Monday, Beijing has been developing a proposal in which real estate on American soil owned by China would be set up as “development zones” to establish Chinese-owned businesses and bring in its citizens to the U.S. to work.

China leased first oil rights in Texas

China’s first major move into the U.S. oil and natural gas market can be traced to October 2009, when the state-owned Chinese energy giant CNOOC bought a multi-million dollar stake in 600,000 acres of South Texas oil and gas fields.

Reporting the story, Monica Hatcher of the Houston Chronicle suggested China was “testing the political waters for further energy expansion into U.S. energy reserves.”

China’s purchase of U.S. oil and natural gas rights will strike millions of Americans as paradoxical, since the U.S. continues to be a net importer of approximately 60 percent of the oil consumed in the U.S.

The Chronicle reported China paid $2.2 billion for a one-third stake in Chesapeake Energy assets, with CNOCC laying a claim to a share of energy resources in South Texas that could produce up to half a million barrels of oil per day.

The Houston paper reported that as part of the deal, CNOCC agreed to pay approximately $1.1 billion for a share of Chesapeake’s assets in the Eagle Ford, a broad oil and gas formation that runs southwest of San Antonio to the Mexican border.

The Chronicle also reported that the deal with China could create as many as 20,000 jobs in the U.S. and provide the capital Chesapeake needs to increase its rig count in South Texas from 10 to 42 by the end of 2012.

China’s oil interests

Along with CNOOC, which is 100-percent owned by the communist Chinese government, Sinopec Group also is purchasing energy interests in the U.S.

Sinopec Group is the largest shareholder of Sinopac Corporation, a state-owned investment company incorporated in 1998 largely to acquire and operate oil and natural gas interests worldwide.

The Wall Street Journal recently compileda state-by-state list of the $17 billion in oil and natural gas equity interests CNOOC and Sinopec have acquired in the U.S. and Canada since 2010.

• Colorado: CNOOC gained a one-third stake in 800,000 acres in northeast Colorado and southwest Wyoming in a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy Corporation.
• Louisiana: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 265,000 acres in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale after a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.
• Michigan: Sinopec gained a one-third interest in 350,000 acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.
• Ohio: Sinopec acquired a one-third interest in Devon Energy’s 235,000 Utica Shale acres in a larger $2.5 billion deal.
• Oklahoma: Sinopec has a one-third interest in 215,000 acres in a broader $2.5 billion deal with Devon Energy.
• Texas: CNOOC acquired a one-third interest in Chesapeake Energy’s 600,000 acres in the Eagle Ford Shale in a $2.16-billion deal.
• Wyoming: CNOOC has a one-third stake in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming after a $1.27 billion pact with Chesapeake Energy. Sinopec gained a one-third interest in Devon Energy’s 320,000 acres as part of a larger $2.5 billion deal.

The Wall Street Journal reported China’s strategy – implemented since 2010 by Fu Chengyu, who has served as chairman of both CNOOC and Sniopec – is to “seek minority stakes, play a passive role, and, in a nod to U.S. regulators, keep Chinese personnel at arm’s length from advanced U.S. technology.”

China moving into Gulf of Mexico

After a difficult political struggle, China received permission last month from the Canadian government to make its largest overseas acquisition of oil and natural gas interests outside China, acquiring Canadian energy producer Nexen Inc. for $15.5 billion. In the process, China acquired Nexen oil and natural gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico in U.S. waters.

Although the deal still requires approval from CIFUS, the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment, the acquisition of Nexen’s high-tech ultra-deepwater drilling resources in the Gulf of Mexico was a major reason China sought to acquire the company. CNOOC, a company that derives nearly all its domestic capacity from shallow waters, has announced a goal of producing 1 million barrels of oil per day from ultra-deepwater oil and natural gas facilities by 2020, more than doubling current capacity.

In 2010, China passed the U.S. to become the world’s largest energy consumer, according to the International Energy Agency. China consumed 2.252 billion tons of oil equivalent in 2009, approximately 4 percent more than the U.S.

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CHINESE BID WINS AUCTION FOR A123

By Anousha Sakoui | The Financial Times

A Chinese car parts maker has won the auction for bankrupt US battery maker A123 Systems, in a further success in international dealmaking for Chinese groups.

Wanxiang Group bid about $257m to win the auction for the battery maker, which supplies electric cars. The sale still requires the approval of the Delaware court where A123 filed for bankruptcy.

The US group will formally submit the bid to the court for approval on Tuesday. The sale will also require the approval of the US Committee on Foreign Investment.

In an effort to ease political approval, Wanxiang will not be taking over A123’s defence business, which will be sold to Illinois-based Navitas for $2.25m.

“We think we have structured this transaction to address potential national security concerns expressed during the review of our previous investment agreement with Wanxiang announced in August, as well as to address concerns raised by the Department of Energy,” said Dave Vieau, chief executive of A123.

Wanxiang beat a joint bid by Johnson Controls of Milwaukee and Japan’s NEC. Its victory comes after Cnooc, the Beijing backed oil group, on Friday secured Canadian approval for its $18bn bid for Nexen, the biggest Chinese M&A deal on record.

China M&A in the year to December 7 reached $145bn, a record for any year to this point, according to Thomson Reuters.

In October, A123 – which was awarded a $249m grant from the US government – became the latest stimulus-backed company to file for bankruptcy, prompting a fresh round of attacks on President Barack Obama’s support for emerging energy technologies.

The company said it was seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection “to provide for an orderly sale” of its operations and “help maximise the value of its assets for its stakeholders”.

The company had attempted to secure a rescue deal with Wanxiang before it went into administration.

The company had been a flagship of Mr Obama’s attempt to stimulate new environmentally friendly industries but ran into difficulties as a result of slower than expected sales of electric cars.

Its bankruptcy follows that of other companies backed by US government grants or loan guarantees, including Solyndra, a manufacturer of solar modules, Abound Solar, another panel maker, and Ener1, which also makes batteries for electric cars.

A123 did not get a loan guarantee but was awarded the $249m grant as part of the Obama administration’s stimulus in 2009. By the end of June it had drawn down only about $130m of the money because demand for its products was not strong enough to justify additional investment in manufacturing capacity.

It also received grants and tax credits from the state of Michigan of up to $141m.

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SALE OF A123 TO CHINESE FIRM KEEPS 1,000 JOBS IN MICHIGAN

By David Shepardson | Detroit News Washington Bureau

A Chinese firm late Tuesday acquired most of bankrupt A123 Systems’ assets, as it announced the battery maker’s chief executive has departed .

The Obama administration earlier Tuesday approved the sale to A123′s U.S. subsidiary, Chicago-based Wanxiang Group Corp., a move that will keep about 1,000 jobs in Michigan.

Earlier, Wanxiang said it has received approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to complete its acquisition of substantially all of the non-government business assets of A123 Systems Inc.

The sale officially closed late Tuesday, the company said.

“We are excited to add A123 Systems to our growing portfolio of companies as we continue to expand on our strategy of investing in the automotive and clean-tech industries in the U.S.,” said Pin Ni, president of Wanxiang America. “A123 will continue to offer cutting-edge technology for vehicle electrification and grid-scale energy storage, strong manufacturing and systems engineering capabilities and a world-class R&D team. Wanxiang America will continue to foster the technologies A123 has worked so hard to develop, and we believe this combination positions A123 for long-term success.”

The company said A123 CEO Dave Vieau left to “pursue other interests.”

In December, Wanxiang won a bankruptcy court auction to acquire most of A123 for $256.6 million, including its grid and commercial business assets and its U.S. facilities in Michigan, Massachusetts and Missouri.

A123 had vowed to create 3,000 jobs by the end of 2012, but has created only 1,300. It won $249.1 million in grants from the Obama administration in 2009 to build battery plants in Romulus and Livonia, but has spent $132 million. It also received more than $125 million in tax credits and funding from the state of Michigan.

The Energy Department said it worked during A123′s bankruptcy to keep jobs in Michigan.

“The Energy Department’s Recovery Act grant to A123 was used for the construction of brick-and-mortar advanced battery manufacturing facilities at two Michigan locations,” said Energy Department spokesman Bill Gibbons. “Consistent with the intent of that investment, the purchase of these assets includes the Energy Department’s requirement that the plants and equipment partially paid for by the Recovery Act stay in Michigan and continue to operate, generating job opportunities for American workers and helping to establish a domestic manufacturing base for this growing global market.”

Navitas Systems, a Woodridge, Ill.-based company, has agreed to buy A123′s Ann Arbor-based government business, including all U.S. military contracts, for $2.25 million.

The committee, which is headed by the Treasury Department and includes other government agencies, makes no public announcement of decisions and releases no written findings.

“It doesn’t surprise me that they approved it,” said Josh Zive, a Washington lawyer who represents companies before the committee, noting that Wanxiang agreed not to buy the military and government contract assets.

President Barack Obama hailed A123 and even invited Vieau — the now departed CEO — to the Rose Garden in April 2010.

“This is what happens when we place our bets on American workers and American businesses. And we’re going to continue working to help them manufacture more success stories like these across all sectors of our economy,” Obama said.

In an interview Tuesday, Jason Forcier, who heads A123′s automotive operations, said automakers are focusing more on “micro-hybrids” — a “big shift” away from EVs. A123 will be launching a micro-hybrid project for a major German automaker this spring, he said.

He said the deal “really represents the best possible outcome for employment in Michigan.”

Wanxiang wants to continue to grow the business and will operate A123 as a wholly owned, stand-alone company. Forcier said Wanxiang has said publicly and privately that the company is committed to Michigan and A123′s Michigan operations.

A123 filed for bankruptcy in October and initially sought approval to sell the bulk of itself to Johnson Controls Inc. in less than six weeks.

A123 has 625 employees at plants in Romulus and Livonia and an Ann Arbor office, along with 348 temporary workers in the state.

The Waltham, Mass., startup — which has lost $900 million since 2007 — received $50 million in debtor in possession financing from Wanxiang.

In November, Michigan’s two senators and 11 House members raised concerns that the acquisition of A123 by a Chinese company may pose a threat to U.S. national security.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner — who chairs the Committee on Foreign Investment, which reviews the sale of U.S. companies — Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit; Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing; and members of the House raised concerns.

Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Zeeland, said Tuesday the decision hasn’t “changed my opinion that the core technology developed by A123 and the intellectual property that goes along with it cannot be separated along A123′s business lines. It is also apparent that this technology was developed using taxpayer dollars through President Obama’s stimulus program and is now falling into the hands of a foreign company. American taxpayers should not be funding technology that will in turn be used in competition against American companies.”

Huizenga said he is “currently looking into legislative solutions to prevent both taxpayer-funded and sensitive technologies from being sold to foreign companies in the future.”

U.S. Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, also criticized the decision.

“Technology produced by A123 and funded by U.S. taxpayers should not simply be shipped off to China so that the military applications for these materials can be reproduced abroad, Thune said.

Grassley agreed: “We don’t have any answers on whether U.S. national security concerns are protected. The only thing that’s clear is a foreign-owned company will benefit from the millions of dollars given to A123 through the president’s stimulus package. That’s troubling.”

The company is the latest in a string of advanced battery firms that have gone bankrupt despite millions of dollars in subsidies from state governments and the George W. Bush and Obama administrations.

In January, New York-based Ener1 filed for bankruptcy protection. A similar filing was made in March by Canada-based Azure Dynamics, which has offices in Oak Park and installs the battery electric vehicle powertrain in Ford’s Transit Connect.

The Obama administration awarded $2.4 billion in stimulus grants in August 2009 for advanced batteries and electric vehicles, saying the awards would create thousands of jobs.

The president set a goal of 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2015, but sales have totaled fewer than 40,000 since 2011. Many battery suppliers have created a small fraction of the promised jobs.

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UNITED NATIONS NOW SEEKS TOTAL CONTROL OVER THE INTERNET

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REX 84: GOVERNMENT SILENTLY POSTIONS FOR MARTIAL LAW AS FINANCIAL COLLAPSE ARRIVES IN AMERICA

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UNITED STATES ARMY PREPARES TANKS FOR WAR ON AMERICA; TRAINING MILITARY POLICE TO DRIVE TANKS ON U.S. STREETS; SIGHTINGS OF VEHICLES PROVOKES FEARS OF MARTIAL LAW

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CITIZENS DEMAND INVESTIGATION INTO OBAMA ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PRESIDENT AND SECOND TERM RUN

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WHITE HOUSE SETS GROUND RULES FOR LOCAL INTERVIEWS

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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SHUTS DOWN OIL DRILLING OUT WEST

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GUS LUBIN: THE COMING GLOBAL WATER CRISIS THAT WILL SHAKE HUMANITY TO ITS CORE

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OBAMA MAY LEVY CARBON TAX TO CUT U.S. DEFICIT, HSBC SAYS

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INHOFE: OBAMA DELAYING NEW POLLUTION RULES TO BOOST HIS REELECTION

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TWENTY PREDICTIONS FOR 2013, THE YEAR OF OPPRESSION AND INSANITY

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
January 1, 2013

2013 will go down in history as the year of global insanity. The Earth isn’t going crazy, but many of the people who inhabit it certainly are. Madness is about to be unleashed on many fronts: economic, social, political, financial and more. In the near future, you will look back on the Christmas of 2012 and think, “Wow, those were the GOOD times!”

Do not read this article if you wish to continue frolicking in the land of TV delusions, fake news and celebrity gossip. These are the darkest real-world predictions I’ve ever published, and they are not things I ever wish to see come true. But I can’t deny the reality of where things are headed. If we project present-day trends into 2013, 2014 and 2015, the picture becomes a multi-front nightmare.

The madness in America has reached a crescendo. Nearly half the population is now under the mind control of a “cult of personality” political figure named Obama who is deliberately dismantling America one day at a time. Unlike Bush who was simply a tyrant, Obama is a charismatic tyrant, and that’s far more dangerous. As you may recall, Adolf Hitler was also highly charismatic and won over the hearts and minds of his followers, using many of the very same speech patterns as Obama, an expert in neurolinguistic programming and emotional manipulation.

Because the population has been mesmerized into a state of near-total complacency, an actual police state society is being rolled out right before our eyes, complete with the planned destruction of the Bill of Rights and the characterization of anyone who believes in the Constitution as a “terrorist.”

Both Republicans and Democrats are doing nothing to stop it, as they have been taken over by corporate interests or have been promised positions of power in the new society that they plan to install after they crush the Republic.

With Obama at the helm, America is being turned into a gulag nation, complete with the sexual abuse of the citizens by federal agents (TSA), secret execution lists of American citizens (NDAA), secret gulag prisons and the government’s continued staging of mass shootings (Aurora and more) to keep the population psychologically controlled in a never-ending state of fear.

2013 will be 1984 on steroids

The ultimate plan, as you will see rolled out over the next few years, is installing Communism in America, which requires the complete government takeover of the economy, the total disarmament of the population so that people cannot fight back, the “elimination” of all who believe in freedom and liberty, and the official destruction of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I wish I could say 2013 would be the year of “love” and “peace,” but unfortunately these will be used to provide a cover story for hatred, destruction and war. President Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, is already one of the most repugnant war criminals in human history, having launched or continued eight regional wars, complete with the dropping of “peace bombs” on innocent women and children.

As long as Obama talks about “love” at home — even while firing drone missiles at innocent children in the Middle East — he is worshipped by his mind-slave minions in the USA. By invoking LOVE, Obama emotionally disarms the People and furthers his agenda of hatred, destruction and enslavement. His supporters have lost discernment and unknowingly are supporting the rise of the next tyrannical dictator.

If we even have a Presidential election in 2016, I will be surprised. 2012 may have witnessed the last shreds of the Republic being deliberately terminated.

The following predictions apply from 2013 to the end of 2015, as I always make predictions in three-year blocks.

#1) The global debt collapse arrives

The so-called “fiscal cliff” is only the beginning of what we’re about to witness. When record-low tax revenues are reported in April because of Obama’s planned destruction of the U.S. economy, ratings organizations will downgrade U.S. debt, setting off a global selloff that could thrust America into a “nightmare” scenario of being unable to sell more debt (or at least not at reasonable interest rates).

This, in turn, would result in the Fed turning solely to printing new money to buy U.S. debt, quickly accelerating into compounding hyperinflation.

#2) Obama administration attempts to gut the Second Amendment

Obama is coming after the guns, and he’s aided by some of the most insidious and psychotic individuals walking the planet today: Joe Biden, Dianne Feinstein, Michael Moore and others.

Their goal is the complete disarmament of the American people so that the government has total control over all firepower, just like in China, North Korea and Hitler’s Germany.

It’s all pure hypocrisy, of course, because all of these people have their own armed bodyguards. Obama’s children are protected by eleven armed guards in a private school. Michael Moore has armed body guards. Dianne Feinstein has a concealed weapons permit in California. They all want themselves to be able to have weapons, but not YOU, the “little people” of America.

#3) Martial Law declared across America

2013 is the year things may break out into mass violence in America. Look for Obama to declare Martial Law and announce a mandatory nationwide gun confiscation measure.

This, of course, will lead to even more violence as armed citizens begin fighting back against an out-of-control federal government that attempts to seize power and nullify the entire U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights.

#4) Extreme shortages of guns, ammo, magazines as their barter value skyrockets

Already, guns, ammo and magazines are virtually impossible to find and buy. This shortage will continue throughout 2013 and even well into 2014. Even if strict new gun control laws are not passed, the existing shortage cannot be filled until roughly the end of 2013.

The wait time on purchase many new rifles has already reached one year. It’s likely to get even worse in 2013.

#5) Tactical weapon strikes target Iran

The U.S. is very likely to be involved in military strikes on Iran. The excuse will be that “Iran has nuclear weapons,” but of course so does America, and the leadership of America is clinically insane.

This old “weapons of mass destruction” sham was the same excuse President Bush used to attack Iraq, remember? Now Obama will use essentially the same ploy to launch another “Peace Prize” war on a nation of innocent people. After all, he’s the President of LOVE, right? And there’s no better way to express LOVE for people than to bomb their children into bloody bits, Obama believes.

#6) Massive false flag attack carried out in USA and blamed on patriots

This is the big prediction for 2013 – 2015. A very large false flag attack will be carried out by the government and used to blame patriots and gun owners. This attack will be, on the small side, another school massacre or the bombing of a government building. On the large side, it could even be the release of a radiological weapon in a major U.S. city.

The false flag 9/11 attack worked so well to strip away America’s rights and freedoms that it will be repeated. But this time it could be much larger, potentially involving the death of hundreds of thousands of people. There is no limit to the evil of Big Government. They will do anything to maintain power and destroy liberty, even if it means “sacrificing” a few hundred thousand innocent lives. Once this happens, Obama will once again take to the airways and pronounce his “LOVE” for the American people.

#7) DHS arms the TSA and begins insane abuses of Americans on roadway checkpoints

The TSA will soon be armed. That’s the plan, didn’t you know? Take the most psychotic government workers in the nation — who are already known pedophiles, drug dealers, child porn dealers, thieves and shakedown artists — and arm them with government weapons to be used against the American people.

Soon, the roadway checkpoints will be set up and armed TSA goons will be molesting women and children on highways just like they already do in the airports!

Remember, TSA “officers” receive no police training. They take no oath of office. They are not “law enforcement” by any stretch of the imagination. They receive a week’s worth of training and then are let loose on the American people. (A typical police officer, in great contrast, will receive many months of training and swear an oath to protect the Constitution.) The uniforms worn by TSA are actually costumes with fake badges that mean nothing more than a plastic badge you might buy at a toy store.

#8) The rise of the Resistance: Secret resistance groups begin to form across America

As the crushing of liberties continues across America (censorship, destroying the Bill of Rights, secret arrests, etc.) you will witness the rise of resistance groups. They may take many forms, including info-warriors, online resistance, protests, and possibly even physical resistance groups that carry out missions in the physical world.

The more aggressive, abuse and outrageous the government becomes, the more easily resistance groups will be able to recruit members. This is just an historical fact. In times of peace and fairness, there is little or no resistance. But in times of government oppression and tyranny, resistance grows quickly.

#9) Attacks on the First Amendment accelerate as government seizes websites

You can expect websites like NaturalNews.com, InfoWars.com and many others to be seized by the government following a declaration of Martial Law. The purpose of this is to prevent people from asking questions or being informed. The U.S. press, already tightly controlled by the White House, will be completely taken over to become state-run media much like exists in China.

Natural News is right now working on an “information underground railroad” technology that can allow readers to stay in touch with us without using websites, browsers or email.

#10) The rise of violent rhetoric among the population as disagreements turn to threats

The irreconcilable differences between government worshippers and government skeptics will reach a boiling point, especially over the issue of gun control. Those who worship government vehemently believe that all people should be disarmed and tightly controlled by the “all knowing” government, which they see as the ultimate source of wisdom and love. True Americans, on the other hand, rightfully see government as inherently evil and destructive, and they believe in individual liberty, the Constitution, and genuine patriotism.

Expect to see isolated acts of violence between these two groups. Remember, the government worshippers want to see all the Constitutionalists rounded up and sent to concentration camps (FEMA camps). But Constitutionalists will not willingly go. They will fight back against tyranny.

#11) Global government makes its move

Expect to see UN troops in U.S. cities before the end of 2015. The planned rollout of conflict in the USA is going to be followed by UN troops arriving on the scene to “rescue” the USA.

The whole point of all this is to take over America, disarm the entire nation, and move toward global government run by the insanely criminal United Nations. The military occupation of America will be called a “peacekeeping mission” just like it’s called everywhere else that UN troops invade another nation.

Once UN troops start showing up in America, you can expect armed resistance to really kick into high gear. Blue helmets make easy targets for American sharpshooters, and the American people have stored away billions of bullets for a rainy day. There will be no hesitation to fight back against enemy occupation.

#12) Accelerated mainstream media attacks on patriots, preppers and veterans

As all this is happening, the media will unleash a wave of vicious attacks on anyone who owns a gun or believes in the Constitution. Gun owners will be immediately labeled “terrorists,” and anyone who talks about the Bill of Rights or the Constitution will be subject to arrest and imprisonment in Obama’s secret gulag prisons (NDAA).

#13) Disagreement with the government characterized a “mental disorder”

The criminally-run industry of psychiatry will enter into the fray, providing a convenient “mental disorder” label that can be used to arrest and medicate anyone who opposes government.

“Obedience Defiance Disorder” is already on the books in the industry of psychiatry, and it will be used to deny firearms to anyone who makes any statement whatsoever against the government. If you post a pro-gun comment on Facebook, for example, not only will your Facebook account be terminated, you can also be arrested and drugged for having a “mental disorder.”

#14) Continued rise in unemployment, food stamps, welfare as Obama accelerates deliberate destruction of U.S. economy

Obama’s planned destruction of the U.S. economy will accelerate from 2013 – 2015, causing millions more people to lose their jobs. Employers will continue offshoring jobs, slashing job positions and job hours. Food stamp rolls will balloon, and the ultimate goal is to make more people entirely dependent on the government so that they will continue to vote for whichever candidates promise the most aggressive expansion of collectivist government.

#15) Criminalization of preparedness activities as government outlaws ammo storage of private citizens

The storage of ammunition, firearms and even food will be outlawed in America. Preparedness activities will be considered “acts of treason” against the nation, and people will be arrested and imprisoned for “prepping.”

The government, of course, will continue to stockpile ammo, weapons, food and survival gear. But that’s only for government. All private citizens will be criminalized for such actions.

#16) Riots in the streets, followed by Martial Law

At some point in all this, riots will break out. This could be triggered by any number of things: financial crash, bank holidays, the announcement of Martial Law, food shortages, etc.

No matter what the cause, riots will be used to further monopolize power in the hands of government by having government instigators join the riots and start throwing explosives or firing guns. This will allow the media and the government to characterize all crowds as “terrorists” and start opening fire on protesters everywhere. If this happens, it will accelerate the rise of the resistance.

#17) Deliberate food shortages used as a weapon of government control

Thanks to record crop failures in 2012, food shortages are already going to hit in 2013. But they could be made far worse by the government announcing Martial Law and then declaring price controls on food staples. This will result in immediate shortages. The government will then try to step in and control food distribution and supply, creating a total nightmare scenario for citizens.

Food will be denied to areas that have a large number of resistance members. This will primarily target urban areas, where most people own firearms and know how to use them. The strategy of the dictatorial government will become, “Starve ‘em out!” (It won’t work, of course, because country folks know how to raise their own food.)

#18) Weather becomes even more radicalized, with droughts, floods, freezes

You can fully expect 2013 to be another year of radical weather around the globe. Expect yet more food shortages to occur as crops fail due to floods, droughts and freezes.

#19) Solar weather gets nasty: Solar flares threaten communications

Speaking of weather, solar weather will also take a turn toward the extreme. The sun is entering a high-activity phase of its cycle, and this could play havoc with satellites and even the power grid.

If a large solar flare achieves a direct hit on the planet, it could cause widespread power grid failures followed by a chain of nuclear power plant meltdowns globally.

This could cause a massive population collapse and render large sections of the planet uninhabitable for centuries.

#20) You will be told the answer to all our problems is “MORE government!”

No matter what happens in 2013 – 2015, you will be told that the answer is to have bigger government controlling more of your money and your life. The only reason we have problems today, we’re told, is because government doesn’t yet have enough control. If we would only give up our paychecks, our jobs, our private property, our rights and our freedoms, government will “provide” for everyone!

Obamatopia!

Of course, there are countries where this has already been tried. Those countries are called North Korea, China, Cuba, etc. Are these countries shining examples of freedom and utopia? Nope, they’re the hell holes of the world where disarmed populations suffer under the brutality of communist regimes.

That’s the future that lays ahead for America if something doesn’t change. Obama has been installed in the White House precisely for the purpose of “terraforming” America into a communist nation. If the American people remain asleep and apathetic, he may actually succeed.

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50 PREDICTIONS FOR 2013

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Jan 2, 2013

Are you ready for a wild 2013?  It should be a very interesting year.  When the calendar flips over each January, lots of people make lots of lists.  They make lists of “resolutions”, but most people never follow through on them.  They make lists of “predictions”, but most of those predictions always seem to end up failing.  Well, I have decided to put out my own list of predictions for 2013.  I openly admit that I won’t get all of these predictions right, and that is okay.  Hopefully I will at least be more accurate than most of the other armchair prognosticators out there.  It is important to look ahead and try to get a handle on what is coming, because I believe that the rest of this decade is going to be extraordinarily chaotic for the U.S. economy.  The false bubble of debt-fueled prosperity that we are enjoying right now is not going to last much longer.  When it comes to an end, the “adjustment” is going to be extremely painful.  Those that understand what is happening and have prepared for it will have the best chance of surviving what is about to hit us.  I honestly don’t know what everybody else is going to do.  Many of the people that don’t see the coming collapse approaching will be totally blindsided by it and will totally give in to despair when they realize what has happened.  But there is no excuse for not seeing what is coming – the signs are everywhere.

So with that being said, the following are 50 bold predictions for 2013…

#1 There will be a major fight between the Republicans and the Democrats over raising the debt ceiling.  This will be one of the stories that dominates news headlines in the months of February and March.

#2 Most of the new “revenue” that will be raised by tax increases in 2013 will come out of the pockets of the middle class.

#3 No matter what “fiscal deals” the Democrats and the Republicans make in 2013, the federal budget deficit will still end up being greater than a trillion dollars for the fifth consecutive year.

#4 The credit rating of the U.S. government will be downgraded again in 2013.

#5 The Federal Reserve, along with major central banks all over the globe, will continue to wildly print money.

#6 There will be more criticism of the Federal Reserve in 2013 than at any other time since it was created back in 1913.

#7 The term “currency war” will be used by the media more in 2013 than it was in 2012.

#8 The movement away from the U.S. dollar as the primary reserve currency of the world will pick up momentum.  This will especially be true in Asia.

#9 The economic depressions in Greece and Spain will get even worse and unemployment in the eurozone will go even higher in 2013.

#10 A financial crisis in Europe will cause officials to grasp for “radical solutions” that will surprise many analysts.

#11 The unemployment rate in the United States will be higher by the end of 2013 than it is now.

#12 The percentage of working age Americans with a job will fallbelow 58 percent by the end of the year.

#13 At least one “too big to fail” bank will fail in the United States by the end of 2013.

#14 By the end of the year, more people than ever will understand what “derivatives” are, and that will be because they have caused major problems in the financial world.

#15 We will see the beginnings of another major housing crisis before the end of 2013 and foreclosure activity will start rising once again.

#16 We will see another new wave of “tent cities” start to go up in communities around the nation before the end of the year.

#17 There will be another major drought in the United States this upcoming summer and there will be widespread crop failures once again.

#18 The massive dust storms that we have seen roll through cities like Phoenix in recent years will become even larger and even more intense.

#19 Traffic along the Mississippi River will be significantly interrupted at some point during 2013.  This will be a very negative thing for the economy.

#20 Food prices will soar in 2013.  This will especially be true for meat products.

#21 In some of the poorer areas of the globe, major food riots will break out.  Governments will have trouble containing the civil unrest.

#22 There will be more genetically-modified foods in our supermarkets than ever before, and more Americans than ever will reject them and will seek out alternatives.

#23 The average price of a gallon of gasoline in 2012 was about$3.60.  The average price of a gallon of gasoline in 2013 will be lowerthan that.  Yes, you read that correctly.

#24 The number of vehicle miles driven in the United States will continue to decline in 2013.

#25 The Dow will end 2013 significantly lower than it is right now.

#26 When the final statistics for 2013 are compiled, U.S. share of global GDP will be less than 20 percent for the first time in modern history.  Back in the year 2001, our share of global GDP was 31.8 percent.

#27 The U.S. Postal Service will continue to experience massive financial difficulties and will lay off personnel.

#28 As violence in our public schools becomes increasingly worse, more Americans families than ever will decide to home school their children.

#29 The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress will makean all-out attempt to pass gun control measures in 2013.  When their efforts on the legislative front are stalled somewhat by Republicans in the House, Obama will use his executive powers to further his gun control agenda.

#30 One of the cities with the strongest gun laws in the nation, Chicago, had 532 murders in 2012 and it is now considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the planet.  By the end of 2013, the murder total in Chicago will be above 600.

#31 There will be an increasing amount of tension between state governments and the federal government.  The issue of “states rights” will move front and center at various points in 2013.

#32 CNN will continue to sink to horrifying new lows.  Piers Morgan will end up leaving the network before the end of the year.

#33 The number of Americans on food stamps will surpass 50 million for the first time ever at some point during 2013.

#34 The U.S. trade deficit with China in 2013 will be well over 300 billion dollars.

#35 The phrase “made in China” will increasingly be viewed as a reason not to buy a product as Americans become more educated about the millions of good jobs that we have lost to China over the past decade.

#36 We will see increasing cooperation between the governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico and border restrictions will be loosened.

#37 There will continue to be a mass exodus of families and businesses out of the state of California.  The favorite destination will continue to be Texas, but Texas residents will become increasingly resentful of all of these new transplants.

#38 There will be some truly jaw-dropping examples of violence by parents against their own children in 2013.  Many of these stories will make headlines all over the nation.

#39 The percentage of Americans that are obese will continue to riseand will set another new all-time record in 2013.

#40 There will be more war in the Middle East in 2013.  But it will only set the stage for even more war in the Middle East in 2014 and 2015.

#41 U.S. troops will be deployed in more countries than ever before in 2013.

#42 Volcanic eruptions and major earthquakes along the Ring of Fire will make headlines all over the globe in 2013.

#43 Giant sinkholes will continue to appear all over the United Statesand all over the globe, and scientists will continue to struggle to find an explanation for why it is happening.

#44 The peak of the solar cycle in 2013 will cause significant problems for satellite communications.

#45 The U.S. government will put more resources into the surveillance of the American people than ever before, but most Americans won’t mind all of this surveillance because they have become convinced that it is important to give up some of our liberties for more “security”.

#46 Our infrastructure (roads, bridges, tunnels, airports, sewers, electrical grids, etc.) will be in worse shape by the end of 2013 than it is now.

#47 The percentage of “two parent households” in the United States will continue to decline.

#48 “Political correctness” will reach ridiculous new heights during 2013, and more Americans than ever will start to rebel against it.

#49 There will be more anger at the wealthy in 2013 than at any other time in modern history.

#50 There will be some shocking political scandals in Washington D.C. in 2013.  We will see some high profile resignations by the end of the year.

Once again, please keep in mind that I do not expect to be 100% correct about all of these things.  I am just trying to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together just like everyone else is.

But I do hope to have a better track record than most of the other people putting out lists of predictions at the beginning of this year.  So save this list and let’s revisit it at the end of the year.

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GERALD CELENTE: TRENDS OUTLOOK FOR 2013

Published on Jan 23, 2013

Gerald Celente, TrendsJournal.com, who identifies important trends he sees ahead in 2013.

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GERALD CELENTE: ON 2013, GOLD, SILVER, AND WORLD WAR III

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

Trends forecaster Gerald Celente predicts the global financial system will continue to be propped up.  Celente says, “The scheme continues to go, the scheme being dumping cheap money into the system to perpetuate an economy that should have crashed in 2008.  So, for 2013, our best shot is more of the same, but worse.”  Celente’s advice for people who want to protect themselves financially, “Continue to buy gold and silver because a currency war has broken out.”  Celente says gold’s assent has stalled because the financial elite “rigged the game” just like the $800 trillion global LIBOR interest rate market.  Celente asks, “Don’t you think they’re rigging the gold and silver markets?”  Celente contends the fuse is lit on the Middle East and North Africa.  He thinks, “The Arab Spring has nothing to do with a democracy movement.  It has to do with far too few having much too much and way too many having much too little.”  Celente predicts, “If anybody attacks Iran, it will be full-fledged World War III.”  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Gerald Celente, publisher of The Trends Journal.

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YOU KNOW HOW THIS ENDS RIGHT? THIS ENDS THROUGH WORLD WAR

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
January 1, 2013

In 2006, when Americans were flying high on ever-expanding credit and double digit real estate growth, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass came to the conclusion that something was very wrong. He and his investors determined that a massive real estate bubble was forming in sub-prime mortgages. But rather than just making a prediction, they put their money where their mouth was, and took a $4 billion gamble that the real estate market was about to detonate.

At the time, many in the industry and within financial circles thought him crazy.

History, however, proves he was right.

When the real estate bubble did finally burst, stock markets plummeted and mortgage backed securities fell to pennies on the dollar. Bass and his hedge fund made billions in the process.

Bass’ foresight was 20/20, and now he has issued a warning so dire that it, like the real estate crisis and recession that followed, is unimaginable for most Americans.

In many of these situations the quantitative analysis is already done. It’s just a question of when will this unravel and how will it unravel, which I think is the key when we’re thinking about the chronology of events and the likelihood of events going forward.

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Something that I think is really important to pay attention to, in the last 10 years debts around the world – this is total credit market debts, this is on balance sheets, sovereign obligations, corporate debt, household debt – has grown from $80 trillion to just over $200 trillion.

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We sit today at the world’s largest peacetime accumulation of debt in world history…

…You know how this ends right?

This ends through war…

…I don’t know who’s going to fight who, but I’m fairly certain in the next few years you will see wars erupt, and not just small ones…

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You’re going to see more social unrest.

You saw HUGE riots in Greece, and you’re seeing HUGE riots in other parts of the world over food (and lack of food) and those are actually derivatives of the financial problems that we’re seeing. We’re exporting inflation to some other nations. Going forward it’s going to be a problem.

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They’re not going to tell you [that a collapse is coming]. You’re going to have to see it for yourself. [During the Tequila crisis], the Mexican government affirmed they would not default, that they would not devalue, almost daily. The day after they said “we wont devalue,” they devalued by 60%.

The government’s never going to tell you that it’s going to happen.

Greece’s Yunker said recently, ‘When it becomes serious—you have to lie’. These guys are never going to tell you the truth, because they can’t tell you the truth. Their job is to promote confidence, not to tell you the truth.

Watch Kyle Bass:
Full Speech at the AmerCatalyst 2012 Conference (Approx 1 hour)

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The United States, Europe and the rest of the world have created more debt than has ever existed in the history of the world. Debt is nothing more than a representation (and expectation) of future earnings – future work. But, as many of us know, there has been so much money borrowed that we can’t possible every expect to pay it back. In fact, the only thing we can expect is that we will continue to take on even more debt.

At some point in the (near) future, the plug is going to be pulled and no one is going to lend anyone any more money. We saw this on a small scale in 2008 when credit markets around the world froze up. No one was lending money. There was so much risk that banks not only refused to lend money to individuals and businesses, but they refused to even lend each other money.

Central banks around the world, namely the U.S. Federal Reserve, calmed financial markets by pumping out trillions of dollars in emergency lending. This gave many a perception that things were returning to normal, but as Kyle Bass points out, we are in anything but a normal situation.

Debt has sky rocketed and we’re not going to pay it back – ever.

Like the mafia does when debts don’t get paid, our creditors are eventually going to resort to ‘breaking some legs.’

But we’re talking about debts of entire sovereign nations here, so the tools used to ‘take care of it’ won’t be crowbars or baseball bats, but rather, soldiers, tanks and intercontinental ballistic missiles.

War is coming – just as it has throughout history.

And the 99% of Americans who believe in a benevolent, all knowing, all caring government will be the last ones to get the memo.

Ignore the warnings at your peril.

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THE THREE COMING FALSE FLAG ATTACKS

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THE DAY THE WORLD ENDED: WORLD WAR III SIMULATION - ISRAEL STRIKES IRANIAN NUCLEAR SITES

Published on Nov 21, 2012 by visionvictory

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FutureMoneyTrends.com, a top trends research newsletter, has released a World War 3 simulation video, “The Day The World Ended.” The purpose of this simulation is to show people just how fast things could get ugly if we go to war with Iran. During the simulation, oil prices spike to $130 per barrel, but by the end of the day are trading for $405. Gold and silver become unavailable as the world floods into safety as oil prices force a systemic economic collapse. Riots, civil unrest, and drastic government action are taken during the start of this war.

FutureMoneyTrends.com helps many investors strategically look at how future trends and scenarios will help or hurt their portfolio. This simulation is not an exact prediction, however FutureMoneyTrends.com does believe events could unfold quickly if Iran responds striking at the heart of the world’s petroleum market.

Much in the press is about Iran and Israel, but military planners and pundits should take note that Iran is also enemies with Saudi Arabia and they know that the U.S. cannot survive without oil. Though 90% of U.S. oil imports come from areas not in the middle east, prices are set on a global market, so crisis in the middle east will be a direct crisis for the U.S. economy. During the FutureMoneyTrends.com war simulation, Iran strikes Saudi oil fields in response to Israel striking Iranian nuclear sites. Once this happens, to put it nicely, all hell breaks loose.

Those who watch “The Day The World Ended – WW3 Simulation” by FutureMoneyTrends.com, be prepared for an intense 8 minute simulation. Once finished, you can visit FutureMoneyTrends.com/theend to watch more, as well as download their free report on how to survive and thrive during a currency crisis.

In order to watch Part 2, Visit: http://FutureMoneyTrends.com/TheEnd

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RELATED POST: UNITED NATIONS NOW SEEKS TOTAL CONTROL OVER THE INTERNET

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MICHAEL PENTO: “Israel will finally address the Iran issue in 2013.  I think they attack Iran in April or May.  That sends oil prices of WTI (West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil) to $170 a barrel.  If that’s the case, then you can kiss whatever nascent recovery that we have in this country [United States] and around the globe goodbye.”

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OBAMA’S POST ELECTION MILITANCY

By Stephen Lendman | Global Research

Obama didn’t miss a beat. He picked up where he left off. He’s America’s most belligerent leader. He’s waging multiple direct and proxy wars abroad and at home by other means.

Despite pressing unresolved domestic issues, he celebrated his electoral victory belligerently.

On November 7, he bombed Yemen. Washington’s been waging proxy war there for years. Daily attacks occur. Drones are the weapon of choice.

Remote warriors conduct sanitized killing on the cheap. Death and injury tolls rise. Mostly civilians are harmed. On November 8, Press TV headlined “US drone kills three in Yemen.” US mainstream media ignored it.

Hours after Obama’s reelection, a “drone strike near the Yemeni capital has killed three people and injured two others.”

Deadly attacks persist. International, constitutional, and US statute laws are violated. Ordinary people are harmed most. Civilian men, women and children are terrorized and traumatized.

Obama’s victory lap also included more Iranian sanctions. Multiple rounds imposed are illegal. A November 8 State Department press release announced the latest measure, headlining:

“Designations of Iranian Individuals and Entities for Censorship Activities Under the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act and Executive Order 13628.”

Five Iranian entities and four individuals were targeted. Accusations are part of America’s longstanding anti-Iranian hostility.

Washington claims they engage in “censorship or other activities that prohibit, limit, or penalize freedom of expression or assembly by citizens of Iran, or that limit access to print or broadcast media, including by jamming international satellite broadcasts into Iran, and related activities.”

“U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions involving the designated individuals or entities, and all designated individuals and members of designated entities are subject to a ban on travel to the United States. This action also blocks, or freezes, the property and interests in property of designated individuals or entities.”

The press release disingenuously claimed Washington “will continue to stand with the Iranian people in their quest to protect their dignity and freedoms and prevent the Iranian Government from creating an ‘electronic curtain’ to cut Iranian citizens off from the rest of the world.”

Sanctions in place impose enormous hardships on Iranian civilians. A health crisis exists. Vital medications aren’t available or are in short supply. Medical equipment breaks down for lack of spare parts.

Human suffering and deaths result. Crimes against humanity breach fundamental international law. Civilians must be protected at all times.

Targeting nonbelligerent countries is lawless and unconscionable. Washington prioritizes it. Obama is America’s most belligerent president in history. He exceeded the worst of his predecessor. His second term may eclipse his war on humanity so far.

A previous article explained US and Israeli anti-Iranian red lines, timelines, deadlines, sanctions, sabotage, subversion, cyber attacks, assassinations, saber rattling, falsified IAEA hype, ad nauseam warmongering, Obama/Netanyahu bluster, spurious accusations, manipulated to fail P5+1 talks, and inflammatory headlines intended to promote regime change and war.

Iran and Syria top America’s target list. Syrian opposition groups wrap up their Doha meeting Friday. AFP said opposition elements are “under pressure to unite and bring in all parties (under) new leadership with Islamists heavily represented.”

On Thursday, a 40-member general secretariat was elected. On Friday, a president will be chosen. Dissension and disarray marked days of discussions.

Washington wants officials in place serving US interests. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Clinton issued “direct orders about what the Syrian opposition should do to form a ‘government in exile’ and” who’d be permitted to join it.

Syrian National Council (SNC) head Abdelbaset Sieda objected to being marginalized and perhaps shut out. It’s unclear what’s in place.

On November 7, the UK Telegraph headlined “Syrian opposition plan falls apart on eve of Doha conference,” saying:

Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, three dissident factions pulled out. Representatives from the National Coordinating Committee, Syrian Democratic Platform, and Kurdish minority rejected Clinton’s plan. An unnamed Western source said, “There are too many people against this initiative for it to work now.”

SNC military representative Jamal al-Wa’ard said, “The components that were not in the SNC are not coming. The idea of a bigger coalition initiative has failed.”

SNC members rejected Western efforts to impose a solution on Syria. Deputy Revolutionary Council head Ahmed Zaidan said, “Everyone feels that this initiative is imposed. They’ve weaved the cloth but now there is no one to wear it.”

Washington-style diplomacy imposes its will on others whether or not they concur. America, Britain and France announced their support for newly appointed Secretariat members “as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.”

Financial and military support will be provided. It’s been ongoing since last year. Most weapons used come from Washington, Britain, France, and other NATO members.

British Prime Minister David Cameron toured Middle East countries to sell arms. He also wants the 2011 Syrian weapons embargo lifted. The measure’s text in part says:

“By way of derogation….the competent authorities in the Member States….may authorize the sale, supply, transfer or export of equipment which might be used for internal repression, under such conditions as they deem appropriate, if they determine that such equipment is intended solely for humanitarian or protective use.”

Cameron wants the meaning twisted to do openly what’s been ongoing covertly since conflict began last year. The London Guardian said he’ll press Obama to prioritize Syria. He wants stepped up efforts to oust Assad.

He said he’s determined to act. “That means more help for the opposition, more pressure at the UN, more help for the refugees, more work with the neighbors but also a general sort of:”

“Look, let’s be frank what we’ve done for the last 18 months hasn’t been enough. The slaughter continues. The bloodshed is appalling, the bad effects it’s having on the region, the radicalization but also the humanitarian crisis that is engulfing Syria.”

“So let’s work together on really pushing what more we can do, what other steps we can take to hasten the end of this regime.”

He wants more aggressive options on the table. Expect direct Western intervention if what he has in mind fails. With US elections concluded, it’s more likely. It could happen early next year or sooner.

On November 8, Russia Today interviewed Assad. He’ll not leave Syria, he stressed. He’ll live or die there. He was frank and clear, saying:

“We are the last stronghold of secularism and stability in the region and coexistence, let’s say, it will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific and you know the implication on the rest of the world.”

“I am not a puppet. I was not made by the West to go to the West or to any other country,” he said. “I am Syrian, I was made in Syria, I have to live in Syria and die in Syria.”

He doesn’t expect direct Western intervention, but isn’t sure what’s next. He calls “the price of (possible foreign) invasion….more than the whole world can afford.”

“My enemy is terrorism and instability in Syria.”

“The West creates enemies. In the past, it was the communism then it became Islam, and then it became Saddam Hussein for a different reason. Now, they want to create a new enemy represented by Bashar.”

“The fight now is not the president’s fight – it is Syrians’ fight to defend their country.”

It’s “not about the power of the President. It is about the whole society.”

“Syria faces not a civil war, but terrorism by proxies….(F)oreign fighters (came) from abroad.”

“Without foreign rebel fighters and smuggled weapons, we could finish everything in weeks.”

“Al-Qaeda’s final aim is an Islamic emirate in Syria.”

He’ll talk with anyone willing to help Syrians. He won’t waste time with elements wanting conflict to persist for their own interests.

“We are fighting terrorism. We are implementing our constitution by protecting the Syrian people.

Asked if he’d do anything differently from when protests began last March, he said, “I would do what I did on March 15 (2011).”

“Exactly the same. (He’d) ask different parties to have dialogue and stand against terrorists because that is how it started. It did not start as marches.”

“The umbrella or cover was the marches, but within those marches you had militants who started shooting civilians and the army at the same time.”

“Maybe on the tactical level, you could have done something different but as a president you are not tactical. You always take the decision on a strategic level which is something different.”

He hopes Syria will emerge from conflict safe, stable, secure, and more prosperous. He knows it won’t happen soon. Washington’s regime change plans won’t change. Achieving them is something else entirely.

A Final Comment

Daily violence rages in Syria. Terror attacks are a way of life. Car bombs and other violence happen regularly. No place is safe.

The longer conflict persists, the more public support grows for Assad. He’s the last line of defense for ordinary Syrians. Even those against him rely on security forces for help.

Western-backed foreign mercenaries lack support and credibility. Syrians deplore who they are and what they stand for. They want Syria transformed into a fundamentalist caliphate. They want Sharia replacing secular law.

Syrians want to choose their own form of government. They don’t want outsiders doing it for them. Foreign invader control will make Syria ungovernable like Libya. People know what’s going on there and want no part of it.

Even The New York Times expressed some rare candor. It admitted that “rebel fighters….are losing crucial support from a public increasingly disgusted by the actions of some rebels, including poorly planned missions, senseless destruction, criminal behavior and the coldblooded killing of prisoners.”

The shift in public sentiment is palpable. Radicalized opposition elements scare people. Daily bloodshed reminds everyone of what’s coming if they gain control.

An unnamed Saraqib Syrian said, “They were supposed to be the people on whom we depend to build a civil society.” Instead, they’re destroying it.

An Aleppo resident “begged rebels not to camp in a neighborhood telecommunications office. But they did, and government attacks knocked out phone service.”

“One fighter shot into the air when customers at a bakery did not let him cut into a long line for bread. Another was enraged when a man washing his car accidentally splashed him. He shot at him.” He escaped unharmed.

Twenty months after conflict began, people “are trapped in a darkening mood of despair, revulsion and fear that neither side can end the conflict.”

“The most significant change is (that people openly) criticize rebels.”

“Small acts of petty humiliation and atrocities like executions have led many more Syrians to believe that (many) rebels are (morally) depraved….”

They “forced government soldiers from a milk factory, then destroyed it, even though residents needed the milk and had good relations with the owner.”

“They shelled the factory and stole everything. Those are repulsive acts.”

Syrians also know who bears responsibility for months of conflict and what’s at stake. LIke others throughout the region, they deplore Washington for good reason. They want to live free from Western dominance. They may end up dying for it.

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BARACK OBAMA GUILTY OF INTERNATIONAL WAR CRIMES

Alex Jones talks with Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) about Obama’s unconstitutional effort to involve the United States in a possible Syrian intervention under the guise of preventing the use of chemical weapons.

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RELATED POST:

CITIZENS DEMAND INVESTIGATION INTO OBAMA ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS FOR PRESIDENT AND SECOND TERM RUN

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U.S. GIVES IRAN UNTIL MARCH 2013 TO COOPERATE WITH IAEA

DECEMBER 11, 2012 

By Fredrik Dahl

VIENNA (Reuters) – The United States set a March deadline on Thursday for Iran to start cooperating in substance with a U.N. nuclear agency investigation, warning Tehran the issue may otherwise be referred to the U.N. Security Council.

The comments by U.S. diplomat Robert Wood to the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency signaled Washington’s growing frustration at a lack of progress in the IAEA’s inquiry into possible military dimensions to Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran – which was first reported to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program by the IAEA’s 35-nation board in 2006 and then was hit by U.N. sanctions – rejects suspicions it is on a covert quest for atomic bomb capability.

But its refusal to curb nuclear work with both civilian and military applications, and its lack of openness with the IAEA, have drawn tough Western punitive measures and a threat of pre-emptive military strikes by Israel.

A year ago, the IAEA published a report with a trove of intelligence indicating past, and some possibly continuing, research in Iran that could be relevant for nuclear weapons.

The IAEA has since tried to gain access to Iranian sites, officials and documents it says it needs for the inquiry, but so far without any concrete results in a series of meetings with Iran since January. The two sides will meet again in December.

In his statement, Wood requested IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano to say in his next quarterly report on Iran, likely due in late February, whether Tehran has taken “any substantive steps” to address the agency’s concerns.

“If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States will work with other board members to pursue appropriate board action, and would urge the board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the U.N. Security Council,” Wood said, according to a copy of his statement.

“Iran cannot be allowed to indefinitely ignore its obligations … Iran must act now, in substance,” Wood said.

Amano earlier told the board that there had been no progress in his agency’s year-long push to clarify concerns about suspected atom bomb research in Iran, but said he would continue his efforts.

EU SEES IRANIAN “PROCRASTINATION”

A simple majority in the IAEA board would be required to refer an issue to the U.N. Security Council, which has imposed four sanctions resolutions on Iran since 2006.

It is unclear whether Russia and China – which have criticized unilateral Western sanctions on Iran – would back any U.S. initiative to report Iran again to the Security Council.

Wood later told reporters he hoped the December talks between the IAEA and Iran would be fruitful. But, he added, “I have my doubts about the sincerity of Iran.”

The 27-nation European Union told the board that Iran’s “procrastination” was unacceptable. “Iran must act now, in a substantive way, to address the serious and continuing international concerns on its nuclear program,” it said.

Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, criticised what he called “political noise” and “pressure” from the United States and the EU.

Diplomacy between Iran and the powers – the United States, China, Russia, France, Germany, and Britain – has been deadlocked since a June meeting that ended without success.

Both sides now say they want to resume talks soon, after the re-election of U.S. President Barack Obama, and diplomats expect a new meeting in Istanbul in December or January.

Iran is ready for a “face-saving” negotiated solution to the nuclear dispute, but the West must accept the reality that Tehran would never suspend uranium enrichment, Soltanieh said.

Refined uranium can be used to fuel nuclear energy plants, Iran’s stated aim, and also provide bomb material if processed further, which the West suspects is Iran’s ultimate aim.

The West wants Iran to suspend enrichment, but Iran is showing no sign of backing down.

Iran “has provocatively snubbed the international community by expanding its enrichment capacity in defiance of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Wood said.

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NETANYAHU TO DELAY IRAN ATTACK UNTIL 2013

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Wednesday, April 4, 2012

A senior Likud politician has revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to delay an attack on Iran until weeks or months before next year’s scheduled Israeli election, dovetailing with other reports that the military assault targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities has been postponed until 2013.

“A senior Likud politician told my confidential Israeli source that Bibi Netanyahu has decided to delay an Israeli attack on Iran until some weeks or possibly months before the next scheduled Israeli election. That will happen by October 2013 unless Bibi determines he wants to go to the nation earlier,”writes Richard Silverstein.

According to the source, Netanyahu is preparing to take a huge gamble by following the strategy of Menachem Begin, whose decision to attack Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear plant shortly before the election in 1981 was a key factor in securing victory at the polls.

Netanyahu will be able to position himself as a war leader and rally the population around getting behind him to face an external threat if he launches the attack prior to the election.

Silverstein’s report coincides with an article published today by the Jerusalem Post which also cites anonymous defense establishment officials who suggest the attack will not take place this year.

“It could happen this year, but also 2013 is a possibility,” said the source. “We will need to wait to see the effect sanctions and diplomacy have on Iran and what the regime decides to do.”

According to the report, Israel is waiting on the outcome of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group comprised of the US, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China, discussions set to begin in mid-April, before making a firm decision.

However, if Iran begins the enrichment of high grade uranium and clearly takes steps to build a nuclear device, Israel could change the timeline and swiftly launch the attack.

Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren’s assertion that the attack had been delayed until spring 2013 as a consequence of a joint US-Israeli wargame that did not produce the desired results.

Oren also claimed that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s acknowledgment that Israel would not launch the attack without U.S. support before the American presidential election represented, “An announcement that this war was being postponed until at least the spring of 2013.”

However, with two U.S. aircraft carriers currently positioned in the Persian Gulf, and with another, the USS Enterprise, on its way, along with a number of smaller warships in the region, it remains to be seen whether this is all just a bluff to take the Iranians by surprise.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show and Infowars Nightly News.

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IRAN ATTACK POSTPONED UNTIL SPRING 2013

Paul Joseph Watson
Infowars.com
Thursday, March 29, 2012

Israel’s plan to attack Iran has been postponed until spring 2013 following a war simulation that showed Iran could kill 200 Americans with a single missile strike, according to a report by senior Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren.

“At 8:58 P.M. on Tuesday, Israel’s 2012 war against Iran came to a quiet end. The capricious plans for a huge aerial attack were returned to the deep recesses of safes and hearts. The war may not have been canceled but it has certainly been postponed. For a while, at least, we can sound the all clear: It won’t happen this year. Until further notice, Israel Air Force Flight 007 will not be taking off,” writes Oren.

According to the report, a war simulation conducted by the U.S. Central Command found that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would immediately be followed by an Iranian missile launch that would kill 200 Americans, a price deemed not worth paying by U.S. generals.

During the same meeting, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak also acknowledged that Israel would not act alone in striking Iran before the U.S. presidential elections in November, according to Oren, meaning that, “For all intents and purposes, it was an announcement that this war was being postponed until at least the spring of 2013.”

A delay in launching the attack until next spring would scupper expectations that the military assault was set to take place before the end of this year, a time frame that Russia understood the Israelis were working to. Last month, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov stated that an Israeli decision on whether or not to attack would be made before the summer.

In January, the U.S. cancelled a joint military exercise with Israel which was perceived by many as a sign that the Americans were getting cold feet.

Earlier this month it was also reported that Israel had “agreed to hold off a strike on Iran’s nuclear sites this year in exchange for receiving U.S. military equipment,” including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes. The deal was seen as a tacit admission that the Obama administration would support Israel in launching the attack but only after the election in November.

If a decision has been made to postpone the attack, expect the United States to withdraw at least some of its naval might from the Persian Gulf. The U.S. currently has the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Abraham aircraft carriers patrolling the Strait of Hormuz, along with the USS Makin Island, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. Earlier this month it was announced that four additional mine countermeasure ships were also heading for the region.

As the Stratfor Naval Update map below illustrates, the USS Enterprise, which many speculated was also heading to the Strait of Hormuz in preparation for a strike on Iran, is now scheduled to visit Piraeus, Greece instead, suggesting a cooling of tensions could be taking place – at least for the time being.

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MARTIN INDYK: THE UNITED STATES WILL GO TO WAR WITH IRAN BY 2013

Martin Indyk believes US likely to go to war with Iran in 2013; says Israel’s insistence that US publicly declare ‘red line’ for Iran an ‘unreasonable requirement’

Former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk predicts that the United States will go to war with Iran as early as 2013. “I’m afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we’re going to have a military confrontation with Iran,” he said in an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” 

During the interview, Indyk pointed out that the time has not come, yet, for the US to take military action. “Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. While there’s still time, there’s not a lot of time,” he said.

Indyk’s remarks came during a discussion with foreign policy experts on the latest protests in the Middle East and Israel’s public statements pressuring the United States over Iran.

As for the public dispute between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama over Iran, Indyk said he does not think that “the difference between Netanyahu and Obama on this is that great, in terms of the President’s commitment not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.”

On Israel’s insistence that Washington publicly declare a “red line’” that Iran will not be permitted to cross, Indyk said “that is an unreasonable requirement.The idea of putting out a public red line – in effect issuing an ultimatum – is something that no president would do,” he said.

“If you noticed, Governor Mitt Romney is not putting out a red line; Senator McCain didn’t, either. And neither is Netanyahu for that matter, in terms of Israel’s own actions,” he added.

Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, echoed Indyk’s assessment that negotiations with Iran have not dissuaded the Iranians to halt their nuclear program. He said Netanyahu has sought to increase pressure publicly because “he doesn’t want these things to be drawn out indefinitely.”

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MIDDLE EAST WAR COULD ERUPT RIGHT AFTER U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

by Vladimir Sazhin | Global Research

While Israel’s right-wing politicians consolidate, the military makes no effort to conceal its active preparations for combat. Military exercise follows military exercise. Some experts even concede that the al-Hartum factory strike, widely attributed in the press to Israel, could have been a rehearsal of sorts.

Iranians are not sleeping through the crisis either; in early October they initiated the launch into Israel’s airspace of the Iranian drone aircraft Hesballoy. On October 29 a large-scale military exercise began in the region along the Iraqi border.

Some political experts claim there will be a risk that a new “big wave” in the Middle East could reach its peak after the American presidential elections, and that the region might plummet into the abyss. They say that Israel is ready to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

At the same time the Islamic Republic, whose economy is on the verge of collapse due to sanctions, is also prepared to stand up to Israel.

So far, uncertainty in the US presidential race has served as a containment factor. But what will happen after the elections?

Irina Fedorova, a specialist in Iranian-US relations, delivers a “partly cloudy” forecast for the near future; “Before the Inauguration on January 20 it is hardly possible to anticipate any sudden political moves from the US president, who will be elected on November 6. The main task of the new, or old, president with the US political elite will be the formation of a new government. That is why foreign policy issues will not take precedence in that period.

“The issue that will influence the US president’s opinion on the possibility of a military strike against Iran will be the crisis in Syria, including the problem of Bashar al-Assad. Until those problems are resolved, the US president’s attention will be focused on Syria.”

The Israeli factor cannot be ignored either: the current situation in Israel provides much food for thought. The Knesset is dissolved and elections are set for January 22, the day after the new president of the USA is inaugurated. There are two politicians who are ready for a war against Iran; Benjamin Netanyahu from Likud and Avigdor Lieberman of Israel is Our Home [Yisrael Beiteinu], and there is a very real possibility that one of them will win.

The likelihood of finding a solution to the Iranian problem between the US and Israeli elections cannot be ruled out completely, but during that period, anti-war pressure on the Cabinet will dwindle to almost zero. That is because, although Knesset deputies continue with their duties, they are essentially already “lame ducks” in the absence of a sitting parliament. The current Knesset cannot be expected to address the issue of a no-confidence vote before the elections and, in the event of a successful strike against Iran, as anticipated by its proponents, it would be seen as a vote winner in the election run-up.

While Israel’s right-wing politicians consolidate, the military makes no effort to conceal its active preparations for combat. Military exercise follows military exercise. Some experts even concede that the al-Hartum factory strike, widely attributed in the press to Israel, could have been a rehearsal of sorts.

Iranians are not sleeping through the crisis either; in early October they initiated the launch into Israel’s airspace of the Iranian drone aircraft Hesballoy. On October 29 a large-scale military exercise began in the region along the Iraqi border.

It is not however the growing military activity in Iran that worries Israel, but the Iranian nuclear programme. Recently, there was an announcement that Iran had finished the installation of a centrifuge at the Fordo underground military facility. Western experts believe that Iranian nuclear specialists can now produce uranium enriched not only to 60%, but the 90% purity required for weapons grade material. If true that can only serve to encourage Israel to strike first.

Irina Fedorova observed: “There can be unpredictable decisions in politics and it is possible that the situation could arise when the Israeli military, without Washington’s approval, would start an operation against Iran. In that case the USA would, without doubt, support Israel.”

And many experts believe that that is just what is likely to happen, right after the US presidential elections.

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FOUR SIGNS THAT ISRAEL’S SHOWDOWN WITH IRAN IS ALMOST HERE

SEPTEMBER 23, 2012

By The Week’s Editorial Staff | The Week

Israel warns that the clock is ticking, and that Iran is dangerously close to acquiring nuclear weapons. Is a long-feared military clash looking more and more likely?

Over the last several days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has loudly and repeatedly urged that President Obama draw a “red line” that Iran’s nuclear program can’t cross, warning that without such a line, the Islamic Republic will likely be within reach of building its first atomic bomb in six or seven months. Obama administration officials say Netanyahu’s timetable is wrong, and that Tehran will need at least a year to gather the nuclear fuel it would need, and even longer to fit a warhead onto a missile. Is a violent showdown between Iran and Israel nearly here? Many analysts see Netanyahu’s increasingly vocal demands as proof that conflict is looming. Here, four other signs that the clock might really be running out:

1. Iran is getting more and more belligerent

Tehran hasn’t exactly been mending its ways in the face of aggressive warnings and tightening sanctions, says Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge. In fact, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard recently stoked tensions even further by admitting that “its troops are now on the ground in Syria,” helping the embattled regime in its effort to wipe out the pro-democracy opposition. Of all the disturbing developments surrounding Iran’s refusal to curb its nuclear program, that could be the one “to light this whole mess on fire.”

2. And accusing nuclear inspectors of sabotage

Iran’s nuclear program chief, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, says “only mutual trust” will allow his country to soothe the West’s fears about his country’s nuclear program, say Najmeh Bozorgmehr and James Blitz in Britain’s Financial Times, which Iran insists is for peaceful purposes. But it’s becoming pretty clear that neither side believes a word the other says. This week, Abbasi-Davani even accused International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors of having been infiltrated by “terrorists and saboteurs” who in August used explosives to knock out power to one of Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities. The IAEA, of course, denies the charge, and says Iran is simply unwilling to cooperate to provide “credible assurance” that it’s not trying to build a bomb.

3. The West is gathering an armada off Iran

If you need proof that Western leaders think Israel is getting ready to strike Iran, take a look at the Persian Gulf, says Sean Rayment at Britain’s Telegraph. The U.S. and Britain are massing an armada of warships because they believe that Tehran would respond to an attack on its nuclear facilities by mining or blockading the Strait of Hormuz, a shipping lane that handles 35 percent of the world’s oil distributed by sea. This “unprecedented show of force” is a clear sign that the long-feared showdown might be near.

4. Diplomacy is going nowhere

“There is still time” to work out a negotiated solution and avoid war, Martin Indyk, America’s former ambassador to Israel tells CBS News. “I’m pessimistic about that,” though, as Iran hasn’t budged. If nothing changes, “then I am afraid that 2013 is going to be a year in which we’re going to have a military confrontation with Iran.”

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HENRY KISSINGER PREDICTS NUCLEAR WAR WITH IRAN

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com

Globalist kingpin Henry Kissinger is now talking up a nuclear conflagration.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, Kissinger said a crisis involving a nuclear Iran in the “foreseeable future” will lead to a nuclear war and “a turning point in human history,” the BBC reports.

“There has emerged in the region, the current and most urgent issue of nuclear proliferation. For 15 years, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have declared that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, but it has been approaching,” Kissinger said.

He then said governments will “come to a determination of how to react, or the consequences of non-reaction… [in] a few years.”

Under the terms of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to produce nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence Iran is developing a nuclear weapons program and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told Face the Nation earlier this month that Iran is not currently building a nuclear weapon.

In 2012 American spy agencies agreed with a 2007 intelligence finding that concluded Iran had abandoned its nuclear weapons program. “The officials said that assessment was largely reaffirmed in a 2010 National Intelligence Estimate, and that it remains the consensus view of America’s 16 intelligence agencies,” the New York Times reported.

In 2011 it was reported by the United States Institute of Peace and others that Iran was having problems with its nuclear program. In addition to fending off U.S. and Israeli cyber attacks, persistent sabotage of its nuclear facilities and the assassination of its scientists, Iran is finding it difficult to obtain essential parts on the international market and until recently had issues with its centrifuges.

In January the International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that Iran had started enriching uranium to the 20-percent level. “The IAEA can confirm that Iran has started the production of uranium enriched up to 20 percent using IR-1 centrifuges in the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant,” the agency said in a statement,” RIA Novosti reported.

20 percent uranium enrichment is a long way off from more than 90 percent, the amount required to make an atomic weapon.

In November, Kissinger said the U.S. has a “limited time” to negotiate with Iran before military action will be taken against its nuclear program, although he did not address Iran’s inability to produce weapons grade uranium.

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DAVOS 2013: KISSINGER SAYS IRAN NUCLEAR CRISIS IS CLOSE

Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has warned that a crisis involving a nuclear Iran is in the “foreseeable future”.

The Nobel Peace laureate, 89, was speaking about prospects in the Middle East at the World Economic Forum.

He said nuclear proliferation in the region triggered by an armed Iran would increase the chances of an atomic war – “a turning point in human history”.

He also urged the US and Russia to co-operate in resolving Syria’s conflict.

“There has emerged in the region, the current and most urgent issue of nuclear proliferation. For 15 years, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) have declared that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable, but it has been approaching,” he said.

“In a few years, people will have to come to a determination of how to react, or the consequences of non-reaction.

“I believe this point will be reached in a very foreseeable future,” he added.

‘Nuclear war’

In his assessment of the stand-off between Iran and Western powers over its nuclear programme – which Tehran argues is for peaceful and civilian purposes – Mr Kissinger called for “serious” negotiations on both sides to look for solutions.

“Unilateral intervention by Israel would be a desperate last resort, but the Iranians have to understand that if they keep using the negotiations to gain time to complete a nuclear programme then the situation will become extremely dangerous.”

The consequences of Tehran’s programme, he said, would be that other countries in the region would also want nuclear arms.

“The danger is that we could be reaching a point where nuclear weapons would become almost conventional, and there will be the possibility of a nuclear conflict at some point… that would be a turning point in human history,” he said.

“If Iran acts as a nation and not as a revolutionary cause, there is no reason for America or other permanent members of the UNSC to be in conflict with it, nor any countries in the region. On that basis I would hope that a negotiated solution would be found in a measurable time.”

Meanwhile, Mr Kissinger advocated a US-Russia understanding over the conflict in Syria, while opposing military intervention.

“The Syrian problem would best be dealt internationally by Russia and America not making it a contest of national interests,” he said.

“I would hope that the undertaking of the US foreign policy will not be be characterised by the divisions that we see in [its] domestic policy.”

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NETANYAHU TELLS AMERICA IT’S NOW TIME TO STRIKE IRAN

By Geoffrey Ingersoll | Business Insider

January 31, 2013

Netanyahu has drawn a line in the sand, only this time, it’s for the U.S.

According to a Maariv report, when speaking to a visiting delegation from the American Jewish Committee, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was simply not strong enough to force a halt to Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. In order to halt the program, Bibi said, the U.S. would have to strike, and they must do so this year.

Netanyahu:

“The sanctions are only likely to stop Iran if there is a credible (military) threat over their head … and in order for it to be a credible threat, you need to mean it, meaning that if the sanctions don’t work – and they haven’t until now – you will use it,” he said.

He followed this up by saying that 2013 would be the last year America could effectively put an end to Iran’s nuclear program. If not, they would get their hands on enriched uranium and build a bomb in “a short time” according to Netanyahu.

Others seem to think a strike would be ineffective.

An AP article published late last year covered a report compiled by the nation’s top national security experts and former military commanders. The report indicated that a “surgical strike” would only set back Iran’s nuclear capability.

“You can’t kill intellectual power,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Frank Kearney, former deputy director at the National Counterterrorism Center and former deputy commander of U.S. Special Operations Command who endorsed the report.

Going a step further, the analysis says what would be needed to truly reform Iran’s nuclear aspirations would equate to full ground war — something the U.S. is unlikely to engage in.

Then there’s the perception of attacking yet another Muslim country.

From the AP:

“Planners and pundits ought to consider that the riots and unrest following a Web entry about an obscure film are probably a fraction of what could happen following a strike – by the Israelis or U.S. – on Iran,” retired Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, an endorser of the Iran report and a former operations chief for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview.

Since the report came out just days following Benghazi, it was largely missed by the world press. Nonetheless, Iran’s nuclear aspirations worry the international community, regardless of what their stated purposes are.

Even if Netanyahu’s apocalyptic nuclear Iran claims sound quite similar (actually, identical) to claims made in the early 2000s … and the 90s … and the 80s … finding a solution to balancing Iran’s pursuit of dual use technology with that of international security seems imperative — especially considering the achievement becomes more likely as technology in general advances.

That is, unless the world is okay with another long-term ground war.

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EX-GOLDMAN SACHS ANALYST CHARLES NENNER PREDICTS DOW JONES AT 5,000 AND A MAJOR WAR AT THE END OF 2012

March 10, 2011

When cycle forecaster Charles Nenner told the Fox Business network that the Dow Jones was set to collapse to the 5,000 level on the back of a “major war” that will shake the globe at the end of 2012, hosts David Asman and Elizabeth MacDonald sat in stunned silence.

Nenner, a former technical analyst for Goldman Sachs, is head of the Charles Nenner Research Center, which purports to be able to predict market trends with a computer program based around pattern forecasting and securities analysis. Nenner predicted the stock market and housing collapse two years before the fall of Lehman Brothers.

Nenner now predicts that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is heading down to 5,000 points, a gargantuan drop given that it now hovers above the 13,000 level as well as a major war at the end of 2012 and into 2013.

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CHOSSUDOVSKY: UNITED STATES WILL START WORLD WAR III BY ATTACKING IRAN

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PREPARING FOR WORLD WAR III, TARGETING IRAN

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research

January 02, 2013

Humanity is at a dangerous crossroads. War preparations to attack Iran are in “an advanced state of readiness”. Hi tech weapons systems including nuclear warheads are fully deployed.

This military adventure has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board since the mid-1990s. First Iraq, then Iran according to a declassified 1995 US Central Command document.

Escalation is part of the military agenda. While Iran, is the next target together with Syria and Lebanon, this strategic military deployment also threatens North Korea, China and Russia.

Since 2005, the US and its allies, including America’s NATO partners and Israel, have been involved in the extensive deployment and stockpiling of advanced weapons systems. The air defense systems of the US, NATO member countries and Israel are fully integrated.

This is a coordinated endeavor of the Pentagon, NATO, Israel’s Defense Force (IDF), with the active military involvement of several non-NATO partner countries including the frontline Arab states (members of NATO’s Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative), Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Australia, among others. (NATO consists of 28 NATO member states  Another 21 countries are members of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), The Mediterranean Dialogue and the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative include ten Arab countries plus Israel.)

The roles of Egypt, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia (within the extended military alliance) is of particular relevance. Egypt controls the transit of war ships and oil tankers through the Suez Canal. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States occupy the South Western coastlines of the Persian Gulf, the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. In early June, “Egypt reportedly allowed one Israeli and eleven U.S. ships to pass through the Suez Canal in ….an apparent signal to Iran. … On June 12, regional press outlets reported that the Saudis had granted Israel the right to fly over its airspace…” (Muriel Mirak Weissbach,  Israel’s Insane War on Iran Must Be Prevented., Global Research, July 31, 2010)

In post 9/11 military doctrine, this massive deployment of military hardware has been defined as part of the so-called  “Global War on Terrorism”, targeting “non-State” terrorist organizations including al Qaeda and so-called “State sponsors of terrorism”,. including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan.

The setting up of new US military bases, the stockpiling of advanced weapons systems including tactical nuclear weapons, etc. were implemented as part of the pre-emptive defensive military doctrine under the umbrella of the “Global War on Terrorism”.

War and the Economic Crisis

The broader implications of a US-NATO Israel attack on Iran are far-reaching. The war and the economic crisis are intimately related. The war economy is financed by Wall Street, which stands as the creditor of the US administration. The US weapons producers are the recipients of the US Department of Defense multibillion dollar procurement contracts for advanced weapons systems. In turn, “the battle for oil” in the Middle East and Central Asia directly serves the interests of the Anglo-American oil giants.

The US and its allies are “beating the drums of war” at the height of a Worldwide economic depression, not to mention the most serious environmental catastrophe in World history. In a bitter twist, one of the major players (BP) on the Middle East Central Asia geopolitical chessboard, formerly known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, is the instigator of the ecological disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

Media Disinformation

Public opinion, swayed by media hype is tacitly supportive, indifferent or ignorant as to the likely impacts of what is upheld as an ad hoc “punitive” operation directed against Iran’s nuclear facilities rather than an all out war. War preparations include the deployment of  US and Israeli produced nuclear weapons. In this context, the devastating consequences of a nuclear war are either trivialised or simply not mentioned.

The “real crisis” threatening humanity, according to the media and the governments, is not war but global warming. The media will fabricate a crisis where there is no crisis: ”a global scare” — the H1N1 global pandemic– but nobody seems to fear a US sponsored nuclear war.

The war on Iran is presented to public opinion as an issue among others.  The fact that an attack on Iran could lead to escalation and potentially unleash a “global war” is not a matter of concern.

The Cult of Killing and Destruction

The global killing machine is also sustained by an imbedded cult of killing and destruction which pervades Hollywood movies, not to mention the prime time war and crime TV series on network television. This cult of killing is endorsed by the CIA and the Pentagon which also support (finance) Hollywood productions as an instrument of war propaganda:

“Ex-CIA agent Bob Baer told us, “There’s a symbiosis between the CIA and Hollywood” and revealed that former CIA director George Tenet is currently, “out in Hollywood, talking to studios.” (Matthew Alford and Robbie Graham, Lights, Camera… Covert Action: The Deep Politics of Hollywood, Global Research, January 31, 2009).

The killing machine is deployed at a global level, within the framework of the unified combat command structure. It is routinely upheld by the institutions of government, the corporate media and the mandarins and intellectuals of the New World Order in Washington’s think tanks and strategic studies research institutes, as an unquestioned instrument of peace and global prosperity.

A culture of killing and violence has become imbedded in human consciousness.

War is broadly accepted as part of a societal process: The Homeland needs to be “defended” and protected.

“Legitimized violence” and extrajudicial killings directed against “terrorists” are upheld in western democracies, as necessary instruments of national security.

A “humanitarian war” is upheld by the so-called international community. It is not condemned as a criminal act. Its main architects are rewarded for their contributions to world peace.

With regard to Iran, what is unfolding is the outright legitimization of war in the name of an illusive notion of global security.

A “Pre-emptive” Aerial attack directed against Iran would lead to Escalation

At present there are three separate Middle East Central Asia war theaters: Iraq, Af-Pak, and Palestine.

Were Iran to be the object of a “pre-emptive” aerial attack by allied forces, the entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to China’s Western frontier with Afghanistan and Pakistan, would flare up, leading us potentially into a World War III scenario.

The war would also extend into Lebanon and Syria.

It is highly unlikely that the bombings, if they were to be implemented, would be circumscribed to Iran’s nuclear facilities as claimed by US-NATO official statements. What is more probable is an all out air attack on both military and civilian infrastructure, transport systems, factories, public buildings.

Iran, with an an estimated ten percent of global oil and gas reserves, ranks third after Saudi Arabia (25 %) and Iraq (11 %) in the size of its reserves. In comparison, the US possesses less than 2.8 % of global oil reserves. The oil reserves of the U.S. are estimated at less than 20 billion barrels. The broader region of the Middle East and Central Asia have oil reserves which are more than thirty times those of the U.S, representing more than 60% of the World’s total reserves. (See Eric Waddell, The Battle for Oil, Global Research, December 2004).

Of significance is the recent discovery in Iran of the second largest known reserves of natural gas at Soumar and Halgan estimated at 12.4 trillion cubic feet.

Targeting Iran consists not only in reclaiming Anglo-American control over Iran’s oil and gas economy, including pipeline routes, it also challenges the presence and influence of China and Russia in the region.

The planned attack on Iran is part of a coordinated global military road map. It is part of the Pentagon’s “long war”,  a profit driven war without borders, a project of World domination, a sequence of military operations.

US-NATO military planners have envisaged various scenarios of military escalation. They are also acutely aware of the geopolitical implications, namely that the war could extend beyond the Middle East Central Asia region. The economic impacts on the oil markets, etc. have also been analyzed.

While Iran, Syria and Lebanon are the immediate targets, China, Russia, North Korea, not to mention Venezuela and Cuba are also the object of US threats.

At stake is the structure of military alliances. US-NATO-Israel military deployments including military exercises and drills conducted on Russia and China’s immediate borders bear a direct relationship to the proposed war on Iran. These veiled threats, including their timing, constitute an obvious hint to the former powers of the Cold War era not to intervene in any way which could encroach upon a US-led attack on Iran.

Global Warfare

The medium term strategic objective is to target Iran and neutralize Iran’s allies, through gunboat diplomacy. The longer term military objective is to directly target China and Russia.

While Iran is the immediate target, military deployment is by no means limited to the Middle East and Central Asia. A global military agenda has been formulated.

The deployment of coalition troops and advanced weapons systems by the US, NATO and its partners is occurring simultaneously in all major regions of the World.

The recent actions of the US military off the coast of North Korea including the conduct of war games are part of a global design.

Directed primarily against Russia and China, US, NATO and allied military exercises, war drills, weapons deployments, etc. are being conducted simultaneously in major geopolitical hotspots.

-The Korean Peninsula, the Sea of Japan, the Taiwan Straits, the South China Sea threatening China.

-The deployment of Patriot missiles in Poland, the early warning center in the Czech republic threatening Russia.

-Naval deployments in Bulgaria, Romania on the Black Sea, threatening Russia.

- US and NATO troops deployments in Georgia.

- A formidable naval deployment in the Persian Gulf including Israeli submarines directed against Iran.

Concurrently the Eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, the Caribbean, Central America and the Andean region of South America are areas of ongoing militarization. In Latin America and the Caribbean, the threats are directed against Venezuela and Cuba.

US “Military Aid”

In turn, large scale weapons transfers have been undertaken under the banner of US “military aid” to selected countries, including a 5 billion dollar arms deal with India which is intended to build India’s capabilities directed against China. (Huge U.S.-India Arms Deal To Contain China, Global Times, July 13, 2010).

“[The] arms sales will improve ties between Washington and New Delhi, and, intentionally or not, will have the effect of containing China’s influence in the region.” quoted in Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010)

The US has military cooperation agreements with a number of South East Asian countries including Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia, involving “military aid” as well as the participation in U.S.-led war games in the Pacific Rim (July -August 2010). These agreements are supportive of weapons deployments directed against The People’s Republic of China. (See Rick Rozoff, Confronting both China and Russia: U.S. Risks Military Clash With China In Yellow Sea, Global Research, July 16, 2010).

Similarly and more directly related to the planned attack on Iran, the US is arming the Gulf States (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates) with land-based interceptor missiles, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) as well as sea-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors installed on Aegis class warships in the Persian Gulf. (See Rick Rozoff,  NATO’s Role In The Military Encirclement Of Iran, Global Research, February 10, 2010).

The Timetable of Military Stockpiling and Deployment

What is crucial in regards to US weapons transfers to partner countries and allies is the actual timing of delivery and deployment. The launch of a US sponsored military operation would normally occur once these weapons systems are in place, effectively deployed with the implementation of personnel training. (e.g India).

What we are dealing with is a carefully coordinated global military design controlled by the Pentagon, involving the combined armed forces of more than forty countries. This global multinational military deployment is by far the largest display of advanced weapons systems in World history.

In turn, the US and its allies have established new military bases in different parts of the world.  “The Surface of the Earth is Structured as a Wide Battlefield”. (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007).

The Unified Command structure divided up into geographic Combatant Commands is predicated on a strategy of militarization at the global level. “The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Brand new military bases have been built since September 11, 2001 in seven countries. In total, there are 255,065 US military personnel deployed Worldwide.” (See Jules Dufour, The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases , Global Research, July 1, 2007

Source: DefenseLINK-Unified Command Plan

World War III Scenario

“The World Commanders’ Areas of Responsibility” (See Map above) defines the Pentagon’s global military design, which is one of World conquest.  This military deployment is occurring in several regions simultaneously under the coordination of the regional US Commands, involving the stockpiling of US made weapons systems by US forces and partner countries, some of which are former enemies, including Vietnam and Japan.

The present context is characterised by a global military build-up controlled by one World superpower, which is using its numerous allies to trigger regional wars.

In contrast, the Second World War was a conjunction of separate regional war theaters. Given the communications technologies and weapons systems of the 1940s, there was no strategic “real time” coordination in military actions between broad geographic regions

Global warfare is based on the coordinated deployment of a single dominant military power, which oversees the actions of its allies and partners.

With the exception of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Second World War was characterized by the use of conventional weapons. The planning of  a global war relies on the militarization of outer space. Were a war directed against iran to be launched, it would not only use nuclear weapons, the entire gamut of new advanced weapons systems, including electrometric weapons and environmental modification techniques (ENMOD) would be used.

The United Nations Security Council

The UN Security Council adopted in early June a fourth round of sweeping sanctions against The Islamic Republic of Iran, which included an expanded arms embargo as well “tougher financial controls”. In a bitter irony, this resolution was passed within days of the United Nations Secrity Council’s outright refusal to adopt a motion condemning Israel for its attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters.

Both China and Russia, pressured by the US, have endorsed the UNSC sanctions’ regime, to their own detriment. Their decision within the UNSC contributes to weakening their own military alliance, the Shanghai  Cooperation organization (SCO), in which Iran has observer status. The Security Council resolution freezes China and Russia’s respective bilateral military cooperation and trade agreements with Iran. It has serious repercussions on Iran’s air defense system which in part depends on Russian technology and expertise.

The Security Council resolution grants a de facto “green light” to wage a pre-emptive war against Iran.

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TOWARDS A WORLD WAR III SCENARIO, THE MILITARY ROAD MAP AND THE ROLE OF ISRAEL IN TRIGGERING AN ATTACK ON IRAN

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research

January 02, 2013

The stockpiling and deployment of advanced weapons systems directed against Iran started in the immediate wake of the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq. From the outset, these war plans were led by the US, in liaison with NATO and Israel.

Following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration identified Iran and Syria as the next stage of “the road map to war”. US military sources intimated that an aerial attack on Iran could involve a large scale deployment comparable to the US “shock and awe” bombing raids on Iraq in March 2003:

“American air strikes on Iran would vastly exceed the scope of the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osiraq nuclear center in Iraq, and would more resemble the opening days of the 2003 air campaign against Iraq.(See Globalsecurity )

“Theater Iran Near Term”

Code named by US military planners as TIRANNT, “Theater Iran Near Term”, simulations of an attack on Iran were initiated in May 2003 “when modelers and intelligence specialists pulled together the data needed for theater-level (meaning large-scale) scenario analysis for Iran.” ( (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006).

The scenarios identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a “Shock and Awe” Blitzkrieg:

“The analysis, called TIRANNT, for “Theater Iran Near Term,” was coupled with a mock scenario for a Marine Corps invasion and a simulation of the Iranian missile force. U.S. and British planners conducted a Caspian Sea war game around the same time. And Bush directed the U.S. Strategic Command to draw up a global strike war plan for an attack against Iranian weapons of mass destruction. All of this will ultimately feed into a new war plan for “major combat operations” against Iran that military sources confirm now [April 2006] exists in draft form.

… Under TIRANNT, Army and U.S. Central Command planners have been examining both near-term and out-year scenarios for war with Iran, including all aspects of a major combat operation, from mobilization and deployment of forces through postwar stability operations after regime change.” (William Arkin, Washington Post, 16 April 2006)

Different “theater scenarios” for an all out attack on Iran had been contemplated:  “The US army, navy, air force and marines have all prepared battle plans and spent four years building bases and training for “Operation Iranian Freedom”. Admiral Fallon, the new head of US Central Command, has inherited computerized plans under the name TIRANNT (Theatre Iran Near Term).” (New Statesman, February 19, 2007)

In 2004, drawing upon the initial war scenarios under TIRANNT,  Vice President Dick Cheney instructed USSTRATCOM to draw up a “contingency plan” of a large scale military operation directed against Iran “to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States” on the presumption that the government in Tehran would be behind the terrorist plot. The plan included the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state:

“The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.” (Philip Giraldi, Deep Background,The American Conservative  August 2005)

The Military Road Map: “First Iraq, then Iran”

The decision to target Iran under TIRANNT was part of the broader process of military planning and sequencing of military operations. Already under the Clinton administration, US Central Command (USCENTCOM) had formulated  “in war theater plans” to invade first Iraq and then Iran. Access to Middle East oil was the stated strategic objective:

“The broad national security interests and objectives expressed in the President’s National Security Strategy (NSS) and the Chairman’s National Military Strategy (NMS) form the foundation of the United States Central Command’s theater strategy. The NSS directs implementation of a strategy of dual containment of the rogue states of Iraq and Iran as long as those states pose a threat to U.S. interests, to other states in the region, and to their own citizens. Dual containment is designed to maintain the balance of power in the region without depending on either Iraq or Iran. USCENTCOM’s theater strategy is interest-based and threat-focused. The purpose of U.S. engagement, as espoused in the NSS, is to protect the United States’ vital interest in the region – uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil.” (USCENTCOM, http://www.milnet.com/milnet/pentagon/centcom/chap1/stratgic.htm#USPolicy, link no longer active, archived at http://tinyurl.com/37gafu9)

The war on Iran was viewed as part of a succession of military operations.  According to (former) NATO Commander General Wesley Clark, the Pentagon’s military road-map consisted of a sequence of countries: “[The] Five-year campaign plan [includes]… a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan.”  In “Winning Modern Wars” (page 130) General Clark states the following:

“As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan. (See Secret 2001 Pentagon Plan to Attack Lebanon, Global Research, July 23, 2006)

The Role of Israel

There has been much debate regarding the role of Israel in initiating an attack against Iran.

Israel is part of a military alliance. Tel Aviv is not a prime mover. It does not have a separate and distinct military agenda.

Israel is integrated into the “war plan for major combat operations” against Iran formulated in 2006 by US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). In the context of large scale military operations, an uncoordinated unilateral military action by one coalition partner, namely Israel, is from a military and strategic point almost an impossibility. Israel is a de facto member of NATO. Any action by Israel would require a “green light” from Washington.

An attack by Israel could, however, be used as “the trigger mechanism” which would unleash an all out war against Iran, as well retaliation by Iran directed against Israel.

In this regard, there are indications that Washington might envisage the option of an initial (US backed) attack by Israel  rather than an outright US-led military operation directed against Iran. The Israeli attack –although led in close liaison with the Pentagon and NATO– would be presented to public opinion as a unilateral decision by Tel Aviv. It would then be used by Washington to justify, in the eyes of World opinion, a military intervention of the US and NATO with a view to “defending Israel”, rather than attacking Iran. Under existing military cooperation agreements, both the US and NATO would be “obligated” to “defend Israel” against Iran and Syria.

It is worth noting, in this regard, that at the outset of Bush’s second term, (former) Vice President Dick Cheney hinted, in no uncertain terms, that Iran was “right at the top of the list” of the “rogue enemies” of America, and that Israel would, so to speak, “be doing the bombing for us”, without US military involvement and without us putting pressure on them “to do it” (See Michel Chossudovsky, Planned US-Israeli Attack on Iran, Global Research, May 1, 2005): According to Cheney:

“One of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked… Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards,” (Dick Cheney, quoted from an MSNBC Interview, January 2005)

Commenting the Vice President’s assertion, former National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in an interview on PBS, confirmed with some apprehension, yes: Cheney wants Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to act on America’s behalf and “do it” for us:

“Iran I think is more ambiguous. And there the issue is certainly not tyranny; it’s nuclear weapons. And the vice president today in a kind of a strange parallel statement to this declaration of freedom hinted that the Israelis may do it and in fact used language which sounds like a justification or even an encouragement for the Israelis to do it.”

What we are dealing with is a joint US-NATO-Israel  military operation to bomb Iran, which has been in the active planning stage since 2004. Officials in the Defense Department, under Bush and Obama, have been working assiduously with their Israeli military and intelligence counterparts, carefully identifying targets inside Iran. In practical military terms, any action by Israel would have to be planned and coordinated at the highest levels of the US led coalition.

An attack by Israel would also require coordinated US-NATO logistical support, particularly with regard to Israel’s air defense system, which since January 2009 is fully integrated into that of the US and NATO. (See Michel Chossudovsky,  Unusually Large U.S. Weapons Shipment to Israel: Are the US and Israel Planning a Broader Middle East War?  Global Research, January 11,2009)

Israel’s X band radar system established in early 2009 with US technical support has “integrate[d] Israel’s missile defenses with the U.S. global missile [Space-based] detection network, which includes satellites, Aegis ships on the Mediterranean, Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and land-based Patriot radars and interceptors.” (Defense Talk.com, January 6, 2009,)

What this means is that Washington ultimately calls the shots. The US rather than Israel controls the air defense system: ”’This is and will remain a U.S. radar system,’ Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said. ‘So this is not something we are giving or selling to the Israelis and it is something that will likely require U.S. personnel on-site to operate.’” (Quoted in Israel National News, January 9, 2009).

The US military oversees Israel’s Air Defense system, which is integrated into the Pentagon’s global system. In other words, Israel cannot launch a war against Iran without Washington’s consent. Hence the importance of the so-called “Green Light” legislation in the US Congress sponsored by the Republican party under House Resolution 1553, which explicitly supports an Israeli attakc on Iran:

“The measure, introduced by Texas Republican Louie Gohmert and 46 of his colleagues, endorses Israel’s use of “all means necessary” against Iran “including the use of military force.” … “We’ve got to get this done. We need to show our support for Israel. We need to quit playing games with this critical ally in such a difficult area.”’ (See Webster Tarpley, Fidel Castro Warns of Imminent Nuclear War; Admiral Mullen Threatens Iran; US-Israel Vs. Iran-Hezbollah Confrontation Builds On, Global Research, August 10, 2010)

In practice, the proposed legislation is a “Green Light” to the White House and the Pentagon rather than to Israel. It constitutes a rubber stamp to a US sponsored war on Iran which uses Israel as a convenient military launch pad. It also serves as a justification to wage war with a view to defending Israel.

In this context, Israel could indeed provide the pretext to wage war, in response to alleged Hamas or Hezbollah attacks and/or the triggering of hostilities on the border of Israel with Lebanon. What is crucial to understand is that a minor ”incident” could be used as a pretext to spark off a major military operation against Iran.

Known to US military planners, Israel (rather than the USA) would be the first target of military retaliation by Iran. Broadly speaking, Israelis would be the victims of the machinations of both Washington and their own government. It is, in this regard, absolutely crucial that Israelis forcefully oppose any action by the Netanyahu government to attack Iran.

Global Warfare: The Role of US Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM)

Global military operations are coordinated out of US Strategic Command Headquarters (USSTRATCOM) at the Offutt Air Force base in Nebraska, in liaison with the regional commands of the unified combatant commands (e.g.. US Central Command  in Florida, which is responsible for the Middle East-Central Asian region, See map below)  as well as coalition command units in Israel, Turkey, the Persian Gulf and the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean.  Military planning and decision making at a country level by individual allies of US-NATO as well as “partner nations” is integrated into a global military design including the weaponization of space.

Under its new mandate, USSTRATCOM has a responsibility for “overseeing a global strike plan” consisting of both conventional and nuclear weapons. In military jargon, it is slated to play the role of “a global integrator charged with the missions of Space Operations; Information Operations; Integrated Missile Defense; Global Command & Control; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Global Strike; and Strategic Deterrence…. ”

USSTRATCOM’s responsibilities include: “leading, planning, & executing strategic deterrence operations” at a global level, “synchronizing global missile defense plans and operations”, “synchronizing regional combat plans”, etc. USSTRATCOM is the lead agency in the coordination of modern warfare.

In January 2005, at the outset of the military deployment and build-up directed against Iran, USSTRATCOM was identified as “the lead Combatant Command for integration and synchronization of DoD-wide efforts in combating weapons of mass destruction.” (Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Global Research, January 3, 2006).

What this means is that the coordination of a large scale attack on Iran, including the various scenarios of escalation in and beyond the broader Middle East Central Asian region would be coordinated by USSTRATCOM.

Map: US Central Command’s Area of Jurisdiction

Tactical Nuclear Weapons directed against Iran

Confirmed by military documents as well as official statements, both the US and Israel contemplate the use of nuclear weapons directed against Iran. In 2006, U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) announced it had achieved an operational capability for rapidly striking targets around the globe using nuclear or conventional weapons. This announcement was made after the conduct of military simulations pertaining to a US led nuclear attack against a fictional country. (David Ruppe, Preemptive Nuclear War in a State of Readiness: U.S. Command Declares Global Strike Capability, Global Security Newswire, December 2, 2005)

Continuity in relation to the Bush-Cheney era:  President Obama has largely endorsed the doctrine of pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons formulated by the previous administration. Under the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the Obama administration confirmed  “that it is reserving the right to use nuclear weapons against Iran” for its non-compliance with US demands regarding its alleged (nonexistent) nuclear weapons program. (U.S. Nuclear Option on Iran Linked to Israeli Attack Threat – IPS ipsnews.net, April 23, 2010). The Obama administration has also intimated that it would use nukes in the case of an Iranian response to an Israeli attack on Iran. (Ibid). Israel  has also drawn up its own “secret plans” to bomb Iran with tactical nuclear weapons:

“Israeli military commanders believe conventional strikes may no longer be enough to annihilate increasingly well-defended enrichment facilities. Several have been built beneath at least 70ft of concrete and rock. However, the nuclear-tipped bunker-busters would be used only if a conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to intervene, senior sources said.”(Revealed: Israel plans nuclear strike on Iran – Times Online, January 7, 2007)

Obama’s statements on the use of nuclear weapons against Iran and North Korea are consistent with post 9/11 US nuclear weapons doctrine, which allows for the use of tactical nuclear weapons in the conventional war theater.

Through a propaganda campaign which has enlisted the support of “authoritative” nuclear scientists, mini-nukes are upheld as an instrument of peace, namely a means to combating “Islamic terrorism” and instating Western style “democracy” in Iran. The low-yield nukes have been cleared for “battlefield use”. They are slated to be used against Iran and Syria in the next stage of America’s “war on Terrorism” alongside conventional weapons.

“Administration officials argue that low-yield nuclear weapons are needed as a credible deterrent against rogue states. [Iran, Syria, North Korea] Their logic is that existing nuclear weapons are too destructive to be used except in a full-scale nuclear war. Potential enemies realize this, thus they do not consider the threat of nuclear retaliation to be credible. However, low-yield nuclear weapons are less destructive, thus might conceivably be used. That would make them more effective as a deterrent.” (Opponents Surprised By Elimination of Nuke Research Funds Defense News November 29, 2004)

The preferred nuclear weapon to be used against Iran are tactical nuclear weapons (Made in America), namely bunker buster bombs with nuclear warheads (e.g. B61.11), with an explosive capacity between one third to six times a Hiroshima bomb. The B61-11 is the “nuclear version” of the “conventional”  BLU 113. or Guided Bomb Unit GBU-28. It can be delivered in much same way as the conventional bunker buster bomb. (See Michel Chossudovsky, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO112C.html, see also http://www.thebulletin.org/article_nn.php?art_ofn=jf03norris) . While the US does not contemplate the use of strategic thermonuclear weapons against Iran, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is largely composed of thermonuclear bombs which are deployed and could be used in a war with Iran. Under Israel’s Jericho‐III missile system with a range between 4,800 km to 6,500 km, all Iran would be within reach.

Conventional bunker buster Guided Bomb Unit GBU-27

B61 bunker buster bomb

Radiactive Fallout

The issue of radioactive fallout and contamination, while casually dismissed  by US-NATO military analysts, would be devastating, potentially affecting a large area of  the broader Middle East (including Israel) and Central Asian region.

In an utterly twisted logic, nuclear weapons are presented as a means to building peace and preventing “collateral damage”.  Iran’s nonexistent nuclear weapons are a threat to global security, whereas those of the US  and Israel are instruments of peace” harmless to the surrounding civilian population“.

“The Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) Slated to be Used against Iran

Of military significance within the US conventional weapons arsenal is the 21,500-pound “monster weapon” nicknamed the “mother of all bombs” The GBU-43/B or Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB) was categorized “as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon ever designed” with the the largest yield in the US conventional arsenal. The MOAB was tested in early March 2003 before being deployed to the Iraq war theater. According to US military sources, The Joint Chiefs of Staff  had advised the government of  Saddam Hussein prior to launching the 2003 that the “mother of all bombs” was to be used against Iraq. (There were unconfirmed reports that it had been used in Iraq).

The US Department of Defence has confirmed in October 2009 that it intends to use the “Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB) against Iran. The MOAB is said to be  ”ideally suited to hit deeply buried nuclear facilities such as Natanz or Qom in Iran” (Jonathan Karl, Is the U.S. Preparing to Bomb Iran? ABC News, October 9, 2009). The truth of the matter is that the MOAB, given its explosive capacity, would result in extremely large civilian casualties. It is a conventional “killing machine” with a nuclear type mushroom cloud.

The procurement of four MOABs was commissioned in October 2009 at the hefty cost of $58.4 million, ($14.6 million for each bomb). This amount  includes the costs of development and testing as well as integration of the MOAB bombs onto B-2 stealth bombers.(Ibid). This procurement is directly linked to war preparations in relation to Iran. The notification was contained in a 93-page “reprogramming memo” which included the following instructions:

“The Department has an Urgent Operational Need (UON) for the capability to strike hard and deeply buried targets in high threat environments. The MOP [Mother of All Bombs] is the weapon of choice to meet the requirements of the UON [Urgent Operational Need].” It further states that the request is endorsed by Pacific Command (which has responsibility over North Korea) and Central Command (which has responsibility over Iran).” (ABC News,  op cit, emphasis added). To consult the reprogramming request (pdf) click here

The Pentagon is planning on a process of extensive destruction of Iran’s infrastructure and mass civilian casualties through the combined use of tactical nukes and monster conventional mushroom cloud bombs, including the MOAB and the larger GBU-57A/B or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which surpasses the MOAB in terms of explosive capacity.

The MOP is described as “a powerful new bomb aimed squarely at the underground nuclear facilities of Iran and North Korea. The gargantuan bomb—longer than 11 persons standing shoulder-to-shoulder [see image below] or more than 20 feet base to nose” (See Edwin Black, “Super Bunker-Buster Bombs Fast-Tracked for Possible Use Against Iran and North Korea Nuclear Programs”, Cutting Edge, September 21 2009)

These are WMDs in the true sense of the word. The not so hidden objective of the MOAB and MOP, including the American nickname used to casually describe the MOAB (“mother of all bombs’), is “mass destruction” and mass civilian casualties with a view to instilling fear and despair.

“Mother of All Bombs” (MOAB)

GBU-57A/B Mass Ordnance Penetrator (MOP)

MOAB: screen shots of test: explosion and mushroom cloud (right)

State of the Art Weaponry: “War Made Possible Through New Technologies”

The process of US military decision making in relation to Iran is supported by Star Wars, the militarization of outer space and the revolution in communications and information systems. Given the advances in military technology and the development of new weapons systems, an attack on Iran could be significantly different in terms of the mix of weapons systems, when compared to the March 2003 Blitzkrieg launched against Iraq. The Iran operation is slated to use the most advanced weapons systems in support of its aerial attacks. In all likelihood, new weapons systems will be tested.

The 2000 Project of the New American Century (PNAC) document entitled Rebuilding American Defenses, outlined the mandate of the US military in terms of large scale theater wars, to be waged simultaneously in different regions of the World:

“Fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars”. 

This formulation is tantamount to a global war of conquest by a single imperial superpower. The PNAC document also called for the transformation of  U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”, namely the implementation of  “war made possible through new technologies”. (See Project for a New American Century, Rebuilding Americas Defenses  Washington DC, September 2000, pdf).  The latter consists in developing and perfecting a state of the art global killing machine based on an arsenal of sophisticated new weaponry, which would eventually replace the existing paradigms.

“Thus, it can be foreseen that the process of transformation will in fact be a two-stage process: first of transition, then of more thoroughgoing transformation. The breakpoint will come when a preponderance of new weapons systems begins to enter service, perhaps when, for example, unmanned aerial vehicles begin to be as numerous as manned aircraft. In this regard, the Pentagon should be very wary of making large investments in new programs – tanks, planes, aircraft carriers, for example – that would commit U.S. forces to current paradigms of warfare for many decades to come. (Ibid, emphasis added)

The war on Iran could indeed mark this crucial breakpoint, with new space-based weapons systems being applied with a view to disabling an enemy which has significant conventional military capabilities including more than half a million ground forces.

Electromagnetic Weapons

Electromagnetic weapons could be used to destabilize Iran’s communications systems, disable electric power generation, undermine and destabilize command and control, government infrastructure, transportation, energy, etc.  Within the same family of weapons, environmental modifications techniques (ENMOD) (weather warfare) developed under the HAARP programme could also be applied. (See Michel Chossudovsky, “Owning the Weather” for Military Use, Global Research, September 27, 2004). These weapons systems are fully operational. In this context, te US Air Force document AF 2025 explicitly acknowledgedthe military applications of weather modification technologies:

“Weather modification will become a part of domestic and international security and could be done unilaterally… It could have offensive and defensive applications and even be used for deterrence purposes. The ability to generate precipitation, fog, and storms on earth or to modify space weather, improve communications through ionospheric modification (the use of ionospheric mirrors), and the production of artificial weather all are a part of an integrated set of technologies which can provide substantial increase in US, or degraded capability in an adversary, to achieve global awareness, reach, and power.” (Air Force 2025 Final Report, See also US Air Force: Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025, AF2025 v3c15-1 | Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning… | (Ch 1) at www.fas.org).

Electromagnetic radiation enabling “remote health impairment” might also be envisaged in the war theater. (See Mojmir Babacek, Electromagnetic and Informational Weapons:, Global Research, August 6, 2004). In turn, new uses of biological weapons by the US military might also be envisaged as suggested by the PNAC: “[A]dvanced forms of biological warfare that can “target” specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool.” (PNAC, op cit., p. 60).

Iran’s Military Capabilities: Medium and Long Range Missiles

Iran has advanced military capabilities, including medium and long range missiles capable of reaching targets in Israel and the Gulf States. Hence the emphasis by the US-NATO Israel alliance on the use of nuclear weapons, which are slated to be used either pr-emptively or in response to an Iranian retaliatory missile attack.

Range of Iran’s Shahab Missiles. Copyright Washington Post

In November 2006, Iran tests of surface missiles 2 were marked by precise planning in a carefully staged operation. According to a senior American missile expert (quoted by Debka),  “the Iranians demonstrated up-to-date missile-launching technology which the West had not known them to possess.” (See Michel Chossudovsky, Iran’s “Power of Deterrence”  Global Research, November 5, 2006) Israel acknowledged that “the Shehab-3, whose 2,000-km range brings Israel, the Middle East and Europe within reach” (Debka, November 5, 2006)

According to Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s anti-ballistic missile program, “the intensity of the military exercise was unprecedented… It was meant to make an impression — and it made an impression.” (www.cnsnews.com 3 November 2006)

The 2006 exercises, while  creating a political stir in the US and Israel, did not in any way modify US-NATO-Israeli resolve to wage on Iran.

Tehran has confirmed in several statements that it will respond if it is attacked. Israel would be the immediate object of Iranian missile attacks as confirmed by the Iranian government. The issue of Israel’s air defense system is therefore crucial. US and allied military facilities in the Gulf states, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq could also be targeted by Iran.

Iran’s Ground Forces

While Iran is encircled by US and allied military bases, the Islamic Republic has significant military capabilities. (See maps below) What is important to acknowledge is the sheer size of Iranian forces in terms of personnel (army, navy, air force) when compared to US and NATO forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Confronted with a well organized insurgency, coalition forces are already overstretched in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Would these forces be able to cope if Iranian ground forces were to enter the existing battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan? The potential of the Resistance movement to US and allied occupation would inevitably be affected.

Iranian ground forces are of the order of 700,000 of which 130,000 are professional soldiers, 220,000 are conscripts and 350,000 are reservists. (See  Islamic Republic of Iran Army – Wikipedia). There are 18,000 personnel in Iran’s Navy and 52,000 in the air force. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, “the Revolutionary Guards has an estimated 125,000 personnel in five branches: Its own Navy, Air Force, and Ground Forces; and the Quds Force (Special Forces).” According to the CISS, Iran’s Basij paramilitary volunteer force controlled by the Revolutionary Guards “has an estimated 90,000 active-duty full-time uniformed members, 300,000 reservists, and a total of 11 million men that can be mobilized if need be” (Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran – Wikipedia), In other words, Iran can mobilize up to half a million regular troops and several million militia. Its Quds special forces are already operating inside Iraq.

US Military and Allied Facilties Surrounding Iran

For several years now Iran has been conducting its own war drills and exercises. While its Air force has weaknesses, its intermediate and long-range missiles are fully operational. Iran’s military is in a state of readiness. Iranian troop concentrations are currently within a few kilometers of the Iraqi and Afghan borders, and within proximity of Kuwait. The Iranian Navy is deployed in the Persian Gulf within proximity of US and allied military facilities in the United Arab Emirates.

It is worth noting that in response to Iran’s military build-up, the US has been transferring large amounts of weapons to its non-NATO allies in the Persian Gulf including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

While Iran’s advanced weapons do not measure up to those of the US and NATO, Iranian forces would be in a position to inflict substantial losses to coalition forces in  a conventional war theater, on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan. Iranian ground troops and tanks in December 2009 crossed the border into Iraq without being confronted or challenged by allied forces and occupied a disputed territory in the East Maysan oil field.

Even in the event of an effective Blitzkrieg, which targets Iran’s military facilities, its communications systems, etc. through massive aerial bombing, using cruise missiles, conventional bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons, a war with Iran, once initiated, could eventually lead into a ground war. This is something which US military planners have no doubt contemplated in their simulated war scenarios.

An operation of this nature would result in significant military and civilian casualties, particularly if nuclear weapons are used.

The expanded budget for the war in Afghanistan currently debated in the US Congress is also intended to be used in the eventuality of an attack on Iran.

Within a scenario of escalation, Iranian troops could cross the border into Iraq and Afghanistan.

In turn, military escalation using nuclear weapons could lead us into a World War III scenario, extending beyond the Middle East Central Asian region.

In a very real sense, this military project, which has been on the Pentagon’s drawing board for more than five years, threatens the future of humanity.

Our focus in this essay has been on war preparations. The fact that war preparations are in an advanced state of readiness does not imply that these war plans will be carried out.

The US-NATO-Israel alliance realizes that the enemy has significant capabilities to respond and retaliate. This factor in itself has been crucial over the last five years in the decision by the US and its allies to postpone an attack on Iran.

Another crucial factor is the structure of military alliances. Whereas NATO has become a formidable force, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which constitutes an alliance between Russia and China and a number of former Soviet republics has been significantly weakened.

The ongoing US military threats directed  against China and Russia are intended to weaken the SCO and discourage any form of military action on the part of Iran’s allies in the case of a US NATO Israeli attack.

Building a Political Consensus for War

In chorus, the Western media has branded Iran as a threat to global security in view of its alleged (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Echoing official statements, the media is now demanding the implementation of punitive bombings directed against Iran so as to safeguard Israel’s security.

The Western media is beating the drums of war. The purpose is to tacitly instil, through repeated media reports, ad nauseam, within people’s inner consciousness, the notion that the Iranian threat is real and that the Islamic Republic should be “taken out”.

A consensus building process to wage war is similar to the Spanish inquisition. It requires and demands submission to the notion that war is a humanitarian endeavor.

Building a political consensus which is based on an outright lie cannot, however, rely solely on the official position of those who are the source of the lie.

We call upon people across the land, in America,  Western Europe, Israel, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their governments which are supportive of military action against Iran, against the media which serves to camouflage the devastating implications of a war against Iran.The military agenda support a profit driven destructive global economic system which impoverishes large sectors of the world population.

A military strike on Iran will be a prelude to World War III.  World War III will be terminal.  It will be the end of civilization. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination resulting from depleted uranium. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”

The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity, and that this complex process of gradual destruction has already commenced.

When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning back.  That’s why the Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.  Otherwise, when war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor, Justice and the entire international legal system will be turned upside down.

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DAVID ICKE: WORLD WAR III WILL BEGIN IN THE MIDDLE EAST

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JOEL SKOUSEN: THE GLOBALISTS PLAN TO ATTACK THE UNITED STATES WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS REVEALED

Published on Oct 20, 2012 by TheAlexJonesChannel

The world is getting increasingly unstable. Debt levels are unsustainable, world financial markets are calling for constant bailouts, and the US is continuing to antagonize the Middle East with military intervention. Any number of these crises can lead to a break down in the social order of the high density urban areas of the United States. Could you survive without public utilities or supermarkets through a winter? Are there enough people around you that are prepared to band together and help one another during social unrest? More and more people are reevaluating their living arrangements to be prepared for prolonged disasters. But what if you have to stay in a big city for work? Have you developed some contingency plans? Are you located in a part of the city that will allow escape through the rural byways? Have you made a transportation plan? And, what can be done to secure your home now in case you can’t get out in a crisis? Strategic Relocation has the answers.

http://www.joelskousen.com/

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LYNDON LAROUCHE: ‘GLOBAL THERMAL NUCLEAR WAR UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA WOULD BE UNSURVIVABLE’

Published on Sep 3, 2012 by laroucheyouth

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In a tight, stark presentation, LaRouchePAC’s latest video documentary, “Unsurvivable” presents the horror of the thermonuclear war to which President Barack Obama is currently leading the world. Unsurvivable is a dark, gruesome, but wholly true depiction of the threat of thermonuclear war, the consequences, and Obama’s deployment of a major portion of the U.S. thermonuclear arsenal in multiple theaters threatening both Russia and China. During the past three years under Obama, thermonuclear war has become a more imminent reality than at any other time in recent history.

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Thermonuclear war and the power to destroy the American people. That power is now in the hands of Barack Obama. LaRouche warns, “If that President is reelected, you are dead! … You have no other issue to celebrate or to even worry about. It will all be taken off your shoulders when they kill you.”

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 If the masses of American voters are stupid enough to reelect Barack Obama as president, then the scenario depicted in Unsurvivable will not only be likely, but virtually inevitable. 

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The issue is not the election. The election is a battle in a warfare. It is not something unto itself. The result of this election, in itself, is a matter of indifference. It’s a question of how the battle is won and lost which is important.

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The real issue is World War III. And World War III will be between the British Empire, better known as the Anglo-Dutch Liberal banking financial system, on the one side, and the principal nations of Eurasia—Russia, China, India—and other nations, are the targets of intended warfare by the British Empire, which has already turned Continental Europe into a mere colony of the British Empire, through the program of the Lisbon Treaty.  Through the Lisbon Treaty, there is not a single nation on the continent of Europe, west of Belarus and Russia, which has any sovereignty left whatsoever. The British Empire now controls the entirety of that region of Europe, from Portugal to the borders of Belarus and Russia, as a puppet of the Anglo-Dutch Liberal financial interests.

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Right now, you’re looking at a war between an empire, run by London, not necessarily all the British people, but by the Anglo-Dutch Liberal financial cartel: the same cartel that put Mussolini into power in Italy; the same cartel that put Hitler into power in Germany! And now we have a Hilter-power taking over the United States. If they grab the United States, then they will grab all of Europe under the Lisbon Treaty. If they control the United States and parts of Europe under the Lisbon Treaty, then you will have an actual fighting world war emerging on this planet, against the continent of Africa and much of the continent of Asia, and other places. You will have dictatorship; you will have mass starvation. The elimination of whole sections of the population of parts of the world through starvation. And that’s part of the British program! It’s the food war!

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We’re not dealing with an election. We’re dealing with whether there is in the United States, in the top layers of society, the moral fitness to survive! And so far, the vote is, in the leadership of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party: Neither is morally fit to survive! They’re as unmorally fit to survive as the people who backed Mussolini and backed Hitler back in the 1920s and the 1930s. And if we allow this to happen, we will get the same kind of treatment, that the victims of Mussolini, Hitler suffered.  We either win this fight or there won’t by anything left to fight for.

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ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE ATTACK: ’90% OF AMERICANS WOULD BE DEAD’

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Just think. A nuclear device carried aloft by an Iranian rocket somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico and a blinding flash is seen in the skies.

Within 12 to 18 months, experts predict, 90 percent of Americans would be dead.

That’s the catastrophic threat from the resulting electromagnetic pulse signal, or EMP, that an conference addressed in August 2012.

Computers would cease functioning, and every system that relies on those components – food and fuel deliveries, communications, production, manufacturing, travel and everything associated – would halt.

Forstchen cited a 2004 study on the impact of such an assault on America.

“Testimony in that study said 90 percent, let me repeat that, 90 percent of all Americans would die within 12-18 months of an EMP attack,” he said.

Kahlili warns that Iran already has been practicing with missile launches from ships that simply put the payload straight up and high in the sky.

“That is the signature … of training for an EMP launch.”

Kahlili confirmed it would take only 60 seconds for such a warhead to be launched, and the result would “destabilize the entire infrastructure of the United States within hours.”

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A MASSIVE ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE COULD COLLAPSE THE ECONOMY IN A SINGLE MOMENT

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
January 1, 2013

What would you do if all the lights went out and they never came back on?  That is a question that the new NBC series “Revolution” asks, but most people have no idea that a similar thing could happen in real life at any moment.  A single gigantic electromagnetic pulse over the central United States could potentially fry most of the electronics from coast to coast if it was powerful enough.  This could occur in a couple of different ways.  If a powerful nuclear weapon was exploded at a high enough altitude, it could produce an electromagnetic pulse powerful enough to knock out electronics all over the country.  Alternatively, a massive solar stormcould potentially cause a similar phenomenon to happen just about anywhere on the planet without much warning.  Of course not all EMP events are created equal.  An electromagnetic pulse can range from a minor inconvenience to a civilization-killing event.  It just depends on how powerful it is.  But in the worst case scenario, we could be facing a situation where our electrical grids have been fried, there is no heat for our homes, our computers don’t work, the Internet does not work, our cell phones do not work, there are no more banking records, nobody can use credit cards anymore, hospitals are unable to function, nobody can pump gas, and supermarkets cannot operate because there is no power and no refrigeration.  Basically, we would witness the complete and total collapse of the economy.  According to a government commission that looked into these things, approximately two-thirds of the U.S. population would die from starvation, disease and societal chaos within one year of a massive EMP attack.  It would be a disaster unlike anything we have ever seen before in U.S. history.

Most Americans are totally clueless about what an EMP attack could do to this nation, but the threat is very real.  There was even a congressional commission that studied the potential effects of an EMP attack on the United States for eight years…

The US Congress in 2000 established the Congressional Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. In 2004, the committee produced a 70-page executive summary on the EMP threat, and it issued a final report on the matter in 2008. According to the report, “several potential adversaries have or can acquire the capability to attack the United States with a high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A determined adversary can achieve an EMP attack capability without having a high level of sophistication.”

Dr. William Graham was the chairman of that commission, and he says that an EMP attack could knock the United States back into the 1800s in just a single moment…

An EMP attack “could not only take down power grids, which are fragile anyway in this country, and telecommunications networks, and financial networks, and traffic controls and many other things, but in addition, there is a very close interrelationship among those national infrastructure capabilities,” Graham says.

“So, for example, we need telecommunications to re-establish the power network, and we need the power network to keep telecommunications going for more than a few hours. And we need the financial network to continue to operate to maintain the economy, we need the transportation system, roads, street lights, control systems, to operate just to get people to the failed power, telecommunication and other systems,” he adds.

Life after an EMP attack “would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people,” Graham says. “They wouldn’t have power. Food supplies would be greatly taken out by the lack of transportation, telecommunication, power for refrigeration and so on.”

Unfortunately, very few of us are equipped to survive in such an environment.  We have become incredibly dependent on technology, and most Americans would have no idea how to do something as simple as growing their own food.  Most people would be in a very serious amount of trouble in a very short period of time.

An article by Mac Slavo detailed some of the things that we could expect in the aftermath of a massive electromagnetic pulse…

The first 24 – 48 hours after such an occurrence will lead to confusion among the general population as traditional news acquisition sources like television, radio and cell phone networks will be non-functional.

Within a matter of days, once people realize the power might not be coming back on and grocery store shelves start emptying, the entire system will begin to delve into chaos.

Within 30 days a mass die off will have begun as food supplies dwindle, looters and gangs turn to violent extremes, medicine can’t be restocked and water pump stations fail.

Are you prepared for such an event?

If not, why not?

And actually, high altitude nuclear explosions and solar storms are not the only things that could produce sizable EMP bursts.

For example, the U.S. military has developed “a directed electromagnetic pulse gun” that can take out all electronics within a limited area.  This kind of weapon can be fired from a plane, a cruise missile or even a drone.  The following is from a recent WND article…

A pre-programmed cruise missile not too different from a drone has been proven to be capable of blasting out an EMP-type microwave that was able to destroy personal computers and electrical systems inside a building over which it was flying.

The U.S. Air Force and its contractor Boeing have created the High-powered Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, which was just tested over a Utah desert.

Other nations such as Russia and China are busy developing similar weapons.  The ability to instantly take out the electronics of the enemy would be a very powerful advantage.

Even North Korea has been working on this kind of technology.  According to Newsmax, it is believed that they may have tested a “Super-EMP” weapon back in 2009…

North Korea’s last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a “super-EMP” weapon, capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states

As this technology becomes more widespread, it will soon be accessible to just about everyone.  You don’t actually need a nuclear weapon to set off a massive electromagnetic pulse.  A non-nuclear pulse generator can do the same thing.  If you set one off next to a power station you could potentially take out the electrical grid for an entire region.

Terrorist groups and lone wolf crazies could even use portable radio frequency weapons to do a tremendous amount of electromagnetic damage over a more limited area.  The following is from a recent articleby F. Michael Maloof…

Such an individual with a penchant for electronics can pull together components from a Radio Shack or electronic store – even order the components off of selected Internet websites – and fashion a radio frequency, or RF, weapon.

As microprocessors become smaller but more sophisticated, they are even more susceptible to an RF pulse. The high power microwave from an RF weapon produces a short, very high power pulse, said to be billions of watts in a nanosecond, or billionths of a second.

This so-called burst of electromagnetic waves in the gigahertz microwave frequency band can melt electrical circuitry and damage integrated circuits, causing them to fail.

Constructing a radio frequency weapon is not that difficult.  In fact, you can find instructions for how to build them on the Internet.

People need to realize that we live in a world where technology is absolutely exploding and we are dealing with threats that previous generations never even dreamed of.  As the world becomes increasingly unstable, it is inevitable that these kinds of weapons will be used.

It is only a matter of time.

What will life look like after an EMP weapon is used?

That is something to think about.

And we also need to keep watching the sun.  It could produce a massive electromagnetic pulse at literally any moment.  As I have written aboutpreviously, scientists tell us that it is only a matter of time before we are hit with a technology-crippling solar super storm.

Most people don’t even realize that the massive solar storm of 1859fried telegraph machines all over Europe and North America.  If such a storm hit us today, the damage would potentially be in the trillions of dollars.  The following is from a recent New York Times article…

A powerful solar (or “geomagnetic”) storm has the potential to simultaneously damage multiple transformers in the electricity grid and perhaps even bring down large sections of it, affecting upwards of a hundred million people in the United States for many months, if not years.

These huge transformers are expensive and difficult to replace, and not many are stockpiled in the United States for an emergency. In the worst case, the impact would be devastating: An outage could cost a few trillion dollars, with full recovery taking years. Not only would parts of the grid be compromised, but telephone networks, undersea cables, satellites and railroads also would be affected.

A 2008 National Academy of Sciences studywarned that “because of the interconnectedness of critical infrastructures in modern society,” the “collateral effects of a longer-term outage” would likely include “disruption of the transportation, communication, banking and finance systems, and government services; the breakdown of the distribution of potable water owing to pump failure; and the loss of perishable foods and medications because of lack of refrigeration.”

By the way, 2013 is the peak of the current solar cycle.  So we are moving into a time period when conditions will be very favorable for solar storms.

Let us hope that we are never hit with a massive electromagnetic pulse that is strong enough to take out all of our electronics.

But if it did happen, and all the lights went out for good, what would you do?

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ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE ATTACK: ’90% OF ALL AMERICANS WOULD BE DEAD WITHIN THE FIRST 12 TO 18 MONTHS’

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Just think. A nuclear device carried aloft by an Iranian rocket somewhere near the Gulf of Mexico and a blinding flash is seen in the skies.

Within 12 to 18 months, experts predict, 90 percent of Americans would be dead.

That’s the catastrophic threat from the resulting electromagnetic pulse signal, or EMP, that an conference addressed in August 2012.

Computers would cease functioning, and every system that relies on those components – food and fuel deliveries, communications, production, manufacturing, travel and everything associated – would halt.

Forstchen cited a 2004 study on the impact of such an assault on America.

“Testimony in that study said 90 percent, let me repeat that, 90 percent of all Americans would die within 12-18 months of an EMP attack,” he said.

Kahlili warns that Iran already has been practicing with missile launches from ships that simply put the payload straight up and high in the sky.

“That is the signature … of training for an EMP launch.”

Kahlili confirmed it would take only 60 seconds for such a warhead to be launched, and the result would “destabilize the entire infrastructure of the United States within hours.”

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LIFE AFTER AN EMP ATTACK: NO POWER, NO FOOD, NO TRANSPORTATION, NO BANKING, NO CELL PHONE, NO INTERNET

By Michael Snyder

Most Americans do not know this, but a single EMP attack could potentially wipe out most of the electronics in the United States and instantly send this nation back to the 1800s.  If a nuclear bomb was exploded high enough in the atmosphere over the middle part of the country, the electromagnetic pulse would fry electronic devices from coast to coast.  The damage would be millions of times worse than 9/11.  Just imagine a world where nobody has power, most cars will not start, the Internet has been fried, the financial system is offline indefinitely, nobody can make any phone calls and virtually all commerce across the entire country is brought to a complete stop.  A nation that does not know how to live without technology would be almost entirely stripped of it at that point.  Yes, this could really happen.  An EMP attack is America’s “Achilles heel”, and everyone around the world knows it.  It is only a matter of time before someone uses an EMP weapon against us, and at this point we are pretty much completely unprepared.

The sad thing is that we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars hunting down “terrorists” in caves on the other side of the globe and we have been told that because of “national security” it is necessary for our private areas to be touched before we are allowed to get on an airplane, but our government is doing essentially nothing to address what is perhaps our biggest security vulnerability.

What would you and your neighbors do if the power went out and it did not ever come back on?

What would you do if an EMP attack happened in the middle of the winter and you suddenly were not able to heat your home any longer?

What would you do if all the electronics in your car got fried and you simply could not drive anywhere?

What would you do if all the supermarkets in your area shut down because food could not be transported across the country anymore?

What would you do if you were suddenly unable to call your family and friends for help?

What would you do if you were suddenly unable to get the medicine that you needed?

What would you do if your debit cards and credit cards simply did not work any longer and you could not get any of your money out of the bank?

What would you do if all of these things happened all at once?

A single EMP attack would be the worst disaster that the United States has ever seen by far.

An electromagnetic pulse could potentially fry the vast majority of all the microchips in the United States.  In an instant, nearly all of our electronic devices would be rendered useless.

Yes, the federal government knows all about this.  The following excerpt is from an April 2008 report by the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack….

“The consequences of lack of food, heat (or air conditioning), water, waste disposal, medical, police, fire fighting support, and effective civil authority would threaten society itself.”

Most of us have become completely and totally dependent on electricity and technology.  Without it, most of us would be in huge trouble.

The following is how an article in the Wall Street Journal described the potential consequences of an EMP attack….

No American would necessarily die in the initial attack, but what comes next is potentially catastrophic. The pulse would wipe out most electronics and telecommunications, including the power grid. Millions could die for want of modern medical care or even of starvation since farmers wouldn’t be able to harvest crops and distributors wouldn’t be able to get food to supermarkets. Commissioner Lowell Wood calls EMP attack a “giant continental time machine” that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we had the knowledge and the infrastructure to live the way that they did back in the 1800s, but today that is simply not the case.

Dr. William Graham was Ronald Reagan’s science adviser and the chairman of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack.  Dr. Graham believes that in the event of a large scale EMP attack, the vast majority of Americans would either freeze, starve or die from disease.

According to Graham, in the aftermath of an EMP attack life in America “would probably be something that you might imagine life to be like around the late 1800s but with several times the population we had in those days, and without the ability of the country to support and sustain all those people.”

Would you be able to survive?

All of those big bank accounts may never be able to be recovered after an EMP attack.  Your money might be instantly fried out of existence.

The following is what Graham believes would happen to the financial system in the event of an EMP attack….

“Most financial records are stored electronically. ATMs, which depend upon both power and telecommunications, would not be available; banks, which try to back up records but in general aren’t strongly aware of the EMP problem, would face the problem of unprotected storage and computer systems”

This is the danger of having a financial system that is so dependent on technology.  We may wake up one day and find that all the money is gone.

But if an EMP attack actually happened, the biggest concern for most of us would be trying to figure out how to survive.

The president of the Center for Security Policy, Frank Gaffney, is convinced that a single EMP attack could result in the deaths of the vast majority of the population of the United States….

“Within a year of that attack, nine out of 10 Americans would be dead, because we can’t support a population of the present size in urban centers and the like without electricity”

Are you starting to get a feel for the scope of the problem?

The sad thing is that so much could be done to protect this country from an EMP attack.

Right now, most vital U.S. military infrastructure has at least some protection from an EMP attack.

But the general population has been left completely and totally vulnerable.

It has been estimated that the entire power grid could potentially be protected for about 20 billion dollars.  Considering the fact that we have spent over 400 billion dollars in Afghanistan, I think that we could afford it.

We have spent our national security dollars very, very badly and someday it is going to come back to bite us in the rear end.

Right now, other nations around the world are working feverishly to develop EMP weapons.  The following is from a statement by Dr. Peter Vincent Pry to the United States Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security on March 8th, 2005….

Russian and Chinese military scientists in open source writings describe the basic principles of nuclear weapons designed specifically to generate an enhanced-EMP effect, that they term “Super-EMP” weapons. “Super-EMP” weapons, according to these foreign open source writings, can destroy even the best protected U.S. military and civilian electronic systems.

But it is not just Russia and China that have been developing “Super-EMP” weapons.  According to Newsmax, it is believed that North Korea may have tested a “Super-EMP” weapon back in 2009….

North Korea’s last round of tests, conducted in May 2009, appear to have included a “super-EMP” weapon, capable of emitting enough gamma rays to disable the electric power grid across most of the lower 48 states

Remember, all it would take is one strategically placed EMP attack to wipe out this nation.

But an EMP weapon is not the only danger that can produce this type of effect.  The truth is that a really bad geomagnetic storm could also potentially produce almost as much damage.

This is something that everyone knows is one of our biggest vulnerabilities and it is something that we can make preparations for.

Yet the Bush administration and the Obama administration have just stood there and have done nothing.

Our idiocy is astounding.

General Eugene Habiger, the former head of U. S. Strategic Command, has said the following about the possibility of an EMP attack in the future….

“It is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.”

Remember, this is something that could cause millions times more damage than 9/11 did.

Instead of molesting old ladies at airports and chasing goat herders around the mountains of Afghanistan, perhaps we should be addressing our largest security vulnerabilities.

But that would require using some common sense.  Sadly, common sense seems to be in very short supply in Washington D.C. these days.

So if the government is not going to do anything about it, that means that it is up to you to prepare yourself and your family.  This world is becoming very unstable and disasters can strike at any time.

We all saw what happened after Hurricane Katrina.  The government response was a nightmare.  An EMP attack would be millions of times worse and the federal government probably would not even be able to get you and your family any assistance.

You would truly be on your own.

So are you ready?

This is yet another reason why the number of preppers in the United States is exploding.  A lot of people can see how the world is changing and they understand that the federal government is not going to come through for them when the chips are down.

An EMP attack could end life as we know it at any time.

It is a glaring security vulnerability and the entire world knows that it is there.

I hope that you are getting ready, because the government certainly is not.

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THE GATHERING RED STORM

by Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

January 30, 2013

It’s difficult to not look at world events these days and feel as though we are sitting on a ticking time bomb. Things are heating up even more and the clock is now at about 30 seconds to midnight.

One wonders where all this will lead… Well, if the current course is kept, straight into hell, probably. That is by design and has been planned on for a very long time.

From Trevor Loudon:

If it comes to war, one joint Russia/China plan is for Russia to nuke the hell out of the continental United States. After Obama has finished decimating what is left of the US nuclear arsenal of course. The Russians will then invade Alaska and parts of Canada, but not the lower ’48. China will then invade across the Pacific. They will lose millions of troublesome young men, but they eventually get a foothold. Then their allies in Latin America will invade across the Mexican border… and the Red Dawn will break.

You can count North Korea in that mix as well. It has always been the plan of the Russians to use Iran as a proxy army to take control of the Middle East and the energy resources at play. But would any of them really come after the US?

The answer to that question is a definitive ‘yes.’ Being separated from most of our enemies by an ocean gives us the illusion of safety, but that should have been shattered after 9-11. However, America’s apathy runs deep these days and most people fell back to sleep or into an encompassing lethargy when a would-be dictator started trashing the Constitution and our God given rights. While we tear ourselves apart as a nation, our enemies are salivating, awaiting the right opportunity to strike.

I contend that Obama is setting us up for just such an attack. And as Trevor Loudon astutely points out, it will most likely come from several enemies at once. With a depleted nuclear arsenal and a massively weakened military, the hour is drawing nigh that an attack will be forthcoming. Think about it… if you were our powerful enemies, what would you do? You would attack of course when your enemy is at their weakest financially and militarily – like right about now. Consider this scenario:

• North Korea launches 2 or 3 EMPs over the United States with no warning, or so little that we have no time to take evasive measures.
• Russia invades Alaska and parts of Canada.
• China launches an attack via the Pacific Ocean with millions of soldiers. The sheer numbers alone would overwhelm our current defenses.
• Iran, Venezuela and Cuba attack from the South. With a fully open border and with no guard there whatsoever, hordes of terrorists would slash their way through with absolutely no pity or remorse for the bloody trail of bodies left behind.

Now consider if these all happen at once. Not possible, you say? Why not? Both Russia and China have been busy building their military forces up, while we have been scaling radically down in that arena. Iran now has nuclear capability as does North Korea. Aside from the energy resources in the Middle East, what would be the biggest prize ever? Bringing down America, invading her and conquering a once free nation. All our enemies need to do is team up, pillage and plunder, then divide the spoils of war. See Sun Tzu. It would be the ultimate redistribution of wealth.

If that is not enough to haunt your dreams, consider this… What if Progressives made deals for themselves with our enemies while betraying our closest ally? For land, resources, slaves, security, power… No? Then tell me why we are being so cozy with the Chinese, or the Muslim Brotherhood, or the Russians for that matter. With Obama’s reelection, he can be much more flexible. Why is Obama deliberately bankrupting our nation? And why is money massively being withdrawn from our banks? It seems to me that Obama and the Communists are really close in their goals for this country. Just this last week, CPUSA was cheering Obama on gun restrictions.

Remember, Communism as articulated in the various Communist documents, asserts that nobody owns anything – that the group owns everything. But because in practice that doesn’t work, an elite self-appointed overclass takes control and endeavors to enforce the ideals of Communism on the proletariat. Thus, implementing in practice a form of fascism, nominally called “Communism.” The Muslim creeds implement an unabashed fascism from the beginning. So our enemies all have fascism in common. Even those regimes that are nominally Communist, wind up implementing fascism because completely decentralized control doesn’t work when there is no ownership. You see, our enemies have a lot in common ideology wise and they all want the United States’ land and resources.

So, while our Progressives have been calling for the end of the Constitution, the Chinese have been busy buying up billions in real estate here in the US. They are now buying up our utilities and natural resources as well. They are buying up major companies such as battery makers as well. This is just Communist foreplay. The problem with the US is that we are an instant gratification society. Long range planning for us is what is for dinner tonight. Long range planning for our enemies is the demise and conquest of America.

We hear very little in the media about what is facing us militarily. Even Pravda sees more clearly what is going on in the States than many Americans do. As the gathering red storm advances on America, will we react in time to save ourselves?

When the EMPs fly, it’s a little too late to rally the troops to our defense.

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OBAMA’S ECONOMIC POLICIES EXPLAINED FOR EARTHLINGS

Debt multiplication, the quantum multiverse and transdimensional accounting

Mike Adams
Natural News

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

In case you haven’t noticed, the U.S. populace — as well as its delusional political leadership — has resigned itself to the intellectual lazy-ism of “Let’s just SPEND our way out of this mess!”

The mind-numbing re-election of President Obama in the wake of trillions of dollars in new debt created by the man is the death knell for fiscal responsibility in the United States of America. Only under Obama does Big Government not only think it can spend money more wisely than the businesses and workers from which it confiscates wealth; it also believes government is so wise and arrogant that it can confidently spend trillions of dollars today which have yet to be confiscated from taxpayers in the future!

This belief in economic time travel is the fairytale fantasy of the self-congratulatory Washington tax-and-spend elite whose cognitive superiority should be self-evident, they insist, by the mere fact that they have graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale. But if these genius decision makers are so smart, you might wonder, why have all the economic problems of America only gotten worse over the last four years?

If things are bad now, just give it a little more time…

The answer, we are led to believe, is that America hasn’t been expanding government quickly enough. That’s what Obama means when he says he needs four more years to “finish his work” in America. As long as there’s still at least one private sector company, entrepreneur or industry that hasn’t been taken over by the giant sucking sound of Big Government, the work of socialism never really is done, is it?

As Lew Rockwell correctly points out, the secret desire of all government parallels that of a cancer tumor: To grow to infinite size, to commandeer all available resources, and to take over the landscape until nothing is left standing other than itself. If anyone anywhere is still making a decision without the boundaries and nannyspeak of Big Government telling them what to do, then the work of Big Government expansion is never quite finished, it seems.

For God’s sake, if some individual or entrepreneur is somehow allowed to make a decision without the limiting framework of regulations, laws and bureaucracy, the very fabric of reality might tear itself apart, requiring the signing of an executive order commanding the reversal of time itself in order to salvage the universe.

And so Big Government marches forward in a sort of strangulation hobble, squeezing the life out of everything in its path and then marveling at “how much work needs to be done” to reverse the devastation it alone has caused. When Obama claimed he needed “for more years” to get the job done for America, his assumption was that his first four years of economic lunacy were moving things in the right direction but just hadn’t been given enough time to “kick in” yet. This is the intellectual equivalent of thinking that if shooting off one your own feet slows your stride, then shooting off the other foot would magically transform you into a world-class triathlete.

If spending four trillion dollars of money — which will, by definition, need to be confiscated from future taxpayers of America — isn’t working, then the obvious answer is to double down on the government roulette wheel and find out what happens when you spend EIGHT trillion dollars!

And if spending eight trillion dollars doesn’t solve health care, banking, education and the environment, then have no fear, my friends: There’s another democrat waiting in line, right behind Obama, who would gladly take the reins and spend sixteen trillion dollars in the subsequent presidential term. Behind that lunatic is another candidate ready to spend thirty-two, then sixty-four trillion, doubling the debt every four years until the golden stairway of good monetary intentions reaches into the shiny, aura-magical Gates of Heaven itself.

Government jobs save the economy!

Debt doesn’t really matter, the lie goes, as long as we just keep spending because — get this – the growth of government is synonymous with growth of the economy.

Only government is so foolishly delusional that it would report the rise in government jobs as evidence the economy is booming. If government is hiring more TSA workers to rifle through more carry-on bags (or even more travelers’ underpants while they’re still being worn by travelers), then by God something good must be happening in the land of the free, mustn’t it? The busy-ness of the bureaucracy is self-evident proof of its own importance in the grand scheme of things, is it not?

Of course, if this were really true, then we could all experience the ecstasy of economic Valhalla by simply resigning ourselves from all private sector activity and signing up for government jobs en masse. This would lead to government existing for the sole purpose of regulating other parts of government… the bureaucracy resuscitating the bureaucracy, if you will, and never mind that sick gurgling sound that grows more faint with each raspy breath.

This is the ultimate goal of not just Obamism, but of every socialist-leaning government throughout world history: A citizen awakens each morning in his government-subsidized house, drives to work in his government-invested vehicle, arrives at his government job, shuffles a sufficient amount of government paperwork to count as productivity for government bean counters, picks up his child in the afternoon from government-run (indoctrination) schools, buys some genetically modified corn-based groceries made affordable only through government subsidies to selected farmers, and then spends his evening enjoying the programming of government-directed television and government-contrived news.

Is this not pure ecstasy for the intellectually lazy? Heck, why bother with the job part of it at all? It’s so much easier — and nearly just as productive — to live on government-funded food stamps which are used to purchase government-approved junk foods via electronic EBT card transactions processed by government-bailed-out banks.

Your dream government is only moments away…

Hold on… Why limit government to only the waking hours, anyway? Why not have government-mandated sleepy-time dreams where dream behavior is regulated, reviewed and approved by a federal “Department of Somnia” which also, cleverly, counts any dream-state activity toward the GDP? In this manner, those who live on government welfare during their waking hours can “earn back” their daytime handouts by, for example, slaving away in a dream-state Nike shoe factory between the non-conscious hours of two and six a.m.

Enron would have adored such an accounting innovation: Growth is realized in the instant it is imagined! What better way to describe the economic genius of modern-day leftist economics? The sheer IDEA of abundance overrides reality simply because it is decreed as such. And if reality refuses to obediently play along with the desirable economic fairytale, it can simply be killed and resurrected over and over again much like Osama Bin Laden, the proverbial “Weekend at Bernie’s” corpse with a thousand and one uses.

And heck, why limit the genius of Obamanomics to only dream-state activities? Why not invoke the spooky world of the quantum multiverse which physicists say exists as an infinite number of standalone universes, each of which expresses every possible outcome of every life of every conscious being alive today? “In another parallel universe, I work for a living” would be the trendy new line of reasoning for Obama’s ever-expanding class of welfare recipients. “The laws of quantum physics say I am contributing to society in another slice of reality.”

Government economic statistics, therefore, should take into account the efforts, imaginary or otherwise, of workers in ALL realms, not just the one we think of as “reality.” And if economic activity is taking place in an infinite number of parallel universes, then shouldn’t that count as income for the purposes of establishing a whole new line of wealth-multiplying derivates that we might call “quantum wealth instruments?”

Don’t give Ben Bernanke any such ideas, lest he actually threaten to try them. The economic destruction of our own universe is enough damage for now, I’d say. No need to go borrowing money against the future productivity of 10 to the nth dimensions, too.

Introducing your multidimensional President!

Unless of course you entertain the idea that Barack Obama is a multidimensional being with the God-like power of being able to teleport into a dimension where the economy doesn’t suck, grab a few amazing ideas and return to deposit them in our own universe… via the Oval Office which is of course the Stargate portal to the center of the multiverse.

No doubt many of his followers would acknowledge such god-like powers as already being possessed by the man — an idea which is irreconcilable with the realization that Obama must therefore be “holding back” because he hasn’t magically transformed our world into that seductive, feel-good mirage that was promised during the campaign and which might as well have been suspended in the air right in front of the black box voting machines, holding out the promise that if you just click the box beside the name Obama, salvation can soon be yours.

Our savior, Obama, who art in Heaven, is a multidimensional time traveler with economic policies of such otherworldly genius that we Earthly beings just haven’t been able to grasp the brilliance of it all yet.

And for that, we need just four more years, didn’t you know?

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THE REAL WINNER OF THE 2012 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: THE FEDERAL RESERVE

By Washington’s Blog | Global Research

US News and World Report notes that Bernanke helped Obama to get re-elected by juicing the economy… at least temporarily:

The Federal Reserve had a key role in the presidential election—possibly even a decisive one.

Exit poll results show that, not surprisingly, a majority of voters said the struggling economy was their top concern …. In the end, voters seemed to believe the economy was gradually getting better, and Obama deserved more time to make things right.

***

Without question, the biggest factor impacting the economy this fall was the Federal Reserve’s decision in September to extend its controversial quantitative easing program indefinitely, until the economy is back on track for good. This type of monetary easing is an arcane strategy that doesn’t directly impact consumers. But it can have a powerful effect on the economy that filters through to ordinary people in many important ways. And the biggest advocate of quantitative easing has been Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

***

Consumer confidence, in fact, rose sharply in the weeks leading up to the election, even as business leaders were becoming more worried about problems such as the looming fiscal cliff. That’s one thing that pushed our Obamanometer reading onto Obama’s side. The Fed probably had as much to do with that as anything else.

***

Bernanke has also shown himself to be a pragmatist determined to do whatever is necessary to help the economy recover today, even if it risks unpleasant consequences—such as higher inflation—in the future. Voters seem to approve. So maybe the politicians ought to listen.

While Romney is as mainstream economically as Obama, he did make noises about auditing the Fed, criticized additional Fed easing, called Fed stimulus “artificial”, “ineffective” and “just making it up”, promised to appoint some monetary hawks, and said that he would challenge Bernanke’s re-appointment.

Some of it was undoubtedly attempting to appease Ron Paul supporters (and other libertarians), who hate the Fed. But at least some of it appears to have been genuine.

As such, the big winner from the election is the Federal Reserve.

Postscript: Numerous economists say that we must end or substantially rein in the Fed.  Both liberal and conservative protesters – Occupy and Tea Party alike – have railed against the unchecked power of the Federal Reserve.

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BEN SWANN: WHAT IS QE3 AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY?

Published on Sep 19, 2012 by BenSwannRealityCheck

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PETER SCHIFF: THE FEDERAL RESERVE GOES ALL IN ON UNLIMITED QUANTITATIVE EASING, SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED OPERATION SCREW

Published on Sep 14, 2012 by SchiffReport

The geniuses at the Federal Reserve have concocted a bold new plan to revive the U.S. economy — print a bunch of money, loan it to Americans at super low interest rates so they can speculate on rising real estate prices, extract the appreciated equity and spend it on consumer goods. In other words, build an economy of real estate, by real estate, and for real estate. The only problem is we’ve been there and done that. The last time it almost destroyed the U.S.economy. I guess almost isn’t quite good enough for the Fed, so now it’s determined to finish the job.  These actions will destroy the dollar, Americans’ savings and hurt people on fixed incomes.

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JOHN WILLIAMS: FED MONEY PRINTING WILL TRIGGER A SELL-OFF PROVIDING START TO HYPERINFLATION BY 2014

OCTOBER 28, 2012 

Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

Economist John Williams says the latest round of “open-ended” QE has set the table for a global “dollar sell-off” and“hyperinflation” no later than 2014.  Williams says, “There’s no way the consumer can fuel the economic recovery, and there is no way we’re going to see one in the near future.”  Williams predicts, “The Treasury is going to have funding problems, and that means the deficit gets a lot worse.” 

Now, there is talk the Fed might increase the money printing.  Williams charges, “The Fed’s primary concern is to keep the banking system afloat, and they’re not doing so well with that.” Williams contends there is 12 trillion in liquid dollar assets held outside the U.S.  Williams says it is only a matter of time before all the Fed money printing will “trigger a sell-off . . . and that will provide the early start of the hyperinflation.”  You think the U.S. is better off today than it was in the last meltdown?  Not according to Williams, he thinks, “. . . things have gotten a lot worse.”  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with John Williams of Shadowstats.com.

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JOHN WILLIAMS: MAY 2013 WILL BE THE END OF THE ROAD; DOLLAR SELL OFF WITHIN FOUR MONTHS

Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com  Anybody who thinks the U.S. is in a so-called recovery isn’t listening to economist John Williams.  He contends, “We haven’t had a recovery and we’re not about to have one, and it’s getting worse.”  Williams says it’s because, “The consumer is in very serious trouble. . . . The average guy is not making it.  His income is not keeping up with inflation.”  As far as Congress getting the budget and debt ceiling under control, Williams says, “Both sides are faced with devil’s choices.”  If Congress does not get its financial house in order by the new deadline in mid-May 2013, Williams predicts, “It will be the end of the road . . . . They are not going to have another opportunity . . . they are pushing the limit as it is now.”  Williams says he expects, “. . . a negative reaction in the next 3 or 4 months to the dollar.” Williams adamantly calls for hyperinflation to the U.S. dollar by the end of 2014.  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with John Williams of Shadowstats.com.

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RON HERA: FOUR WAYS THE U.S. DOLLAR COULD DIE

Published on Oct 31, 2012

Ron Hera of HeraResearch.com joins me to discuss the FOUR ways the Dollar could die. Ron believes the most frightening and imminent possibility leading to the death of the Dollar is not lost confidence in the Dollar or in the Treasury market, but rather in the financial markets as a whole — as Ron puts it, it is the unpunished Financial Crimes that will likely lead directly to a Black Swan event which in turn will lead to a total collapse.

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PUMP DELUXE: FEDERAL RESERVE TO SPEND $45 BILLION A MONTH TO BUY BONDS

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve sent its clearest signal to date Wednesday that it will keep interest ratessuper-low to support the U.S. economy even after the job market has improved significantly.

The Fed said it plans to keep its key short-term rate near zero until the unemployment rate reaches 6.5 percent or less — as long as expected inflation remains tame. Unemployment is now 7.7 percent.

That plan adds detail to what the Fed had said before: that it expects to keep the rate low until at least mid-2015. For the first time, the Fed is making clear to investors and consumers that it will link its actions to specific economic markers.

“This approach is superior” to setting a timetable for a possible rate increase, Chairman Ben Bernanke said at a news conference. “It is more transparent and will allow the markets to respond quickly and promptly to changes” in the Fed’s economic outlook.

Bernanke made clear that even after unemployment falls below 6.5 percent, the Fed might decide that it needs to keep stimulating the economy. Other economic factors will also shape its policy decisions, he said.

“The Fed has become more explicit and more transparent,” said Steven Wood, chief economist at Insight Economics. “This should provide the markets with much more clarity around monetary policy action in the upcoming year.”

In a statement after its final policy meeting of the year, the Fed said it will also keep spending $85 billion a month on bond purchases to drive down long-term borrowing costs and stimulate economic growth.

The Fed will spend $45 billion a month on long-term Treasury purchases to replace a previous bond-purchase program of an equal size. And it will keep buying $40 billion a month in mortgage bonds.

Those purchases, and the Fed’s commitment to low rates, are intended to spur borrowing and spending in an economy still growing only modestly 3½ years after the Great Recession ended.

Still, Bernanke warned that none of the Fed’s actions could outweigh the economic pain that would be caused by sharp tax increases and government spending cuts that are set to kick in next month. The standoff between President Barack Obama and Republican lawmakers over how to resolve the “fiscal cliff” is already hurting the economy and threatens to push it into a recession next year, he said.

Fed policymakers are hopeful that the crisis can be resolved without significant long-term economic damage, Bernanke said. They foresee slightly faster growth next year and a gradual decline in unemployment.

Bernanke’s comments about the impact of the fiscal cliff seemed to raise some concern among investors.Stocks had risen after the Fed’s statement was released. But by the end of Bernanke’s news conference,market averages were mixed. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down about 3 points. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose fractionally.

With its new purchases of long-term Treasurys, the Fed’s investment portfolio, which is nearly $3 trillion, will swell to nearly $4 trillion by the end of 2013 if its bond purchase programs remain fully in place.

The Fed’s plan to keep stimulating the economy at least until unemployment has reached 6.5 percent is intended to reassure consumers, companies and investors about the health of the economy, said Joseph Gagnon, a former Fed official who is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Having only a target date of mid-2015 for any increase in interest rates “sounded gloomy,” as if the economy would remain weak until then, Gagnon said. Specifying an unemployment rate — one close to a normal rate of 6 percent or less — makes clear that the Fed will keep supporting the economy even after the job market has strengthened significantly.

“This is trying to get away from that sense of ‘Oh, my God, this is all about gloom and doom,’ ” Gagnon said.

The Fed’s new plan to link any rate increase to specific levels of unemployment and inflation mirrors a proposal pushed by Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Updated forecasts that the Fed released Wednesday illustrate why it thinks it should continue helping the economy. It expects unemployment to remain at least 7.4 percent next year and 6.8 percent by the end of 2014. The earliest it sees unemployment dropping below 6.5 percent is the end of 2015.

It predicts the economy will grow no more than 3 percent next year before picking up to as much as 3.5 percent growth in 2014 and as much as 3.7 percent in 2015.

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SENIOR OBAMA OFFICIAL: “WE ARE GOING TO KILL THE DOLLAR”

The Daily Sheeple
Jan 28, 2013

Kyle Bass, who knows a thing or two about economics and finance, recently spoke to a senior member of the Obama administration about their planned solutions for fixing the U.S. economy and trade deficit.

The answer shouldn’t surprise you.

When I asked a senior member of the Obama administration last week, ‘How are we going to grow exports if we won’t allow nominal wage deflation?’

He says, ‘we’re just going to kill the dollar.’

That worried me.

So, that the only answer.

It’s a dead answer.

But, that’s where we’re headed.

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FIVE REASONS WHY THE GOVERNMENT IS DESTROYING THE U.S. DOLLAR

AUGUST 19, 2012

By Daniel R. Amerman, CFA

Overview

The United States government has five interrelated motivations for destroying the value of the dollar:

1. Creating money out of thin air on a massive basis is all that stands between the current state of hidden depression, and overt depression with unemployment levels in excess of those seen in the US Great Depression of the 1930s.

2.  It is the most effective way to meet not just current crushing debt levels, but to deal with the rapidly approaching massive generational crisis of paying for Boomer retirement promises.

3. It creates a lucratively profitable $500 billion a year hidden tax for the benefit of the US government which is not understood by voters or debated in elections.

4.  It is the weapon of choice being used to wage currency war and reboot US economic growth; and

5. It is an essential component of political survival and enhanced power for incumbent politicians.

In this article we will take a holistic approach to how individual short term, medium and long term pressures all come together to leave the government with effectively no choice but to create a substantial rate of inflation that will steadily destroy the value of the dollar.

If you have savings, if you rely on a pension, if you are a retiree or Boomer with retirement accounts – any one of these five fundamental motivations is by itself a grave peril to your future standard of living.  However, it is only when we put all five together and see how the motivations reinforce each other, that we can understand what the government has been and intends to continue doing, and then begin the search for personal solutions.

Reason One:  The Political Interests Of Self-Serving Politicians

As further covered herein, almost 9% of the US economy is currently funded by deficit spending.  From a political perspective, this $1.3 trillion a year is “free money” that politicians get to disburse on a political district and favored special interest group basis.  In other words, roughly $1,000 per month, per American household can be used to reward friends and can be withheld from enemies, with personal credit being taken by the benevolent politicians for this never-ending largess.

In past decades, politicians were restricted to spending perhaps $200 or $300 per month per household over and above what the government was collecting in taxes, with the difference being borrowed in the bond market.  Anything above that would require the unpleasantness of raising taxes, which might put individual politicians in danger of actually losing their position and privileged lifestyle if he or she wasn’t in a “safe” district.  However, in the current climate all limitations are gone, the pork is rolling out on a historically unprecedented basis, and the politicians are wielding unprecedented power.

So why do the limitations usually exist on at least some level, and why are they gone now? Historically, the US government has directly created money out of thin air on a massive basis to fund deficit spending during the Civil War, and also during the Revolutionary War. There is a very good reason such governmental actions are so rare:  the value of the US dollar was rapidly destroyed in both instances.  So, this spending without limit would not ordinarily be a sensible path.  Unless, from the government’s perspective, there were other dangers that were considered a greater threat, that could be addressed only through destroying the value of the dollar.

Reason Two:  To Hide A Depression

I have written numerous articles about various aspects of Reasons Two through Five for some years now, and my long term readers and subscribers have been well aware of the building pressures.  While the emphasis of this article is on the interweaving of the short, medium and long-term relationships between the five reasons, we will first set the stage by taking a few paragraphs each to briefly review the individual government motivation, with a link to a full length article that covers the problem in more depth.  

While you wouldn’t know it from government press releases or media headlines, there has been a gaping hole in the US economy since 2008, as illustrated below:

During the first round of the financial crisis, the US private economy nearly collapsed, threatening to send the US economy straight into deep depression.  We’re talking about a $1.3 trillion private sector collapse that was contained only by the government fantastically increasing the money it spent, even while tax revenues were falling.  The creation of huge government deficits has been all that has maintained even a facade of semi-normalcy.  Remove the mechanism of the government creating money so that it can spend what it doesn’t have, and it is straight to official Great Depression-level unemployment in months.

Even as the true gravity of the situation is hidden from the general public, so too is the true cost of the grossly irresponsible short-term “band-aid” that is being used to cover the hole in the US economy.  The destruction of the value of savings in general, as well as the impoverishment of Boomers and retirees in particular, is explained in my article linked below, “Hiding A Depression:  How The US Government Does It.”

http://danielamerman.com/articles/Hiding.htm

Reason Three:  A Desperate Attempt To Escape Depression By Waging Currency War

The US government has been waging currency war since September of 2010.  Simply put, the US would have great difficulty emerging from the depression described above so long as the US dollar is “strong”, because a strong dollar translates to “expensive” US workers who have difficulty competing for market share even in the US economy, let alone abroad.  One solution is that when a nation slashes the value of its currency, its workers become relatively cheaper, and they then cannot only better defend their domestic market share, but can begin to take market share in foreign economies as well.  However, when a major nation goes on the offensive, many trading partners will counterattack and try to defend their economies, not by making their own currencies stronger, but by making their own currencies weaker, so that their domestic workers remain relatively inexpensive and will be better able to compete for market share.

To successfully go on the currency offensive and negate attempted counterattacks, Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke chose a radical tool – he publicly announced that the Fed would be directly creating money on a massive scale equal to 9% of the US economy, with the proceeds going to purchase US government debt in the secondary markets.  Ultimately, the only protections for a symbolic currency (such as the US dollar) are the policies deployed by the central bank to maintain that value.  And when the nation’s chief central banker directly threatens to use his power to destroy the symbol rather than preserve it – the threat is extraordinarily effective.

There is no free lunch, however.  While the US government is insisting to the world-at-large that it is not engaged in currency warfare, in order to maintain the plausible deniability that is essential to diplomatic doublespeak, it is also hiding the heavy cost from its own citizens.  The US standard of living since the late 1990s has been based on having a “strong” dollar and huge trade deficits – meaning we haven’t actually been able to pay for what we consume for a long time.  Therefore, even as jobs and the real economy grow, there is a drop in the overall standard of living, that is not evenly weighted – but is disproportionately born by savers, Boomers and retirees.

Much more information on how this works and the specific ways that older citizens will be bearing most of the pain can be found in my article linked below, “Bullets In The Back:  How Boomers & Retirees Will Become Stimulus, Bailout & Currency War Casualties”.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/Bullets.htm

These second and third elements of hiding a depression and waging currency war are tightly interwoven, and could even be called “killing two birds with one stone”.  The money doesn’t exist to keep the US from openly plunging into depression, it simply isn’t there for a fiscally responsible government.  And covering the economic hole by creating money out of thin air at a rate equal to 9% of the total US economy is so fiscally irresponsible that few nations dare a counterattack of such magnitude.  For now, massive monetary creation allows the US to not only cover over the current hidden depression, but also to wage all-out currency war to try to emerge from that depression.

However, to fully understand the agenda of the US government, we have to look at the greatest financial problem of all, and how destroying the value of the dollar is the intended solution.

Reason Four:  Dodging National Bankruptcy

Sometimes households reach the unfortunate point where when they add up the credit cards, mortgage payments, and 2nd mortgage payments – they realize that they will never be able to pay their bills.  They know they are bankrupt and there is no way of dodging that.  But instead of reducing their spending – they may even step up the spending, until all the lines of credit are maxed out, and the bills are all in arrears.  Because, once you know bankruptcy is inevitable anyway – why slash your standard of living before you absolutely have to?  Partying it up now for another few months won’t change the destination, so why not?

Fortunately, relatively few ordinary people think that way.  There is ample evidence, however, that a good number of politicians hold that mindset when it comes to budget deficits that appear impossible to repay, at least in the conventional manner.

There is a lie that is being frequently repeated, which is that our children and grandchildren will be slaving away for decades to pay back the money that we’ve been borrowing to fund this reckless deficit spending.  The assumption underlying the lie is that if it weren’t for the current spending, the nation would be fine, and therefore increased taxes will be needed to pay back the borrowing.

Except that the nation isn’t fine.  Like most other major developed nations in the world, the United States has been effectively bankrupt for quite some time, with a day of reckoning that is approaching fast with or without the current outrageous level of deficit spending.

The graph below is from my article, “Six Layers Of Deficit Impossibilities Mean Retirement Catastrophe”.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2011/LdeficitC.html

As developed step by step in “Six Layers”, when we add up current and future Federal deficits, as well as unfunded Social Security, Medicare and other unfunded government promises, the total comes to over $785,000 per non-retired household (over the coming years) that has an above poverty line income.  And this isn’t even the total cost – it is the excess cost over and above current estimated tax receipts, which assumes a healthy and growing economy.  When we drop the assumption of an economy growing at the same rates of the last 50 years, then the shortfall goes far higher – perhaps over $200 trillion for Social Security and Medicare alone by some recent estimates.  That would raise the total shortfall to over $2 million per non-retired and above-poverty-line household.

If taxes can’t pay (and it’s ludicrous to think they can), and the US doesn’t declare bankruptcy, then just how do we cover the gap?

Short answer:  pay in full, but make the dollar worth five cents.  This drops the per household cost for everything from almost $800,000 down to about $40,000.  Painful, but manageable over a period of 20-30 years.

Merely make a dollar worth five cents, and impossible government promises become quite payable.  The problem with this “solution” is that it also requires making most people’s life savings worth five cents on the dollar.

Reason Five:  Create A Massive Hidden Tax

The Federal Reserve effectively controls short, medium and long-term interest rates in the United States, and this means that it controls the borrowing costs of the United States government.  As developed my article linked below, “Hiding A $500 Billion Tax On Savings:  How The Government Deceives Millions”, by forcing interest rates below the rate of inflation, the Federal Reserve creates about a half trillion dollar per year “windfall” gain for the Federal government.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2011/SaveTaxC.html

This is not “free money”, far from it.  Every dollar of benefit for the government from interest rate manipulations comes directly out of the pockets of savers.  That is, for the government to come out ahead by $500 billion per year requires savers and pension funds to come up short by $500 billion per year.  This makes it a tax in all but name.  It is also essential to note that two elements have to come together to make this hidden tax work:  1) there have to be low interest rates, and 2) there also has to a substantive real rate of inflation (which can be quite different from the official rate).

From a politician’s perspective this massive tax - almost three times the size of federal corporate taxation - is a “dream tax”.  Half a trillion dollars a year is available to spend without raising taxes or increasing deficits.  Sure, there is a cost, which is the entirely deliberate destruction of retirement dreams and promises for tens of millions of US workers and retirees – particularly Boomers – as well as pushing forward the insolvency of state and local government pension funds around the country.  But the deliberate bankrupting of a generation is a long term problem with no clear accountability and almost no voter understanding, which means it is more or less irrelevant for how political decisions are made today.

The Convergence Of The Five Overwhelming Governmental Motivations

 The Long-Term

Let’s add our five powerful motivations together, and see how they interrelate. The truly big picture for both the United States and most other major developed nations is that population growth has been shrinking, long term promises to current and future retirees have been extravagant, and for the most fundamental of demographic and economic reasons, the nations simply can’t afford to pay for those promises.

On a global basis, governments are left with a choice between breaking promises openly – reneging on their legal commitments on a massive scale, possibly having to actually declare bankruptcy in many cases (effectively) – or they can follow the time-honored route that almost every nation which has found itself in the situation and has had the ability do so has done:  they can pay their promises in form, but not in substance. They can inflate away the value of their national currency, and pay everything in full, but that currency will only be worth a fraction of what it is right now.

So the larger the future shortfall, the more overwhelming the motivation to destroy the value of the currency, and the greater the degree of destruction of the currency that is necessary in order to turn impossible promises into possible promises.

The Short Term

Let’s look at the short term in the United States. As previously discussed, there is currently a gaping hole in the US economy that is equal to about 9% of the size of the economy if we look to official deficits, and about 12% if we include the hidden $500 billion tax on savings.  This economic hole in the private sector is being covered over by massive overt deficit spending and hidden taxation which account for about one in every eight dollars spent in the nation this year.  If this massive deficit spending were to cease abruptly, then the US would go straight to an overt Great Depression level of unemployment.

So, if you’re in the political establishment and you don’t want outright political revolution, then you have enormous incentives to try to keep an appearance of normalcy in the economy, no matter how much damage you need to do to the long-term value of your nation’s currency.

Tying Together Long-Term & Short-Term

Short term interests are served by recklessly risking the long-term value of the nation’s currency, thereby providing the funding to cover over the hole in the economy.  Long term interests in terms of impossible government promises that must be inflated away, are served by the destruction of the value of the nation’s currency. The more severe this destruction, the less the cost of repaying impossible promises. Arguably then, the more risk that is taken in “papering” over the hole in the current economy, and the more severe the long term consequences, the better off the government will be in the future when it comes to its ability to cheaply repay debts that are otherwise unpayable.

The Medium-Term & The Real Economy

Now, let’s go to the medium term and consider the real world factor that bridges the current economic crisis and the long term economic crisis. That bridge is ultimately all that really matters, and it is the real economy. Without a powerful and rapidly growing real economy, there is no way out of the hidden depression in which the United States currently finds itself. American workers must be competitive if they are to regain both domestic and international market share (a situation many other nations are in as well).

Mixing Medium & Long Term

Nobody knows the true extent of the trouble the US economy is in over the next ten, twenty and thirty years as Boomer retirement promises come due in full.  But we do know that:

1) It would take a historically unprecedented rate of economic growth to meet the promises in current dollars without bankrupting the nation; and

2) The financial devastation could be far, far worse than most estimates if the US economy does not perform like it has historically, but instead continues the downward spiral of a wounded empire that is losing prominence and economic power on the world stage.

When we strip away the common assumption of endlessly compounded 3% real economic growth, and say that we are either losing economic growth or just breaking even, then the future shortfalls grow even more staggering.  Indeed, when we include the academic evidence of the growth-slowing effects of large government deficits, and then add in the reduction in consumption expected for an aging population, then we may already be in an effectively zero per capita growth mode, as covered in my article linked below.

http://danielamerman.com/articles/2012/OverC.html

Bridging Medium, Long & Short-Term

What the short-term and long-term both have in common is that the only true solution is ultimately to grow the real economy. The real economy has been hampered since the mid-1990s by a short sighted “strong dollar” policy that has enormously benefited major international corporations and major banks, while creating a debt-driven illusion of personal prosperity for many of the citizens of the United States.  It’s a standard of living that could never be paid for, but rather was reliant on other nations lending the US the money to fund that lifestyle, so long as we agreed to keep the dollar “strong”.  The effective terms were that certain other nations lent us the money to live it up without our being able to pay for the goods that delivered our subsidized standard of living, and in exchange we let them take our industries and jobs.

To re-grow the real economy and regain economic competitiveness, the US must remove the handcuffs on American workers, which requires driving down the value of the US dollar.  This has to be done in a competitive world, where other nations want to defend their own market share by driving down the value of their own currencies. So for the US to be “successful” – it has chosen a strategy of taking more radical actions in a threat to destroy the value of its currency than other nations dare counter.

In other words, the other nations aren’t as willing to recklessly and rapidly wipe out the value of their citizen’s savings as the United States is, which gives the US a temporary “advantage” in currency brinksmanship.

Most conveniently, the otherwise impossible cost of covering over the gaping hole in the US economy can be paid for through open monetization on deliberate, prominent display for the whole world to see.  The strategy is to simply manufacture the money out of nothingness, which then lets the rest of the world know that the US dollar is in grave peril of swiftly diving in value.  This then drives down the value of the dollar, and reboots the real economy and real American competitiveness, even as the hole in the economy is temporarily covered over.  Perhaps most important of all, this begins the rapid destruction of the value of the dollar as necessary to avert formal US bankruptcy when it comes to paying the enormous retirement and health care obligations that are coming due over the next ten, twenty and thirty years.

To understand the true extent of the danger to your savings, you need to see how all three of these levels work together:  hiding the depression in the short-term, rebooting the real economy in the medium-term, and the long-term destruction of the value of the dollar so that impossible promises can be paid in form, but not in substance. All three strategies effectively require the destruction of the value of the savings of older Americans and retirees in particular. It is your future lifestyle that must be sacrificed for all of these goals to happen together.

Adding In Short-Term Political Benefits

And finally, and not of incidental importance although perhaps not quite as fundamental as the other factors, there are enormous political rewards for those currently in power when it comes to pursuing this approach. As covered in the “Hiding A Depression” article, the government’s share of the US economy swiftly went (with very little commentary) from 35% of the total economy to 43% of the total economy.  In the real world of politics, what is most important is that this growth comes in the form of discretionary spending, that (normally) rare commodity that is the currency of pure power.  In normal circumstances, between government transfer payments, the military, and the established bureaucracy, there isn’t all that much discretionary money for politicians to channel for their partisan desires.  That has turned upside down, as discretionary money was created so fast, that Congress and the Administration initially had trouble figuring out how to spend it.

The government has enormously increased its control over the day-to-day economic life of the nation. This control is not being exercised on an altruistic basis, but is being used in the exercise of raw political power.  Politicians have the unprecedented ability, almost without limitation, to take the $1000+ per month per American household in money that is being created out of the void ($1,300 with the hidden savings tax), and to use it to reward their friends and hurt their enemies.  And many are doing so.

These five motivations all exist simultaneously, they all wrap around each other in their numerous interrelationships, and they all reinforce each other.   What they all have in common is an overwhelming incentive to make sure that a dollar does not remain worth a dollar.

The Personal Implications

The implications of the five powerful motivations all coming together are that we have multiple overwhelming reasons to believe that the value of the US dollar (and many other currencies) will be mostly or near entirely destroyed in coming years. Now, when paper wealth is wiped out for much of the population, and real wealth (goods and services) for a nation has taken a blow – but is not wiped out – then what we necessarily have is a massive redistribution of wealth. And there is very good reason to believe that the largest redistribution of wealth that has been seen in modern times is likely to be occurring over the coming years.

Inherently, the older that you are – the more likely that wealth will be redistributed away from you instead of towards you. A giant “Reset Button” will likely be pressed for the dollar, and with it the value of your savings and investments will likely evaporate – that is, if you have been following the conventional wisdom for retirement investing. You may not have that many working years left to recover from the damage, and jobs may be difficult to come by even if you want to work.

So you are competing against younger workers not just for jobs, but for goods and services, where they have the current income in inflation-adjusted terms to buy these desirable goods – and you don’t.  Thus, the older citizens become impoverished relative to the younger citizens.  This is a history that has been repeated time and again across nations and across the centuries – it is the pensioners that get nailed when the currency reset button gets pressed.

Making it even more difficult is that the hidden savings tax acts as a giant anchor, making it near impossible for fixed income savers to break even on an inflation-adjusted basis, let alone compound their wealth like all the financial planning models promised.  Simultaneously, the likely reduced economic growth rate associated with a heavily indebted and aging nation will likely slash further stock returns, or even turn them negative in after-inflation and after-tax terms.

Both of the pillars underlying conventional financial planning have shattered and fallen, which leaves traditional retirement investors with two negative return asset classes (in inflation-adjusted terms) that are steadily destroying wealth over the long term rather than compounding it.   Even as the slick investment firm ads featuring vibrantly healthy and wealthy retirees enjoying their active and prosperous retirements, continue to fill the airwaves and financial media.

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11 INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS THAT WILL BE THE DEATH OF THE U.S. DOLLAR

The Economic Collapse
July 18, 2012

The U.S. dollar isn’t dead yet, but the nails are being hammered into the coffin even as you read this article.  For decades, most of the nations of the world have used the U.S. dollar to buy oil and to trade with each other.  In essence, the U.S. dollar has been acting as a true global currency.

Virtually every country on the face of the earth has needed big piles of U.S. dollars for international trade.  This has ensured a huge demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. government debt.  This demand for dollars has kept prices and interest rates low, and it has given the U.S. government an incredible amount of power and leverage around the globe.  Right now, U.S. dollars make up more than 60 percent of all foreign currency reserves in the world.  But times are changing.  Over the past couple of years there has been a whole bunch of international agreements that have made the U.S. dollar less important in international trade.  The mainstream media in the United States has been strangely quiet about all of these agreements, but the truth is that they are setting the stage for a fundamental shift in the way that trade is conducted around the globe.  When the petrodollar dies, it is going to have an absolutely devastating impact on the U.S. economy.  Sadly, most Americans are totally clueless regarding what is about to happen to the dollar.

One of the reasons the Federal Reserve has been able to get away with flooding the financial system with U.S. dollars is because the rest of the world has been soaking a lot of those dollars up.  The rest of the world has needed giant piles of dollars to trade with, but what is going to happen when they don’t need dollars anymore?

Could we see a tsunami of inflation as demand for the dollar plummets like a rock?

The power of the U.S. dollar has been one of the few things holding up our economy.  Once that leg gets kicked out from under us we are going to be in a whole lot of trouble.

The following are 11 international agreements that are nails in the coffin of the petrodollar….

#1 China And Russia

China and Russia have decided to start using their own currencies when trading with each other.  The following is from aChina Daily article about this important agreement….

China and Russia have decided to renounce the US dollar and resort to using their own currencies for bilateral trade, Premier Wen Jiabao and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin announced late on Tuesday.

Chinese experts said the move reflected closer relations between Beijing and Moscow and is not aimed at challenging the dollar, but to protect their domestic economies.

“About trade settlement, we have decided to use our own currencies,” Putin said at a joint news conference with Wen in St. Petersburg.

The two countries were accustomed to using other currencies, especially the dollar, for bilateral trade. Since the financial crisis, however, high-ranking officials on both sides began to explore other possibilities.

#2 China And Brazil

Did you know that Brazil conducts more trade with China than with anyone else?

The largest economy in South America has just agreed to a huge currency swap deal with the largest economy in Asia.  The following is from a recent BBC article….

China and Brazil have agreed a currency swap deal in a bid to safeguard against any global financial crisis and strengthen their trade ties.

It will allow their respective central banks to exchange local currencies worth up to 60bn reais or 190bn yuan ($30bn; £19bn).

The amount can be used to shore up reserves in times of crisis or put towards boosting bilateral trade.

#3 China And Australia

Did you know that Australia conducts more trade with China than with anyone else?

Australia also recently agreed to a huge currency swap deal with China.  The following is from a recent Financial Express article….

The central banks of China and Australia signed a A$30 billion ($31.2 billion) currency-swap agreement to ensure the availability of capital between the trading partners, the Reserve Bank of Australia said.

“The main purposes of the swap agreement are to support trade and investment between Australia and China, particularly in local-currency terms, and to strengthen bilateral financial cooperation,” the RBA said in a statement on its website. “The agreement reflects the increasing opportunities available to settle trade between the two countries in Chinese renminbi and to make RMB-denominated investments.”

China has been expanding currency-swap accords as it promotes the international use of the yuan, and the accord with Australia follows similar deals with nations including South Korea, Turkey and Kazakhstan. China is Australia’s biggest trading partner and accounts for about a quarter of the nation’s merchandise sales abroad.

#4 China And Japan

The second and third largest economies on the entire planet have decided that they should start moving toward using their own currencies when trading with each other.  This agreement was incredibly important but it was almost totally ignored by the U.S. media.

According to Bloomberg, it is anticipated that this agreement will strengthen ties between these two Asian giants….

Japan and China will promote direct trading of the yen and yuan without using dollars and will encourage the development of a market for companies involved in the exchanges, the Japanese government said.

Japan will also apply to buy Chinese bonds next year, allowing the investment of renminbi that leaves China during the transactions, the Japanese government said in a statement after a meeting between Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Beijing yesterday. Encouraging direct yen- yuan settlement should reduce currency risks and trading costs, the Japanese and Chinese governments said.

China is Japan’s biggest trading partner with 26.5 trillion yen ($340 billion) in two-way transactions last year, from 9.2 trillion yen a decade earlier.

#5 India And Japan

It is not just China making these kinds of currency agreements.  According to Reuters, India and Japan have also agreed to a very large currency swap deal….

India and Japan have agreed to a $15 billion currency swap line, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Wednesday, in a positive move for the troubled Indian rupee, Asia’s worst-performing currency this year.

#6 “Junk For Oil”: How India And China Are Buying Oil From Iran

Iran is still selling lots of oil.  They just aren’t exchanging that oil for U.S. dollars as much these days.

So how is Iran selling their oil without using dollars?

A Bloomberg article recently detailed what countries such as China and India are exchanging for Iranian oil….

Iran and its leading oil buyers, China and India, are finding ways to skirt U.S. and European Union financial sanctions on the Islamic republic by agreeing to trade oil for local currencies and goods including wheat, soybean meal and consumer products.

India, the second-biggest importer of Iran’s oil, has set up a rupee account at a state-owned bank to settle as much as much as 45 percent of its bill, according to Indian officials. China, Iran’s largest oil customer, already settles some of its oil debts through barter, Mahmoud Bahmani, Iran’s central bank governor, said Feb. 28. Iran also has sought to trade oil for wheat from Pakistan and Russia, according to media reports from the two countries.

#7 Iran And Russia

According to Bloomberg, Iran and Russia have decided to discard the U.S. dollar and use their own currencies when trading with each other….

Iran and Russia replaced the U.S. dollar with their national currencies in bilateral trade, Iran’s state-run Fars news agency reported, citing Seyed Reza Sajjadi, the Iranian ambassador in Moscow.

The proposal to switch to the ruble and the rial was raised by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting with his Iranian counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in Astana, Kazakhstan, of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the ambassador said.

#8 China And Chile

China and Chile recently signed a new agreement that will dramatically expand trade between the two nations and that is also likely to lead to significant currency swaps between the two countries….

The following is from a recent report that described this new agreement between China and Chile….

Wen called on the two nations to expand trade in goods, promote trade in services and mutual investment, and double bilateral trade in three years.

The Chinese leader also said the two countries should enhance cooperation in mining, expand farm product trade, and promote cooperation in farm product production and processing and agricultural technology.

China would like to be actively engaged in Chile’s infrastructure construction and work with Chile to promote the development of transportation networks in Latin America, said Wen.

Meanwhile, Wen suggested that the two sides launch currency swaps and expand settlement in China’s renminbi.

#9 China And The United Arab Emirates

According to CNN, China and the United Arab Emirates recently agreed to a very large currency swap deal….

In January, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited the United Arab Emirates and signed a $5.5 billion currency swap deal to boost trade and investments between the two countries.

#10 China And Africa

Did you know that China is now Africa’s biggest trading partner?

For many years the U.S. dollar was dominant in Africa, but now that is changing.  A report from Africa’s largest bank, Standard Bank, says the following….

“We expect at least $100 billion (about R768 billion) in Sino-African trade – more than the total bilateral trade between China and Africa in 2010 – to be settled in the renminbi by 2015.”

#11 Brazil, Russia, India, China And South Africa

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) continue to become a larger factor in the global economy.

A recent agreement between those nations sets the stage for them to increasingly use their own national currencies when trading with each other rather than the U.S. dollar.  The following is from a news source in India….

The five major emerging economies of BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — are set to inject greater economic momentum into their grouping by signing two pacts for promoting intra-BRICS trade at the fourth summit of their leaders here Thursday.

The two agreements that will enable credit facility in local currency for businesses of BRICS countries will be signed in the presence of the leaders of the five countries, Sudhir Vyas, secretary (economic relations) in the external affairs ministry, told reporters here.

The pacts are expected to scale up intra-BRICS trade which has been growing at the rate of 28 percent over the last few years, but at $230 billion, remains much below the potential of the five economic powerhouses.

So what does all of this mean?

It means that the days of the U.S. dollar being the de facto reserve currency of the world are numbered.

So why is this important?

In a previous article, I quoted an outstanding article by Marin Katusa that detailed many of the important benefits that the petrodollar system has had for the U.S. economy….

The “petrodollar” system was a brilliant political and economic move. It forced the world’s oil money to flow through the US Federal Reserve, creating ever-growing international demand for both US dollars and US debt, while essentially letting the US pretty much own the world’s oil for free, since oil’s value is denominated in a currency that America controls and prints. The petrodollar system spread beyond oil: the majority of international trade is done in US dollars. That means that from Russia to China, Brazil to South Korea, every country aims to maximize the US-dollar surplus garnered from its export trade to buy oil.

The US has reaped many rewards. As oil usage increased in the 1980s, demand for the US dollar rose with it, lifting the US economy to new heights. But even without economic success at home the US dollar would have soared, because the petrodollar system created consistent international demand for US dollars, which in turn gained in value. A strong US dollar allowed Americans to buy imported goods at a massive discount – the petrodollar system essentially creating a subsidy for US consumers at the expense of the rest of the world. Here, finally, the US hit on a downside: The availability of cheap imports hit the US manufacturing industry hard, and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs remains one of the biggest challenges in resurrecting the US economy today.

So what happens when the petrodollar dies?

The following are some of the things we are likely to see….

-Oil will cost a lot more.

-Everything will cost a lot more.

-There will be a lot less foreign demand for U.S. government debt.

-Interest rates on U.S. government debt will rise.

-Interest rates on just about everything in the U.S. economy will rise.

And that is just for starters.

As I wrote about earlier today, the Federal Reserve is not going to save us.  Ben Bernanke is not somehow going to pull a rabbit out of a hat that will magically make everything okay.  Fundamental changes to the global financial system are happening right now that are impossible for Bernanke to stop.

We should have never gone into so much debt.  Up until now we have gotten away with it, but when demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. debt dries up we are going to experience a massive amount of pain.

Keep your eyes and ears open for more news stories like the ones referenced above.  The end of the U.S. dollar is going to be a very significant landmark on the road toward the total collapse of the U.S. economy.

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BEN SWANN: FIAT DOLLAR IS THE REAL REASON FOR HIGH GAS PRICES

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WHY NOT PRINT MORE MONEY?

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OUR COLLAPSING ECONOMY AND CURRENCY

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts | Global Research

Is the “fiscal cliff” real or just another hoax? The answer is that the fiscal cliff is real, but it is a result, not a cause. The hoax is the way the fiscal cliff is being used.

The fiscal cliff is the result of the inability to close the federal budget deficit. The budget deficit cannot be closed because large numbers of US middle class jobs and the GDP and tax base associated with them have been moved offshore, thus reducing federal revenues. The fiscal cliff cannot be closed because of the unfunded liabilities of eleven years of US-initiated wars against a half dozen Muslim countries–wars that have benefitted only the profits of the military/security complex and the territorial ambitions of Israel. The budget deficit cannot be closed, because economic policy is focused only on saving banks that wrongful financial deregulation allowed to speculate, to merge, and to become too big to fail, thus requiring public subsidies that vastly dwarf the totality of US welfare spending.

The hoax is the propaganda that the fiscal cliff can be avoided by reneging on promised Social Security and Medicare benefits that people have paid for with the payroll tax and by cutting back all aspects of the social safety net from food stamps to unemployment benefits to Medicaid, to housing subsidies. The right-wing has been trying to get rid of the social safety net ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt constructed it, out of fear or compassion or both, during the Great Depression.

Washington’s response to the fiscal cliff is austerity: spending cuts and tax increases. The Republicans say they will vote for the Democrats’ tax increases if the Democrats vote for the Republican’s assault on the social safety net. What bipartisan compromise means is a double-barreled dose of austerity.

Ever since John Maynard Keynes, economists have understood that tax increases and spending cuts suppress, not stimulate, economic activity. This is especially the case in an economy such as the American one, which is driven by consumer spending. When spending declines, so does the economy. When the economy declines, the budget deficit rises.

This is especially the case when an economy is weak and already in decline. A declining economy means less sales, less employment, less tax revenues. This works against the effort to close the federal budget deficit with austerity measures. Instead of strengthening the economy, the austerity measures weaken it further. To cut unemployment benefits and food stamps when unemployment is high or rising would be to provoke social and political instability.

Some economists, such as Robert Barro at Harvard University, claim that stimulative measures, the opposite of austerity, don’t work, because consumers anticipate the higher taxes that will be needed to cover the budget deficit and, therefore, reduce their spending and increase their saving in order to be able to pay the anticipated higher taxes.

In other words, the Keynesian effort to stimulate spending causes consumers to reduce their spending. I don’t know of any empirical evidence for this claim.

Regardless, the situation on the ground at the present time is that for the majority of people, incomes are stretched to the limit and beyond. Many cannot pay their bills, their mortgages, their car payments, their student loans. They are drowning in debt, and there is nothing that they can cut back in order to save money with which to pay higher taxes.

Many commentators are complaining that Congress will refuse to face the difficult issues and kick the can down the road, leaving the fiscal cliff looming. This would probably be the best outcome. As the fiscal cliff is a result, not a cause, to focus on the fiscal cliff is to focus on the symptoms rather than the disease.

The US economy has two serious diseases, and neither one is too much welfare spending.

One disease is the offshoring of US middle class jobs, both manufacturing jobs and professional service jobs such as engineering, research, design, and information technology, jobs that formerly were filled by US university graduates, but which today are sent abroad or are filled by foreigners brought in on H-1B work visas at two-thirds of the salary.

The other disease is the deregulation, especially the financial deregulation, that caused the ongoing financial crisis and created banks too big to fail, which has prevented capitalism from working and closing down insolvent corporations.

The Federal Reserve’s policy is focused on saving the banks, not on saving the economy. The Federal Reserve is purchasing not only new Treasury bonds issued to finance the more than one trillion dollar annual federal deficit but also the banks’ underwater financial instruments, taking them off the banks’ books and putting them on the Federal Reserve’s books.

Normally, debt monetization of this amount results in rising inflation, but the money that the Federal Reserve is creating in its attempt to manage the public debt and the banks’ private debt is hung up in the banking system as excess reserves and is not finding its way into the economy. The banks are too busted to lend, and consumers are too indebted to borrow.

However, the debt monetization poses a second threat that is capable of biting the US economy and consumer living standards very hard. Foreign central banks, foreign investors in US stocks and financial instruments, and Americans themselves observing the Federal Reserve’s continuous monetization of US debt cannot avoid concern about the dollar’s value as the supply of ever more dollars continues to pour out of the Federal Reserve.

Already there is evidence of central banks and individuals moving out of dollars into gold and silver bullion and into other currencies of countries that are not hemorrhaging debt and money. According to John Williams of Shadowstats.com, the US dollar as a percentage of global holdings of reserve assets has declined from 36.6% in 2006 to 28.7% in 2012. Gold has increased from 10.5% to 12.8% and other foreign currencies except the euro increased from 38.4% to 44.4%.

Russia, China, Brazil, India, and South Africa intend to conduct trade among themselves in their own currencies without use of the dollar as reserve currency. The EU countries conduct their trade with one another in euros, and although not reported in the US media, Asian countries are discussing a new common currency for trade among themselves.

The world is abandoning the use of the dollar to settle international accounts, and the demand for dollars is falling as the Federal Reserve increases the supply of dollars.

This means that the price of the dollar is threatened.

Concern over the dollar means concern over dollar-denominated financial instruments such as stocks and bonds. The Chinese hold some $2 trillion in US financial instruments. The Japanese hold about $1 trillion in US Treasuries. The Saudis and the oil emirates also hold large quantities of US dollar financial instruments. At some point the move away from the dollar also means a move away from US financial instruments. The dumping of US stocks and bonds would destabilize US financial markets and wipe out the remainder of US wealth.

As I have previously written, the Federal Reserve can create new money with which to purchase the dumped financial instruments, thus maintaining their prices. But the Federal Reserve cannot print gold or foreign currencies with which to buy up the dollars that foreigners are paid for their US stocks and bonds. When the dollars in turn are dumped, the exchange value of the dollar will collapse, and US inflation will explode.

The onset of hyperinflation can be as sudden as the collapse of a currency’s exchange value.

The real crisis facing the US is the impending collapse of the US dollar’s foreign exchange value. The US dollar’s value in relation to silver and gold has already collapsed. In the past ten years, gold’s price in US dollars has increased from $250 per ounce to $1,750 per ounce, an increase of $1,500. Silver’s price has risen from $4 per ounce to $34 per ounce. These price rises are not due to a sudden scarcity of gold and silver, but to a flight from the dollar into the two forms of historical money that cannot be created with the printing press.

The price of oil has risen from $20 a barrel ten years ago to as high as $120 per barrel earlier this year and currently $90 a barrel. This price rise has come about despite a weak world economy and without any supply restrictions other than those caused by the attempted US occupation of Iraq, the Western assault on Libya, and the self-harming Western sanctions on Iran, impacts most likely offset by the Saudis, still Washington’s faithful puppet, a country that pumps out its precious life fluid in order to save the West from its own mistakes. The moronic neoconservatives wish to overthrow the Saudi Arabian government, but what more faithful servant has Washington ever had than the Saudi royal house?

What can be done? For a number of years I have pointed out that the problem is the loss of US employment, consumer income, GDP, and tax base to offshoring. The solution is to reverse the outward flow of jobs and to bring them back to the US. This can be done, as Ralph Gomory has made clear, by taxing corporations according to where they add value to their product. If the value is added abroad, corporations would have a high tax rate. If they add value domestically with US labor, they would face a low tax rate. The difference in tax rates can be calculated to offset the benefit of the lower cost of foreign labor.

As all offshored production that is brought to the US to be marketed to Americans counts as imports, relocating the production in the US would decrease the trade deficit, thus strengthening belief in the dollar. The increase in US consumer incomes would raise tax revenues, thus lowering the budget deficit. It is a win-win solution.

The second part to the solution is to end the expensive unfunded wars that have ruined the federal budget for the past 11 years as well as future budgets due to the cost of veterans’ hospital care and benefits. According to ABC World News, “In the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, 2,333,972 American military personnel have been deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan or both, as of Aug. 30, 2011 [more than a year ago].” These 2.3 million veterans have rights to various unfunded benefits including life-long health care. Already, according to ABC, 711,986 have used Veterans Administration health care between fiscal year 2002 and the third-quarter of fiscal year 2011.

The Republicans are determined to continue the gratuitous wars and to make the 99 percent pay for the neoconservatives’ Wars of Hegemony while protecting the 1 percent from tax increases.

The Democrats are little different.

No one in the White House and no more than one dozen members of the 535 member US Congress represents the American people. This is the reason that despite obvious remedies nothing can be done. America is going to crash big time.

And the rest of the world will be thankful. America along with Israel is the world’s most hated country. Don’t expect any foreign bailouts of the failed “superpower.”

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37 STATISTICS WHICH SHOW HOW FOUR YEARS OF OBAMA HAVE WRECKED THE U.S. ECONOMY

By Michael Snyder | Economic Collapse

The mainstream media covered the inauguration of Barack Obama with breathless anticipation on Monday, but should we really be celebrating another four years of Obama?  The truth is that the first four years of Obama were an absolute train wreck for the U.S. economy.  Over the past four years, the percentage of working age Americans with a job has fallen, median household income has declined by more than $4000, poverty in the U.S. has absolutely exploded and our national debt has ballooned to ridiculous proportions.  Of course all of the blame for the nightmarish performance of the economy should not go to Obama alone.  Certainly much of what we are experiencing today is the direct result of decades of very foolish decisions by Congress and previous presidential administrations.  And of course the Federal Reserve has more influence over the economy than anyone else does.  But Barack Obama steadfastly refuses to criticize anything that the Federal Reserve has done and he even nominated Ben Bernanke for another term as Fed Chairman despite his horrific track record of failure, so at a minimum Barack Obama must be considered to be complicit in the Fed’s very foolish policies.  Despite what the Obama administration tells us, the U.S. economy has been in decline for a very long time, and that decline has accelerated in many ways over the past four years.  Just consider the statistics that I have compiled below.  The following are 37 statistics which show how four years of Obama have wrecked the U.S. economy…1. During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans on food stamps increased by an average of about 11,000 per day.2. At the beginning of the Obama era, 32 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, more than 47 million Americans are on food stamps.3. According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”4. The number of Americans receiving money directly from the federal government each month has grown from 94 million in the year 2000 to more than 128 million today.5. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 146 million Americans are either “poor” or “low income” at this point.6. The unemployment rate in the United States is exactly where it was (7.8 percent) when Barack Obama first entered the White House in January 2009.7. When Barack Obama first entered the White House, 60.6 percent of all working age Americans had a job.  Today, only 58.6 percent of all working age Americans have a job.8. During the first four years of Obama, the number of Americans “not in the labor force” soared by an astounding 8,332,000.  That far exceeds any previous four year total.9. During Obama’s first term, the number of Americans collecting federal disability insurance rose by more than 18 percent.10. The Obama years have been absolutely devastating for small businesses in America.  According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration…Bush Sr.: 11.3Clinton: 11.2Bush Jr.: 10.8Obama: 7.811. Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.12. The economy is not producing nearly enough jobs for the hordes of young people now entering the workforce.  Approximately 53 percent of all U.S. college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed in 2011.13. According to a report from the National Employment Law Project, 58 percent of the jobs that have been created since the end of the recession have been low paying jobs.14. Back in 2007, about 28 percent of all working families were considered to be among “the working poor”.  Today, that number is up to 32 percent even though our politicians tell us that the economy is supposedly recovering.15. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, only 24.6 percent of all of the jobs in the United States are “good jobs” at this point.16. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the middle class is taking home a smaller share of the overall income pie than has ever been recorded before.17. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the United States is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.18. The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.19. According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001.  That number declined steadily over the course of the next decade and was only at 21.6 percent in 2011.20. The United States actually has plenty of oil and we should not have to import oil from the Middle East.  We need to drill for more oil, but Obama has been very hesitant to do that.  Under Bill Clinton, the number of drilling permits approved rose by 58 percent.  Under George W. Bush, the number of drilling permits approved rose by 116 percent.  Under Barack Obama, the number of drilling permits approved actually decreased by 36 percent.21. When Barack Obama took office, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was $1.84.  Today, the average price of a gallon of gasoline is $3.26.22. Under Barack Obama, the United States has lost more than 300,000 education jobs.23. For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.24. Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 now have a poverty rate of 37 percent.25. More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as were sold in 2012.26. Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.27. Health insurance costs have risen by 29 percent since Barack Obama became president.28. Today, 77 percent of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.29. It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.30. The total amount of money that the federal government gives directly to the American people has grown by 32 percent since Barack Obama became president.31. The Obama administration has been spending money on some of the most insane things imaginable.  For example, in 2011 the Obama administration spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.32. U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.33. The U.S. government has run a budget deficit of well over a trillion dollars every single year under Barack Obama.34. When Barack Obama was first elected, the U.S. debt to GDP ratio was under 70 percent.  Today, it is up to 103 percent.35. During Obama’s first term, the federal government accumulated more debt than it did under the first 42 U.S presidents combined.36. As I wrote about yesterday, when you break it down the amount of new debt accumulated by the U.S. government during Obama’s first term comes to approximately $50,521 for every single household in the United States.  Are you ready to contribute your share?37. If you started paying off just the new debt that the U.S. has accumulated during the Obama administration at the rate of one dollar per second, it would take more than 184,000 years to pay it off.But despite all of these numbers, the mainstream media and the left just continue to shower Barack Obama with worship and praise.  Newsweek recently heralded Obama’s second term as “The Second Coming“, and at Obama’s pre-inauguration church service Reverand Ronald Braxton openly compared Obama to Moses…

At Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church, Braxton reportedly crafted his speech around Obama’s personal political slogan: “Forward!”

Obama, said Braxton, was just like Moses facing the Red Sea: “forward is the only option … The people couldn’t turn around. The only thing that they could do was to go forward.” Obama, said Braxton, would have to overcome all obstacles – like opposition from Republicans, presumably, or the bounds of the Constitution. Braxton continued, “Mr. President, stand on the rock,” citing to Moses standing on Mount Horeb as his people camped outside the land of Israel.

But it wasn’t enough to compare Obama with the founder of Judaism and the prophet of the Bible. Braxton added that Obama’s opponents were like the Biblical enemies of Moses, and that Obama would have to enter the battle because “sometimes enemies insist on doing it the hard way.”

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34 SIGNS THAT AMERICA IS IN DECLINE

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse

DECEMBER 5, 2012

The United States is clearly in an advanced state of decline.  Many people around the world (and even inside America) rejoice at this, but not me.  I mourn for the country that I was born in and that I still love.

Yes, the United States has never been perfect, but the Republic that our Founding Fathers started truly has been a light to the rest of the world in a lot of ways over the centuries.  Unfortunately, our foundations are badly rotting and our nation is collapsing all around us.  Many Americans like to think that the United States is greater today than it has ever been before, but the truth is that America is like a patient that has stage 4 cancer that has spread to almost every area of the body.  Our nation is being destroyed in thousands of different ways, and more distressing news emerges with each passing day.  This article will mainly focus on the economic decline of America, but much could also be said about our social, political, moral and spiritual decline as well.  We are simply not the same country that we used to be.  Americans are proud, selfish, greedy, arrogant, ungrateful, treacherous and completely addicted to entertainment and pleasure.  Our country is literally falling apart all around us, but most Americans are so plugged into entertainment that they can’t even be bothered to notice what is happening.  Most Americans seem to assume that we will always have endless prosperity just because of who we are, but unfortunately that simply is not true.  We inherited the greatest economic machine the world has ever seen and we have wrecked it, and now a very painful day of reckoning is approaching.  But most people will not understand until it is too late.

The following are 34 signs that America is in decline…

#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001.  That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011.  That is not just a decline – that is a freefall.  Just check out the chart inthis article.

#2 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988.  Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.

#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#4 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures in coming months.

#5 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#6 America once had the greatest manufacturing cities on the face of the earth.  Now many of our formerly great manufacturing cities have degenerated into festering hellholes.  For example, the city of Detroit is on the verge of financial collapse, and one state lawmaker is now saying that “dissolving Detroit” should be looked at as an option.

#7 In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent.  Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.

#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#9 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#10 Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percentof the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#12 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#13 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001.  During 2010, manufacturing facilities were shutting down at the rate of 23 per day.  How can anyone say that “things are getting better” when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?

#14 Back in early 2005, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was less than 2 dollars a gallon.  During 2012, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been $3.63.

#15 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#16 As I have written about previously, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971 according to the Pew Research Center.  Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are “middle income”.

#17 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#18 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States is about 22 percent.

#19 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned.  By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

#20 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#21 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#22 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#23 According to one survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket are still living with their parents.

#24 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple.  Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.

#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government.  Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.

#26 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

#27 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, 47.1 millionAmericans are on food stamps.

#28 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#29 As I wrote about the other day, according to one calculation the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#30 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.  It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#31 In 2001, the U.S. national debt was less than 6 trillion dollars.  Today, it is over 16 trillion dollars and it is increasing by more than 100 million dollars every single hour.

#32 The U.S. national debt is now more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#33 According to a PBS report from earlier this year, U.S. households that make $13,000 or less per year spend 9 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets.  Could that possibly be accurate?  Are people really that foolish?

#34 As the U.S. economy has declined, the American people have been downing more antidepressants and other prescription drugs than ever before.  In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.

So what are our “leaders” doing about all of this?

Not much.

They just continue to insist that everything is “just fine”.

Sadly, the truth is that they live in a world that is very different from most of the rest of us.

Barack Obama is getting ready to take a 20 day vacation to Hawaii.

When was the last time you got to take a 20 day vacation?

And most of our “leaders” have no idea what it is like to struggle from month to month on a paycheck.

Overall, more than half of the members of Congress are millionaires.  We are led by wealthy men who are serving the interests of other wealthy men.

But the problem with our system is not limited to the president and the members of Congress.  The truth is that the political system in America has become a colossal beast that just continues to grow no matter who is in power.  The political establishment of both parties is totally dependent on this beast, and they will continue to feed it and serve it because it has been very good to them.  The following is from an outstanding article by Steve McCann…

The Republican and Democratic political establishments are made up of the following:

1) many current and nearly all retired national office holders whose livelihood and narcissistic demands depends upon fealty to Party and access to government largesse;

2) the majority of the media elite, including pundits, editors, writers and television news personalities based in Washington and New York whose proximity to power and access is vital to their continued standard of living;

3) academia, numerous think-tanks, so-called non-government organizations, and lobbyists who fasten onto those in the administration and Congress for employment, grants, favorable legislation and ego-gratification;

4) the reliable deep pocket political contributors and political consultants whose future is irrevocably tied to the political machinery of the Party; and

5) the crony capitalists, i.e. leaders of the corporate and financial community as well as unions whose entities are dependent on or subject to government oversight and/or benevolence .

Do you think that there is any chance that this insidious system will be uprooted any time soon?

Of course not.

We will continue on the same path that we are on right now and America will continue to decline.

Many will rejoice as America falls, but I will not.

I will mourn for a mighty Republic that has fallen and for a dream that has been lost.

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GUIDE TO THE FISCAL CLIFF

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HOW BIG IS THE UNITED STATES DEBT?

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UNITED STATES DEBT CLOCK: JANUARY 27, 2013

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55 FACTS ABOUT THE DEBT AND U.S. GOVERNMENT FINANCES THAT EVERY AMERICAN SHOULD KNOW

OCTOBER 21, 2012

The Economic Collapse

The future of the United States of America is being systematically destroyed by our politicians, but unfortunately most Americans don’t really grasp exactly what is happening.  30 years ago, our national debt had just crossed the one trillion dollar mark.  Just recently, it crossed the 16 trillion dollar mark.  Prior to every election, politicians from both parties swear up and down that they will do something about our exploding debt, but it never happens.  Once again this year, our politicians are making all kinds of grand promises about getting U.S. government finances under control.  But they are also promising all kinds of new plans and programs which are going to cost a lot more money on top of what we are already spending.  For the average American, all of this can be incredibly confusing.  That is why I have put together a list of facts about the debt and U.S. government finances below.  These are things that every voter should know.  The federal government is stealing more than a trillion dollars a year from our children and our grandchildren, and they are spending that money in some of the most foolish ways that you could ever imagine.  We have accumulated the largest mountain of debt in the history of the world, but our politicians just can’t help themselves – they appear to be absolutely addicted to spending money.  If we continue on the path that we are currently on, our entire financial system and our entire economy will be destroyed by all of this debt.  Time is running out and urgent action is needed to address this crisis.

Many of our founding fathers attempted to warn us about the dangers of government debt.  For example, Thomas Jefferson once said the following…

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

Where would we be today if such an amendment had been added to our Constitution?

How much brighter would our future be if the federal government had been forced to only spend what it took in all these years?

Those are very good questions.

The following are 55 facts about the debt and U.S. government finances that every American voter should know….

#1 While Barack Obama has been president, the U.S. government has spent about 11 dollars for every 7 dollars of revenue that it has actually brought in.

#2 During the fiscal year that just ended, the U.S. government took in 2.449 trillion dollars but it spent 3.538 trillion dollars.

#3 During fiscal year 2011, over a trillion dollars of government money was spent on 83 different welfare programs, and those numbers do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#4 Over the past four years, welfare spending has increased by 32 percent.  In inflation-adjusted dollars, spending on those programs has risen by 378 percent over the past 30 years.  At this point, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  Once again, these figures do not even include Social Security or Medicare.

#5 Over the past year, the number of Americans getting a free cell phone from the federal government has grown by 43 percent.  Now more than 16 million Americans are enjoying what has come to be known as an “Obamaphone”.

#6 When Barack Obama first entered the White House, about 32 million Americans were on food stamps.  Now,nearly 47 million Americans are on food stamps.  And this has happened during what Obama refers to as “an economic recovery”.

#7 The U.S. government recently spent 27 million dollars on pottery classes in Morocco.

#8 The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently spent $300,000 to encourage Americans to eat caviar at a time when more families than ever are having a really hard time just trying to put any food on the table at all.

#9 During 2012, the National Science Foundation spent $516,000 to support the creation of a video game called “Prom Week”, which apparently simulates “all the social interactions of the event.”

#10 The U.S. Department of Agriculture gave the largest snack food maker in the world (PepsiCo Inc.) a total of 1.3 million dollars in corporate welfare that was used to help build “a Greek yogurt factory in New York.”

#11 The National Science Foundation recently gave researchers at Purdue University $350,000.  They used part of that money to help fund a study that discovered that if golfers imagine that a hole is bigger it will help them with their putting.

#12 If you can believe it, $10,000 from the federal government was actually used to purchase talking urinal cakes up in Michigan.

#13 The National Science Foundation recently gave a whopping $697,177 to a New York City-based theater company to produce a musical about climate change.

#14 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $666,905 to a group of researchers that is studying the benefits of watching reruns on television.

#15 The National Science Foundation has given 1.2 million dollars to a team of “scientists” that is spending part of that money on a study that is seeking to determine whether elderly Americans would benefit from playing World of Warcraft or not.

#16 The National Institutes of Health recently gave $548,731 to a team of researchers that concluded that those that drink heavily in their thirties also tend to feel more immature.

#17 The National Science Foundation recently spent $30,000 on a study to determine if “gaydar” actually exists.  This is the conclusion that the researchers reached at the end of the study….

“Gaydar is indeed real and… its accuracy is driven by sensitivity to individual facial features”

#18 Back in 2011, the National Institutes of Health spent $592,527 on a study that sought to figure out once and for all why chimpanzees throw poop.

#19 The U.S. government spends more on the military than China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATOcombined.  In fact, the United States accounts for 41.0% of all military spending on the planet.  China is next with only 8.2%.

#20 In a previous article, I noted that close to 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#21 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year.  Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#22 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#23 During 2010, the average federal employee in the Washington D.C. area received total compensation worth more than $126,000.

#24 The U.S. Department of Defense had just nine civilians earning $170,000 or more back in 2005.  When Barack Obama became president, the U.S. Department of Defense had 214 civilians earning $170,000 or more.  By June 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense had 994 civilians earning $170,000 or more.

#25 During 2010, compensation for federal employees came to a grand total of approximately 447 billion dollars.

#26 If you can believe it, close to 15,000 retired federal employees are currently collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  That list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#27 During 2010, the federal government spent $33,387 on the hair care needs of U.S. Senators.

#28 During 2010, U.S. Senators pulled $72,370 out of the “Senate Restaurant Fund”.

#29 During 2010, an average of $4,005,900 of U.S. taxpayer money was spent on “personal” and “office” expenses per Senator.

#30 In 2013, 3.7 million dollars will be spent to support the lavish lifestyles of former presidents such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

#31 During 2011, the federal government spent a total of 1.4 BILLION dollars just on the Obamas.

#32 When you combine all federal government spending, all state government spending and all local government spending, it comes to approximately 41 percent of U.S. GDP.  But don’t worry, all of our politicians insist that this is not socialism.

#33 As I have written about previously, less than 30 percent of all Americans lived in a home where at least one person received financial assistance from the federal government back in 1983.  Today, that number is sitting at an all-time high of 49 percent.

#34 Back in 1990, the federal government accounted for just 32 percent of all health care spending in America.  This year, it is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in the United States.

#35 The number of Americans on Medicaid soared from 34 million in 2000 to 54 million in 2011, and it is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#36 In one of my previous articles, I discussed how it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#37 If you can believe it, Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#38 In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits.  By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.

#39 Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.

#40 When Barack Obama first took office, the U.S. national debt was about 10.6 trillion dollars.  Now it is about 16.2 trillion dollars.  That is an increase of 5.6 trillion dollars in less than 4 years.

#41 The federal government has now run a budget deficit of more than a trillion dollars for four years in a row.

#42 If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

#43 If you were alive when Jesus Christ was born and you spent one million dollars every single day since that point, you still would not have spent one trillion dollars by now.

#44 Some suggest that “taxing the rich” is the answer.  Well, if Bill Gates gave every single penny of his entire fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.

#45 If the federal government used GAAP accounting standards like publicly traded corporations do, the real federal budget deficit for 2011 would have been 5 trillion dollars instead of 1.3 trillion dollars.

#46 The United States already has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain does.

#47 At this point, the United States government is responsible for more than a third of all the government debt in the entire world.

#48 The amount of U.S. government debt held by foreigners is about 5 times larger than it was just a decade ago.

#49 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

#50 The U.S. national debt is now more than 37 times larger than it was when Richard Nixon took us off the gold standard.

#51 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reservewas first created.

#52 The U.S. national debt jumped more on the very first day of fiscal year 2013 than it did from 1776 to 1941 combined.

#53 Historically, the interest rate on 10 year U.S. Treasuries has averaged 6.68 percent.  If the average interest rate on U.S. government debt rose to that level today, the U.S. government would find itself spending more than a trillion dollars per year just on interest on the national debt.

#54 A recently revised IMF policy paper entitled “An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?” projects that U.S. government debt will rise to about 400 percent of GDP by the year 2050.

#55 Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff is warning that the U.S. government is facing a gigantic tsunami of unfunded liabilities in the coming years that we are counting on our children and our grandchildren to pay.  Kotlikoff speaks of a “fiscal gap” which he defines as “the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue”.  His calculations have led him to the conclusion that the federal government is facing a fiscal gap of 222 trillion dollars in the years ahead.

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  Time is running out to fix these problems.

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DOES STIMULUS SPENDING WORK?

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WHAT CAN WE CUT TO BALANCE THE BUDGET?

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HOW RAISING TAXES WILL NOT BALANCE THE BUDGET

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WILL TAXING THE RICH FIX THE DEFICIT?

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PETER SCHIFF: THE FANTASY OF A 91% TOP INCOME TAX RATE

A liberal article of faith that confiscatory taxes fed the postwar boom turns out to be an Edsel of an economic idea.

By PETER SCHIFF

Democratic Party leaders, President Obama in particular, are forever telling the country that wealthy Americans are taxed at too low a rate and pay too little in taxes. The need to correct this seeming injustice is framed not simply in terms of fairness. Higher tax rates on the wealthy, we’re told, would help balance the budget, allow for more “investment” in America’s future and foster better economic growth for all. In support of this claim, like-minded liberal pundits point out that in the 1950s, when America’s economic might was at its zenith, the rich faced tax rates as high as 91%.

True enough, the top marginal income-tax rate in the 1950s was much higher than today’s top rate of 35%—but the share of income paid by the wealthiest Americans has essentially remained flat since then.

In 1958, the top 3% of taxpayers earned 14.7% of all adjusted gross income and paid 29.2% of all federal income taxes. In 2010, the top 3% earned 27.2% of adjusted gross income and their share of all federal taxes rose proportionally, to 51%.

So if the top marginal tax rate has fallen to 35% from 91%, how in the world has the tax burden on the wealthy remained roughly the same? Two factors are responsible. Lower- and middle-income workers now bear a significantly lighter burden than in the past. And the confiscatory top marginal rates of the 1950s were essentially symbolic—very few actually paid them. In reality the vast majority of top earners faced lower effective rates than they do today.

In 1958, an 81% marginal tax rate applied to incomes above $140,000, and the 91% rate kicked in at $400,000 for couples. These figures are in unadjusted 1958 dollars and correspond today to nominal income levels that are about eight times higher. That year, according to Internal Revenue Service records, about 10,000 of the nation’s 45.6 million tax filers had income that was taxed at 81% or higher. The number is an estimate and is inexact because the IRS tables list the number of tax filers by income ranges, not precisely by the number who paid at the 81% rate.

In 1958, approximately two million filers (4.4% of all taxpayers) earned the $12,000 or more for married couples needed to face marginal rates as high as 30%. These Americans paid about 35% of all income taxes. And now? In 2010, 3.9 million taxpayers (2.75% of all taxpayers) were subjected to rates that were 33% or higher. These Americans—many of whom would hardly call themselves wealthy—reported an adjusted gross income of $209,000 or higher, and they paid 49.7% of all income taxes.

In contrast, the share of taxes paid by the bottom two-thirds of taxpayers has fallen dramatically over the same period. In 1958, these Americans accounted for 41.3% of adjusted gross income and paid 29% of all federal taxes. By 2010, their share of adjusted gross income had fallen to 22.5%. But their share of taxes paid fell far more dramatically—to 6.7%. The 77% decline represents the single biggest difference in the way the tax burden is shared in this country since the late 1950s.

The changes came about not so much by movements in rates but by the addition of tax credits for the poor and the elimination of exemptions for the wealthy. In 1958, even the lowest-tier filers, which included everyone making up to $5,000 annually, were subjected to an effective 20% rate. Today, almost half of all tax filers have no income-tax liability whatsoever, and many “taxpayers” actually get a net refund from the government. Those nostalgic for 1950s-era “tax fairness” should bear this in mind.

The tax code of the 1950s allowed upper-income Americans to take exemptions and deductions that are unheard of today. Tax shelters were widespread, and not just for the superrich. The working wealthy—including doctors, lawyers, business owners and executives—were versed in the art of creating losses to lower their tax exposure.

For instance, a doctor who earned $50,000 through his medical practice could reduce his taxable income to zero with $50,000 in paper losses or depreciation from property he owned through a real-estate investment partnership. Huge numbers of professionals signed up for all kinds of money-losing schemes. Today, a corresponding doctor earning $500,000 can deduct a maximum of $3,000 from his taxable income, no matter how large the loss.

Those 1950s gambits lowered tax liabilities but dissuaded individuals from engaging in the more beneficial activities of increasing their incomes and expanding their businesses. As a result, they were a net drag on the economy. When Ronald Reagan finally lowered rates in the 1980s, he did so in exchange for scrapping uneconomical deductions. When business owners stopped trying to figure out how to lose money, the economy boomed.

It’s hard to determine how much otherwise taxable income disappeared through tax shelters in the 1950s. As a result, direct comparisons between the 1950s and now are difficult. However, it is worth noting that from 1958 to 2010, the taxes paid by the top 3% of earners, as a percentage of total personal income (which can’t be reduced by shelters), increased to 3.96% from 2.72%, while the percentage paid by the bottom two-thirds of filers fell to 0.51% in 2010 from 2.7%. This starker division of relative tax burdens can be explained by the inability of upper-income groups to shelter income.

It is a testament to the shallow nature of the national economic conversation that higher tax rates can be justified by reference to a fantasy—a 91% marginal rate that hardly any top earners paid.

In reality, tax policies that diminish the incentives and capacities of innovators, business owners and investors will not spur economic improvement. Such policies will, however, satisfy the instincts of those who want to “stick it to the rich.” Never mind that the rich have already been stuck fairly well.

Mr. Schiff is the author of “The Real Crash: America’s Coming Bankruptcy” (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) and host of the daily radio program “The Peter Schiff Show.”

Editor’s note: This article has been amended as per the following correction:

Peter Schiff’s Dec. 7 op-ed, “The Fantasy of a 91% Top Income Tax Rate,” included some faulty data due to a misreading of IRS tax tables.

In 1958, an 81% marginal tax rate applied to income of $140,000 and the 91% rate at $400,000 for married couples, which would correspond to income levels about eight times higher today. The article misstated the income thresholds and the comparison to income today.

In the same year, roughly 10,000 of the nation’s 45.6 million tax filers had income subject to a rate of 81% or higher. The number is an estimate and is inexact because the IRS tables list the number of tax filers by income ranges, not precisely by the number who paid at the 81% rate. The original article said the number of such filers was 236.

Also in 1958, about two million filers (4.4% of all taxpayers) earned the $12,000 for married filers needed to face marginal rates as high as 30%. These Americans paid about 35% of all income taxes but could not all be defined as genuinely wealthy. The article misstated these numbers.

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A NATION OF DENIAL

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

October 31, 2012

There is no bigger sign post about the state of the U.S. economy than the Federal Reserve’s announcement in September of “open ended”QE.  This is unlimited money printing that is being done by the Fed until further notice.  All the talk of the so-called “recovery” was reduced to a gigantic lie perpetrated on the American people.  If the economy was in a “real recovery,” the Fed would be raising interest rates, and there would be no need to create $85 billion each and every month to “stimulate” the economy.  Former Reagan budget director David Stockman says the Fed is on a “money printing binge.”  He said three weeks ago on FOX,“We’ve never had a central bank that has printed this much money. . . . I don’t think they can whistle this tune very much longer.”  To that, host Neil Cavuto said, “So if you had a lead suit, you would buy it.  If you had a cyanide pill you would take it.”  I think Mr. Cavuto was trying to make a joke, but nothing is funny about a dying empire.

Renowned investor Jim Sinclair explained money printing by the Fed on his JSMinenset.com website recently by saying, “The economy is a drug addict. The creation of money is history making in a modern economy and money creation acts exactly like a drug. Like a drug the more you take, the more you need. The more money you create, the more money you must continue to create until it goes to infinity. You go cold turkey on money creation, you unleash the economic wrath of hell in the entire Western world. It all comes down in one great implosion.”  How much trouble is the U.S. economy in that its central bank has to create unprecedented amounts of currency to keep it from “one great implosion”?  Is there any wonder why Mr. Sinclair predicts gold is going about $3,000 per ounce in the not-so-distant future, and will ultimately hit $12,000 per ounce.  (I would take Mr. Sinclair seriously.  He has a track record of making very big calls on gold that date back to the 1970′s.  I wrote about this 2 years ago.) 

Countries around the world are shunning the dollar in trade.  The biggest blow to the buck came earlier this year with a trade agreement between China and Japan.  These are the second and third biggest economies in the world behind the U.S.  Other countries such as Russia, India and Brazil are just a few more countries moving away from the dollar in trade.  As the dollar loses world reserve currency status, it will decline in value.  Its buying power will be reduced.  The only question is how much will it fall?  Will we see $8 a gallon gasoline or $18?  Remember, the Fed’s money printing policies are “open-ended.” In 2011, the Fed bought61% of America’s debt.  At a rate of $85 billion a month, it will be buying more than $1 trillion a year.  How long will this go on?   

Forget all the rigged government numbers on unemployment.  If calculated the way Bureau of Labor Statistics did it in 1994 and earlier, it would be near 23% (according to Shadowstats.com).  Don’t look for an improvement there because business spending just took a nose dive.  Last week, the Associated Press reported “. . . equipment and software likely declined 4.9 percent in the July-September quarter, economists noted. It would represent the first drop in that category since the recession.  Corporate investment helped the U.S. economy emerge from the Great Recession three years ago. But businesses have grown more cautious since spring, seeing tepid growth in consumer spending and declines in exports.”  (Click here for the complete AP story.)  A slowdown in business spending and exports spells future layoffs.

Layoffs will in turn begin a new daisy chain of defaults in the housing market that are already buckling under the weight of 5 million delinquent mortgages.  The banks are chocked full of foreclosures, but are holding them in what is called “shadow inventory” for fear of crashing an already weak market.  In July, AOLrealestate.com reported, “As many as 90 percent of REOs are withheld from sale, according to estimates recently provided to AOL Real Estate by two analytics firms. It’s a testament to lenders’ fears that flooding the market with foreclosed homes could wreak havoc on their balance sheets and present a danger to the housing market as a whole.”  (Click here for the complete AOL story.)  What kind of a recovery sports 5 million delinquent mortgages and millions of foreclosures the banks are afraid to sell?

John Williams of Shadowstats.com calls what the economy is doing right now “bottom bouncing.”  Will it one day bounce right over a cliff?  In his latest report, Williams says some sections of the economy have already started their descent.  According to his analysis, “Durable goods orders contracted quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year.”  Real incomes are also contracting, Williams says, “. . . the indications here certainly are suggestive of a quarterly contraction, not expansion, in both nominal and real wages and salaries, as well as in real disposable income.”  (Click here to go to Shadowstats.com home page.)

Huge amounts of fraud and criminal Wall Street activity have gone unchecked and unprosecuted.  Our own government turns a blind eye to the taxpayer rip-offs of the corporate bankers and campaign donors.  Liar loans were packaged into mortgage-backed securities.  These “securities” were rated “triple A.”  They were later deemed “toxic.” When it all blew up, bankers committed forgery, perjury and fraud on the court that was politely characterized as “robo-signing.”  The whole enterprise was so fraudulent even the mob would envy it.

Now, there is a lawsuit that alleges bankers and government officials stole the American dream and much of its wealth.  It is asking a federal court to halt all “mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide.” According to Marketwatch.com, “Spire Law Group, LLP’s national home owners’ lawsuit, pending in the venue where the “Banksters” control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) – known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States history and identifying $43 trillion  ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the “Banksters” and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers – now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the “Banksters” located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests. . . . James N. Fiedler, Managing Partner of Spire Law Group, LLP, stated: “It is hard for me to believe as a 47-year lawyer that our nation’s guardians have been unwilling to stop this theft.”  (Click here for the complete Marketwatch.com story.) 

The $43 trillion lawsuit underscores the enormity of the problems America is facing.  There is no recovery, at least not yet.  No economy can truly grow under a backdrop of crime.  Our mainstream media lies by omission.  There is no wonder so many good citizens of the United States are oblivious and completely unprepared for the coming calamity.  The ones that are in the know refuse to see the light of the oncoming train.  Instead, they play on the tracks.  America is in deep financial trouble, and we have become a nation in denial.

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OBAMACARE: MEDICAL TYRANNY IS HERE, AND WE CAN’T SAY WE WEREN’T WARNED

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Daniel Taylor
Infowars.com
November 29, 2012

Health care reform is a hot topic today, as it has been for much of America’s history. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, warned in 1787 that medical freedom needed to be included in the American Constitution. Without this protection, Rush warned that the medical establishment would naturally progress – as many of mankind’s institutions do – into an oppressive dictatorship. His words, echoing from over 200 years ago, ring strikingly true today:

“The Constitution of this Republic should make special provision for medical freedom. To restrict the art of healing to one class will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic. … Unless we put medical freedom into the constitution the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship and force people who wish doctors and treatment of their own choice to submit to only what the dictating outfit offers.”

The spirit of managerial scientific control that drives this beast is summarized in the words of Frederick Taylor, a pioneer in “scientific management.” As Taylor stated in 1907, ”Too great liberty results in a large number of people going wrong who would be right if they had been forced into good habits.” This spirit of quasi-altruistic scientific control begins to fade away towards the higher ranks of the system, however.

The potential for medical tyranny that Benjamin Rush perceived over 200 years ago crystallized when the Rockefeller and Carnegie foundations transformed the American medical establishment in the early 20th Century. They strove to create a system of schooling to manufacture a predictable, rule following group of professionals to enforce the establishment regulations. Additionally, tax exempt foundations – through their grant making power – are able to mold the idea-sphere from which medical research emerges, or is suppressed.

The dictatorial health care model as expressed by “obamacare” is being implemented as part of a larger global program. The World Health Organization announced recently that it hopes to implement – via a U.N. resolution – “universal health coverage” across the globe in fulfillment of its Millennium Development Goals. The Rockefeller Foundation is working with WHO in the project. “There is a global movement towards UHC (Universal Health Care) and it is gathering momentum,” said Judith Rodin, President of the Rockefeller Foundation.

If you don’t want the kind of care that the allopathic establishment prescribes, be prepared to face the consequences.

A Minnesota mother was recently brought to court over refusing chemotherapy for her 8 year olddaughter. A doctor apparently reported her to CPS. She was “…ordered into court and told if they did not work with them on a treatment plan, they would lose custody of Sarah.”

Another case involved a Pennsylvania mother who declined to vaccinate her child, resulting in a visit from CPS. 

A 2009 case in which a 13 year old boy’s parents refused chemo resulted in a judgement of “medical neglect,” denying the right of his parents to refuse treatment on religious grounds.

The bottom line is this: Even if the medical establishment had our best interests at heart, what happens when their science is wrong? What happens when it is skewed in favor of the corporations that are closely aligned with them? What kind of damage is done when it is universally enforced? Benjamin Rush foresaw this danger, and it is time to face it for the reality it has become.

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CHUCK NORRIS: THREE PERILOUS PREVIEWS OF OBAMACARE

Though I have concern that every American citizen has affordable health care, too, I have grave concerns about the opinion that the federal government holds the true solution.

History shows that whenever government oversees personal welfare (such as with Medicare, Medicaid, welfare and Social Security), the program is inept, broken, intrusive, impersonalized, oppressive or often bankrupt.

It is no coincidence that the Congressional Budget Office recently released updated figures revealing how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, will cost twice as much as the original price tag, from $900 billion to $1.76 trillion between now and 2022.

Many of America’s Founding Fathers shared a sentiment that can be summarized in this statement: “That government is best which governs least.”

Three perilous previews of state-mandated health care have come to my attention recently.

Veteran journalist Bob Unruh of WorldNetDaily reported just a few weeks ago: “In what is being seen as a preview of a fully implemented Obamacare, government officials in Michigan are demanding that a 9-year-old child follow standard procedure and take a dangerous course of cancer medications that can cause additional cancer — even though the boy has had three scans indicating an absence of the disease.”

Health Impact News Daily added: “Ken and Erin Stieler are the mom and dad of Jacob — who has been cancer-free since his PET scan in early July. He has had two clean PET scans since then — the most recent in January. Despite all of this, the Michigan Department of Human Services continues to attempt to prosecute this family for medical neglect. If they succeed they will force Jacob to resume chemotherapy despite the fact that the drugs in question are not FDA approved (either for children in general or for this particular cancer). Moreover, these drugs do not promise anything close to a guaranteed cure. And, the FDA requires the drug manufacturers to disclose that these drugs cause new cancers to form, heart disease in children, failure to sexually mature, and many other serious side effects in some cases.”

And if you think the federal government never will tell you what to do with your child’s health care, then consider passages in the Affordable Care Act under the heading “home visitation programs for families with young children and families expecting children,” which would provide (via grants to states) for home visitation programs by government agents to educate parents on child behavior and parenting skills.

Imagine how that health care provision might play out as state officials walk into your home invoking their values and beliefs upon your parenting and children.

There is nothing more intrusive than the thought of government coming into our houses, teaching us how to parent and getting under our skin. And the latter is even a literal intent of federally mandated health care.

Most people don’t realize — even though it was verified recently by even the left-leaning snopes.com — that an earlier House version of health care legislation (HR 3200), which was reformed and approved into law as the Affordable Care Act (HR 3590), included references to the creation of a national health registry with murky correlations to the tracking of personal information via the implanting of microchips in humans.

The Food and Drug Administration’s website explains that “class II” microchips are “subject to special controls,” which can be “exempt from the premarket notification” and include “postmarket surveillance.” And class III devices are those that “support or sustain human life.”

Snopes.com and other pro-Obama agencies were quick to explain the section in the preapproved health care legislation (HR 3200) as nothing more than wording that “simply calls for the creation of a registry that would allow for the Department of Health and Human Services to collect data about medical devices ‘used in or on a patient’ (including devices which patients consent to have implanted with them during surgery, such as pacemakers) for purposes that include tracking the effectiveness and facilitating the distribution of manufacturer recall notices.” (Notice snopes.com’s overly verbose explanation and evasive multiuse of “including” but never “excluding” overreaching microchip uses and expansions. Remember that opening legislative doors and leaving them wide-open is the government’s specialty.)

But if that section in HR 3200 referred only to a benign registry without universal and intrusive implications (including an ultimate obliteration of HIPAA laws), then why was that section excluded from or changed to “similar language” (per snopes.com) in the final version of Obamacare? And shall we assume that though every other form of government entitlement has expanded, these microchip-registry provisions never will be re-included or expanded in future amendments to federally mandated health care?

And I suppose it is also merely coincidental that Fox News recently reported — in an article titled “Microchips ‘the future of medicine’” — that Veriteq, the company responsible for the current usage of informational microchips in pets, “was cleared by the FDA for patient identification in 2004 (via its VeriChip microchip). In 2009, the company entered into an agreement to implant its 8-milimeter microchip in Medcomp’s vascular access catheters. … After VeriChip is implanted, it can be scanned to reveal the identification number and checked in a database.”

And if all of this is sounding a bit too close in this sacred Easter week to the epic and biblical “mark of the beast” (Revelation 16), without which people in the end times “cannot buy or sell,” just know you’ll be lumped among conspiratorial camps (like birthers) for suggesting that, too.

I don’t care how the Obama administration or the Supreme Court bends the commerce clause of the Constitution; Obamacare is bad medicine for Americans’ health care, households, rights and liberties and the American economy.

We need more government officials and a federal government that shift health care back to the free market, personal responsibility and local and community care for one another.

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TOP THREE HEALTH CARE POLICY PROPOSALS

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WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE UNINSURED?

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HEALTH PREMIUMS UP $3,000; OBAMA VOWED $2,500 CUT

By JOHN MERLINE, INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY

09/24/2012

During his first run for president, Barack Obama made one very specific promise to voters: He would cut health insurance premiums for families by $2,500, and do so in his first term.

But it turns out that family premiums have increased by more than $3,000 since Obama’s vow, according to the latest annual Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey.

Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 — 24% — from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370.

What’s more, premiums climbed faster in Obama’s four years than they did in the previous four under President Bush, the survey data show.

There’s no question about what Obama was promising the country, since he repeated it constantly during his 2008 campaign.

In a debate with Sen. John McCain, for example, Obama said “the only thing we’re going to try to do is lower costs so that those cost savings are passed onto you. And we estimate we can cut the average family’s premium by about $2,500 per year.”

At a campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio, in February 2008, Obama promised that “We are going to work with you to lower your premiums by $2,500. We will not wait 20 years from now to do it, or 10 years from now to do it. We will do it by the end of my first term as president.”

2008 Promises, 2012 Reality

To back that up, Obama pointed to a memo drafted by Harvard professors (and unpaid campaign advisers), which claimed that investing in health care IT, cutting administrative bloat, and improving management of chronic diseases would cut health costs by $140 billion a year. That would translate into $2,500 in premium savings for families.

But those projections were wildly optimistic, overestimating potential savings from IT, making big assumptions about disease management, and ignoring the fact that past government interventions have always increased health care administrative costs.

Meanwhile, the health reform law Obama signed in March 2010 has pushed up insurance costs.

In 2011, premiums spiked 9.5%, and many in the industry blame ObamaCare for at least part of it. Premiums climbed another 4.5% in 2012, Kaiser found.

And ObamaCare will continue to fuel health premium inflation.

First, the law piles on new coverage mandates. It requires insurance companies to provide 100% coverage for various types of preventive care, bans lifetime coverage limits, extends parents’ coverage to offspring up to 26 years old, and requires plans to meet certain “medical loss ratios.” Coming up are rules on “essential standard benefits,” limits on deductibles, bans on annual spending caps, and much more.

The experience with state mandates show that they only tend to grow over time, and get more expensive. The Council for Affordable Health Insurance found more than 2,200 state benefit mandates, which add from 10% to 50% to the cost of coverage.

“One of the biggest cost drivers in our health care system is the steady proliferation of federal and state-based coverage mandates,” noted CAHI’s Victoria Craig Bunce.

Meanwhile, ObamaCare’s insurance reforms — guaranteed issue and community rating — will likely raise premiums, too.

State Experiments

States that have tried these reforms — which forbid insurers from denying coverage based on preexisting conditions or charging the sick more — have seen insurance premiums spiral upward as healthy people leave the market, knowing they are guaranteed coverage when they get sick.

“Premium rates tended to increase, sometimes dramatically” in the eight states that tried these reforms, according to a study by Milliman, a health care consulting group.

The law’s backers claim the individual mandate will prevent these rate hikes, because it requires everyone to buy insur ance. But experts say millions will still refuse to buy coverage and pay the fine instead.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Gruber — who helped design ObamaCare — found that the law will hike individual market premiums in three states by as much as 30%. The Congressional Budget Office said ObamaCare would push them “about 10% to 13% higher in 2016.”

Supporters say people will be getting more generous coverage for those higher prices, and that tax subsidies will offset higher cost for many of these families. But that will be small comfort to those forced to pay more.

Perhaps the best evidence that ObamaCare won’t bring costs down is a report published this month in the New England Journal of Medicine and signed by nearly two dozen leading health economists and policy experts — some of whom worked for the Obama administration. The report warns that “health costs remain a major challenge” and calls for a “systematic approach” to get spending under control.

One thing that isn’t on their list of proposals: Scrapping ObamaCare and starting over.

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SURPRISE A NEW $63 PER-HEAD FEE IN OBAMACARE

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It’s a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul.

The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers.

Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a “sleeper issue” with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.

“Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, (companies will) be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it,” said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.

Based on figures provided in the regulation, employer and individual health plans covering an estimated 190 million Americans could owe the per-person fee.

The Obama administration says it is a temporary assessment levied for three years starting in 2014, designed to raise $25 billion. It starts at $63 and then declines.

Most of the money will go into a fund administered by the Health and Human Services Department. It will be used to cushion health insurance companies from the initial hard-to-predict costs of covering uninsured people with medical problems. Under the law, insurers will be forbidden from turning away the sick as of Jan. 1, 2014.

The program “is intended to help millions of Americans purchase affordable health insurance, reduce unreimbursed usage of hospital and other medical facilities by the uninsured and thereby lower medical expenses and premiums for all,” the Obama administration says in the regulation. An accompanying media fact sheet issued Nov. 30 referred to “contributions” without detailing the total cost and scope of the program.

Of the total pot, $5 billion will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, apparently to offset the cost of shoring up employer-sponsored coverage for early retirees.

The $25 billion fee is part of a bigger package of taxes and fees to finance Obama’s expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It all comes to about $700 billion over 10 years, and includes higher Medicare taxes effective this Jan. 1 on individuals making more than $200,000 per year or couples making more than $250,000. People above those threshold amounts also face an additional 3.8 percent tax on their investment income.

But the insurance fee had been overlooked as employers focused on other costs in the law, including fines for medium and large firms that don’t provide coverage.

“This kind of came out of the blue and was a surprisingly large amount,” said Gretchen Young, senior vice president for health policy at the ERISA Industry Committee, a group that represents large employers on benefits issues.

Word started getting out in the spring, said Young, but hard cost estimates surfaced only recently with the new regulation. It set the per capita rate at $5.25 per month, which works out to $63 a year.

America’s Health Insurance Plans, the major industry trade group for health insurers, says the fund is an important program that will help stabilize the market and mitigate cost increases for consumers as the changes in Obama’s law take effect.

But employers already offering coverage to their workers don’t see why they have to pony up for the stabilization fund, which mainly helps the individual insurance market. The redistribution puts the biggest companies on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.

“It just adds on to everything else that is expected to increase health care costs,” said economist Paul Fronstin of the nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute.

The fee will be assessed on all “major medical” insurance plans, including those provided by employers and those purchased individually by consumers. Large employers will owe the fee directly. That’s because major companies usually pay upfront for most of the health care costs of their employees. It may not be apparent to workers, but the insurance company they deal with is basically an agent administering the plan for their employer.

The fee will total $12 billion in 2014, $8 billion in 2015 and $5 billion in 2016. That means the per-head assessment would be smaller each year, around $40 in 2015 instead of $63.

It will phase out completely in 2017 _ unless Congress, with lawmakers searching everywhere for revenue to reduce federal deficits _ decides to extend it.

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COMPANIES PLAN MASSIVE LAYOFFS AS OBAMACARE BECOMES REALITY

By Kerry Picket - The Washington Times

NOVEMBER 11, 2012

Freedom Works has put together a list of companies that will be laying off employees as a result of President Barack Obama’s health care law:

Welch Allyn

Welch Allyn, a company that manufactures medical diagnostic equipment in central New York, announced in September that they would be laying off 275 employees, or roughly 10% of their workforce over the next three years. One of the major reasons discussed for the layoffs was a proactive response to the Medical Device Tax mandated by the new healthcare law.

Dana Holding Corp.

As recently as a week ago, a global auto parts manufacturing company in Ohio known as Dana Holding Corp., warned their employees of potential layoffs, citing “$24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. health care expenses”. After laying off several white collar staffers, company insiders have hinted at more to come. The company will have to cover the additional $24 million cost somehow, which will likely equate to numerous cuts in their current workforce of 25,500 worldwide.

Stryker

One of the biggest medical device manufacturers in the world, Stryker will close their facility in Orchard Park, New York, eliminating 96 jobs in December. Worse, they plan on countering the medical device tax in Obamacare by slashing 5% of their global workforce - an estimated 1,170 positions.

Boston Scientific

In October of 2009, Boston Scientific CEO Ray Elliott, warned that proposed taxes in the health care reform bill could “lead to significant job losses” for his company. Nearly two years later, Elliott announced that the company would be cutting anywhere between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs, while simultaneously shifting investments and workers overseas – to China.

Medtronic

In March of 2010, medical device maker Medtronic warned that Obamacare taxes could result in a reduction of precisely 1,000 jobs. That plan became reality when the company cut 500 positions over the summer, with another 500 set for the end of 2013.

Others

A short list of other companies facing future layoffs at the hands of Obamacare:

Smith & Nephew – 770 layoffs
Abbott Labs – 700 layoffs
Covidien – 595 layoffs
Kinetic Concepts – 427 layoffs
St. Jude Medical – 300 layoffs
Hill Rom – 200 layoffs
Beyond the complete elimination of a significant number of American jobs is another looming problem created by the health care law – a shift from full-time to part-time workers.

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SMALL EMPLOYERS WEIGH IMPACT OF PROVIDING HEALTH INSURANCE

By REED ABELSON and STEVEN GREENHOUSE | The New York Times

Like many franchisees, Robert U. Mayfield, who owns five Dairy Queens in and around Austin, Tex., is always eager to expand and — no surprise — has had his eyes on opening a sixth DQ. But he said concerns about the new federal health care law had persuaded him to hold off.

“I’m scared to death of it,” he said. “I’m one of the ones sitting on the sidelines to see what’s really going to happen.”

Mr. Mayfield, who has 99 employees, said he was worried he would face penalties of $40,000 or more because he did not offer health insurance to many of his full-time workers — generally defined as those working an average of 30 hours a week or more. Ever since the law was enacted in 2010, opponents have argued that employers who were forced to offer health insurance would lay off workers or shift more people to part-time status to compensate for the additional cost. Those claims have drawn considerable attention — and considerable anger in response — in recent weeks.

John H. Schnatter, the chief executive of Papa John’s, the pizza chain, said some franchisees were likely to reduce their employees’ hours to avoid having to provide coverage. And an unhappy Denny’s franchise owner in Florida warned that he would raise prices 5 percent as a “surcharge,” adding that disgruntled customers could offset that by reducing their tips.

Some health care experts said comments like those came from outliers and sometimes resulted from confusion about a highly complicated new law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Many of the provisions do not go into effect until 2014. Federal officials are still tweaking the fine print, like defining exactly what constitutes a 30-hour workweek. Even so, restaurants and hotels are among the industries likely to be squeezed the hardest by the law because they are low-wage industries that do not offer coverage to most of their workers.

Most employers, even small businesses, already offer health insurance, and the federal law is not expected to have a significant impact on what they do over the next year or so. But businesses that rely heavily on low-income workers, many of whom do not make enough to afford their share of the cost of the insurance premiums, are being forced to rethink their business models.

Almost half of retail and hospitality employers do not offer coverage to all their full-time employees, according to a recent survey by Mercer, a benefits consultant.

“They’re all developing their strategies,” said Debra Gold, a senior partner with Mercer who advises several major retailers.

Many who oppose the requirement say the cost of providing health insurance could mean hiring fewer workers. “Any dollar that gets diverted, whether it’s through Obamacare or increased tax rates, puts franchisees one dollar further away from being able to expand their businesses,” said Don Fox, chief executive of Firehouse Subs, a fast-growing chain of 559 restaurants based in Jacksonville, Fla. At the 30 stores the corporation owns, only full-time managers are offered coverage. Mr. Fox is wrestling with whether to absorb the considerable cost of covering 100 more employees or pay the penalties — which would probably cost him less — but risk losing valued employees to competitors who choose to offer coverage.

Employee health coverage now averages nearly $6,000 for an individual plan. That is considerable for businesses like restaurants in which the majority of workers make $24,000 a year or less, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation found that only 28 percent of companies that employ large numbers of low-income workers offer health benefits. “This is where the biggest set of hurdles is,” said Gary Claxton, an executive with Kaiser.

By 2014, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees will be expected to offer as yet undefined affordable coverage, based on an employee’s income. For employers that fail to offer such coverage, the law typically calls for a penalty of $2,000 a worker, excluding the first 30 employees. As evidence of how sensitive the issue is, Mr. Schnatter of Papa John’s took some heat for his initial statements about the possibility that franchisees would cut employees’ hours to avoid penalties or having to provide coverage. His comments, made during a public appearance, were reported by a local newspaper in Florida, The Naples News. After facing a storm of criticism, he wrote an opinion piece for The Huffington Post, in which he said he had only been speculating about the law’s potential impact on franchisees.

“Papa John’s, like most businesses, is still researching what the Affordable Care Act means to our operations,” he wrote. “Regardless of the conclusion of our analysis, we will honor this law, as we do all laws, and continue to offer 100 percent of Papa John’s corporate employees and workers in company-owned stores health insurance as we have since the company was founded in 1984.” Through a spokesman, Mr. Schnatter declined to comment further.

Some business owners and consultants warn that opting to have more part-time workers, perhaps by converting some full-timers to part-time status, may not be the answer because many workers might decide to find jobs elsewhere.

“When you explain this to your employee who really needs the income, maybe they’ll try to get a second job,” said Mr. Fox, Firehouse’s chief executive. “Maybe they’ll try to get another full-time job and maybe a job that provides health care. There will be an incentive for the best people to search for those jobs.”

Ms. Gold, of Mercer, said that when one employer analyzed what might happen if the company moved to more part-time workers, it realized that its losses in productivity would outweigh any savings on insurance costs.

Employers — often with a mixture of impatience and confusion — are waiting for the Obama administration to issue final rules on some of the law’s crucial aspects, like how the government determines whether an employee meets the 30-hour threshold, given the large numbers of seasonal and part-time workers with varying hours. Similarly, the precise level of coverage an employer must provide has not yet been clearly defined.

“If you can tell me what Obamacare is, then I can tell you how much it’s going to affect me,” said Bob Bellagamba, who runs Concorde Limousine, a service with 75 employees, in Freehold, N.J. “All the reading I’ve done on this, and there are so many things that are not determined. There is no clarity to the guidelines.”

In contrast to the resistance in the hospitality industry, some small business owners say the health care law has made coverage more affordable.

Lisa Goodbee, who runs a civil engineering firm in a Denver suburb, decided to offer health coverage to her 15 employees this year for the first time in the firm’s 20-year history. She said the Affordable Care Act was a major reason. In past years, she said, the quotes she got from health insurers were “ridiculous”; this year, she said, they were far more reasonable.

“We’re an engineering company and we need to hire the best of the best,” she said, acknowledging that not offering health insurance made that difficult.

Ron Nelsen, who operates Pioneer Overhead Door, a Las Vegas business with five employees that installs garage doors, says he has already received the tax credits the law makes available to businesses with fewer than 25 employees that offer coverage.

“They’re in the bank,” he said.

Mr. Nelsen dismissed the notion that employers like him weigh the cost of providing health insurance in deciding whether to hire someone new. “You know what makes jobs? Consumer demand,” he said. “I hire people when demand necessitates it.”

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THE OBAMACARE SURCHARGE

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars.com
November 16, 2012

Business owners are talking about the Obamacare surcharge – an additional charge added to a restaurant or retail store bill to cover the cost of mandatory participation in Obama’s health care scheme that will be fully implemented in January 2014.

On Wednesday, the Daily Mail ran an interview with John Mertz, a restauranteur in Florida who owns 40 Denny’s restaurants and the Hurricane Grill & Wings franchise. Merz told the British newspaper he will add a five percent surcharge to customers’ bills and plans to reduce his employees’ hours in order to pay for the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Mertz said adding the surcharge and cutting hours is “the only alternative. I’ve got to pass on the cost to the customer.” The business owner said he will hold a meeting in December and tell employees “that because of Obamacare, we are going to be cutting front-of-the-house employees to under 30 hours, effective immediately.”

Liberals went ballistic on Papa John’s Pizza CEO John Schnatter earlier this week when he said the pizza business would reduce the hours employees work to offset the cost of Obamacare.

On the Monday night edition of The Ed Show on MSNBC, host Ed Schultz lambasted the Papa John’s CEO. “Schnatter lives in a 40,000-square-foot mansion with a 22-car garage, and this guy doesn’t want to give pizza delivery workers health insurance?” Schultz said.

Tommy Christopher, writing for the Mediaite.com website, said Schnatter’s wealth is “ostentatious” and accused him of “cheaptitude” and “begrudging his employees a dime’s worth of health insurance” while he lives in a “ridiculous estate,” writes Randy Hall.

“The sad part of all this is that while businesses will struggle to stay afloat in the face of higher taxes and health care insurance, the din of liberals’ shouts criticizing them for that will get louder as we continue to sink to the bottom of the Obama economy,” Hall points out.

The National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) told CNSNews that other retailers may soon adopt the idea of making customers and employees pay for Obamacare.

“Clearly, you are seeing what real people are doing with costly situations. This is no different than the airline carriers adding a bag fee or noting the TSA extra expense,” NFIB spokesman Kevan Chapman told CNSNews.

“I suspect this Denny’s owner wants his customers to understand why their costs are going up and what they must do to handle the cost increase.”

“Frankly, they are just being honest with the customer. It’s possible you may see more of this as employers begin major preparation for the law.”

Employers state Obamacare imposed at gunpoint will increase business costs and impoverish workers. A Towers Watson survey of employers found that 90 percent said they believe Obamacare “will increase their organization’s health care benefits costs.” A 88 percent said they will pass the increased cost on to employees by requiring them to contribute more to company health plans, according to the Heartland Institute.

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OBAMACARE TO BANKRUPT BUSINESSES AND FAMILIES

Melissa Melton
Infowars.com
November 14, 2012

A post-election poll of more than a thousand Americans showed that support for repealing the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, dropped to an all-time low. Although President Obama’s health care initiative will include 20 new or raised taxes, forty-nine percent of respondents still favored it, even as businesses are already planning massive layoffs and price hikes ahead of its implementation.

Freedom Works has compiled a list of companies planning to lay off workers and outsource jobs because of Obamacare. Boston Scientific will be doing both, as CEO Ray Elliott has announced the company will cut up to 1,400 employees and shift workers and investments to China. In order to cover the $24 million in estimated additional Obamacare expenses, auto parts manufacturer Dana Holding Corp. has let go of several higher ups and hinted at more layoffs coming to its 25,000+ workforce. Medical device manufacturers Medtronic and Stryker have both cut at least a thousand jobs already.

Last Year, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the House Budget Committee that the Affordable Care Act would cost this country 800,000 jobs.

Unfortunately, layoffs won’t be the only consequence of Obamacare. Consumers are about to foot the bill for the president’s health care reform in a lot more ways than one.

Business analysts are forecasting that many companies will turn to price hikes to offset the financial burden of complying with Obamacare. Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter claims the health care law will cost his company $5 to $8 billion annually; in an attempt to neutralize this, Schnatter has announced he will raise product prices. He isn’t the only one. An NY Applebee’s owner said Obamacare will cost the company millions, forcing them to freeze hiring and stop building new restaurants. Waivers aren’t even stopping some companies from instituting price increases. Even though McDonalds has been granted an Obamacare waiver, the company’s Chief Financial OfficerPeter Bensen announced in July the company would see up to $420 million in new health care costs, ultimately leading to higher menu prices.

Regardless of what restaurants a person chooses to patron, the bigger picture here is an expensive trend that will likely spread across our nation, from business to business and wallet to wallet.

While we are all paying higher prices for products, employees will also shoulder the financial burden of health care premium increases or a smaller paycheck due to their hours being cut — or both.

A National Business Group survey found that employers will raise health care rates an average of at least seven percent due to Obamacare, but many are being forced to hike rates much higher.Universities across North Carolina have cited Obamacare as the reason for “substantial” student health care premium hikes; some students in that state will now pay double for insurance. Walmart recently raised health care premiums, in some cases 36 percent, leaving many of its employees unable to afford any health insurance coverage at all.

The Affordable Care Act also changes the definition of what a full-time employee is (the massive piece of legislation requires 18 pages just to define it) to anyone who works 30 hours a week. As the majority of Walmart employees are not full-time, the company may cut worker hours even further to avoid full-time designation. Darden Restaurants, owners of national chain restarurants Olive Garden, Red Lobster and LongHorn Steakhouse among others, is “experimenting with limiting the hours of some of its workers to avoid health care requirements”. National grocery store chainKroger has announced it will be doing the same.

As if all of this financial burden sliding downhill isn’t enough, a recent poll of more than 13,000 doctors found that a whopping 84 percent feel America’s medical profession is in decline, and six out of every 10 doctors have a negative view of America’s health care future following Obamacare. More than 60 percent said they’d retire now if given the option, up 15 percent from before the law passed. The U.S. already faced a chronic doctor shortage prior to Obamacare. The New York Timesannounced this shortage is “likely to worsen” under the president’s health care law. The Association of Medical Colleges is projecting a 10-15 percent reduction in physicians by 2015 alone.

With fewer jobs, higher prices, and a smaller pool of doctors to go around, it remains unclear exactly how Obamacare will make health care more accessible or “affordable.”

As Infowars has previously reported, Obamacare was largely written by insurance companies, not health care providers. The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigation into the mandate’s crafting found that numerous backroom deals took place between special interest groups and the White House. It makes no logical sense that profit-hungry health insurance companies worth billions and related special interest groups would help craft a legislation behind closed doors that would actually save the average American money.

Nomi Prins points out the real danger of Obamacare is a health insurance company takeover of our health care system:

“And if you’re keeping score – billions of dollars are flowing from insurance companies – NOT to reduce premiums to patients and NOT to reimburse doctors and NOT to enhance the quality of care, but to simply expand nationally and globally… And if insurance companies can manage doctors directly, they can control not just costs, but treatment – our treatment. It’s not an imaginary government takeover anyone should fear; but a very real, here-and-now insurance company takeover, to which no one in Washington is paying attention.”

By 2014, every American will be forced to get health insurance or pay the Obamacare tax our Supreme Court deemed was constitutional for the government to charge us.

This is only the beginning.

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KARL DENNINGER: FIX HEALTH CARE OR GOVERNMENT COLLAPSES

Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

Karl Denninger of Market-Ticker.Org says both Romney and Obama are lying about health care reform.  Denninger says drastic changes are coming no matter what, “. . . because the amount of money the federal government spends doubles every seven years . . . this is mathematically impossible.”  Denninger says, “We either fix this or the government collapses along with society.” Denninger contends, “You have to kill the monopoly protections that the medical system has that prevent the free market from working.”

Think we can fix the economy of health care with Federal Reserve money printing or QE?  Forget it!  Denninger warns, “It is a huge tax increase. . . . It acts by devaluing your purchasing power, and it falls disproportionately on the poor and lower middle class.”  Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One withKarl Denninger of Market-Ticker.org. 

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STUDY FORESEES SHORTAGE OF PRIMARY-CARE DOCTORS

Reasons include medical students pursuing specialties, older physicians retiring

By Denise Mann
HealthDay Reporter

December 4, 2012

Fewer medical students are choosing careers in primary care, and instead are opting to become specialists, a new study found.

The study, which appears in the medical-education-themed Dec. 5 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, fuels concerns that there will be a shortage of primary-care doctors available when patients need them most.

Researchers surveyed internal medicine residents about their career plans. Of nearly 17,000 third-year residents, only 21.5 percent were planning on a career as an internal medicine doctor. This included about 40 percent of students in a primary-care residency program and about 20 percent of those in a categorical residency program. These are two different tracks available within an internal medicine residency program.

Women were more likely to choose internal medicine than men, and U.S. medical school graduates were slightly more likely to opt for a career in internal medicine than international graduates, the study showed.

“This is worrisome,” said study author Dr. Colin West, an internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “In the next decade, we will be 50,000 primary-care physicians short for the needs of the country.”

Compounding the likely shortage is health care reform under the Affordable Care Act, which is expected to flood the system with new patients in the coming years.

“We will need even more primary-care physicians as the foundation of care and we are not generating enough,” West said. And, in addition to fewer residents choosing internal medicine and more patients having access to health care, many providers are getting older and heading to retirement.

“The difficulty that many people have already experienced with access to their regular physician will get significantly worse,” West said. “Access to primary care is threatened by these numbers if we don’t do something about it.”

Many ways exist to help sweeten the pot for primary-care residents, he said. For starters, medical students need to be enticed to choose primary-care careers. This may involve getting rid of some of the non-care-related demands of the job, such as paperwork and the routine time spent haggling with insurers about reimbursement, he added.

Dr. Cynthia Smith, senior medical associate for content development at the American College of Physicians, agreed that the career choice of primary care must be made more appealing.

“We haven’t done enough yet to encourage more folks to go into primary care,” Smith said. “The elephant in the room is reimbursement. Today’s primary-care physicians spend 60 percent of their time doing activities that are not currently reimbursed.” This includes following up with patients and other specialists and performing clerical duties.

As far as doctors’ training goes, “we have to enhance their educational experience outside of the hospital to give them that type of experience,” Smith said.

Study author West noted that some primary-care residents may choose specialty careers because they think they’re more lucrative. Hot career choices are cardiology, gastroenterology and radiology.

Dr. Martha Grayson, senior associate dean of medical education and a professor of clinical medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said debt forgiveness may help boost interest in primary care as many medical students have significant debt.

Another issue is lifestyle. Many medical students are choosing careers with set boundaries on their time, such as the hospitalist track. These are doctors who care for you while you are hospitalized.

“We can think about reduction of expected work hours,” Grayson said. “We need to send a clearer message on the value of primary care to medical students. In my day, almost everybody stayed in primary care after completing a primary-care internal medicine residency.”

But times have changed.

“We need to be concerned because the Affordable Care Act will allow more and more people access to health insurance and health care and that is wonderful thing, but it will exacerbate our overall shortages,” she said.

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DOCTOR SHORTAGE LIKELY TO WORSEN WITH HEALTH CARE LAW

By ANNIE LOWREY and ROBERT PEAR | The New York Times

July 28, 2012

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — In the Inland Empire, an economically depressed region in Southern California, President Obama’s health care law is expected to extend insurance coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014. But coverage will not necessarily translate into care: Local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to meet the area’s needs. There are not enough now.

Other places around the country, including the Mississippi Delta, Detroit and suburban Phoenix, face similar problems. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care. Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.

Health experts, including many who support the law, say there is little that the government or the medical profession will be able to do to close the gap by 2014, when the law begins extending coverage to about 30 million Americans. It typically takes a decade to train a doctor.

“We have a shortage of every kind of doctor, except for plastic surgeons and dermatologists,” said Dr. G. Richard Olds, the dean of the new medical school at the University of California, Riverside, founded in part to address the region’s doctor shortage. “We’ll have a 5,000-physician shortage in 10 years, no matter what anybody does.”

Experts describe a doctor shortage as an “invisible problem.” Patients still get care, but the process is often slow and difficult. In Riverside, it has left residents driving long distances to doctors, languishing on waiting lists, overusing emergency rooms and even forgoing care.

“It results in delayed care and higher levels of acuity,” said Dustin Corcoran, the chief executive of the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 physicians. People “access the health care system through the emergency department, rather than establishing a relationship with a primary care physician who might keep them from getting sicker.”

In the Inland Empire, encompassing the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, the shortage of doctors is already severe. The population of Riverside County swelled 42 percent in the 2000s, gaining more than 644,000 people. It has continued to grow despite the collapse of one of the country’s biggest property bubbles and a jobless rate of 11.8 percent in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area.

But the growth in the number of physicians has lagged, in no small part because the area has trouble attracting doctors, who might make more money and prefer living in nearby Orange County or Los Angeles.

A government council has recommended that a given region have 60 to 80 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents, and 85 to 105 specialists. The Inland Empire has about 40 primary care doctors and 70 specialists per 100,000 residents — the worst shortage in California, in both cases.

Moreover, across the country, fewer than half of primary care clinicians were accepting new Medicaid patients as of 2008, making it hard for the poor to find care even when they are eligible for Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of the overall growth in coverage in President Obama’s health care law.

Providers say they are bracing for the surge of the newly insured into an already strained system.

Temetry Lindsey, the chief executive of Inland Behavioral & Health Services, which provides medical care to about 12,000 area residents, many of them low income, said she was speeding patient-processing systems, packing doctors’ schedules tighter and seeking to hire more physicians.

“We know we are going to be overrun at some point,” Ms. Lindsey said, estimating that the clinics would see new demand from 10,000 to 25,000 residents by 2014. She added that hiring new doctors had proved a struggle, in part because of the “stigma” of working in this part of California.

Across the country, a factor increasing demand, along with expansion of coverage in the law and simple population growth, is the aging of the baby boom generation. Medicare officials predict that enrollment will surge to 73.2 million in 2025, up 44 percent from 50.7 million this year.

“Older Americans require significantly more health care,” said Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. “Older individuals are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, requiring more intensive, coordinated care.”

The pool of doctors has not kept pace, and will not, health experts said. Medical school enrollment is increasing, but not as fast as the population. The number of training positions for medical school graduates is lagging. Younger doctors are on average working fewer hours than their predecessors. And about a third of the country’s doctors are 55 or older, and nearing retirement.

Physician compensation is also an issue. The proportion of medical students choosing to enter primary care has declined in the past 15 years, as average earnings for primary care doctors and specialists, like orthopedic surgeons and radiologists, have diverged. A study by the Medical Group Management Association found that in 2010, primary care doctors made about $200,000 a year. Specialists often made twice as much.

The Obama administration has sought to ease the shortage. The health care law increases Medicaid’s primary care payment rates in 2013 and 2014. It also includes money to train new primary care doctors, reward them for working in underserved communities and strengthen community health centers.

But the provisions within the law are expected to increase the number of primary care doctors by perhaps 3,000 in the coming decade. Communities around the country need about 45,000.

Many health experts in California said that while they welcomed the expansion of coverage, they expected that the state simply would not be ready for the new demand. “It’s going to be necessary to use the resources that we have smarter” in light of the doctor shortages, said Dr. Mark D. Smith, who heads the California HealthCare Foundation, a nonprofit group.

Dr. Smith said building more walk-in clinics, allowing nurses to provide more care and encouraging doctors to work in teams would all be part of the answer. Mr. Corcoran of the California Medical Association also said the state would need to stop cutting Medicaid payment rates; instead, it needed to increase them to make seeing those patients economically feasible for doctors.

More doctors might be part of the answer as well. The U.C. Riverside medical school is hoping to enroll its first students in August 2013, and is planning a number of policies to encourage its graduates to stay in the area and practice primary care.

But Dr. Olds said changing how doctors provided care would be more important than minting new doctors. “I’m only adding 22 new students to this equation,” he said. “That’s not enough to put a dent in a 5,000-doctor shortage.”

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HOSPITAL IN BROOKLYN PLANS TO DECLARE BANKRUPTCY

By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS | The New York Times

A financially troubled hospital serving a largely African-American and Caribbean niche of central Brooklyn is planning to declare bankruptcy this week, hospital officials said on Sunday, raising concerns that New York State may force it to close or merge with another institution.

The hospital, Interfaith Medical Center, serving Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, has been in and out of financial trouble for decades, with its survival dependent on infusions of state aid. In difficult economic times, however, the Cuomo administration has not indicated a willingness to continue bailing out failing hospitals.

James Introne, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s deputy secretary for health, when asked on Friday about the possibility of an Interfaith bankruptcy filing, said he was not aware of it, but he said, “That’s their decision, not ours.”

A year ago, a Brooklyn work group of the governor’s Medicaid Redesign Team, which was created to find savings in the hospital and health industry, recommended that Interfaith merge with two other Brooklyn hospitals, Wyckoff Heights Medical Center and Brooklyn Hospital. It suggested that Brooklyn Hospital, judged to be the most financially stable of the three, should take the lead.

Interfaith officials said on Sunday that they had no choice but to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, given the hospital’s precarious financial situation.

But they said the hospital had a better chance of surviving in the long term if the state would guarantee it about $20 million in what is known as debtor-in-possession financing to underwrite its operating costs during the reorganization.

The officials said the state Dormitory Authority, which holds $130 million of the hospital’s debt, had refused to provide the financing unless Interfaith would first sign an agreement to merge with Brooklyn Hospital.

But the Interfaith officials said that granting Brooklyn Hospital control without the state’s first promising the financing needed to keep the hospital going would be tantamount to a covert plan to close the hospital in a year and a half or so.

“That is turning over the keys to Brooklyn and we have no further say in the future of this hospital and, more importantly, whether it will stay open or not and whether it will continue to serve the community,” said Nathan M. Barotz, the chairman of Interfaith’s board of trustees.

Mr. Introne denied that that was the case. “My understanding is that Chapter 11 has to be part of this process given the liabilities associated with the organization,” he said. “But I’ve also been advised that it can be constructed in a way that would allow a successor organization that has been previously planned.”

The hospital, at 1545 Atlantic Avenue, is so poor that it cannot afford malpractice insurance. In August, hospital administrators said that it was running out of cash and that they feared they would soon be unable to meet its payroll.

Wyckoff hospital dropped out of the merger plan this year, with trustees saying they feared that the merger would lead to a severe shrinking or a closing of the hospital. Wyckoff’s new chief executive, Ramon Rodriguez, had served on the Brooklyn work group that recommended the three-way merger, but he later turned against it.

In letters to state officials, Mr. Barotz has said a 2010 cut in Medicaid rates cost Interfaith 40 percent of its inpatient revenue and precipitated its current crisis.

The hospital has about 11,000 inpatient visits a year, and 250,000 outpatient visits, according to the letter. It has 1,516 full-time employees, many of whom live in central Brooklyn.

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DRUG SHORTAGES PERSIST IN U.S., HARMING CARE

By KATIE THOMAS | The New York Times

Paul Davis, the chief of a rural ambulance squad in southern Ohio, was down to his last vial of morphine earlier this fall when a woman with a broken leg needed a ride to the hospital.

The trip was 30 minutes, and the patient was in pain. But because of a nationwide shortage, his morphine supply had dwindled from four doses to just one, presenting Mr. Davis with a stark quandary. Should he treat the woman, who was clearly suffering? Or should he save it for a patient who might need it more?

In the end, he opted not to give her the morphine, a decision that haunts him still. “I just feel like I’m not doing my job,” said Mr. Davis, who is chief of the rescue squad in Vernon, Ohio. He has since refilled his supply. “I shouldn’t have to make those kinds of decisions.”

From rural ambulance squads to prestigious hospitals, health care workers are struggling to keep vital medicines in stock because of a drug shortage crisis that is proving to be stubbornly difficult to fix. Rationing is just one example of the extraordinary lengths being taken to address the shortage, which health care workers say has ceased to be a temporary emergency and is now a fact of life. In desperation, they are resorting to treating patients with less effective alternative medicines and using expired drugs. The Cleveland Clinic has hired a pharmacist whose only job is to track down hard-to-find drugs.

Caused largely by an array of manufacturing problems, the shortage has prompted Congressional hearings, a presidential order and pledges by generic drug makers to communicate better with federal regulators.

The problem peaked in 2011, when a record 251 drugs were declared in short supply. This year, slightly more than 100 were placed on the list, and workers say the battle to keep pharmacy shelves stocked continues unabated. The list of hard-to-find medicines ranges from basic drugs like the heart medicine nitroglycerin to a lidocaine injection, which is used to numb tissue before surgery.

A deadly meningitis outbreak caused by contamination at a large drug producer could worsen the situation, federal officials have warned. The Food and Drug Administration said that shortages of six drugs — medicines used during surgery and to treat conditions like congestive heart failure — could get worse after a big compounding pharmacy closed over concerns about drug safety. The pharmacy, Ameridose, shares some management with the New England Compounding Center, which is at the center of a meningitis outbreak that has claimed 33 lives.

“When you can’t treat basic things — cardiac arrest, pain management, seizures — you’re in trouble,” said Dr. Carol Cunningham, the state medical director for the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s emergency services division. “When you only have five tools in your toolbox and three of them are gone, what do you do?”

Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, the F.D.A. commissioner, said in an interview this week that she was “guardedly optimistic” that the shortage crisis was abating. “I think there’s been an enormous amount of progress,” she said. “We’re seeing real change in the number of shortages that we’re able to recognize early.” More than 150 new shortages have been prevented this year, according to the agency.

But Erin Fox, who tracks supply levels for a broader range of drugs at the University of Utah, said once a drug became scarce, it tended to stay scarce. The university’s Drug Information Service wasactively tracking 282 hard-to-find products by the end of the third quarter of this year, a record.

“The shortages we have aren’t going away — they’re not resolving,” she said. “But the good news is we’re not piling more shortages on top.”

In 2011, prompted by emotional pleas by cancer patients and others who said the drug shortage was threatening lives, President Obama issued an executive order requiring drug makers to notify the F.D.A. when a shortage appeared imminent. The agency also loosened some restrictions on importing drugs, and sped up approvals by other manufacturers to make certain medicines.

A law passed this summer contains several provisions aimed at improving the situation, including expediting approval of new generic medicines and requiring the agency’s enforcement unit to better coordinate with its drug-shortage officials before it takes action against a manufacturer.

Ralph G. Neas, the chief executive of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, said fixing the drug shortage was complex and would take time, but was a top priority. “One shortage is one shortage too many,” he said. “One patient not getting a critical drug is one patient too many.”

Federal drug officials trace much of the drug shortage crisis to delays at plants that make sterile injectable drugs, which account for about 80 percent of the scarce medicines. Nearly a third of the industry’s manufacturing capacity is not running because of plant closings or shutdowns to fix serious quality issues. Other shortages have been caused by supply disruptions of the raw ingredients used to make the drugs, or by manufacturers exiting the market.

Some people have accused the F.D.A. of causing the shortages, saying overzealous enforcement and poor communication have led plants to close needlessly or to slow production. Others have cited economic factors, like market pressures and reimbursement policies that have set prices so low that some companies have stopped making certain drugs. Earlier this week, several Democratic members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate whether the practices of so-called group purchasing organizations, which buy drugs on behalf of hospitals, was contributing to the shortage.

Regardless of the cause, the drug shortage has forced the F.D.A. to make some tough choices, including allowing manufacturers to sell drugs that, if it were not for the crisis, most likely would have been recalled. Last year, for example, the agency allowed the manufacturer American Regent to sell a drug used during chemotherapy that was found to contain glass particles. Doctors and nurses were instructed to filter the drug, sodium thiosulfate, before administering it to patients.

“If there wasn’t a shortage, we would never allow a company to continue marketing” in such cases, Dr. Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the F.D.A.’s office of new drugs, said. But “patients need it.”

Dr. Hamburg said drug manufacturers had invested significantly in improving their facilities, upgrades that will ultimately help ease the crisis but that in the near term are making some shortages difficult to resolve. “It’s not going to happen overnight, but we’re in the midst of a period of really, very significant change that offers great promise for the future,” she said.

Patients like Jennifer Lacognata, a mother of two in suburban Florida, say they cannot afford to wait. She has debilitating night blindness, skin lesions and other health problems because she cannot absorb vitamin A through her diet, a rare side effect of weight-loss surgery she had years ago. In 2011, her doctor prescribed Aquasol A, a liquid form of the vitamin, to be injected into her shoulder.

But Hospira has temporarily stopped selling Aquasol A after it decided to move manufacturing of the product from an outside company to one of its plants. The company recently decided to abort the plan, citing complex technical challenges, and now has a deal with another company to begin making the vitamin.

Ms. Lacognata sued Hospira unsuccessfully to try to compel the company to make it again.

A company spokeswoman said Hospira recognized the critical need for Aquasol A and was “working diligently” to return it to the market, but declined to provide an estimate of when.

Given that the delays have stretched for more than a year, Ms. Lacognata said she was not holding her breath. “If they don’t get their act together and do this, they’re not going to suffer,” she said. “They’re still going to be making millions of dollars. It’s the little guy in the end who ends up with nothing.”

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THE RATIONING BEGINS: STATES LIMITING DRUG PRESCRIPTIONS FOR MEDICAID PATIENTS

By Melanie Hunter

(CNSNews.com) – Sixteen states have set a limit on the number of prescription drugs they will cover for Medicaid patients, according to Kaiser Health News.

Seven of those states, according to Kaiser Health News, have enacted or tightened those limits in just the last two years.

Medicaid is a federal program that is carried out in partnership with state governments. It forms an important element of President Barack Obama’s health-care plan because under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act–AKA Obamcare–a larger number of people will be covered by Medicaid, as the income cap is raised for the program.

With both the expanded Medicaid program and the federal subsidy for health-care premiums that will be available to people earning up to 400 percent of the poverty level, a larger percentage of the population will be wholly or partially dependent on the government for their health care under Obamacare than are now.

In Alabama, Medicaid patients are now limited to one brand-name drug, and HIV and psychiatric drugs are excluded.

Illinois has limited Medicaid patients to just four prescription drugs as a cost-cutting move, and patients who need more than four must get permission from the state.

Speaking on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal on Monday, Phil Galewitz, staff writer for Kaiser Health News, said the move “only hurts a limited number of patients.”

“Drugs make up a fair amount of costs for Medicaid. A lot of states have said a lot of drugs are available in generics where they cost less, so they see this sort of another move to push patients to take generics instead of brand,” Galewitz said.

“It only hurts a limited number of patients, ‘cause obviously it hurts patients who are taking multiple brand name drugs in the case of Alabama, Illinois. Some of the states are putting the limits on all drugs. It’s another place to cut. It doesn’t hurt everybody, but it could hurt some,” he added.

Galewitz said the move also puts doctors and patients in a “difficult position.”

“Some doctors I talked to would work with patients with asthma and diabetes, and sometimes it’s tricky to get the right drugs and the right dosage to figure out how to control some of this disease, and just when they get it right, now the state is telling them that, ‘Hey, you’re not going to get all this coverage. You may have to switch to a generic or find another way,’” he said.

Arkansas, California, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia have all placed caps on the number of prescription drugs Medicaid patients can get.

“Some people say it’s a matter of you know states are throwing things up against the wall to see what might work, so states have tried, they’ve also tried formularies where they’ll pick certain brand name drugs over other drugs. So states try a whole lot of different things. They’re trying different ways of paying providers to try to maybe slow the costs down,” Galewitz said.

“So it seems like Medicaid’s sort of been one big experiment over the last number of years for states to try to control costs, and it’s an ongoing battle, and I think drugs is just now one of the … latest issues. And it’s a relatively recent thing, only in the last 10 years have we really seen states put these limits on monthly drugs,” he added.

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IRS AIMS TO CLARIFY INVESTMENT INCOME TAX UNDER HEALTHCARE LAW

December 3, 2012

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Internal Revenue Service has released new rules for investment income taxes on capital gains and dividends earned by high-income individuals that passed Congress as part of the 2010 healthcare reform law.

The 3.8 percent surtax on investment income, meant to help pay for healthcare, goes into effect in 2013. It is the first surtax to be applied to capital gains and dividend income.

The tax affects only individuals with more than $200,000 in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI), and married couples filing jointly with more than $250,000 of MAGI.

The tax applies to a broad range of investment securities ranging from stocks and bonds to commodity securities and specialized derivatives.

The 159 pages of rules spell out when the tax applies to trusts and annuities, as well as to individual securities traders.

Released late on Friday, the new regulations include a 0.9 percent healthcare tax on wages for high-income individuals.

Both sets of rules will be published on Wednesday in the Federal Register.

The proposed rules are effective starting January 1. Before making the rules final, the IRS will take public comments and hold hearings in April.

Together, the two taxes are estimated to raise $317.7 billion over 10 years, according to a Joint Committee on Taxation analysis released in June.

To illustrate when the tax applies, the IRS offered an example of a taxpayer filing as a single individual who makes $180,000 in wage income plus $90,000 from investment income. The individual’s modified adjusted gross income is $270,000.

The 3.8 percent tax applies to the $70,000, and the individual would pay $2,660 in surtaxes, the IRS said.

The IRS plans to release a new form for taxpayers to fill out for this tax when filing 2013 returns.

The new rules leave some questions unanswered, tax experts said. It was unclear how rental income will be treated under the new rules, said Michael Grace, managing director at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP law firm in Washington.

“The proposed regulations surely will increase tax compliance burdens for individuals,” said Grace, a former IRS official. “There’s clearly some drafting left to be done.”

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TAX PENALTY TO HIT NEARLY 6 MILLION UNINSURED PEOPLE

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 6 million Americans — significantly more than first estimated— will face a tax penalty under President Barack Obama’s health overhaul for not getting insurance, congressional analysts said Wednesday. Most would be in the middle class.

The new estimate amounts to an inconvenient fact for the administration, a reminder of what critics see as broken promises.

The numbers from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are 50 percent higher than a previous projection by the same office in 2010, shortly after the law passed. The earlier estimate found 4 million people would be affected in 2016, when the penalty is fully in effect.

That’s still only a sliver of the population, given that more than 150 million people currently are covered by employer plans. Nonetheless, in his first campaign for the White House, Obama pledged not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 a year and couples making less than $250,000.

And the budget office analysis found that nearly 80 percent of those who’ll face the penalty would be making up to or less than five times the federal poverty level. Currently that would work out to $55,850 or less for an individual and $115,250 or less for a family of four.

Average penalty: about $1,200 in 2016.

“The bad news and broken promises from Obamacare just keep piling up,” said Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who wants to repeal the law.

Starting in 2014, virtually every legal resident of the U.S. will be required to carry health insurance or face a tax penalty, with exemptions for financial hardship, religious objections and certain other circumstances. Most people will not have to worry about the requirement since they already have coverage through employers, government programs like Medicare or by buying their own policies.

A spokeswoman for the Obama administration said 98 percent of Americans will not be affected by the tax penalty — and suggested that those who will be should face up to their civic responsibilities.

“This (analysis) doesn’t change the basic fact that the individual responsibility policy will only affect people who can afford health care but choose not to buy it,” said Erin Shields Britt of the Health and Human Services Department. “We’re no longer going to subsidize the care of those who can afford to buy insurance but make a choice not to buy it.”

The budget office said most of the increase in its estimate is due to changes in underlying projections about the economy, incorporating the effects of new federal legislation, as well as higher unemployment and lower wages.

The Supreme Court upheld Obama’s law as constitutional in a 5-4 decision this summer, finding that the insurance mandate and the tax penalty enforcing it fall within the power of Congress to impose taxes. The penalty will be collected by the IRS, just like taxes.

The budget office said the penalty will raise $6.9 billion in 2016.

The new law will also provide government aid to help middle-class and low-income households afford coverage, the financial carrot that balances out the penalty.

Nonetheless, some people might still decide to remain uninsured because they object to government mandates or because they feel they would come out ahead financially even if they have to pay the penalty. Health insurance is expensive, with employer-provided family coverage averaging nearly $15,800 a year for a family and $4,300 for a single plan. Indeed, insurance industry experts say the federal penalty may be too low.

The Supreme Court also allowed individual states to opt out of a major Medicaid expansion under the law. The Obama administration says it will exempt low-income people in states that opt out from having to comply with the insurance requirement.

Many Republicans still regard the insurance mandate as unconstitutional and rue the day the Supreme Court upheld it.

However, the idea for an individual insurance requirement comes from Republican health care plans in the 1990s.

It’s also a central element of the 2006 Massachusetts health care law signed by then-GOP Gov. Mitt Romney, now running against Obama and promising to repeal the federal law.

Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Wednesday the new report is more evidence that Obama’s law is a “costly disaster.”

“Even more of the middle-class families who President Obama promised would see no tax increase will in fact see a massive tax increase thanks to Obamacare,” she said.

Romney says insurance mandates should be up to each state. The approach seems to have worked well in Massachusetts, with virtually all residents covered and dwindling numbers opting to pay the penalty instead.

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NEW OBAMACARE TAX FORM MANDATES AMERICANS REPORT PERSONAL HEALTH ID INFO TO IRS

Here’s why the IRS will require Americans to disclose their personal health ID information starting in 2014.

When Obamacare’s individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayer’s personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.

As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”.

So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information?

Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme.  Every January, health insurance companies across America will send out tax documents to each insured individual.  This tax document—a copy of which will be furnished to the IRS—must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.

This new tax information document must, at a minimum, contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s “exchanges.”

This will involve millions of new tax documents landing in mailboxes across America every January, along with the usual raft of W-2s, 1099s, and 1098s.  At tax time, the 140 million families who file a tax return will have to get acquainted with a brand new tax filing form.  Six million of these families will end up paying Obamacare’s individual mandate non-compliance tax penalty.

As a service to the public, Americans for Tax Reform has released a projected version of this tax form to help families and tax specialists prepare for this additional filing requirement. Taxpayers may view the projected IRS form at www.ObamacareTaxForm.com.  On the form, lines 3-4 show where taxpayers will disclose their personal identifying health information.

Depending on family size, the tax penalty will range from $695 to $2,085 (plus inflation). For many families, a higher penalty of 2.5 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI) will apply.

Make no mistake about it — this is a tax. The Obamacare statute places this payment right in the Internal Revenue Code. It’s money paid from your family to the government — and not just the government, but the IRS. It’s reported and paid on your 1040. If you don’t pay it, the IRS will assess further penalties and interest until you do, and confiscate future tax refunds for repayment. Correspondence audits and field visits will be used by the IRS to ensure payment of this tax penalty.

According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), six million families will have to pay this Obamacare individual mandate surtax. Most of these will make less than $100,000 per year, putting them solidly in the middle class. When combined with the 19 other new or higher taxes in Obamacare, the individual mandate non-compliance surtax makes a mockery of President Obama’s “firm pledge” in 2008 not to raise “any form of tax” on any family making less than $250,000 per year.

While six million families will have to pay this tax, everyone who files a tax return will have to file the form disclosing whether or not they obtained “qualifying coverage.” According to IRS data, roughly 140 million tax returns are filed every year. Nearly all of these will have to include the Obamacare individual mandate compliance form, adding yet another layer of complexity to American families’ favorite April pastime: tax preparation.

How will this qualifying insurance coverage be documented? Families can look forward to another tax reporting form in the mail every January, this time from their health insurance company. All health insurance companies will issue a new tax form reporting health insurance coverage for you. Just like your W-2 or your mortgage interest statement, one copy will go to you, and one to the IRS. This form will report your personal health information, including your health ID number, the ID number of your health insurance company, and the number of months that you were covered by this plan. If you try to report anything different than what is on the form, the IRS will have a copy and know it, and an audit (or at least strongly worded correspondence) will follow.

Will anyone be exempt from this mandate-and-tax regime? Yes, though you might not like the answer.

Exemptions in the law include but are not limited to: those on welfare or otherwise not making enough money to file a tax return; criminals living behind bars; those not in the country legally; and those whose religion was deemed by HHS to have a sufficient theological objection to health insurance (no word yet on whether HHS will start hiring unionized theologian-bureaucrats). If you’re not in one of these categories, chances are you will be forced to document to the IRS whether you bought government-approved health insurance, and pay an extra tax if you didn’t.

All citizens should share this information on Facebook and Twitter, and ask themselves and their neighbors whether this is the world they and their families want to live in.

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OBAMACARE – THE TAX MAN COMETH

Robert S. Dotson, M.D.

“I think you should send us the biggest transport plane you have, and take this thing to the Arctic or somewhere and drop it where it will never thaw.” – Lieutenant Dave in the Sci-Fi Classic, “The Blob”

With the confusion accompanying the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka Obamacare) and its on-going implementation, it has not been easy to discern its real meaning for those covered by it. Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates alike have kicked the disinformation machines into high gear. In what follows I will try to identify some of its ramifications.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) have continued to periodically release estimates of the costs of PPACA. Their most recent cost estimates for current provisions in the legislation (July 2012) indicate that the insurance coverage provisions of Obamacare will have a net cost of $1.168 trillion from 2012-2022. Government projections usually underestimate costs. We were told that the war in Iraq would be essentially self-financing and that the banks only needed a few hundred billion to protect them from collapse. Many thousands of billions of dollars have been shoveled at both to date and the end is not in sight.

The CBO says that the new health care law raises taxes by more than $1 trillion. The individual mandate (which the CBO refers to as a “penalty tax”) will produce $55 billion in “penalty payments for uninsured individuals”. The “additional hospital insurance tax” is the largest tax increase in Obamacare and is projected to bring in $318 billion in new revenues. Supposedly, this tax mainly hits “high-income taxpayers” (individuals making over $125,000/year and households over $250,000/year). Other money comes from: “associated effects of coverage provisions on tax revenues” ($216 billion); “reinsurance and risk adjustment collections” ($184 billion); fees on certain manufacturers and insurers ($165 billion); “penalty payments by employers” ($106 billion); “other revenue provisions” ($87 billion); and, an excise tax (40%!) on high-premium insurance plans ($111 billion).

Americans are holding on to the fairy tale that someone else will be paying these taxes – those rich pharmaceutical and insurance companies, for instance. In fact, all costs will be passed along to consumers/patients in the form of higher premiums and higher costs for drugs and medical devices. According to the Cato Institute, the top 1% of income earners can expect tax hikes of up to $52,000/year, but the bottom 99% will also feel the pain – and lack the discretionary income to absorb the taxes.

There are at least twenty new taxes included in PPACA. Seven of them will directly impact the people whose taxes Obama promised not to raise: those making less than $250,000 per household.  Below is a summary of the new taxes on the middle class:

The Individual Mandate Tax – In 2014 this penalty will hit all Americans who are not covered by a private health insurance policy, Medicaid, Medicare, of other public insurance program. The penalty requires a couple to pay the higher of a base tax of $1,360/year, or 2.5% of adjusted growth income (AGI). In 2016 the cost of not being part of Obamacare is $695 for individuals and  $2,085 for families.

The Medicine Cabinet Tax – This tax (begun in 2011) prohibits reimbursement of expenses for over-the-counter (OTC) medicines, with the exception of insulin, from an employee’s Health Saving Account (HSA), Flexible Spending Account (FSA), or Health Reimbursement Account (HRA). This impacts the shrinking middle class hard, since they earn enough to actually pay federal taxes, but not enough to make this a negligible restriction. This is also another backdoor attempt to block access to alternative medicines (vitamins and nutritional supplements).

The FSA Cap – This tax scheduled to begin in 2013 is potentially one of the most harmful to middle class people, as it imposes a cap of $2,500/year (it’s now unlimited) on the amount of pre-tax dollars that can be deposited in these accounts.  Why so harmful? It is because funds in these accounts can be used for special needs education for special needs children. Tuition rates for such special education can readily exceed $14,000/year and the use of pre-tax dollars has helped many families over the years.

The Medical Itemized Deduction Hurdle – Presently, one must have medical itemized deductions of greater than 7.5% to deduct them on federal income taxes. Obamacare raises the bar to 10% of AGI beginning in 2013.

The HSA Withdrawal Tax – This tax increases the additional tax on early non-medical withdrawals from these types of accounts from 10% to 20% in 2013.

The Indoor Tanning Services Tax – Begun in 2010, this provision added a 10% excise tax on people using tanning salons. Some may consider this minor, but it is another attempt by the Ruling Elite to control the behavior of the peasants and, I believe, to put a road block to accessing beneficial light therapy for many people. Space does not permit exploring this much further here, but suffice it to say that there are many potential health benefits from the use of tanning beds when properly used. A variety of conditions, from depression (Seasonal Affective Disorder or SAD) and related mood disorders to psoriasis, are improved by the judicious use of tanning type beds. I can hear my Dermatology colleagues groaning now, but the over-reaction to increases in skin cancers by banning tanning beds and slathering often-toxic sunscreen on everyone has led to an even worse epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency, in my opinion. The latter problem, of course, can be directly linked to explosions in the numbers of Type II diabetics, cancers of many types, and respiratory infections (such as, influenza).

The Excise Tax on Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans or the “Cadillac” Health Insurance Plan Tax – So-called Cadillac plans are generally fully paid for by employers. This tax, delayed until 2018 to protect Obama’s union supporters, will impose a 40% excise tax on the recipients when fully enacted.

There are at least 13 other significant taxes imposed on all businesses, employers, and “high income” individuals (>$125,000/year) and families (>$250,000/year) within PPACA. A summary of these other taxes and the history behind Obamneycare can be found at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act.

It is worth taking time to review this entry, so that one can understand how invasive and costly this legislation really is.

For “low income” individuals and families, subsidies for insurance obtained from “insurance exchanges” will be provided for those between 100% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). For example, the 2016 FPL is projected to be $11,800/year for an individual and $24,000/year for a family of four. DHHS and CBO estimate that the average annual premium cost for a family of four without PPACA would be $11,328/year. With PPACA in place as presently enacted, the same family at 200% of FPL would be paying $2,778/year out of pocket and at 400% of FPL, $8,379/year. In participating states, Medicaid eligibility will be expanded to all individuals and families earning up to 133% of the FPL. The Wikipedia entry referenced above contains several tables that explain this in more detail.

The Internal Revenue Service will be the implementer and enforcer of PPACA (up to 16,000 new agents). The Act will be partially paid for by taking $716 billion from Medicare and Medicaid; AARP claims that the money is taken from doctors and hospitals, but the lower payments to health care providers will reduce the services that Medicare patients receive.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that costs will rise for all Americans; and, more than 30 million will remain uninsured when Obamneycare is fully implemented. The CBO further predicts that the average family’s insurance premiums will rise at least $2500/year, in spite of candidate Obama’s repeated promises that they would go down that same amount. Be of good cheer, however, as all illegal immigrants will be exempt from the health insurance mandate and, yet, will remain eligible for emergency services under the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).

As a kid (and, I confess, as an adult) I always loved the 1950’s science fiction thrillers. One of the classics from that era is “The Blob” (1958). Though silly in many ways, it remains  metaphorically appropriate today. Starring a young Steve McQueen, the story revolves around an extraterrestrial bit of alien protoplasm that arrives on Earth via a meteorite. This goo proceeds to engulf every living thing that comes in contact with it until it fills the town’s cinema and engulfs the local diner. In this thriller, the Blob is finally defeated by freezing it with CO2 bottles and the U.S Air force airlifts the blob to the arctic. Problem solved – at least, until global warming kicks in.

In reflecting on Obamneycare over the past few months, I have been unable to discover any such easy solution for eliminating  PPACA.

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CBO TO EMPLOYERS: OBAMACARE HAS $4 BILLION MORE IN TAXES THAN EXPECTED

By Joel Gehrke | The Washington Examiner

Business owners will pay $4 billion more in taxes under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA)  than the Congressional Budget Office had previously expected.

“According to the updated estimates, the amount of deficit reduction from penalty payments and other effects on tax revenues under the ACA will be $5 billion more than previously estimated,” the CBO reported today. “That change primarily effects a $4 billion increase in collections from such payments by employers, a $1 billion increase in such payments by individuals, and an increase of less than $500 million in tax revenues stemming from a small reduction in employment-based coverage, which will lead to a larger share of total compensation taking the form of taxable wages and salaries and a smaller share taking the form of nontaxable health benefits.”

In short, CBO revised the Obamacare tax burden upward by $4 billion for businesses and $1 billion to $1.5 billion for individual workers.

CBO couldn’t help but bump into Chief Justice John Roberts controversial decision uphold the individual mandate as a constitutional exercise of Congress’s taxing power. The report dubs the individual mandate a “penalty tax” — that is, “a penalty paid to the Treasury by taxpayers when they file their tax returns and enforced by the Internal Revenue Service.”

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IRS WANTS 4,000 NEW AGENTS AND $300 MILLION BUDGET TO ENFORCE OBAMACARE

More than quadrupling an estimate it put forth last year for new agents (http://dailycaller.com), theInternal Revenue Service(IRS) now says that it will need more than 4,000 new agents to enforce the provisions of theAffordable Care Act(ACA), also known as Obamacare. And in addition to these new agents, the IRS is also asking for more than $ 300 million in new funding to help fortify the infrastructure it will supposedly need to unconstitutionally force Americans to purchase government healthcare.

The constitutionality of Obamacare is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, and yet the IRS is already acting as though the overhaul is definitive law. According to IRS budget requests, the agency says it needs a massive cash infusion to “continue the development of new systems and modifications of existing systems required to support new tax credits.” But in reality, this money will more than likely be used to spy on Americans and fine them for failing to purchase adequate health coverage.

“Health reform’s insurance mandate says if you do not have ‘adequate’ insurance, you’ll have to pay a fine as part of your tax return,” writes Elizabeth MacDonald forFOX Business (http://www.foxbusiness.com). “If your business doesn’t provide ‘affordable’ coverage, you’ll have to pay a fine to the IRS, too, as part of your tax return filing.”

According toFOX Newsanalyst James Farrell, new IRS reporting requirements under Obamacare, should it end up being declared constitutional, will require individuals to disclose personal insurance plan information such as coverage provisions and costs to the IRS. The provisions will also require individuals to reveal whether or not they have been offered health insurance by their employers, and what this employer-sponsored insurance costs, information that the IRS has never before dealt with.

Another stated reason for the increase in agents and budget funds is to enforce the new tanning excise tax. Tanning salons, health clubs, beauty parlors and other businesses that offer tanning services will be required to pay a tax similar to the kind levied on alcohol and tobacco (http://blog.heritage.org). According toThe Daily Caller, the IRS is planning to devote 81 of its agents just to collecting this ten-percent tax (http://dailycaller.com).

“Obamacare bashes into the Constitution at every turn because it is fundamentally in conflict to the essential founding principles of this country — freedom and the sovereignty of states and citizens,” writes Grace-Marie Turner forCanada Free Press (http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45534). “It turns control over one-sixth of our economy to the federal government, ceding life and death decisions to the state.”

SOURCE:  http://www.naturalnews.com/035409_IRS_Obamacare_agents.html

Dr. Leonard Coldwell

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OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DIVERTS $500 MILLION TO IRS TO IMPLEMENT HEALTHCARE REFORM LAW

By Sam Baker | The Hill

April 9, 2012

The Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law.

The money is only part of the IRS’s total implementation spending, and it is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law, including the unpopular individual mandate.

Republican lawmakers have tried to cut off funding to implement the healthcare law, at least until after the Supreme Court decides whether to strike it down. That ruling is expected by June, and oral arguments last week indicated the justices might well overturn at least the individual mandate, if not the whole law.

“While President Obama and his Senate allies continue to spend more tax dollars implementing an unpopular and unworkable law that may very well be struck down as unconstitutional in a matter of months, I’ll continue to stand with the American people who want to repeal this law and replace it with something that will actually address the cost of healthcare,” said Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who chairs the House Appropriations subcommittee for healthcare and is in a closely contested Senate race this year.

The Obama administration has plowed ahead despite the legal and political challenges.

It has moved aggressively to get important policies in place. And, according to a review of budget documents and figures provided by congressional staff, the administration is also burning through implementation funding provided in the healthcare law.

The law contains dozens of targeted appropriations to implement specific provisions. It also gave the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) a $1 billion implementation fund, to use as it sees fit. Republicans have called it a “slush fund.”

HHS plans to drain the entire fund by September — before the presidential election, and more than a year before most of the healthcare law takes effect. Roughly half of that money will ultimately go to the IRS.

HHS has transferred almost $200 million to the IRS over the past two years and plans to transfer more than $300 million this year, according to figures provided by a congressional aide.

The Government Accountability Office has said the transfers are perfectly legal and consistent with how agencies have used general implementation funds in the past. The $1 billion fund was set aside for “federal” implementation activities, the GAO said, and can therefore be used by any agency — not just HHS, where the money is housed.

Still, significant transfers to the IRS and other agencies leave less money for HHS, and the department needs to draw on the $1 billion fund for some of its biggest tasks.

The healthcare law directs HHS to set up a federal insurance exchange — a new marketplace for individuals and small businesses to buy coverage — in any state that doesn’t establish its own. But it didn’t provide any money for the federal exchange, forcing HHS to cobble together funding by using some of the $1 billion fund and steering money away from other accounts.

The transfers also allow the IRS to make the healthcare law a smaller part of its public budget figures. For example, the tax agency requested $8 million next year to implement the individual mandate, and said the money would not pay for any new employees.

An IRS spokeswoman would not say how much money has been spent so far implementing the individual mandate.

Republicans charged during the legislative debate over healthcare that the IRS would be hiring hundreds of new agents to enforce the mandate and throwing people in jail because they don’t have insurance.

However, the mandate is just one part of the IRS’s responsibilities.

The healthcare law includes a slew of new taxes and fees, some of which are already in effect. The tax agency wants to hire more than 300 new employees next year to cover those tax changes, such as the new fees on drug companies and insurance policies.

The IRS will also administer the most expensive piece of the new law — subsidies to help low-income people pay for insurance, which are structured as tax credits. The agency asked Congress to fund another 537 new employees dedicated to administering the new subsidies.

The Republican-led House last year passed an amendment, 246-182, sponsored by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-Mo.) that would have prevented the IRS from hiring new personnel or initiating any other measures to mandate that people purchase health insurance. The measure, strongly opposed by the Obama administration, was subsequently dropped from a larger bill that averted a government shutdown.

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HIGHER TAXES FOR HIP REPLACEMENTS?

Makers of replacement knees and hips argue there’s more pain than gain in an Obamacare surcharge on medical devices. 

By JEN WIECZNER | Smart Money

The many baby boomers considering hip or knee replacements in the coming years are likely to have to pay more to get them. The question is, How much more? And could the problems stretch beyond a higher price tag?

Under the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s signature health care reform law, medical-device manufacturers will pay a 2.3 percent tax on sales of such products starting in 2013. That tax will affect everything from surgical tools to oxygen tanks to wheelchairs. It is one of several features of the law designed to raise money to cover the uninsured — it’s expected to raise an additional $20 billion by 2019.

But experts say that the tax could have a particularly big impact in the world of knee and hip replacements. Such operations increased more than 26 percent to more than 1 million procedures in the U.S. between 2005 and 2010, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons; the total bill of the hospital stays for such surgeries was about $60.5 billion in 2010. And with the American population hitting retirement age in record numbers, demand is likely to surge: The number of knee replacement procedures alone is expected to increase 673 percent, to nearly 3.5 million, in 2030, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the orthopedic academy.

At the simplest level, some critics of the tax estimate that the expense could add hundreds of dollars to the cost of each joint-replacement procedure, as the manufacturers of the joints pass the cost along to patients. “By having taxes that go into effect for health care companies, you’re actually increasing the cost of health care in the country,” says Dave Blaszczak, senior health policy analyst at the nonpartisan Potomac Research Group, which provides government and economic analysis to institutional investors.

Medical-device manufacturers contend, however, that the potential problems go much further. While the tax may seem relatively small — it would amount to $230 on the sale of a $10,000 medical device — opponents note that it hits sales, not just profits, which increases its impact. Indeed, several medical companies say that the surcharge would eat into their profitability, at the expense of their research and development budgets. Large orthopedic device maker Stryker says that in anticipation of the tax, it plans to cut more than $100 million from its annual pretax operating costs next year. Smaller device maker Zoll Medical says the new surcharge will raise its overall rate above 50 percent and use up its entire R&D budget.

If companies focus just on products that generate higher sales volumes, they may discontinue specialized models, leaving doctors and consumers with fewer options, says Julie Stralow, an orthopedics analyst at Morningstar. That could force doctors to be more hesitant before recommending joint-replacement surgeries and could also lead to higher prices, according to James Capretta, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative-leaning organization that has opposed many elements of the Affordable Care Act.

No industry likes to face a tax increase, of course, and some advocates of the health-care act say that manufacturers are overstating its potential impact. Asked about the possible impact of the tax, the Treasury Department referred a SmartMoney reporter to a statement the White House released earlier this summer that said, “The medical device industry, like others, will benefit from an additional 30 million potential consumers who will gain health coverage under the Affordable Care Act starting in 2014. This excise tax is one of several designed so that industries that gain from the coverage expansion will help offset the cost of that expansion.”

Other insiders are optimistic that scenarios like the ones the companies describe might not come to pass. “The manufacturers up until now have made a big profit on this, so there’s some room to bargain,” says Dr. Peter Mandell, chair of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons council on advocacy. “This market is never going to go away.” Still, Mandell says, he and other surgeons are concerned about the possibility of a cutback in research; he cites, in particular, the danger that companies will fail to develop joint replacements for children and tumor patients, a generally unprofitable niche.

Ultimately, until the tax takes effect, its impact on consumers will remain unclear. But at least some remain unworried. Richard Warner, a 69-year-old marathon runner, created the Foundation for the Advancement in Research in Medicine, and its website BoneSmart.org, to educate consumers about the benefits of joint-replacement surgeries. Warner, a former insurance executive who has had both hips replaced, says he’s confident that advances in efficiency — such as improving robotic technology to assist surgeons and the advent of cheaper, disposable surgical instruments — will soak up the extra costs. But even if they don’t, he’s willing to pay extra for the technology that took him from a wheelchair to finish lines across the country. “The physical pain prior to the surgery is so high, I’m not going to [worry about] a couple hundred dollars extra,” says Warner. “I think it’s worth it absolutely.”

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DEMOCRATS ASK FOR DELAY TO MEDICAL DEVICE TAX THEY VOTED FOR!

By Byron York,Chief Political Correspondent,The Washington Examiner

Sixteen Democratic senators who voted for the Affordable Care Act are asking that one of its fundraising mechanisms, a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices scheduled to take effect January 1, be delayed.  Echoing arguments made by Republicans against Obamacare, the Democratic senators say the levy will cost jobs — in a statement Monday, Sen. Al Franken called it a “job-killing tax” — and also impair American competitiveness in the medical device field.

The senators, who made the request in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are Franken, Richard Durbin, Charles Schumer, Patty Murray, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand, Amy Klobuchar, Joseph Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Robert Casey, Debbie Stabenow, Barbara Mikulski, Kay Hagan, Herb Kohl, Jeanne Shaheen, and Richard Blumenthal.  All voted for Obamacare.

Two other Democrats, senators-elect Joe Donnelly and Elizabeth Warren, also signed the letter.  Donnelly voted for Obamacare as a member of the House.  Warren was not in Congress at the time.

“The medical technology industry directly employs over 400,000 people in the United States and is responsible for a total of two million skilled manufacturing jobs,” the senators wrote in a December 4 letter to Reid.  “We must do all we can to ensure that our country maintains its global leadership position in the medical technology industry and keeps good jobs here at home.”

Beyond that, the senators say, the medical device industry “has received little guidance about how to comply with the tax” — a reference to the apparently confused and halting nature of the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare.

Several of the senators, many of whom have medical device manufacturers in their states, have opposed the tax for a long time.  During the Obamacare debate, for example, Franken and Klobuchar were among a group of senators who successfully pushed to reduce the tax. (The device giant Medtronic is headquartered in Minnesota.)

On Monday, Franken again expressed his opposition to the tax he voted for.  “I want to repeal the medical device tax altogether,” the senator and former comedian said in a statement.  “But I am concerned that we are running out of time before this job-killing tax goes into effect. So, for now, the best thing to do to ensure that this important industry continues to create jobs and producing life-saving devices is to delay this unwise tax.”  Franken and other want Reid to include a provision to delay the tax in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations.

None of the senators found his or her earlier objections to the tax a sufficient reason to vote against Obamacare.  In December 2009, with 60 votes in the Senate and a determined Republican opposition, Democrats needed every vote they could get to pass the president’s national health care plan.  But now, with Obamacare — and the taxes to fund it — about to become a reality, some of those Democrats are singing a different tune.

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DEATH PANELS: SENIOR CLAIMS GOVERNMENT DENIED HIM MEDICAL CARE

Infowars.com
June 5, 2012

Editor’s note: The following is from an email sent to Infowars.com. The sender claims the federal government decided not to pay for a procedure normally covered under Medicare. The email states that Obamacare has motivated seniors to vote for Mitt Romney in November. Seniors should realize this is merely a political season good cop-bad cop trick and Romney will not save them. The elite has decided that seniors are expendable. Romney or any other hand-picked establishment candidate will follow the script – death panels are a reality and if you are over 65 the state is going to let you die even though it promised pie-in-the-sky medical care and expropriated billions to pay for it.

No wonder the Seniors are coming out in huge numbers in support of Mitt Romney for president in 2012….it is a life and death issue for all of us!! PS, keep walking and stay healthy!! Bob

Seniors BEWARE – BE SURE TO READ THIS ONE!

Forget about getting to age 75, this exact thing happened to me this morning at Danbury hospital here in Ct. I was scheduled for a cardio-lite stress test. This is a tread mill stress test where during the process they inject nuclear dye into your blood stream and then put you in a CAT scan or something similar and take a picture of your heart. If all is good the heart shows up red, if there are blocked arteries anywhere that portion of the heart shows up pink. I have had three of these tests in the past twelve years due to blocked arteries discovered in 2000. They use the test to determine if I need a roto router or a bypass operation.

So I arrive at the hospital at 8 am this morning and I am in the process of checking in at Cardiology and the lady says that my appointment has been canceled. She makes a call and speaks with someone and hands me the phone. It is a nurse in cardiology who says that my medical coverage denied the procedure. I said it was routine, part of my heart maintenance process and ordered by my PCP and with approval from my Cardiologist who is the head of Danbury Cardiology which is right where I was standing. She goes, “yes but we were denied our request”. So I say, I have Medicare so what is my backup insurance doing denying anything. Then the bombshell, she says it was the Medicare board that denied the procedure.

At that point, I turn to everyone behind me, and it was a long line, and I say to them “well you won’t have to wait too long today because my stress test procedure was just canceled by a Medicare Death Panel. I am only 67 so can you imagine what is going to happen when we really get old”. The entire waiting room and everyone there from patients to staff just went dead silent. So I turn to the front desk and tell them, ” I guess I will have to write a letter to the editor of the Danbury News Times and call my Senators and Congressman and let them know the Death Panels have already convened”. Then I walked out.

By the time I got home the message machine was blinking. My PCP had already called and so did the hospital and guess what, Medicare decided to approve my stress test procedure and if I could get back down to the hospital they would fit me in right now for this 3 hour procedure. I told them I couldn’t make it, that I was going fishing because I didn’t know how many more fishing trips I could get in before I went into cardiac arrest but not to worry about me costing the government any money because I am a 30% disabled Army veteran, due to Agent Orange poisoning which is what caused this heart problem to begin with, and I qualify to be buried for free in a plain pine wrapper in the cheap graves section at any National Cemetary. I certainly don’t want to cost our government any money so maybe we just won’t do this procedure anymore and we can use the money to redistribute it to all of the illegals to keep them alive so they can mow the lawns at the National Cemeteries.

So this Death Panel crap has started. If we don’t vote this guy and his criminal cronies out of office November 2012 then we will all die younger than we should as broke paupers as the country goes bankrupt. Feel free to distribute my note to anyone and make it a mission to not only make your vote count but on behalf of all of us please make an effort to change the thinking of anyone remotely willingly to get intellectually engaged in this critical time in our country’s history.

I had one of the most troubling, most disturbing conversations ever with Dr. Suzanne Allen, head of emergency services at the Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee . We were discussing the “future” and I asked her had she seen any affects of Obama Care in her work?

“Oh, yes. We are seeing cutbacks throughout the services we provide. For example, we are now having to deal with patients who would normally receive dialysis can no longer be accepted. In the past, there was always automatic approval under Medicare for anyone who needed dialysis — not anymore.” So, what will be their outcome? “They will die soon without dialysis,” she stated.

What about other services? She indicated as of 2013 (after the election), no one over 75 will be given major medical procedures unless approved by locally administered Ethics Panels. These Panels will determine whether a patient receives medical treatment or not. While details on specific operating procedures and schedules, Dr. Allen points out that most life-threatening emergencies do not occur during normal hospital business hours, and if there are emergencies that depend to be resolve within minutes or just few hours, the likely hood of getting these Panels approval in time to save a life are going to be very challenging and difficult, if not impossible she said.

This applies to major operations such as receiving stents, bypass surgery, kidney operations, or treating for an aneurysm that would be normally covered under Medicare today. In other words, if you needed a life-saving operation, Medicare will not provide coverage anymore after 2013 if you are 75 or over. When in 2013? “We haven’t been given a specific date — could be in January or July….but it’s after the election.”

This is shocking to any of us who will be 75 this year. Her advice — get healthy and stay healthy. We do not know the specifics of the actual implementation of the full Obama Care policies and procedures — “they haven’t filtered down to the local level yet. But we are already seeing severe cuts in what we provide to the elderly — we refused dialysis to an individual who was 78 just the other day….we refused to give stents to a gentleman who was in his late 80s.” Every day, she said, we are seeing these cutbacks aimed at reducing care across the board for anyone who is over 75.

We can only hope that Obama Care will be overturned by the Supreme Court — otherwise, this is a death sentence to those who are over 75….perhaps you should pass this on to your friends who are thinking of voting for Obama this year.

Regardless if you have private health care coverage now (I have Aetna Medicare Part B) — it will no longer apply after 2013 if the Ethics Panels disapprove of a procedure that may save your life…..

Scary, scary, scary. Think about this? You? Your parents? Your loved ones?

Didn’t know about it? Of course, not. As Nancy Pelosi said….” if you want to know what’s in the bill, you’ll have to read it…..” After it was passed.

This is a graphic reminder of the need to stay healthy. Get your plot now at Forest Lawn….while they last. Is this a death sentence to those of us who will reach 75?…..Yes!

Please do pass this along to those in your address book.

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TIME MAGAZINE PUSHES DEATH AGENDA: REMOVE FEEDING TUBES FROM THE DYING ELDERLY

Mike Adams,
Natural News
Thursday, June 7, 2012

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TIME Magazine is peddling a death agenda propaganda piece with a new issue that features these words on the cover: “HOW TO DIE.”

Inside, the magazine promotes a cost-saving death agenda that encourages readers to literally “pull the feeding tubes” from their dying elderly parents, causing them to dehydrate and die. This is explained as a new cost-saving measure that drastically reduces return hospital visits by the elderly… yeah, because dead people don’t return to the hospital, of course.  Kill Granny, get a cash bonus!

The article is part of the new soft-sell, hard-kill agenda of the mainstream media which also featured an article on Newsweek Magazine entitled, “The Case for Killing Granny.” (http://lookintoit.org/Euthanasia-%28The-Case-For-Killing-Granny%29.ht…)

The cover of that magazine stated, “Curbing excessive end-of-life care is good for America.”

Just as with TIME Magazine, Newsweek is pushing a death agenda that devalues the lives of elderly citizens and actually encourages citizens to have their own parents killed in order to reduce medical costs. In fact, as TIME Magazine says, organizations that embrace these “outcome-based” death panel systems actually receive cash bonuses when they save more money by pulling the plug on granny!

That’s the answer to health care in America, you see. It’s not about nutritional therapy, using trace minerals to prevent disease, avoiding GMOs and toxic chemicals. Nope, it’s about pulling the plug and killing your elders and then convincing yourself that you arecompassionatefor making sure they die sooner rather than later.

It’s trendy to kill your parents off, didn’t you know? It’s good for the economy! And it’s good for society! Death to grandma! For God’s sake don’t give any water to your dying father, either, because it’s better to just let him die from kidney failure. Yep, here’s an actual quote from the TIME Magazine story: “Renal failure is a good way to go,” the story says. Just dehydrate ‘em to death and call it trendy.

When you get old, they’ll kill you too!

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Be careful what you wish for, all you trendies, because sooner or later, you’ll be old, too! And if you created a society in which pulling the plug is the socially-acceptable way to kill off all the “useless old people,” then don’t be surprised when they cut off your feeding tube, too, and you suffer a slow, painful death while your own children cheer about how socially responsible they are.

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WEBSTER TARPLEY: THE ELITE’S PLAN FOR GLOBAL EXTERMINATION

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UK HOSPITALS PAID TO PUT PATIENTS ON DEATH “PATHWAY”

By Wesley J. Smith | National Review

Death panels on the march! The Telegraph is reporting that UK hospitals are paid to put patients on the Liverpool Death Care Pathway. (The Pathway is supposed to sedate patients whose pain cannot otherwise be controlled. But serious charges have been made that it is actually sometimes used when not needed medically, in other words, as backdoor euthanasia, including of the non terminally ill.) From the story:

Almost two thirds of NHS trusts using the Liverpool Care Pathway have received payouts totalling millions of pounds for hitting targets related to its use, research for The Daily Telegraph shows.

The majority of NHS hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial “pathway” to death, it can be disclosed. The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the full scale of financial inducements for the first time. They suggest that about 85 per cent of trusts have now adopted the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from dying patients. More than six out of 10 of those trusts – just over half of the total – have received or are due to receive financial rewards for doing so amounting to at least £12million.

And the statistics show that the Pathway has indeed become backdoor euthanasia:

At many hospitals more than 50 per cent of all patients who died had been placed on the pathway and in one case the proportion of forseeable deaths on the pathway was almost nine out of 10.

This is very bad. Only a small minority–maybe 2%-5%–need to be sedated because it is the only way to control pain, and moreover, that the amount of sedation can be raised and lowered as needed–as I detailed here. Instead, centralized bureaucratic control has turned it into a checklist on the ”to do list”–with money apparently offered as an incentive because it supposedly represents “excellence” in care–which results in sedation clearly being applied whether patients need it or not, and when less aggressive measures would suffice.

That cheats patients and families of their last time together. It is the destruction of individualized end-of-life care–indeed, one that ignores hospice altogether where the emphasis is on living, not dying quietly in a corner. And it seems to be a method–intended or not–of backdoor euthanasia that can save costs.

There is a warning here for us under Obamacare, in which bureaucrats also plan to create similar bureaucratic incentives to induce particular approaches of providing “excellence.” Indeed, many Obamacarians look to emulate the UK method of centralized control cost containment/care provision regimes. We will come to rue the day if we allow Obamacare to remain on the books.

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RELATED POST:

AMERICA 2013 – WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THE U.S. HEALTHCARE DEBATE?

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THE CRISIS OF STUDENT LOAN DEBT IN AMERICA

MAY 8, 2012

by Devon DB

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way. ~ Charles Dickens

We are in a time of crisis, a time of austerity, a time the where poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer at a faster pace than at any other time in recent US history. We have gone from having a well-functioning economy to a real unemployment rate of 14.5% [1]. During all of this, the situation has greatly affected college students, who are taking on massive debt just to further their education. With student debt at over $1 trillion, an examination is underway of how we have gotten into this scenario and how we can get our way out of it.

The situation began in 1964 when Lyndon B. Johnson established a task force to examine the role of federal government in student aid, headed by John W. Gardener. The taskforce firmly believed that cost shouldn’t be a barrier in attaining a college education and to this end they concerned themselves with how lack of funds contributed to students being unable to attend college. Gardener focused on a study which revealed that one out of six students who took the National Merit Scholarship test in high school did not attend college. Of the students who did not attend college and who had families who could contribute only $300 or less to their education, about 75 percent of the men and 55 percent of the women indicated that they would have attended college if they had had more money available. [2] (emphasis added)

Upon seeing this information, Johnson was shocked as he viewed the situation as a loss in human capital. This drove him to sign the the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 1965 into law. The bill included the recommendations put forth by the Gardener taskforce that the federal government should aid student in their journey to attain a higher education by providing loans, remedial classes, and grants to college-aspiring students as well as special programs and projects for low-income students who have an interest in attending college. This allowed for low-income and middle-class students who have an opportunity to go to college.

There was an uphill battle, though, as the American Bank Association was against the loan guarantee provision. The ABA was mainly concerned about possible government encroachment in their business, arguing that “the federal government could not replicate the working relationships that locally-owned financial institutions had with state and private non-profit guarantee programs” and “the federal government would end up taking over the industry because there would be little incentive for the state and private non-profit agencies to establish their own programs.” [3] To solve this problem, the Johnson administration met with the ABA and worked to “[assure] the bankers the loans would pay them back handsomely over time because they were investing in young people who would become their best customers in the future,” [4] as well as telling the banks that the government would be the ultimate loan guarantor if there was no one else available. Thus, with the banks placated, the bill could be passed.

There were several reauthorizations of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, but one of the most important reauthorizations was in 1972. In the 1972 bill, there were several new programs created, yet one of the most important ones was the Basic Educational Opportunity Grant which sends “a payment directly from the federal government to undergraduate students based on their financial need,” yet this act also “tied institutional aid to the number of students receiving federal student aid at the given institution.” [5] Tying institutional aid in this manner only served to increase costs. According to the Bennett hypothesis, first proposed in the 1980s by Secretary of Education William J. Bennett, colleges absorb federal student aid by increasing tuition costs. (This was proven in a paper done by two economics professors at the University of Oregon. [6]) While these increases in tuition were not seen in the 1970s, they began to be felt substantially during the 1980s, thus causing students to increase their debt levels. However there was another factor involved that led to student debt increase: President Ronald Reagan.

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan, he launched a massive attack on federal student aid. Reagan’s budget included a proposal that would cut deeply into the two major student assistance programs, the Pell grants and the Guaranteed Student Loans, to reduce sharply or eliminate a series of categorical programs in higher education, and to eliminate a group of social or economic programs which either directly or indirectly affect higher education. With rare exception, every college campus would be affected by the proposed cuts beginning in academic year 1981-82. [7] (emphasis added)

In cutting these student assistance programs, Reagan went against the spirit of the 1965 Higher Educational Opportunity Act, in which the main goal was to ensure that a college education was both accessible and affordable. In addition to this, he was effectively targeting low-income and middle class people who needed that assistance in order to afford a college education. Congress attempted to enact amendments to the Higher Education bill that would allow for both programs to continue until 1985 and expanded programs such as Guaranteed Student Loans to middle-class families.

Yet, there were complaints from the Reagan administration, specifically Secretary of Education Terrence Bell, that the expanding such programs “had the potential for eroding the traditional roles of the student and the family in the financing of educational costs” [8] and that the Guaranteed Student Loans program was actually an entitlement program as its costs couldn’t be constricted without Congressional approval. Rather than actually allow students greater access to education, the Reagan administration was able to pass a plan that would gut federal student aid assistance by cutting the amount of aid per Pell Grant from $1,900 to $1,750, limiting Guaranteed Student Loans to remaining need, and eliminating the in-school interest subsidy and the subsidy to lenders on Parent Loans.

This decrease in federal aid only served to disenfranchise millions of potential college students from attaining an education. Student debt also increased. A survey done by the College Scholarship Service and National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators showed that “those students at public institutions who borrow will graduate with an average debt of $6,685, while their counterparts at private colleges and universities will assume $8,950 in debt on average.”

This decrease in aid hit minority students quite hard as in 1987 there was a seven percent decline in college enrollment for Native Americans and eleven percent for blacks. Many minority groups depended on grants and scholarships to go to college, but now their only option was to borrow money or just not go at all. This would have a major ripple effect as “Many studies have shown that one of the most important factors influencing the decision to go to college is parental educational level” and that “If today’s minority high school graduates choose not to participate in further education, out of concern for loan burdens or for other reasons, their children may not be as likely to go to college as the next generation of white and Asian students.” [9] This would only serve to further increase educational- and with it economic- disparities between races.

The situation did not get any better in the next decade as the median student loan debt more than doubled in a 10 year period, increasing from $4,000 in 1990 to about $11,000 in 1999. [10] It was to become even worse with the passing of the Higher Education Amendments of 1998, which stated that student loans could no longer be forgiven under bankruptcy. Thus, if one found themselves in bankruptcy, but had student loans, they would be in debt bondage until the loans were paid. In such a situation, the only possible out is to default on one’s student loans, however, that would not only worsen your credit but:

- Your entire financial life can potentially be destroyed if you default

- Your entire loan balance will be due in full, immediately.

- Collection fees can be added to your outstanding balance.

- Up to 15% of your paychecks can be taken.

- Your Social Security, disability income, and state and federal tax refunds can be seized.

- You will lose eligibility for federal aid, including Pell grants.

- You will lose deferment or forbearance options.

- Outstanding fees and unpaid interest can be capitalized (added) onto your principal balance. [11]

Thus, by the very circumstances, a situation of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ is created and students are put into de facto debt slavery.

This brings us to our current situation where student debt nationwide is over $1 trillion. Student debt can potentially turn into a major problem by threatening economic growth due to the fact that people are defaulting on their student loans as they cannot find jobs. A recent article came out from the Associated Press which stated that 53% of college graduates are either unemployed or underemployed and that when “underemployment [is taken] into consideration, the job prospects for bachelor’s degree holders fell last year to the lowest level in more than a decade.” [12] This is an even further economic threat when one realizes that the current level of student is unsustainable and that there will be major ripple effects on the economy when this house of cards comes crashing down.

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CHARTS SHOWING THE BOOM IN STUDENTS LOANS

By Sam Ro    | Business Insider

Jul. 11, 2012

Many young Americans are struggling to pay off their student loans thanks to elevated levels of unemployment.

Ironically, with unemployment levels so high, more and more high school graduates have enrolled in college.

Neal Soss, Credit Suisse’s top U.S. economist recently published a report titled A Lesson On Student Loans, which examines all of the major issues regarding student loans.

“In the past few years, the volume of student loans has increased dramatically, reaching almost $1 trillion by the end of Q1 2012,” wrote Soss.  “Student loans outstanding have surpassed credit cards and auto loans as the second largest form of consumer debt, following mortgages.”

Student loans outstanding have more than doubled since Q3 2006 to nearly a trillion dollars

Federal loans (e.g. Direct Loans and Perkins Loans) dominate private loans, state loans, and institutional loans

Student loans continue to be the fastest growing category of household debt. Mortgage, credit card, and home equity debt outstanding have been falling since the crisis of 2008

A key reason driving student loan growth is skyrocketing tuition inflation

In July 2010, the Federal government took over the student loan business, forcing private lenders out of the game, making the federal government the only lender of student loans.

As long as the delincquency and default rates remain low, the government makes tons of money on this because of low Treasury rates

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Currently the largest asset on Uncle Sam’s balance sheet is federal student loans

The loan balance has risen an astonishing 332%, most of which dates from after the recession of 2008.

Student loans may be a liability on the consumer balance sheet, but they constitute an asset for the federal government

Just how big? Nearly 35% of the total federal assets, over four times the 8.6% percent for the total mortgages outstanding.

Of course, assets are, sadly, the trivial side of Uncle Sam’s Flow of Funds balance sheet — about 1.36 Trillion. The liability side totaled 12.65 Trillion at the end of Q1 2012.

Although, high student loan delinquency rates do not pose a problem yet, they have increased by 1.15 percentage points since Q3 2008

Delinquency rates are closely correlated to unemployment rates

And default rates occuring during the first year of repayment has been on the rise

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As the dollar dies, and the U.S. economy collapses students will have a much tougher time paying back their loans.

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For the first time ever, the U.S. Department of Education has come out with an official three-year federal student loan default rate.

Until now, the agency has only looked at two-year default rates at universities, and with a wider net cast, it’s clear that students only struggle to pay back loans more with time.

Two years after leaving school, students default on their federal loans at a rate of 9.1 percent, up from 8.8 percent at last count. That figure jumps to 13.4 percent at the three-year mark, the report shows.

The graph below shows the default rate over the last 23 years. The sharp decline in rates in the early 90s shows the change that occurred after the Department of Education started sanctioning institutions with default rates higher than 25 percent.

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STUDENT-LOAN DELINQUENCIES NOW SURPASS CREDIT CARDS

By: Kelly Evans | CNBC Reporter

Even as the economy shows signs of improvement, a record share of Americans are falling behind on their student-loan payments.

The proportion of U.S. student loan balances that are in delinquency — that is, unpaid for 90 days or more — surpassed that of credit-card balances in the third quarter for the first time, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Of the $956 billion in student-loan debt outstanding as of September, 11 percent was delinquent — up from less than 9 percent in the second quarter, and higher than the 10.5 percent of credit-card debt, which was delinquent in the third quarter. By comparison, delinquency rates on mortgages, home-equity lines of credit and auto loans stood at 5.9 percent, 4.9 percent, and 4.3 percent respectively as of September.

With the release of these figures, student-loan debt officially takes the crown from credit-card debt as that most prone to delinquency in the U.S. Since the NY Fed’s data began in 2003, the share of student debt which is delinquent has nearly doubled, from a starting level of 6.13 percent, while credit-card delinquency has steadily drifted lower since peaking at 13.74 percent in mid-2010 in the wake of the financial crisis.

The trouble is, while losses and write-downs of credit-card debt typically fall on banks and private-sector lenders, in the case of student debt, it is largely taxpayer dollars at risk. And the student-debt pile only keeps growing. After first surpassing credit-card debt in mid-2010, the amount of student-loan debt outstanding has quickly surged to become 42 percent larger than the $674 billion of credit-card debt outstanding as of September.

Moreover, the actual rate of student loan delinquency is far higher than the official tally suggests. According to the New York Fed, “these delinquency rates for student loans are likely to understate actual delinquency rates because almost half of these loans are currently in deferment, in grace periods or in forbearance and therefore temporarily not in the repayment cycle.”

In other words, the real delinquency rate for loans in the current repayment cycle is “roughly twice as high,” per the Fed — which would put it north of 20 percent. An extraordinarily sobering figure, and one that begs for an overhaul of this increasingly important market which has put significant taxpayer dollars at risk.

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STUDENT LOANS GO UNPAID, BURDEN U.S. ECONOMY

Borrowing for education will have “potentially lasting effects” on U.S. demand for houses, cars and other big-ticket items, according to Steven C. Wieting, Citigroup Inc.’s director of economic and market analysis.

As the CHART OF THE DAY depicts, student loans surpassed credit cards last quarter to show the highest delinquency rate among U.S. consumer debt. The shift was chronicled in a report published two days ago by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“Student-loan debt crowds out other consumption,” Wieting wrote yesterday in a report. The New York-based economist cited a Rutgers University study, done in May, that showed 40 percent of college graduates from 2006 through 2011 postponed a major purchase because of their debt burdens.

Payments on 11 percent of educational loans were at least 90 days behind last quarter, the New York Fed’s report showed. The rate was the highest of five categories tracked by the bank, using data compiled by Equifax Inc., a credit-rating company. Credit-card delinquencies ranked second at 10.5 percent.

The rate for student debt may be understated because about half the loans aren’t currently due for repayment, according to the New York Fed. The figure reflects grace periods, deferments and forbearance, or temporary suspensions.

Student loans are a growing burden on younger Americans, whose pay is dropping as the cost of education rises, Wieting wrote. Average earnings fell at a 1.6 percent annual rate for 25- to 34-year-olds with a bachelor’s degree and a full-time job from 2000 to 2010, according to government data cited in the report. Tuition and fees at four-year public colleges and universities climbed 5.6 percent annually in the same period.

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OBAMA LOAN REPAYMENT SCHEME MAINTAINS CRUSHING DEBT BURDEN ON STUDENTS

NOVEMBER 18, 2012

By Nancy Hanover

Earlier this month, the Obama administration’s Department of Education put into place its new regulations regarding the “Pay As You Earn” modification to Income-Based Repayment (IBR) of student loans.

This Obama “reform,” supposedly a centerpiece of his program for young people, promises little and provides even less. For a small subset of students it can mean “only” 20 years of monthly payments, instead of 25, with decreased minimum payments of 10 percent of discretionary income instead of 15 percent.

As the federal “fiscal cliff” and additional cuts approach, the record shows that student aid has already been declining. According to a report released last month by the College Board, federal grants totaled $49 billion during the last academic year, down 5 percent from a year prior, after adjusting for inflation—the first drop after rising for five consecutive years. Federal work study, which allows colleges to create campus-based jobs for students, fell 4 percent to $972 million, after adjusting for inflation, the first time its has dropped below the $1 billion mark in at least a decade.

What small benefits accrue from IBR are, according to the New America Foundation, directed to providing “huge financial windfalls to people who, far from being in need, are among the most financially well-off graduates in today’s job market.”

The primary beneficiaries will be students who have taken on very large loans for graduate school. Because of federal loan maximums, those merely getting a four-year degree will not benefit. In fact, the report states that middle-income earners who start with salaries under $33,000 and later earn $63,000 or more for the majority of their repayment period, “will actually pay more and for longer due to the pending changes.”

In addition, this updated IBR scheme has a myriad of qualifications. No student with loans prior to 2008 qualifies. Only certain types of loans are accepted—for example, no PLUS loans, private loans or consolidated loans. Payments have to be made without a problem for the entire 20-year period. And, should a student actually meet all of these hurdles, the amount forgiven will be entirely taxable. The process of application is described as “overly complicated.”

The IBR fig leaf cannot rehabilitate the Obama record on student loans. Nor can it obscure the fact that, under his administration, students have amassed debt at a record rate. Since the third quarter of 2008, student loans have ballooned by $303 billion!

As of October 2012, average indebtedness is now up to $26,600 among those who borrowed for college and earned bachelor’s degrees in 2011, rising from $25,250 in 2010, according to a new report from the Project on Student Debt. Sisty-six percent of students now borrow to finance their education.

Moreover official three-year rates of default show that 13.1 percent of students who began repaying in 2009 had defaulted by the end of 2011, a 53.4 percent increase in default, while the two-year default rate is the highest in a decade. The number for three-year defaults among for-profit school ex-students is nearly double, at 22.7 percent.

Obama’s policies over the first term

Far from rescuing increasingly desperate defaulting students, Obama’s policies can best be summarized as: protection of the financial industry, protection of the for-profit sector and intensification of the burdens on the poorest students.

As it is uniformly throughout the administration’s policies, Obama’s main constituency is the financial industry. Student loans are, in general, very profitable. Banks are receiving capital from the Federal Reserve at rates just above 0 percent. Student loans run from interest rates starting at 3.4 percent up through the double digits. In addition to this interest spread, the federal government makes Special Allowance Payments to banks making student loans. These are additional subsides pegged to commercial loan rates with an extra margin rolled in.

Hedge funds are the secondary beneficiary of student loans. Bundles of loans are transferred to trusts that sell shares to investors as asset-backed securities, just like mortgages. The principal of these loans is backed by the federal government, and securitization of these portfolios has been extremely profitable and are publicly traded. As just an example of this week’s news in the “education market,” it was reported that newly minted publicly traded debt buyer Performant Financial received $1.3 billion of student loan placements this quarter, showing a 27.1 percent revenue jump.

Then there are the education loan servicers and collectors. The Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, for example, has seen its revenues for servicing loans triple, while money from defaulted loan collections quadrupled. It has earned multi-million-dollar profits for years, netting a cool $174 million last year alone.

Lastly, under Obama, the federal government itself cashes in on Direct Student Loans, an influx of money estimated to be $30 billion for 2012, according to the Department of Education. As a concession to the Republicans, Obama agreed that at least one-third of the savings from banking subsidies would go to the deficit.

Protection of the for-profit sector

At the start of his administration, Obama pledged to rein in the gouging of students by for-profit colleges and career schools. These institutions are notorious for their high costs, a nearly 50 percent student loan default rate, and failure to provide training adequate for students to secure employment of their chosen field.

The popularity of these career-driven programs is a sign of the times. More than 12 percent of the entire US student population now attends for-profits such as the University of Phoenix, the second largest higher education system in the country, right behind the state university system of New York. For-profit colleges are now a $25 billion industry, dominated by 13 large, extremely profitable, publicly traded corporations.

A two-year Senate investigation, concluded last year, stated that the federal government has failed to protect students from misleading sales pitches, an army of recruiters and poor quality programs. They pointed out that “publicly traded companies operating for-profit colleges had an average profit margin of 19.7 percent, generated a total of $3.2 billion in pre-tax profit and paid an average of $7.3 million to their chief executive officers in 2009.” Additionally, they cited National Center for Education Statistics data showing that 23 percent of students who attended for-profit schools in 2008-2009 were unemployed and seeking work!

Despite the president’s earlier rhetoric, when it came to drafting the rules the Obama administration met with the representatives of the largest for-profits—well-known Democratic Party contributors—in a series of 17 meetings before the final regulations were released. Student groups, in contrast, merited only one meeting.

The result was a relatively toothless “gainful employment” rule, providing only for the elimination of student loan eligibility to institutions where more thantwo-thirds [!] of the students were unable to repay their loans and failed debt-to-income measures three out of four years (loans more than 12 percent of income). Even among the egregious for-profits, only 5 percent of programs were considered at risk of losing their eligibility. Lastly, the programs were to be allowed to continue operating “with no requirements to improve,” until at least 2015.

The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities launched a lawsuit challenging even this paltry restriction to the student loan spigot. Last June, the “gainful” rule was vacated by a US District Court judge. To date, the Obama administration has neither appealed the decision nor adopted further penalties on the exploitation of students by the for-profit industry.

Cuts to student aid under Obama

On the other hand, the Obama administration had adopted a whole series of cuts to existing programs, affecting Pell Grants, interest rate subsidies and grace periods—overall increasing student indebtedness. This is just a foretaste of what will happen after the new year’s budget negotiations. Already discussions have begun on ending all fixed loan interest rates and allowing them to float, ending the 3.4 percent subsidy of Stafford loans, ending all in-school loan subsidies and making the Obama cuts to Pell permanent.

* Pell Grants: Obama has pointed to the “expansion” of Pell Grants, the only substantial non-loan program provided by the government for students, under his administration. Actually the growth of the program has been primarily the result of more students qualifying, due to the general impoverishment of the population.

Moreover, Obama has cut between $1,100 and $1,700 for 14 percent of recipients by tightening eligibility. In another new attack on the most needy, Pell Grants are now denied to students without a high school diploma who could show that they have an ability to benefit from college. The administration has also retroactively limited the number of semesters a student could receive Pell from 18 to 12, which disproportionately affects lower-income students who typically take a longer time to graduate in order to accommodate jobs or families. Obama also abolished the year-round Pell that many community college students used to take summer courses.

While the maximum Pell aid did rise from $4,731 to $5,550, fewer people will receive that maximum. Even more importantly, with the cost of college steadily rising, the typical grant covers only about one-third of the cost of a public four-year college. To receive a full-cost grant, a student’s household must live on less than $23,000.

Ominously, Obama has continued the systematic underfunding of Pell. It now faces an $8 billion shortfall in 2014, and will be the inevitable target of further cuts during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations.

* Interest rates and grace periods: Obama also elected to maintain the 3.4 percent interest rate for certain qualifying undergraduate loans, allowing others to rise to 6.8 percent. That limited measure was also only enacted for a one-year period, to the consternation of student loan advocates. Additionally, he ended the government-subsidized interest payments for graduate students while in school, as well as the six-month grace period for undergrads. These measures add thousands of dollars to the typical cost of a degree.

Predatory student loan collectors unleashed

With $67 billion of student loans in default, the Obama Education Department has enlisted an army of private debt-collection companies to put the squeeze on borrowers. Education Department contracts—featuring commissions of as much as 20 percent of recoveries—collected $11 billion in defaults last year, and has netted $1 billion in commissions.

As a whole, Obama has continued the overall trend of pricing the working class out of higher education, while creating a section of educated but desperate students working (if they are lucky) for the rest of their lives to pay off their student loan debt.

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OBAMA HAS HIRED AN ARMY OF DEBT COLLECTORS TO GO AFTER STUDENT LOAN DEADBEATS

MARCH 28, 2012

By Mandi Woodruff | Business Insider

When students default on their federal loans, debt collectors are hired out just like any other to track them down and wrangle some kind of payment.

Problem is they may be asking borrowers for more than they should have to pay under federal law, Bloomberg’s John Hechinger reports:

“With $67 billion of student loans in default, the Education Department is turning to an army of private debt-collection companies to put the squeeze on borrowers. Working on commissions that totaled about $1 billion last year, these government contractors face growing complaints that they are violating federal laws by insisting on stiff payments, even when borrowers’ incomes make them eligible for leniency.”

The fact that students are letting their loans fall into collection at all is what’s truly troubling here.

Collectors will do whatever it takes to weasel as much out of your pocket as they can (they’ve got their commission in mind), but don’t give in.

The best thing federal-backed student loans have going for them is the host of repayment options available to borrowers after they’ve graduated. The key is being proactive enough to take advantage of them.

Here’s how:

Loan rehabilitation

“Only borrowers who are already in default will be contacted by a collection agency,” FinAid.org’s Mark Kantrowitztold Your Money. “(Students) should ask about the process for rehabilitating their loans. Once the loans are rehabilitated, they should be able to obtain income-based repayment (IBR).”

Ten percent of borrowers are eligible for IBR but a fraction of that actually take advantage of it. The beauty of IBR is that it caps your monthly loan payment at 15% of your income and forgives any remaining balance after 25 years in repayment.

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PETER SCHIFF: HOW GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS DRIVE UP COLLEGE TUITIONS

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THE COST OF A COLLEGE DEGREE IN THE U.S. SOARS 12 FOLD

AUGUST 18, 2012

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The cost of obtaining a university education in the U.S. has soared 12 fold over the past three decades, a sign the educational system is in need of reform, according to lawmakers in both parties.

This chart shows college tuition and fees have surged 1,120 percent since records began in 1978, four times faster than the increase in the consumer price index. Medical expenses have climbed 601 percent, while the price of food has increased 244 percent over the same period.

“Soaring tuition and shrinking incomes are making college less and less affordable,” Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said in an e-mailed statement. “For millions of young people, rising college costs are putting the American dream on hold, or out of reach.”

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PETER SCHIFF: IS A COLLEGE DEGREE WORTH THE COST? YOU DECIDE.

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34 DEPRESSING FACTS ABOUT THE JOB MARKET FOR COLLEGE GRADS

By Scott Gerber, Young Entrepreneur Council

The class of 2012 is graduating from community colleges, four-year colleges and universities all across America this month. When they toss their caps in the air, I suggest you duck — because this graduating class has a lot to protest.

While overall U.S. unemployment has dropped to about 8 percent — in part because many Americans have simply given up looking for work — recent college grads face a much more dismal reality: one out of every two was either jobless or underemployed in 2011.

To combat this epidemic, the Young Entrepreneur Council recently launched the national #FixYoungAmerica campaign. In April, we held a #FixYoungAmerica rally on 300+ college campuses in all 50 states, in which tens of thousands of students participated, and next week, we’ll release #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of essays written by nonprofit founders, educators, politicians and entrepreneurs who shared their own entrepreneurial solutions for ending the youth unemployment crisis in America.

Unfortunately, throughout the campaign, what we’ve really uncovered is just how bad chronic unemployment is for our young people, including college grads. The fact is, young Americans need all the help they can get, and they need it now.

What’s the class of 2012 up against? Take a look for yourself:

1. 1 out of 2 college grads — about 1.5 million, or about 53.6 percent, of all bachelor’s degree holders age 25 or younger — were unemployed or underemployed in 2011.

2. 3 in 5 young college grads are unemployed or underemployed in the Mountain West region of the United States. The next-worst regions for being a young college grad looking for work? The Southeast and Pacific regions.

3. The share of employed young adults (aged 18-24) is at a 60-year low. It has dropped to 54.3 percent — the lowest level since government began tracking it in 1948.

4. Only 56 percent of American teenagers believe they’ll be as well off as their parents financially– a 37 percent drop since 2011.

5. Only 18 percent of American teens say they’ll be financially independent when they turn 20 – compared to 44 percent in 2011.

6. The 15-percentage-point gap between young and working-age adults right now is the widest in recorded history.

7. While overall unemployment is around 8 percent, 29.1 percent of young male veterans and 36.1 percent of young female veterans  age 18-24 were unemployed 2011—compared to 17.6 and 14.5 percent, respectively, of non-veteran young men and women.

8. Young American women still earn less than young American men, regardless of their educational background.

9. According to some researchers, up to 95 percent of job positions lost occurred in low-tech, middle-income jobs like bank tellers. Gains in jobs are going to workers at the top or the bottom, not in the middle.

10. More college graduates are getting low-level jobs, period. U.S. bachelor’s degree holders are more likely to wait tables, tend bar or become food-service helpers than to be employed as engineers, physicists, chemists or mathematicians combined — 100,000 versus 90,000.

11. More recent grads are working in administrative jobs than in all professional computer jobs out there — 163,000 versus 100,000.

12. More college grads are cashiers, retail clerks or customer representatives than engineers – 125,000 versus 80,000, to be exact.

13. Of young Americans aged 18-34, half have taken a job they didn’t want in order to pay bills.

14.  24 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 said they took an unpaid job for work experience.

15. According to new U.S. government projections, only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of job openings in the next eight years will require a bachelor’s degree or higher. Most job openings by 2012 will be in low-wage professions like retail sales, fast food and truck driving.

16.  More than 35 percent of young Americans went back to school because of the economy.

17. 31 percent of young Americans postponed getting married or having a baby due to their financial situation.

18. One in four young Americans moved back in with their parents AFTER living on their own.

19.  Median earnings for young African Americans are only 75 percent of the earnings of whites. For young Latinos, the number is even lower — 68 percent.

20. Almost half – 41.3 percent – of 25 to 34-year-old young Americans spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent every month.

21. Credit card debt has risen 81 percent among young Americans aged 25-34 since 1989.

22. The student loan default rate rose 31 percent over just two years.

23. Student loan debt is reaching debt-bubble proportions — it recently topped $1 trillion (and exceeds total credit card debt in the United States).

24. Two out of three college students now graduate with student loan debt. Average tuition is three times higher today than in 1980.

25. Average student loan debt is now more than $25,000.

26. African American students are more likely to take out student loans and graduate, on average, with higher levels of debt.

27. Federal student loan default rate is 8.8 percent and projected to rise.

28. Although 92 percent of young Americans aged 21-24 said they felt entrepreneurship education was vital given the realities of the new economy and job market, more than half (56 percent) were never offered entrepreneurship classes at all.*

29. Most – 62 percent – students who were offered entrepreneurship classes said they didn’t feel the classes prepared them enough to start a business.*

30. Of employed young Americans aged 18-34, less than half think they have the education and training they need to get ahead in their jobs today.

31. More than 53 percent of U.S. companies say they’re having trouble finding skilled non-managerial employees, in spite of the high number of unemployed Americans.

32. 72 percent of youth said they do not feel they have enough support from banks, up from 65 percent in 2010.*

33. 86 percent of recent grads feel they do not have enough support from the government (YEC/Buzz 2011).*

34. Finally, 52 percent of young Americans 18-29 feel the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction.

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THESE CHARTS SHOW HOW DESPERATE YOUNG PEOPLE ARE FOR JOBS

JUNE 13, 2012

By Aimee Groth | Business Insider

Today’s college grads have it tough, but those with less education are up against even greater odds.

Researchers at Rutgers — The State University of New Jersey just published a report, “Left Out. Forgotten? Recent High School Graduates and the Great Recession,” looking at how those with high school diplomas are faring in today’s job market.

The report, led by researchers Dr. Carl Van Horn and Dr. Cliff Zukin, surveyed 544 recent high school graduates from the classes of 2006 to 2011, with a weighted demographic representative of the U.S. population. They found that a shocking 88 percent took low-paying, temporary jobs with an average wage of $7.50/hour after graduating.

“There is tremendous pessimism among high school graduates about what the future holds for them,” the researchers wrote.

In other words, the future for this demographic is bleak.

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DOWNWARD MOBILITY HAUNTS UNITED STATES EDUCATION

By Sean Coughlan | BBC News education correspondent

An integral part of the American Dream is under threat – as “downward mobility” seems to be threatening the education system in the United States.

The idea of going to college – and the expectation that the next generation will be better educated and more prosperous than its predecessor – has been hardwired into the ambitions of the middle classes in the United States.

But there are deep-seated worries about whether this upward mobility is going into reverse.

Andreas Schleicher, special adviser on education at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), says the US is now the only major economy in the world where the younger generation is not going to be better educated than the older.

“It’s something of great significance because much of today’s economic power of the United States rests on a very high degree of adult skills – and that is now at risk,” says Mr Schleicher.

“These skills are the engine of the US economy and the engine is stuttering,” says Mr Schleicher, one of the world’s most influential experts on international education comparisons.

Lack of opportunity

The annual OECD education statistics show that only about one in five young adults in the US reaches a higher level of education than their parents – among the lowest rates of upward mobility in the developed world.

A steelworker in Ohio in 1950 drives away his new Dodge, paid for with a $320 monthly wage. The steelworks have shut and the town is now in the “rust belt”

For a country whose self-image is based on optimism and opportunity, the US is now a country where someone with poorly-educated parents is less likely to reach university than in almost any other industrial country.

It’s the opposite of a Hollywood ending.

And about one in five young adults in the US are now defined in educational terms as “downwardly mobile” – such as children who have graduate parents but who don’t reach university level themselves.

When the global story of higher education is so much about rapid expansion and the race to increase graduates, it’s almost counter-intuitive to find a powerhouse such as the United States on the brink of going backwards.

It’s easy to overlook the dominance of US higher education in the post-war era – or how closely this was linked to its role as an economic, scientific and military superpower.

The US had the first great mass participation university system. The GI Bill, which provided subsidies for a generation of World War II veterans, supported three times as many people as are currently in the entire UK university sector.

An American born in the 1950s was about twice as likely to become a graduate than in the rest of the industrialised world.

As the cars ran off the production lines in Detroit, the graduates were leaving the universities to become part of an expanding middle class.

Overtaken

But the US university system is no longer the only skyscraper on the block. It’s been overtaken by rivals in Asia and Europe.

President Obama has promised that by 2020 the US will regain its position as the global leader in the proportion of young people becoming graduates

Today’s young Americans have a below-average chance of becoming a graduate, compared with other industrialised economies.

The US Education Secretary Arne Duncan, in a speech a few weeks ago, asked how the US had in “the space of a generation” tumbled from first place to 14th in graduation rates.

So what’s gone wrong?

The spiralling cost of higher education in the United States is often cited as a barrier – and the collective student debt has exceeded a trillion dollars.

But Andreas Schleicher argues that a deeper problem is rooted in the inequalities of the school system.

He says that the level of social segregation and the excessive link between home background and success in school is “cutting off the supply” between secondary school and university.

The meritocratic, migrant energy in US culture is no longer operating in the school system.

“If you lose the confidence in the idea that effort and investment in education can change life chances, it’s a really serious issue,” says Mr Schleicher.

Middle-class squeeze

A US Senate committee examined this sense of imperilled optimism, in a hearing called Helping More Young People Achieve the American Dream.

The economist Miles Corak was among the expert witnesses – and he says the US education system reflects a wider picture of the “hollowing out” of the middle class.

“What you’re seeing is the inequality of the labour market being echoed in education.”

Prof Corak describes a polarising jobs market, with the very rich and very poor diverging – and a collapse in jobs in the middle ground, such as clerical or manufacturing jobs.

For such families, sending their children to college had once been a “defining metaphor for the country”.

But it seems that the education system is no longer holding the door open to the brightest and the best, regardless of background.

The Philadelphia-based Pew research group compared the outcomes of young people in 10 western countries, in a project called Does America Promote Mobility as Well as Other Countries?

It found the US had the strongest link between family wealth and educational success – and the lowest mobility. Advantage and disadvantage were being further amplified in education.

Research manager Diana Elliott says in the US “income has a pervasive hold on mobility”.

Insecurity

Another study by Pew, against the backdrop of recession, examined the phenomenon of downward mobility and found that a third of adults classified as middle class would slip out of that status during their adult life.

While the US has slipped down in graduate numbers, individual universities remain at the top of international university league tables

It reflected a modern sense of insecurity, where families could no longer assume their children would be as prosperous. In fact, about a quarter of children born into the middle class were expected to slip downwards.

None of this matches the image of the US as a place for fresh starts and self-made millionaires. Modern American history almost assumes an upward incline.

But evidence of this downward drift has been gathering in recent years. A study by the University of California, Berkeley, showed that school leavers in California in 1970 were more likely to stay on to higher education than their counterparts in 2000.

In terms of international education, that’s like finding out that athletes were running faster 40 years ago.

Such current difficulties should not be mistaken for any kind of end-of-empire zeitgeist, says Philip Altbach, director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College.

Instead he says it’s a more practical question of money. The rising cost of higher education is a deterrent. And there is a wider question of finance for higher education at state level.

He also says there is another “dirty little secret” of US higher education – that too many people who enrol at university fail to graduate – which pushes down the graduation rate in international comparisons.

Bouncing back

Andreas Schleicher also says there are reasons for optimism. Almost more than any other country, he says the US has the financial resources, the capacity and the flexibility to change course quickly and to catch up.

There are already plans to recover lost ground. President Barack Obama has been re-elected with a promise that the US will regain its global first place in graduation rates by 2020.

And as part of this drive, the American Association of Community Colleges, in a project called Reclaiming the American Dream, has an ambitious plan to create five million more college places.

But it’s an aspiration against a gloomy background.

“The American dream has stalled,” the association’s report says, describing a society where typical family incomes having been falling for more than a decade.

“A child born poor in the United States today is more likely to remain poor than at any time in our history. Many other nations now outperform us in educational attainment and economic mobility, and the American middle class shrinks before our eyes.”

It’s as if It’s A Wonderful Life had been remade – without the happy ending.

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CHARLOTTE ISERBYT – THE SECRET HISTORY OF WESTERN EDUCATION

Charlotte Thompson Iserbyt served as the head of policy at the Department of Education during the first administration of President Ronald Reagan. While working there she discovered a long term strategic plan by the tax exempt foundations to transform America from a nation of rugged individualists and problem solvers to a country of servile, brainwashed minions who simply regurgitate whatever they’re told.

Part one of our exclusive interview with Iserbyt breaks down how conditioning/training under a corporate agenda has replaced traditional education, leading to a deliberate dumbing down of Americans. Iserbyt further explains how Reagan signed agreements merging the U.S. and Soviet systems under the United Nations banner, turning over education and many other areas of public policy to global control.

This 74 minute exposé is a must see for anyone who wants to truly know why the education system is deliberately crafted to produce human drones with no critical thinking whose only skills are to be subservient, trust authority and follow orders.

READ FULL E-BOOK FREE: THE DELIBERATE DUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

Visit Iserbyt’s website at http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

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AMERICAN SCHOOLS ARE NOW JUST BREEDING GROUNDS FOR COMPLIANT CITIZENS

By John W. Whitehead | The Rutherford Institute

OCTOBER 20, 2012

“[P]ublic school reform is now justified in the dehumanizing language of national security, which increasingly legitimates the transformation of schools into adjuncts of the surveillance and police state… students are increasingly subjected to disciplinary apparatuses which limit their capacity for critical thinking, mold them into consumers, test them into submission, strip them of any sense of social responsibility and convince large numbers of poor minority students that they are better off under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system than by being valued members of the public schools.”—Professor Henry Giroux

For those hoping to better understand how and why we arrived at this dismal point in our nation’s history, where individual freedoms, privacy and human dignity have been sacrificed to the gods of security, expediency and corpocracy, look no farther than America’s public schools.

Once looked to as the starting place for imparting principles of freedom and democracy to future generations, America’s classrooms are becoming little more than breeding grounds for compliant citizens. The moment young people walk into school, they increasingly find themselves under constant surveillance: they are photographed, fingerprinted, scanned, x-rayed, sniffed and snooped on. Between metal detectors at the entrances, drug-sniffing dogs in the hallways and surveillance cameras in the classrooms and elsewhere, many of America’s schools look more like prisons than learning facilities.

Add to this the epidemic of arresting schoolchildren and treating them as if they are dangerous criminals, and you have the makings of a perfect citizenry for our emerging police state—one that can be easily cowed, controlled, and directed.

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THE BIG WALL STREET BANKS ARE ABOUT TO ENTER A DEATH SPIRAL

THE COMING DERIVATIVES PANIC THAT WILL DESTROY GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKETS

Michael Snyder
Economic Collapse
Dec 5, 2012

When financial markets in the United States crash, so does the U.S. economy.  Just remember what happened back in 2008.  The financial markets crashed, the credit markets froze up, and suddenly the economy went into cardiac arrest.  Well, there are very few things that could cause the financial markets to crash harder or farther than a derivatives panic.  Sadly, most Americans don’t even understand what derivatives are.  Unlike stocks and bonds, a derivative is not an investment in anything real.  Rather, a derivative is a legal bet on the future value or performance of something else.  Just like you can go to Las Vegas and bet on who will win the football games this weekend, bankers on Wall Street make trillions of dollars of bets about how interest rates will perform in the future and about what credit instruments are likely to default.  Wall Street has been transformed into a gigantic casino where people are betting on just about anything that you can imagine.  This works fine as long as there are not any wild swings in the economy and risk is managed with strict discipline, but as we have seen, there have been times when derivatives have caused massive problems in recent years.  For example, do you know why the largest insurance company in the world, AIG, crashed back in 2008 and required a government bailout?  It was because of derivatives.  Bad derivatives trades also caused the failure of MF Global, and the 6 billion dollar lossthat JPMorgan Chase recently suffered because of derivatives made headlines all over the globe.  But all of those incidents were just warm up acts for the coming derivatives panic that will destroy global financial markets.  The largest casino in the history of the world is going to go “bust” and the economic fallout from the financial crash that will happen as a result will be absolutely horrific.

There is a reason why Warren Buffett once referred to derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction”.  Nobody really knows the total value of all the derivatives that are floating around out there, but estimates place the notional value of the global derivatives market anywhere from 600 trillion dollars all the way up to 1.5 quadrillion dollars.

Keep in mind that global GDP is somewhere around 70 trillion dollars for an entire year.  So we are talking about an amount of money that is absolutely mind blowing.

So who is buying and selling all of these derivatives?

Well, would it surprise you to learn that it is mostly the biggest banks?

According to the federal government, four very large U.S. banks “represent 93% of the total banking industry notional amounts and 81% of industry net current credit exposure.”

These four banks have an overwhelming share of the derivatives market in the United States.  You might not be very fond of “the too big to fail banks“, but keep in mind that if a derivatives crisis were to cause them to crash and burn it would almost certainly cause the entire U.S. economy to crash and burn.  Just remember what we saw back in 2008.  What is coming is going to be even worse.

It would have been really nice if we had not allowed these banks to get so large and if we had not allowed them to make trillions of dollars of reckless bets.  But we stood aside and let it happen.  Now these banks are so important to our economic system that their destruction would also destroy the U.S. economy.  It is kind of like when cancer becomes so advanced that killing the cancer would also kill the patient.  That is essentially the situation that we are facing with these banks.

It would be hard to overstate the recklessness of these banks.  The numbers that you are about to see are absolutely jaw-dropping.  According to the Comptroller of the Currency, four of the largest U.S. banks are walking a tightrope of risk, leverage and debt when it comes to derivatives.  Just check out how exposed they are…

JPMorgan Chase

Total Assets: $1,812,837,000,000 (just over 1.8 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $69,238,349,000,000 (more than 69 trillion dollars)

Citibank

Total Assets: $1,347,841,000,000 (a bit more than 1.3 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $52,150,970,000,000 (more than 52 trillion dollars)

Bank Of America

Total Assets: $1,445,093,000,000 (a bit more than 1.4 trillion dollars)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $44,405,372,000,000 (more than 44 trillion dollars)

Goldman Sachs

Total Assets: $114,693,000,000 (a bit more than 114 billion dollars – yes, you read that correctly)

Total Exposure To Derivatives: $41,580,395,000,000 (more than 41 trillion dollars)

That means that the total exposure that Goldman Sachs has to derivatives contracts is more than 362 times greater than their total assets.

To get a better idea of the massive amounts of money that we are talking about, just check out this excellent infographic.

How in the world could we let this happen?

And what is our financial system going to look like when this pyramid of risk comes falling down?

Our politicians put in a few new rules for derivatives, but as usual they only made things even worse.

According to Nasdaq.com, beginning next year new regulations will require derivatives traders to put up trillions of dollars to satisfy new margin requirements.

Swaps that will be allowed to remain outside clearinghouses when new rules take effect in 2013 will require traders to post $1.7 trillion to $10.2 trillion in margin, according to a report by an industry group.

The analysis from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, using data sent in anonymously by banks, says the trillions of dollars in cash or securities will be needed in the form of so-called “initial margin.” Margin is the collateral that traders need to put up to back their positions, and initial margin is money backing trades on day one, as opposed to variation margin posted over the life of a trade as it fluctuates in value.

So where in the world will all of this money come from?

Total U.S. GDP was just a shade over 15 trillion dollars last year.

Could these rules cause a sudden mass exodus that would destabilize the marketplace?

Let’s hope not.

But things are definitely changing.  According to Reuters, some of the big banks are actually urging their clients to avoid new U.S. rules by funneling trades through the overseas divisions of their banks…

Wall Street banks are looking to help offshore clients sidestep new U.S. rules designed to safeguard the world’s $640 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market, taking advantage of an exemption that risks undermining U.S. regulators’ efforts.

U.S. banks such as Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Goldman Sachs (GS.N) have been explaining to their foreign customers that they can for now avoid the new rules, due to take effect next month, by routing trades via the banks’ overseas units, according to industry sources and presentation materials obtained by Reuters.

Unfortunately, no matter how banks respond to the new rules, it isn’t going to prevent the coming derivatives panic.  At some point the music is going to stop and some big financial players are going to be completely and totally exposed.

When that happens, it might not be just the big banks that lose money.  Just take a look at what happened with MF Global.

MF Global has confessed that it “diverted money” from customer accounts that were supposed to be segregated.  A lot of customers may never get back any of the money that they invested with those crooks.  The following comes from a Huffington Post article about the MF Global debacle, and it might just be a preview of what other investors will go through in the future when a derivatives crash destroys the firms that they had their money parked with…

Last week when customers asked for excess cash from their accounts, MF Global stalled. According to a commodity fund manager I spoke with, MF Global’s first stall tactic was to claim it lost wire transfer instructions. Then instead of sending an overnight check, it sent the money snail mail, including checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The checks bounced. After the checks bounced, the amounts were still debited from customer accounts and no one at MF Global could or would reverse the check entries. The manager has had to intervene to get MF Global to correct this.

How would you respond if your investment account suddenly went to “zero” because the firm you were investing with “diverted” customer funds for company use and now you have no way of recovering your money?

Keep an eye on the large Wall Street banks.  In a previous article, I quoted a New York Times article entitled “A Secretive Banking Elite Rules Trading in Derivatives” which described how these banks dominate the trading of derivatives…

On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan.

The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

According to the article, the following large banks are represented at these meetings: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup.

When the casino finally goes “bust”, you will know who to blame.

Without a doubt, a derivatives panic is coming.

It will cause the financial markets to crash.

Several of the “too big to fail” banks will likely crash and burn and require bailouts.

As a result of all this, credit markets will become paralyzed by fear and freeze up.

Once again, we will see the U.S. economy go into cardiac arrest, only this time it will not be so easy to fix.

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DERIVATIVES: THE UNREGULATED GLOBAL CASINO FOR BANKS

A month ago Infowars.com presented the latest derivatives update from the OCC, according to which the Top 5 US banks held 95.7%, or $221 trillion of the entire US derivative universe (which in turn is just a modest portion of the entire $707 trillion in global derivatives as of June 30, 2011). And while the numbers of all this credit money, because that’s what it is, and the variation margin associated with all these trillions in bets is all too real, appeared impressive on paper, they did not do this story enough service.

So to present, visually this time, the US derivatives problem, we go to our friends from Demonocracy, who put the $229 trillion derivative ‘issue’ in its proper context. For those curious what a paper equivalent of bailing out the US derivatives market would look like, you will soon know.

SHORT STORY: Pick something of value, make bets on the future value of “something”, add contract & you have a derivative. Banks make massive profits on derivatives, and when the bubble bursts chances are the tax payer will end up with the bill. This visualizes the total coverage for derivatives (notional). Similar to insurance company’s total coverage for all cars.

LONG STORY: A derivative is a legal bet (contract) that derives its value from another asset, such as the future or current value of oil, government bonds or anything else. Ex- A derivative buys you the option (but not obligation) to buy oil in 6 months for today’s price/any agreed price, hoping that oil will cost more in future. (I’ll bet you it’ll cost more in 6 months). Derivative can also be used as insurance, betting that a loan will or won’t default before a given date. So its a big betting system, like a Casino, but instead of betting on cards and roulette, you bet on future values and performance of practically anything that holds value. The system is not regulated what-so-ever, and you can buy a derivative on an existing derivative. Most large banks try to prevent smaller investors from gaining access to the derivative market on the basis of there being too much risk. Deriv. market has blown a galactic bubble, just like the real estate bubble or stock market bubble (that’s going on right now). Since there is literally no economist in the world that knows exactly how the derivative money flows or how the system works, while derivatives are traded in microseconds by computers, we really don’t know what will trigger the crash, or when it will happen, but considering the global financial crisis this system is in for tough times, that will be catastrophic for the world financial system since the 9 largest banks shown below hold a total of $228.72 trillion in Derivatives – Approximately 3 times the entire world economy. No government in world has money for this bailout. Lets take a look at what banks have the biggest Derivative Exposures and what scandals they’ve been lately involved in. Derivative Data Source: ZeroHedge.

One Hundred Dollars

$100 – Most counterfeited money denomination in the world. Keeps the world moving.

Ten Thousand Dollars

$10,000 – Enough for a great vacation or to buy a used car. Approximately one year of work for the average human on earth.

100 Million Dollars

$100,000,000 – Plenty to go around for everyone. Fits nicely on an ISO / Military standard sized pallet.$1 Million is the cash square on the floor.

1 Billion Dollars

$1,000,000,000 – This is how a billion dollars looks like. 10 pallets of $100 bills.

1 Trillion Dollars

$1,000,000,000,000 – When they throw around the word “Trillion” like it is nothing, this is the reality of $1 trillion dollars. The square of pallets to the right is $10 billion dollars. 100x that and you have the tower of $1 trillion that is 465 feet tall (142 meters).

Bank of New York Mellon

BNY has a derivative exposure of $1.375 Trillion dollars. Considered a too big to fail (TBTF) bank. It is currently facing (among others) lawsuits fraud and contract breach suits by a Los Angeles pension fund and New York pension funds, where BNY Mellon allegedly overcharged the funds on many millions of dollars and concealed it.

State Street Financial

State Street has a derivative exposure of $1.390 Trillion dollars. Too big to fail (TBTF) bank. It has been charged by California Attorney General (among other) lawsuits for massive fraud on California’s CalPERS and CalSTRS pension funds – similar to BNY.

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley has a derivative exposure of $1.722 Trilion dollars. Its a too big to fail (TBTF) bank. It recently settled a lawsuit for over-paying its employees while accepting the tax payer funded bailout. Vice Chairman of Morgan Stanley had a license plate that said “2BG2FAIL” on his Porsche Cayenne Turbo. All this while $250 million of bailout money ended up in the hands of Waterfall TALF Opportunity, run by the Morgan Stanley’s owners’ wives– Marry a banker for a $250M tax-payer cash injection. The bank also got a SECRET $2.041 Trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve during the crisis, beyond the tax payer bailout.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has a derivative exposure of $3.332 Trillion dollars. Its a too big to fail (TBTF) bank. WF has been charged for its role in allegedly pursuing illegal foreclosures and deceptive loan servicing. Wells Fargo was just slapped with a $85 million fine by Federal Reserve for putting good credit borrowers into bad-credit rating (high rate) loans. In March 2010, Wachovia (owned by Wells Fargo) paid $110 million fine for allowing transactions connected to drug smuggling and a $50 million fine for failing to monitor cash used to ship 22 tons of cocaine. It also failed to monitor $378.4 billion (that’s $378400 millions dollars) worth of transactions to Mexican “casas de cambio” (think WesternUnion, anonymous cash transfer) usually linked to drug cartels. Beyond that, WF lets its’ VIP employees live in foreclosed mansions. WF knows how to cash your legit check, then claim “fraud” and close your account. WF also re-orders your transactions to create more overdraft fees. Wells Fargo’s Wachovia also got aSECRET $159 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve.Wells Fargo paid NO taxes in 2008-2010 and had a tax rate of NEGATIVE 1.4% while making $49 billion in profit during the same time.

HSBC

HSBC has a derivative exposure of $4.321 Trilion dollars. HSBC is a Hong Kong based bank and its original name is The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited.You will find HSBC working a lot with JP Morgan Chase. Both HSBC and JP Morgan Chase have strong interest in gold & precious metals. HSBC and JP Morgan Chase are often involved together in financial scandals. Lately HSBC has been sued for allegedly