"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."
March 11, 2010 Bleaching Out Historical Religious Expression "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's (Matt. 22:21). Secularists and strict separationists like to point to this verse to show that even Jesus opposed mixing religion and politics. We don't live under Caesar, and even if we did, Caesar would be bound to follow God's limitations on his civil office because God's image is stamped on him. Jesus would have told Caesar, "Render unto God the things that are God's."
Many modern civil governments contend that they rule at no one's discretion. Their legitimacy is self-imposed. It's no wonder that secularists attack any suggestion that might lead to the truth civil government is under God’s sovereign rule and the freedoms of citizens are God-ordained and not a gift from the State. In a 1982 message, Francis Schaeffer made the following point:
We must understand something very thoroughly. If the state gives the rights, it can take them away—they're not inalienable. If the states give the rights, they can change them and manipulate them. But this was not the view of the founding fathers of this country. They believed, although not all of them were individual Christians, that there was a Creator and that this Creator gave the inalienable rights—this upon which our country was founded and which has given us the freedoms which we still have—even the freedoms which are being used now to destroy the freedoms.
- by Gary DeMar / American Vision
C4L@CPAC 2010 - Judge Napolitano Interview Campaign for Liberty's Kevin Brett interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano at CPAC 2010.
Obama's Message to Schoolchildren Ultimately, Obama's message was collectivist. But -- and here's the irony -- it was collectivist in a way that conservatives approve. They scream bloody murder if they think Obama will tell kids to support his health-care "reform." But if he tells them they should stay in school in order to help the country, they have no problem with that.
To take this a step further, I would like to suggest that any presidential address to schoolchildren is objectionable, regardless of the message. The very appearance of a president before schoolchildren carries the implicit and objectionable lesson that he is their leader. The presidency has come to symbolize "the nation." Today the occupant of that office is not merely the "chief executive" who enforces the law. He is seen as far more than that. He is seen as the embodiment of the people. Anytime anything big happens -- even if it's the death of a pop star -- the president is expected to express the people's feelings. It's as if our own private reactions to events are incomplete until he appears in public and speaks.
This, I submit, has no place in a free society. It is, in fact, a mild, democratized version of the Führer (leader) Principle. I am not saying that Obama aspires to be another Hitler (neither did George W. Bush before him). What I am saying is that the common attitude toward any White House occupant is to regard him as the pinnacle of a national hierarchy. He is The Leader. His family is even called "the first family."
That is the Führer Principle. You can see it in those who think the president is their commander in chief. Republicans said it about Bush, and I've heard at least one Democrat say it about Obama. After he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Obama described himself as commander in chief of the country. Never mind that under the Constitution the president is the commander in chief not of the American people but only of the armed forces, which is considerably different.
In his speech Obama played on the Führer Principle when he said, "I'm working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books and the equipment and the computers you need to learn." He's not doing that personally, of course, but as Louis XIV of France said, "L'etat c'est moi" -- I am the state.
No parent who cherishes freedom would bring his children up to believe that a president -- any president -- is their leader. Conservatives had no objection to that message. Once again, they show their true collectivist (nationalist) colors.
- by Sheldon Richman / Campaign For Liberty
Census: A Little Too Personal Last week Congress voted to encourage participation in the 2010 census. I voted "No" on this resolution for the simple, obvious reason that the census- like so many government programs- has grown far beyond what the framers of our Constitution intended. The invasive nature of the current census raises serious questions about how and why government will use the collected information. It also demonstrates how the federal bureaucracy consistently encourages citizens to think of themselves in terms of groups, rather than as individual Americans. The not so subtle implication is that each group, whether ethnic, religious, social, or geographic, should speak up and demand its "fair share" of federal largesse.
Article I, section 2 of the Constitution calls for an enumeration of citizens every ten years, for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats among the various states. In other words, the census should be nothing more than a headcount. It was never intended to serve as a vehicle for gathering personal information on citizens.
- by Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk
Congressman Paul discusses NationalID with Megyn Kelly
National ID Cards Won't Stop Terrorism or Illegal Immigration The US House of Representatives passed a spending bill last week that contains provisions establishing a national ID card, and the Senate is poised to approve the measure in the next few days. This week marks the American public’s last chance to convince their Senators they don't want to live in a nation that demands papers from its citizens as they go about their lives.
Absent a political miracle in the Senate, within two years every American will need a conforming national ID card to participate in ordinary activities. This REAL ID Act establishes a massive, centrally-coordinated database of highly personal information about American citizens: at a minimum their name, date of birth, place of residence, Social Security number, and physical characteristics. The legislation also grants open-ended authority to the Secretary of Homeland Security to require biometric information on IDs in the future. This means your harmless looking driver’s license could contain a retina scan, fingerprints, DNA information, or radio frequency technology.
- by Ron Paul / LewRockwell.com
Fed Audit Bitterly Opposed By Treasury The Treasury Department is vigorously opposed to a House-passed measure that would open the Federal Reserve to an audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a senior Treasury official said Monday. Instead, the official said, the Treasury prefers a substitute offered by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), and would like to see it enacted as part of the Senate bill.
Asked whether he supports the House-passed measure to open the Fed to an audit, which was cosponsored by Reps. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), a senior Treasury official said he is intensely opposed to it.
- by Ryan Grimm / The Huffington Post
China Ready to End Dollar Peg The head of China’s central bank has given the strongest signal yet that the country will move away from pegging its currency to the dollar, but he said any changes would be gradual.
- by Garry White / Telegraph UK
Senate Health Care Bill Dead on Arrival, Pro-Life House Democrats Say The health care reform bill passed by the Senate on Christmas Eve appears to be dead on arrival in the House, as seven anti-abortion Democrats intend to join the ranks of lawmakers who plan to vote against the legislation, Fox News has confirmed.
Seven new no votes would be enough to kill the Senate bill, and several more fence-sitting lawmakers are under pressure from both sides of the aisle.
- by Carl Cameron / FOXNews.com
The Empire Is Broke Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) discusses the budgetary limitations that expansive U.S. foreign policy imposes on domestic programs, the Dennis Kucunich resolution (co-sponsored by Rep. Paul) that will require a House of Representatives debate on the war in Afghanistan, wrongheaded government action on the coming dollar crisis and why the peace and liberty movement is best served by setting a good example and avoiding the politics of personality.
Collapse of the American Empire: Swift, Silent, Certain Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the next empire on the precipice." Yes, America is on the edge.
Dismiss his warning at your peril. Everything you learned, everything you believe and everything driving our political leaders is based on a misleading, outdated theory of history. The American Empire is at the edge of a dangerous precipice, at risk of a sudden, rapid collapse.
- by Paul B. Farrell / Market Watch
Is Greece the Future of America? It may be possible to look into America's future. How? Watch what's going on in Greece. According to the Washington Post, "Greece needs to raise about €23 billion [more than $31 billion] in April and May to pay debts coming due. Greek officials say that either is impossible, or would require punitive interest rates - making it harder to bring the budget under control - unless Europe helps out." So the Greek government awaits a bailout from Germany and France, but first it has to impress them that it is serious about fiscal austerity.
The Greek welfare state's annual deficit is about 13 percent of its GDP and its accumulated debt is 113 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the U.S. government's overall debt is now on track to reach 90 percent of GDP by 2020, more than $20 trillion. Just last week the Congressional Budget Office said that over the next decade, the annual budget deficit will be $1.2 trillion more than the Obama administration has guessed. The ten-year figure is now projected to be $9.76 trillion. The annual deficit is about 10 percent of GDP.
- by Sheldon Richman / Future of Freedom Foundation
Afghanistan War Debate Begins In Congress! (Finally!) pt.1 Congressman Kucinich
Ron Paul in Strong Support of Kucinich's Afghanistan Resolution Congressman Ron Paul speaks on the floor of the House in support of H Con Res 248 to bring the troops home from Afghanistan
War Versus Conservatism Congressman Duncan speaks on the House floor on March 10, 2010, about the continuing War in Afghanistan.
Why Are We Still in Afghanistan? "Conventional wisdom" among many Americans - and congress members - is that we need to be in Afghanistan to protect our national security.
Is it true?
A Little History
Before we discuss whether it is necessary for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan, a little history might be instructive.
- by Washington's Blog / Prison Planet
Neocons Still Pushing for Iran Strikes Former CIA and DIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the usual suspects who are calling for war with Iran, the practical limitations on the U.S. military's ability to fight a third concurrent war, the ploy of letting Israel start a war with Iran so the U.S. will be obligated to finish it, likely U.S. sponsorship of the terrorist organization (and former al Qaeda satellite group) Jundallah, birth defects in Iraq linked to depleted uranium and the terrible U.S. network news shows exemplified by NBC's Andrea Mitchell's conflicted reporting.
'4-8 Weeks Left for Diplomacy on Iran' Four to eight weeks remain to test the option of diplomatic engagement as means of stopping Iran's nuclear program before sanctions will likely be imposed, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told an audience of foreign military officers and government officials in Herzliya on Monday.
Speaking to dozens of participants in a terrorism and security program run by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Ayalon said the "time is not yet lost" to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions, but added that "it is of the essence."
- by Yaakov Lappin, The Jerusalem Post / Information Clearing
The Rogue Nation In spite of the fact that the United States faces no enemy anywhere in the world capable of opposing it on a battlefield, the Defense budget for 2011 will go up 7.1 percent from current levels. A lot of the new spending will be on drones, America's latest contribution to western civilization, capable of surveilling large areas on the ground and delivering death from the skies. It is a peculiarly American vision of warfare, with a "pilot" sitting at a desk half a world away and pressing a button that can kill a target far below. Hygienic and mechanical, it is a bit like a video game with no messy cleanup afterwards. The recently released United States Quadrennial Defense Review reports how the Pentagon will be developing a new generation of super drones that can stay airborne for long periods of time and can strike anywhere in the world and at any time to kill America's enemies. The super drones will include some that can fly at supersonic speeds and others that will be large enough to carry nuclear weapons. Some of the new drones will be designed for the navy, able to take off from aircraft carriers and project US power to even more distant hot spots. Drones are particularly esteemed by policymakers because as they are unmanned and can fly low to the ground they can violate someone;s airspace "accidentally" without necessarily resulting in a diplomatic incident.
Washington's embrace of drones as the weapon of choice for international assassination is one major reason why the United States has become the evil empire.
- by Philip Giraldi / Antiwar.com
Those Salem Witches - I Mean, American Terrorists When Najibullah Zazi pled “guilty” to “plotting a suicide bomb attack on New York City subways with al Qaeda training” last week, the Feds assured us yet again they’d thwarted "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation since September 11, 2001, "as Attorney General Eric Holder put it. No wonder anyone with even a shred of decency cries for an end to the War-on-Liberty-Disguised-as-a-War-on-Terror: the case against Mr. Zazi is about as substantive as a politician's promise.
Which explains why the man has steadfastly asserted his innocence since his arrest last September – until the goons railroading him threatened his parents: "The U.S Attorney in the Eastern District did a very good job exerting pressure," crowed New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "[Zazi's] mother stood the chance of being arrested [on immigration charges] … he realized if he didn't cooperate his family would be significantly impacted."
- by Becky Akers / The New American
The Few, the Proud, the High School Students Thank you George Bush and the 186 Republicans in the House and 43 Republicans in the Senate who passed the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.
Buried in Title IX – General Provisions, Part E – Uniform Provisions, Subpart 2 – Other Provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act in Section 9528 – Armed Forces Recruiter Access to Students and Student Recruiting Information, is the following provision relating to military recruiters and high school students:
- by Laurence M. Vance / LewRockwell.com
Jesse Ventura on - CNN's Larry King - Part 2 - Part 3 Jesse Ventura Discusses his New Book "American Conspiracies"
The Washington Post on 'Lunatic' 9/11 'Conspiracy Theorists' An editorial in the Washington Post yesterday slammed Japanese member of parliament Yukihisa Fujita because he "seems to think that America's rendering of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, is a gigantic hoax." His "ideas" about the terrorist attacks "are too bizarre, half-baked and intellectually bogus to merit serious discussion."
Fujita, the editorial added, is a member of "the lunatic fringe" who "have spawned a thriving subculture of conspiracy theorists at home and abroad", and "his views, rooted as they are in profound distrust of the United States, seem to reflect a strain of anti-American thought". The piece closes by suggesting that the "fact-averse" Fujita should be removed from office.
Among Fujita's "bizarre" views are "that shadowy forces with advance knowledge of the plot played the stock market to profit from it", "the fantastic idea that eight of the 19 hijackers are alive and well", and "that controlled demolition rather than fire or debris may be a more likely explanation for at least the collapse of the building at 7 World Trade Center".
Yet while serving out a hit piece against the global "9/11 Truth" movement, it is in fact the editors of the Washington Post who are demonstrably "fact-averse".
- by Jeremy R. Hammond / Information Clearing House
O'Reilly Lies Repeatedly About Study Interview with Richard Gage, Founder of Architects & Engineers For 9/11 Truth, Inc.; O'Reilly lies repeatedly about study re: Building 7. That is the topic on this "The American View" radio program which broadcasts live, daily, from 11 am to Noon (EST) and is now on the Liberty News Radio Network.
- by John Lofton / The American View
Proof that 9/11 Truthers Are Dangerous Most Americans don't know what kind of people 9/11 truthers really are. So they can't figure out whether or not they are dangerous.
Below is a list of people who question what our Government has said about 9/11.
The list proves - once and for all - that people who question 9/11 are dangerous.
- by Washington's Blog / Information Clearing House
CrossTalk on 9/11: Whodunit? In this edition of CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle asks his guests why discussion of the events of 9/11 continue to attrack so much attention but is all but banned in the media mainstream.
An Oscar for America's Hubris What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. According to press reports, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally found a movie about the Iraq war they liked because it is "apolitical." Actually, "The Hurt Locker" is just the opposite; it's an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others.
It is imperial hubris turned into an art form in which the Iraqi people appear as numbed bystanders when they are not deranged extras. It is a perverse tribute to the film's accuracy in portraying the insanity of the U.S. invasion-while ignoring its root causes-that the Iraqis are at no point treated as though they are important.
They never have been, at least in the American view. No Iraqi had anything to do with attacking us on 9/11, and while we are happy to have an excuse to grab their oil and deploy our bloated military arsenal, the people of Iraq are never more than an afterthought. Whatever motivates Iraqi characters in the movie to throw stones or blow themselves up is unimportant, for they are nothing more than props for a uniquely American-centered show. It is we who matter and they who are graced by our presence no matter how screwed up we may be.
- by Robert Scheer / TruthDig
Special Interests and Foreign Policy U.S. foreign policy matters, especially to other countries. Just ask the citizens of nations invaded or bombed by Washington, or suffering under American sanctions, or simply annoyed by our tendency to hector, pester and insist regarding all manner of issues, big and small.
Today Washington is deeply involved in a war in Afghanistan and ongoing civil strife in Iraq. The United States continues to threaten Iran with military action. Washington has promiscuously issued security guarantees throughout Asia and Europe. American bases and troops circle the globe; American ships and aircraft dominate the oceans and atmosphere. The price for this presence is high: at a time of budget crisis, the United States spends more, adjusted for inflation, on the military than at any point since World War II and accounts for nearly half the globe’s military spending.
So what issue is roiling Congress today? Whether the Ottoman Empire committed genocide against its Armenian subjects during World War I. It is a bizarre question. And it is being asked only because foreign policy has become yet another battlefield for influential interest groups.
- by Doug Bandow / The National Interest
U.S. Enriches Companies Defying Its Policy on Iran The federal government has awarded more than $107 billion in contract payments, grants and other benefits over the past decade to foreign and multinational American companies while they were doing business in Iran, despite Washington's efforts to discourage investment there, records show.
That includes nearly $15 billion paid to companies that defied American sanctions law by making large investments that helped Iran develop its vast oil and gas reserves.
- by Joe Becker and Ron Nixon / The New York Times
U.S. Government Confirms Sanctions Don't Work Even while employing sanctions against Iran, the U.S. government is confirming that sanctions do not work.
The Chinese government has threatened to impose sanctions on the United States if the U.S. government persists in its decision to sell weapons, including F-16s, to Taiwan. According to the New York Times, the threat was issued by a top Chinese military official, who did not specify what the sanctions would be. However, a possibility would be the wholesale dumping of U.S. government securities onto the international financial markets. Those instruments represent the enormous amounts of money that China has loaned the U.S. government to fund its enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Notwithstanding the U.S. government's steadfast insistence that its sanctions will induce Iranian government officials to submit to U.S. demands regarding its nuclear program, the U.S. government is steadfastly refusing to succumb to China's threat to impose sanctions on the United States.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger / Future of Freedom Foundation
U.S., NATO Intensify War Games Around Russia's Perimeter Along with plans to base anti-ballistic missile facilities in Poland near Russia's border (a 35 mile distance) and in Bulgaria and Romania across the Black Sea from Russia, Washington and the self-styled global military bloc it leads, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have arranged a series of military exercises on and near Russia's borders this year.
While the White House, Pentagon and State Department pro forma identify al-Qaeda, Taliban, Iran, North Korea, climate change, cyber attacks and a host of other threats as those the U.S. is girding itself to combat, Washington is demonstrating its true strategic objectives by deploying interceptor missiles and staging war games along Russia’s western and southern borders.
- by Rick Rozoff / Stop NATO
Dr. Ron Paul 3/8/2010 OSU - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 Jesse Ventura Discusses his New Book "American Conspiracies" This is a speech from Dr. Ron Paul given 3/8/2010. It was a free event held near Ohio State University campus.
March 5, 2010 Restore America by Getting Government Under Control At no other point in recent decades has the political climate presented us with so great an opportunity to return our nation to prosperity and to reclaim the freedoms big government has stripped away from us.
Thanks to the tremendous growth of the Internet, as well as the unprecedented interest in the message of individual liberty kindled by such vast access to information, millions of Americans are now organizing and taking action.
In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the country, and the unique people of each area I have visited have only deepened my conviction that no other idea can unify, excite and mobilize Americans as powerfully as the message of peace, prosperity and freedom.
- by Ron Paul / DesMoinesRegister.com
Ron Paul - Fox Business 03/03/10 On Wednesday, March 3, 2010, Congressman Paul appeared on Fox Business' "Varney & Company" to discuss the economy and the results of out of control federal spending.
My Plan for a Freedom President Since my 2008 campaign for the presidency I have often been asked, "How would a constitutionalist president go about dismantling the welfare-warfare state and restoring a constitutional republic?" This is a very important question, because without a clear road map and set of priorities, such a president runs the risk of having his pro-freedom agenda stymied by the various vested interests that benefit from big government.
Of course, just as the welfare-warfare state was not constructed in 100 days, it could not be dismantled in the first 100 days of any presidency. While our goal is to reduce the size of the state as quickly as possible, we should always make sure our immediate proposals minimize social disruption and human suffering. Thus, we should not seek to abolish the social safety net overnight because that would harm those who have grown dependent on government-provided welfare. Instead, we would want to give individuals who have come to rely on the state time to prepare for the day when responsibility for providing aide is returned to those organizations best able to administer compassionate and effective help - churches and private charities.
Now, this need for a transition period does not apply to all types of welfare. For example, I would have no problem defunding corporate welfare programs, such as the Export-Import Bank or the TARP bank bailouts, right away. I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for the CEO's of Lockheed Martin and Goldman Sachs.
No matter what the president wants to do, most major changes in government programs would require legislation to be passed by Congress
- by Ron Paul / LewRockwell.com
Operation Health Freedom Campaign for Liberty believes America's health care system is in desperate need of reform, but current proposals only cement the status quo by mandating further government interference and requiring Americans to either carry a government-approved plan or surrender more of their hard-earned money to the IRS.
There is a real alternative to yielding more power over our lives to Washington: implementing a plan centered on freedom, choice, and faith in the American taxpayers that they know how to spend their money better than some unelected bureaucrat.
In pursuit of this alternative, Campaign for Liberty is proud to unveil our Health Freedom Plan.
- by Campaign For Liberty
Followers of the Texas Congressman Represent the Real Conservative Movement When Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was censured by various GOP county committees in his own state recently, Graham blamed it on "Ron Paul people." When Florida governor and U.S. Senate candidate Charlie Crist was defeated in a Republican straw poll by challenger Marco Rubio in December, Crist complained it was nothing more than "Ron Paul people."
At this year's 2010 Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., there were plenty of Ron Paul people, enough to deliver the congressman a first-place victory in the annual CPAC straw poll, which has long been considered a decent gauge of the GOP's mindset.
But when Paul's victory was announced, much of the CPAC crowd booed. Those pesky Ron Paul people had struck again, it seemed. Many Republican establishment types quickly dismissed the poll. But two glaring questions remain: Who is it that Paul's critics prefer? And what kind of "people" are they?
- by Jack Hunter / Campaign For Liberty
Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Today's radicalized grassroots Right might be "extreme" in their devotion to limited government--they're also more traditionally conservative than anything the GOP has represented in decades.
Without record levels of welfare, unemployment and other government benefits as well as tax cuts last year, the income of U.S. households would have plunged by an astonishing $723 billion — more than four times the record $167 billion drop reported last month by the Commerce Department.
Moreover, for the first time since the Great Depression, Americans took more aid from the government than they paid in taxes.
The figures show the devastating results of the massive job losses last year and indicate that the economic recovery that began last summer is tenuous and has a long way to go before many Americans resume life as normal, analysts said.
- by Patrice Hill / The Washington Times
Liberal Delusions About Freedom To combat the town-hall protests that sprang up around the nation against President Obama's health-care plan, one of the favorite tactics employed by liberals was to question the sanity of the protesters. Anyone who showed up at such meetings angrily protesting Obama's plan to socialize medicine was termed a crazy.
That was especially true if a protester happened to be combining freedom of speech with the right to bear arms, as some protesters in New Hampshire and Arizona did. That drove liberals up the wall, given their deep antipathy toward gun rights and the Second Amendment.
But who really are the crazies around here? Let's examine the issue. Among the points that liberals made to buttress their claim that the protesters were crazy was the comparison that some of the protesters made between Obama's economic philosophy and that of the National Socialists under Hitler.
Indeed, according to the liberals, the notion that Obama's plan for America was socialistic was itself just crazy. After all, everyone knows that America has a free-enterprise system, one that was saved by Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, an economic program that Obama, like other liberals, extols and wishes to build upon.
Yet, let's analyze that comparison that some of the protesters were making and the insanity and irrationality that liberals claim it represents. I believe we'll find that when it comes to sanity and rationality, those protesters had a much firmer grip on reality than the liberals who are criticizing them.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger
Abortion and the Health Bill It's now becoming clear that Barack Obama is willing to put everything on the table in order to be the president who passes health-care reform. Everything, that is, except a ban on federal funding for abortion. Last September, the president promised that "no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place." Yet the legislation most likely to move forward in Congress would be the single greatest expansion of abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The White House knows how to turn Mr. Obama's September commitment into legislative action. I met with senior White House officials and told them that only adding a so-called Hyde Amendment to the health-care reform bills would fulfill the president's promise to protect Americans from subsidizing abortion. The Hyde Amendment dates back to the 1970s, when congressional leaders discovered that Medicaid was paying for nearly 300,000 abortions a year. Similar amendments have been added to health-care bills ever since. When confronted by House Minority Leader John Boehner about abortion funding during the health-care summit last week, the president dropped his head and looked down at the table. How revealing
- by Charmaine Yoest / Wall Street Journal
Who Poses the Greater Threat? While American politicians and intellectuals have not reached the depths of tyrants such as Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, they share a common vision. Tyrants denounce free markets and voluntary exchange. They are the chief supporters of reduced private property rights, reduced rights to profits, and they are anti-competition and pro-monopoly. They are pro-control and coercion, by the state. These Americans who run Washington, and their intellectual supporters, believe they have superior wisdom and greater intelligence than the masses. They believe they have been ordained to forcibly impose that wisdom on the rest of us. Like any other tyrant, they have what they consider good reasons for restricting the freedom of others. A tyrant's primary agenda calls for the elimination or attenuation of the market. Why? Markets imply voluntary exchange and tyrants do trust that people behaving voluntarily will do what the tyrant thinks they should do. Therefore, they seek to replace the market with economic planning and regulation, which is little more than the forcible superseding of other people's plans by the powerful elite.
We Americans have forgotten founder Thomas Paine's warning that "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
- by Walter E. Williams / Creators Syndicate
Is The Recovery Real? Happy news! The government has come up with a 5.9 percent GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2009. The recession is over.
Or is it? Statistician John Williams has informed us that 69 percent of this growth, or 4.1 percentage points, is the result of inventory accumulation. That leaves a 1.8 percent growth rate, and the 1.8 percent is likely due to the underestimate of inflation and other statistical problems.
The Federal Reserve's own monetary evidence contradicts the recovery assurances from Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. The Federal Reserve continues to pour massive reserves into the banks. The monetary base, which consists of currency in circulation and bank reserves (the basis for new loans), has surged from $850 billion in 2009 to $2.2 trillion on February 24.
Despite this potential for massive new money creation, the broadest measure of money growth is still contracting. The banks are too impaired and so are consumers for the banks to create new money by making loans.
The economy, in other words, is going nowhere.
- by Paul Craig Roberts / VDare.com
Central Banks Can't Stop Global Unraveling This is what happened in Japan. This is what is happening now in America. This will surely happen in Europe as EU-crats prepare to bail out Greece and Lord knows how many other countries. A short, terrible downturn may have been turned into a decade's worth of agony or worse. Of course, it doesn't have to be that bad for everyone. We can still buy gold and silver and take delivery. We can trim our debts and streamline our finances. We can do for ourselves, all the sensible things that government - and those who stand behind it - will not.
- by The Daily Bell
David Frum: Hatchet Man for Ben Bernanke David Frum has written an article for CNN, "Ron Paul's money plan is far from golden." It is an attack on anything resembling a gold coin standard. It is therefore a defense of central banking in general and the Federal Reserve System in particular.
Who is David Frum? He is a Canadian immigrant who studied history at Yale and earned a law degree at the Harvard Law School. He has always earned a living as a journalist. He has long been employed by the neoconservative movement. He became a U.S. citizen in 2007.
In 2001, he got a job at the White House as a speech writer. It was Frum who coined at least part of the phrase, "axis of evil," which identified North Korea, Iraq, and Iran as the three most dangerous tyrannies of the decade. George W. Bush used the phrase in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, his State of the Union Address after 9-11. That speech was part of his run-up for the Iraq War.
- by Gary North / LewRockwell.com
Frank Asks Bernanke to Probe Fed on Watergate, Iraq (Correct) House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank asked Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to investigate allegations of Fed involvement in the Watergate scandal and Iraqi weapons purchases in the 1970s and 1980s.
Frank, 69, said the Fed must address the charges because "continued concern about political interference" with the Fed and "allegations about a lack of transparency." Bernanke and other Fed officials are trying to fend off a measure offered by Paul, which passed the House in December, that would open the Fed to audits of interest-rate decisions.
"These specific allegations you've made I think are absolutely bizarre, and I have absolutely no knowledge of anything remotely like what you just described,” Bernanke told Paul, a Texas Republican who wrote the 2009 book "End the Fed," during last week's hearing.
- by Scott Lanman / Business Week
Ron Paul: Fed Needs to Clear the Air on its History The Federal Reserve may grow in power under the Senate's plans for financial reform, but Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) said on Washington Unplugged today that Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibilities, allowing the Fed to funnel money to whomever it pleases -- even possibly the Watergate burglars.
Regardless of whether such a plot is true, "it gives you a good reason to audit the Federal Reserve," Paul told moderator Bob Schieffer.
- by Stephanie Condon / CBS News
Big Brother Wants to Know All About You: The American Community Survey Over the past several years, I have been barraged with emails from Americans expressing their dismay over the American Community Survey, the latest census form to hit randomly selected households on a continuous basis. Unlike the traditional census, which collects data every ten years and is now underway, the American Community Survey is taken every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And at 28 pages (with an additional 16-page instruction packet), it contains some of the most detailed and intrusive questions ever put forth in a census questionnaire. These concern matters that the government simply has no business knowing, including a person's job, income, physical and emotional health, family status, place of residence and intimate personal and private habits.
- by John W. Whitehead / The Rutherford Institute
The Department of Homeland Security's top cybersecurity official told CNET on Wednesday that the department may eventually extend its Einstein technology, which is designed to detect and prevent electronic attacks, to networks operated by the private sector. The technology was created for federal networks.
Greg Schaffer, assistant secretary for cybersecurity and communications, said in an interview that the department is evaluating whether Einstein "makes sense for expansion to critical infrastructure spaces" over time.
- by Declan McCullagh / CNET
White House Cyber Czar: 'There Is No Cyberwar' Howard Schmidt, the new cybersecurity czar for the Obama administration, has a short answer for the drumbeat of rhetoric claiming the United States is caught up in a cyberwar that it is losing. "There is no cyberwar," Schmidt told Wired.com in a sit-down interview Wednesday at the RSA Security Conference in San Francisco. "I think that is a terrible metaphor and I think that is a terrible concept," Schmidt said. "There are no winners in that environment." Instead, Schmidt said the government needs to focus its cybersecurity efforts to fight online crime and espionage. His stance contradicts Michael McConnell, the former director of national intelligence who made headlines last week when he testified to Congress that the country was already in the midst of a cyberwar - and was losing it. Schmidt's official title is cyber-security coordinator at the White House, a job he took over just before Christmas. Schmidt has no budgetary authority, but he said that doesn't make him powerless, because his office is in the White House. He's been there before as an adviser to President George W. Bush
- by Ryan Singel / Wired
Ron Paul on Alex Jones TV - Part 2 Paul Exposes CIA & Federal Reserve's Drug Running Business
Climate Scientists Plot to Fight Back at Skeptics Undaunted by a rash of scandals over the science underpinning climate change, top climate researchers are plotting to respond with what one scientist involved said needs to be "an outlandishly aggressively partisan approach" to gut the credibility of skeptics.
In private e-mails obtained by The Washington Times, climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences say they are tired of "being treated like political pawns" and need to fight back in kind. Their strategy includes forming a nonprofit group to organize researchers and use their donations to challenge critics by running a back-page ad in the New York Times.
"Most of our colleagues don't seem to grasp that we're not in a gentlepersons' debate, we're in a street fight against well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules," Paul R. Ehrlich, a Stanford University researcher, said in one of the e-mails.
Some scientists question the tactic and say they should focus instead on perfecting their science, but the researchers who are organizing the effort say the political battle is eroding confidence in their work.
- by Stephen Dinan / The Washington Times
Genuine American Exceptionalism on Due Process The Obama administration has made explicitly clear its intention to deny civilian trials to scores of detainees, by sending some to military commissions and imprisoning others indefinitely without any charges. And for those cases where it has deigned to provide real due process -- such as its decision to try the 9/11 defendants in a criminal court -- it is moving in the wrong direction. Obama officials are clearly signaling their intention to reverse that decision and instead place those defendants before military commissions, and yesterday, yet another piece appeared -- this time in Politico -- describing the beautiful, loving, cooperative relationship between Rahm Emanuel and Lindsey Graham, which is now "embracing a wide-ranging deal pitched by Graham that would shut down the prison [at Guantanamo]; provide funding to move detainees to Thomson, Ill.; keep the Sept. 11 trials out of civilian courts; and create broad new powers to hold terror suspects indefinitely." And the endless cavalcade of Rahm-planted, Rahm-Was-Right articles (see the latest from the Post today) invariably features his opposition to civilian trials for accused Terrorists as proof of his Centrist though mistakenly rejected wisdom.
In contrast to America's still-growing refusal to accord basic due process to accused Terrorists, consider how Pakistan treats foreigners whom it apprehends within its borders on serious charges of Terrorism:
- by Glenn Greenwald / Salon
Why Would Anyone Ever Attack America? Longtime White House Press Corps reporter Helen Thomas discusses the culture of softball political journalism, Obamas continuance of the US nuclear ambiguity policy regarding Israel and John Brennans ridiculous response to the question, Why do the terrorists attack us?
Many Voices Calling for War with Iran Wanting to go to war with Iran has created some very strange bedfellows. Leading neoconservative Daniel Pipes' assertion that President Barack Obama can salvage his presidency and get reelected by attacking Iran is about as low as it gets, suggesting as it does that an act of war can and should serve as a diversion from a failed domestic agenda. The soldiers and civilians who would inevitably die in such a conflict might not agree with Pipes that all is fair in politics. They would no doubt consider themselves betrayed and manipulated by a venal and disconnected political leadership, but no matter. It would not be a first time a neocon would consider a non-neocon casualty little more than a disagreeable statistic.
Sarah Palin is on the Pipes bandwagon, showing up at the mid-February Nashville Tea Party convention sporting an Israeli flag lapel pin and subsequently urging the president to do the right thing in supporting Israel by attacking Iran. As she put it, President Obama would improve his chances of re-election by showing people how tough he is. Pipes is at least smart enough to understand the implications of what he was saying, but Palin apparently was just parroting a line fed to her by Bill Kristol or one of her other handlers. Even Dick Cheney found the Palin line to be too much, pointing out that no one should go to war for reasons of domestic politics. Whether he actually believes that or not is unclear.
But possibly the most bizarre commentary supporting war with Iran was penned by Anne Applebaum for the Washington Post on February 23rd.
- by Philip Giraldi / Antiwar.com
U.S. Tightens Missile Shield Encirclement Of China And Russia So far this year the United States has succeeded in inflaming tensions with China and indefinitely holding up a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia through its relentless pursuit of global interceptor missile deployments.
On January 29 the White House confirmed the completion of a nearly $6.5 billion weapons transfer to Taiwan which includes 200 advanced Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. Earlier in the same month it was reported that Washington is also to provide Taiwan with eight frigates which Taipei intends to equip with the Aegis Combat System that includes the capacity for ship-based Standard Missile-3 interceptors.
The Aegis sea-based component of the expanding U.S. interceptor missile system already includes Japan, South Korea and Australia, and with Taiwan added China would be justified in being apprehensive.
On February 28 the U.S. House and Senate foreign affairs committees permitted the "sale to Taiwan of missiles, helicopters and ships valued at about $6.4 billion" despite weeks of protests from China. "The U.S. Defense Department wants to sell Taiwan the most advanced Patriot anti-missile system….The system, valued at $2.8 billion, would add to Taiwan's network of 22 missile sites around the country...." [1]
- by Rick Rozoff / Stop NATO
Twelve New England Towns Demand 9/11 Reinvestigation A new movement to reinvestigate the 9/11 attacks is gaining pace in the US. With major public support, 12 towns are set to decide whether to ask the federal government for a new independent probe.
New York is dubbed as the Empire State for its wealth and resources and is rightfully regarded as America's most famous city, a beacon of fashion, finance and fast paced action.
New Hampshire is the Granite State of so-called self sufficiency. Less flash and cash, most famous for hosting the first U.S. presidential primary.
New York and New Hampshire are more than 200 miles apart, but for all that distance, the two US locations intersect on one issue: the 9/11 attacks. While it was in Manhattan where three buildings fell, the people of Keene, New Hampshire are pushing for a new probe to find out why.
At 81 years old, Gerhard Bedding devotes nearly all his time to the Vote for Answers campaign. Though the movement for a new 9/11 investigation began in the Big Apple, it's seeing more success in New Hampshire.
- by Russia Today
As Predicted, Pentagon Shooting Blamed On 9/11 Truth Just two days after we warned of false flag domestic attacks that would be blamed on the federal government's political adversaries were all but inevitable, a Californian man attacked the Pentagon last night in a shooting that wounded two police officers and has since been blamed on the John Patrick Bedell's advocacy for 9/11 truth.
On Wednesday we explained how a Southern Poverty Law Center report which demonized We Are Change 9/11 truth organizations in the same breath as violent racist skinhead groups was part of a preparatory set-up for violent domestic acts that would be blamed on anti-government extremists.
We pointed out that since examples of Americans committing violence in pursuit of their political beliefs, FBI patsy Timothy McVeigh aside, were thin on the ground, organizations like the SPLC were begging for such incidents to occur in order to provide the federal government with the pretext to crack down on dissent and silence free speech on the Internet.
Low and behold, last night 36-year-old John Patrick Bedell calmly walked up to a subway station immediately adjacent to the Pentagon building, pulled out a gun and opened fire at point blank range.
- by Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com
There are five reasons that the mainstream media is worthless.
1. Self-Censorship by Journalists
Initially, there is tremendous self-censorship by journalists.
- by Snardfarker
Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi'ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled because the Iranians and the Arabs cannot agree on whether to call the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf.
Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. For example, in exchange for faithful service, Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza.
Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars.
- by Paul Craig Roberts / VDare.com
It's Time for Israel's Friends To Condemn Its Acts Of Terrorism By and large a one-dimensional approach has characterised our approach to understanding the phenomenon of terrorism. However, the recent killing of a Hamas figure, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in Dubai should make us cast our net wider to focus also on state terrorism.
The Dubai police have claimed with almost undisputed evidence that the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind the killing. Israel has, as usual, maintained a policy of ambiguity by neither confirming nor denying Mossad's actions, although some of its political leaders, specifically the Opposition Leader, Tzipi Livni, have applauded the killing on the grounds that Mabhouh was a terrorist and deserved to be eliminated.
If it is proved beyond doubt that Mossad agents, using forged passports in the names of British, French, Irish, German and Australian citizens, perpetrated the act, the killing clearly underlines a disturbing aspect of Israeli behaviour.
It constitutes a blatant act of state terrorism, which places Israel in a position parallel to the very forces that it has unfailingly condemned as terrorist groups or networks.
- by Amin Saikal / Political Theatrics
Shaking Up Bible Prophecy End times' speculators look to the Bible for signs and wonders of the last days, then predict that the end is near because we experience the kind of natural disasters the Bible mentions. Earthquakes have always been happening--practically everyday. What make the earthquakes of the end times unique is what Gary DeMar sheds light on in today's show.
Wyoming Passes the Firearms Freedom Act Wyoming Senate passed HB95, the Firearms Freedom Act, by a vote of 30–0. (h/t Kristy Tyrney, Wyoming10A.org) The bill states: "A personal firearm, a firearm action or receiver, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in the state to be used or sold within the state is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of congress to regulate interstate commerce." The Wyoming House already passed the bill last week, and it will now be transmitted to Governor Freudenthal's desk for signature. In 2009, both Tennessee and Montana passed the Act into state law. Last week, Utah's Governor Herbert made that state the 3rd.
- by Michael Boldin / LewRockwell.com
Hooray For Starbucks The major news media was replete with reports over the weekend that the coffee company, Starbucks, "has no problem with customers packing heat while placing their orders. The coffee giant says it won't take issue with gun owners who take advantage of 'open carry' laws and bring firearms into their restaurant." To tell you the truth, I'm not sure why this is even considered "newsworthy." Perhaps because Starbucks is a Seattle-based company that caters to the "yuppie" crowd? Maybe because the anti-gun national news media is shocked and chagrined at Starbucks' statement? Who knows?
- by Chuck Baldwin / NewsWithViews
CPAC 2010 Liberty Forum On Thursday, February 18, hundreds of freedom activists gathered at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for "Liberty Forum 2010," one of C4L's featured events at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Speakers included C4L President John Tate, historian (and Forum emcee) Tom Woods, Judge Andrew Napolitano, and Congressman Ron Paul.
According to an expansive study by the Pew Research Center, the Millennial generation is the so-called "new face of America." Comprised of 50 million young people between the ages of 18-29, the Millennials have been so dubbed because they are the first generation to come of age in the new millennium. However, the study, which aims to shed light on what America might be like in the future, raises some provocative questions about this up-and-coming generation of citizens and leaders and what they might mean for the future of our nation.
- by John W. Whitehead / The Rutherford Institute
Christians Need To Prepare For Institutional Collapse - Including Religious Insitutions American institutions of government/politics, industry, and economics are in a state of collapse and the leaders of those institutions do not show the courage to correct their flawed paths to restore America to the independent, self sufficient republic of her birth.
The collapse of those institutions has the potential to cause America's institutionalized church-particularly American Christian Protestantism-to collapse as well.
Consequently those who claim to be Christians will need to begin making their own decisions on the world around them without the help of talking points of huge denominations or para-church organizations. Before rank-and-file Christians consider this to be such a frightening undertaking, look at the growth of "religious" organizations during the past, let's say, 37 years and the coinciding social slide that has absorbed America. A very strong argument could be made that Christian devotion of time and resources to fighting battles against an ever-corrupting political and governing system has been an abject failure. Christians need to recognize that.
Those who claim to be Christians have certainly been part of the most damaging causes of American social decline. Christians have divorced at rates that are even higher than non-Christians. Christians routinely call government to honor the limits of the U.S. Constitution, but when it comes to the War Against International Terrorism, support for Israel, or national laws supporting a "Christian" social agenda, the Constitution is an after thought. How might America's current situation be different had "Christians" not given themselves to hypocrisy in these few areas?
- by Bob Strodtbeck / EtherZone
Jack Cafferty Interviews Ron Paul 2/27/10 The US Government going bankrupt
Paul Burned by Tea Party Blowback Rep. Ron Paul, the libertarian-oriented Republican whose 2008 presidential run provided kindling for the Tea Party movement, suddenly finds himself dealing with the blowback: a handful of Tea Party-inspired candidates are seeking to dislodge him in Tuesday's Texas Republican primary.
It's an unusual turn of events for a veteran congressman who has reached stardom in conservative populist circles and who just last week emerged as the victor of the presidential straw poll at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Yet despite his solid anti-establishment credentials and non-conformist views, Paul finds himself under siege from three Republicans who are embracing many of the themes that have defined Paul's career. At the heart of the resistance is the notion that the 10-term Paul has gone Washington, abandoning his constituents as he pursues his white whale ... the presidency.
"I personally think he'll win that primary with 60-plus percent of the vote, even with three opponents, so I find it kind of interesting," said Mary Anne Wyatt, chairwoman of the Victoria County Republican Party. "There's no question that Rep. Paul is very popular in his district and has been for some time. It hasn't been an enigma-it's been a fact."
"I don't think he views any of us as a threat," conceded Graney, who says he has spent $80,000 on his campaign.
A Moore Information survey conducted for Paul's campaign showed Paul picking up 74 percent of the vote in a primary contest. Seventy-nine percent said they had a favorable impression of Paul, with 84 percent approving of his job performance.
- by Alex Isenstadt / Politico
Intervention and Economic Crisis No supporter of the market economy could have been surprised when the recent financial crisis was inevitably blamed on "capitalism" and "deregulation." The free market, we were told, was a recipe for financial instability. "Advocates of the free market must confront the fact that both the Great Depression and the current financial chaos were preceded by years of laissez-faire economic policies," wrote Katrina van den Heuvel, editor of The Nation, and author Eric Schlossel, in September 2008.
It is not enough to call this a distortion of the truth. It is a grotesque distortion, worthy of the Soviet politburo. The crisis is in fact the altogether predictable fruit of massive government and central-bank distortions of the economy. That may be why the free-market economists of the Austrian School were practically the only ones to have seen it coming.
- by Tom Woods / Campaign For Liberty
Who is the Enemy, Dr Ron Paul? Recently, Representative Ron Paul addressed the House [paraphrased here], and after depicting the absurdity, cost and futility of fighting our Middle Eastern wars, asked: "Who is the enemy? We don't even know who the enemy is! If we don't know who the enemy is, how will we know if we won?" Though I disagree with his Party's platform and agenda, I admire Ron Paul's bold independent position and thoroughly uphold his viewpoint and opinion. Dr Paul is perfectly correct. Who is the enemy?
What does an individual do when he can no longer pay his debt? He borrows until credit is exhausted. Then, admitting failure, he files for bankruptcy and surrenders his assets, possessions and property in the hope his debts are discharged. This is standard procedure that every adult citizen understands and agrees to accept in the course of running a business or running a household when it fails.
What does America do when it can longer pay its debt? It borrows until credit is exhausted, then prints more money. Finally, when credit is exhausted and hyperinflation has consumed whatever economy is standing, unlike any person or corporation, it does not file for bankruptcy or seek arrangements with its creditors; instead, America resorts to criminal activities and threatens its creditors with violence and war. It seizes (steals) assets, particular national assets of third-world countries. For political cover, it trains its people to believe the creditor is the enemy, when all along the enemy is the debt.
- by Michael_T_Bucci / The Market Oracle
Time for Government to Reverse Its Failed Policies Congressman Ron Paul talks about last week's hearings with Ben Bernanke and Hillary Clinton and says it's time for government to reverse its failed policies so our economy can get back on track.
A Titanic Budget in an Ocean of Icebergs Send up a flare! The 2011 federal budget has sprung some leaks in the midst of a storm. Not sure there's enough money for life rafts! Forget women and children first! Buffeted by economic hard times, the 2,585-page, $3.8 trillion document is already taking on water, though this won't be obvious to you if you're reading the mainstream media. Let's start with the absolute basics: 59% of the budget's spending is dedicated to mandatory programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, and now Pell Grants; 34% is to be spent on "discretionary programs," including education, transportation, housing, and the military; 7% will be used to service the national debt. A serious look at this budget document reveals some "leaks" -- two in actual spending practices and two in the basic assumptions that undergird the budget itself. Ship-shape as it may look on the surface, this is a budget perilously close to an iceberg, and it's not clear whether the captain of the ship will heed the obvious warning signs. Ordinary Americans will largely be left in a sink or swim world and the waters will be very, very cold
- by Jo Comerford / TomDispatch.com
I.M.F. Chief Suggests Look at New Reserve Currency The chief of the International Monetary Fund said Friday that the organization should reorient itself to better detect systemic risks to the global economy and quickly step in with emergency loans when financial crises emerge.
The I.M.F. leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, also floated the idea of creating a global reserve currency that could serve as an alternative to the dollar.
- by Sewell Chan / The New York Times
Peter Schiff on Freedom Watch with Judge Napolitano 24 Feb 2010
Does GOP have Death Wish? It's not surprising that there are some prominent conservatives who are willing to betray the American taxpayer to get a new amnesty for 15 to 20 million illegal aliens. But do they have to add insult to injury by lying about amnesty's impact on the Republican Party? At the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, D.C., Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist gave enthusiastic backing to a new group formed for the express purpose of pushing new amnesty legislation in alliance with congressional Democrats and the Obama White House. When everyone else is declaring amnesty dead in the water for 2010, Norquist and his business-lobby friends ride to the rescue. But what makes the new "Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles" especially deceptive and troublesome are the lies Norquist and his allies must tell about the so-called "Hispanic vote" to make this gambit credible. The mantra for the new amnesty scenario is a seductive political pragmatism: Republicans are being told they must support a new amnesty or "lose the Hispanic vote for the next 50 years."
- by Tom Tancredo / WorldNetDaily
4 Health Care Questions and Answers Can the government force you to buy health insurance? Why can't I buy health insurance from anyone who wants to sell it to me?
- by Andrew P. Napolitano / LewRockwell.com
Socialist Healthcare's Power Grab Socialism is nothing new in America. Americans have conditioned themselves to accept little parts of socialistic policies throughout the last 100 years. In the year 2010, Americans face federal socialized healthcare; yet one more government takeover of free enterprise. If America continues down this path, we will soon be no better off than Greece with more than half of the country working for the state.
- by The Gary DeMar Show
Why Pharmaceuticals Might be Called Weapons of Mass Prescription Most people are familiar with traditional weapons of mass destruction such biological weapons, nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. The point of all such weapons of mass destruction is to inflict a large number of casualties on civilian populations as a way to cripple a nation into political or military submission.
What if a nation wanted to reduce its own civilian population but do it covertly? One way to accomplish that would be to slowly poison the civilian population through exposure to toxic chemicals, heavy metals, hormone-disrupting molecules and nerve toxins.
And as any terrorist can tell you, the most covert way to accomplish that would be to inject such chemicals into the everyday products that people routinely consume: Water, food, personal care products and medicines. I even published a cartoon with this theme a couple of years ago: http://www.naturalnews.com/021880_w...
Here's another interesting fact: If you examine what's in the water, food, products and medicines sold across North America, you'll discover a dangerous assortment of chemicals that, taken together, could quite reasonably be considered weapons of mass destruction.
- by Mike Adams / Natural News
Medina has become a political phenomenon in Texas. Emerging as a genuine star of the rightwing populist Tea Party movement, she delivers a fiery message of slashing taxes and the abolition of almost all forms of federal government, and issues dire warnings that President Obama is taking America down a slippery slope to Soviet-style communism.
It's working. Previously unheard of by the vast majority of Texans, Medina has set the race for governor on fire, upsetting the primary contest between the incumbent, Rick Perry, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison.
- by Paul Harris, The Observer / Guardian UK
You Can Call Him Al ... But Al Won't Call You Back Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. But in the last three months, as global warming has gone from a scientific near-certitude to the subject of satire, Gore -- the public face of global warming -- has been silent on the topic.
The former vice president apparently finds it inconvenient even to answer calls to testify before the U.S. Senate. You can call him Al . . . but he won't call back.
On Tuesday, Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe -- a prominent skeptic of global warming theory and the Republican leader of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee -- issued a request for Gore to come testify on global warming. In an interview with FoxNews.com, Inhofe said he wants Gore to appear because "it will be interesting to ask him on what science he based his movie," a film the senator considers "science fiction."
- by Gene J. Koprowski / FOXNews.com
The Cost of Our Foreign Operations On Thursday, Congressman Paul questioned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about spending at the State Department during her appearance before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Ron Paul vs. Big-Government Conservatives An op-ed entitled "Conservatives' Isolationist Dalliance" in the Washington Times today by Jeffrey T. Kuhner, president of the conservative Edmund Burke Institute, is an excellent example of the difficult task that Ron Paul has in convincing conservatives to abandon their devotion to Big Government in foreign affairs.
Praising Paul for his limited-government domestic policy, Kuhner then proceeds to excoriate him for his limited-government foreign policy. To make his case, Kuhner goes back to World War II -- the so-called "good war," pointing out that "old isolationist conservatives were prepared to abandon Europe to Hitler's Germany."
Kuhner also denies that the U.S. government "imperialist" policies in the Middle East produced the September 11 attacks. The attacks, he claims, are because the Jihadists "seek to restore a medieval Islamic caliphate" and that "America's support for Israel or foreign aid to Egypt is simply a rationalization for their revolutionary aims."
What Kuhner and indeed so many other conservatives cannot bring themselves to recognize is that it is conservatives themselves who are doing the rationalizing. Unable to abandon their deep commitment to Big Government, they inevitably seek out, consciously or unconsciously, every rationalization possible to maintain Big Government.
- by Jacob G. Hornberger / Campaign For Liberty
US Rhetoric Strays Far from America's Founding Values The last US administration displayed a rather perverse and dangerous penchant for dressing up their behaviour, providing it with religious or patriotic intent. The former president George W Bush packaged the Iraq war, for example, as America's mission – having been charged by God to bring the gift of freedom to the world.
The "war on terror" was presented through the lens of the Second World War and the Cold War and transformed into a battle of cosmic proportions against those who "hate our freedom" and "our way of life". US troops who were sent into battle in Iraq were seen as "defending our freedom" or "making America safe".
One could, of course, argue with this crass manipulation of potent symbols, though, at the time, few did. Politicians were especially hesitant to criticise this hyper-inflated rhetoric, not wanting to appear insensitive to the public's fear or disrespectful of the sacrifices of those who had died or been maimed in the Iraq war.
Left unchallenged, this abuse of language continued to grow and become accepted in some quarters, doing damage to our political discourse and distorting our sense of reality.
- by James Zogby / The National
Ron Paul's Conservative Foreign Policy Virtually alone, Congressman Ron Paul offers an unabashed conservative foreign policy.
Left and Right Against War, Part 87 On February 20, a meeting took place in Washington, D.C., between progressives, libertarians, and conservatives who deviate from the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus and favor an antiwar, anti-imperial alternative. Participants were indeed all over the ideological map, as these interesting summaries (1, 2) reveal. (I was invited to attend but could not make it; I'd already been at CPAC and needed to get home to my wife and our new baby.) Does this mean a genuine cross-ideological coalition against war is brewing? I would like nothing more than to think so. I am confident that many libertarians and conservatives would welcome it. But I am not so sure about the progressives.
- by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. / LewRockwell.com
The Road to Dictatorship That 56 percent of all Americans "think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens" isn’t really all that surprising. After all, ever since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government's "right" to read our e-mails, seize our property, hold us as "enemy combatants," and otherwise trample on the Constitution has been expanding at an exponential pace. What's really shocking, however, is that, according to this CNN-Opinion Research Corporation poll, released on Feb. 28, most of the people who believe this are overwhelmingly … Republicans. That is, they are self-described supporters of the very same party which impaled the Constitution on the sword of the "war on terrorism." According to the poll, "only 37 percent of Democrats" believe this, as opposed to "63 percent of Independents and nearly 7 in 10 Republicans."
Is it just me, or was it only yesterday that the Democratic base was outraged by "Bushitler," and the "Cheney-PNAC" alleged neo-fascists who were taking over the country and driving dissent underground? How quickly they turn!
- by Justin Raimondo / Anitwar.com
CrossTalk: Soviet Amerika On Peter Lavelle's CrossTalk his guests are asked whether the US is following the historic path that led the the collapse of the Soviet Union.
71% Think Iran Already Has the Bomb Allison Kilkenny, regular contributor to the Huffington Post, discusses the CNN poll that found a large majority of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons, not-so-covert US actions in Iran that make diplomacy impossible, Republicans who are unwilling to admit the cause and effect between US empire and terrorism and the Democrats who hypocritically defend Obama over the same policies they excoriated Bush for.
Read the IAEA Reports on Iran For almost seven years, the IAEA has been issuing reports roughly every quarter on the findings, issues, and open items from its inspections of Iran's nuclear activities. Three basic facts can be found in its reports. First, all of Iran's nuclear material has been and remains under IAEA "containment and surveillance." Second, Iran does not have nuclear weapons or the means to make them. Third, there is no definitive evidence that Iran in fact has or ever had a nuclear weapons program. For as long as the IAEA has been issuing its reports, however, the major American media have been doing their utmost to twist, torque, and torture them into a nightmarish revelation of ghoulish mullahs feverishly building a doomsday machine as they plan to create a nuclear empire, wipe Israel from the face of the map, and conquer the world.
A couple of years ago I suggested that everyone should read the IAEA reports because an educated public might help avert another unnecessary war based on lies. That, however, probably wasn't inspiring enough. So let me suggest this: If you read the reports and then read the newspaper accounts of them, you can experience firsthand that galvanic shot of astonishment from discovering just how bad – how shamelessly bad – the American media has become.
- by Peter Casey / Antiwar.com
An Appeal to Anti-war Organizations & Activists to Oppose the Increasing Threats Against Iran Around the world, anti-war activists are preparing for major protests this spring to oppose the continuing U.S.-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a storm of developments is dramatically increasing tensions between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. In response, the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (CASMII) is issuing this appeal to the anti-war movements in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries to raise the demands of "No war, no sanctions, no internal interference in Iran!"
Iran is a country that hasn't attacked a neighbor in more than 200 years. Even when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran after the 1979 Revolution and, with support from the West, used chemical weapons against both civilians and combatants, the Islamic Republic did not retaliate in kind. And yet the U.S. government claims that Iran represents a serious threat to the Middle East region and the entire world. Without a shred of evidence, the U.S. charges that Iran's program to develop nuclear power for peaceful energy purposes is just a cover to develop nuclear weapons. Never mentioned is the fact that, as a signatory to the U.N.'s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran's right to develop nuclear energy is enshrined in international law.
- by CampaignIran.org
Rachel Corrie Gets Her Day in Court On March 10, in the Israeli city of Haifa, American peace activist Rachel Corrie will get her day in court. Rachel's parents, Cindy and Craig Corrie, are bringing suit against the Israeli defence ministry for Rachel's killing by an Israeli military bulldozer in Gaza in March 2003.
Four key American and British witnesses who were present at the scene - members of the International Solidarity Movement - will be allowed into Israel to testify, despite having been barred previously by the Israeli authorities from entering the country. This reversal by the Israeli authorities is apparently due to U.S. government pressure, the Guardian reports. (Three cheers for any U.S. officials who contributed to this pressure. What else could you make the Israeli government do?)
A Palestinian doctor from Gaza who treated Corrie after she was injured has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend. (This would seem to be important testimony concerning the nature of Rachel's injuries - did U.S. officials exert pressure for his appearance?)
This case isn't just about accountability for Rachel's death. It's a test case for the power of the rule of law in Israel, when the rule of law comes into conflict with the policies of military occupation.
- by Robert Naiman / Just Foreign Policy
Washington Times Covers 9/11 Controversy A lingering technical question about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks still haunts some, and it has political implications: How did 200,000 tons of steel disintegrate and drop in 11 seconds? A thousand architects and engineers want to know, and are calling on Congress to order a new investigation into the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 at the World Trade Center. "In order to bring down this kind of mass in such a short period of time, the material must have been artificially, exploded outwards," says Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the nonprofit Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Mr. Gage, who is a member of the American Institute of Architects, managed to persuade more than 1,000 of his peers to sign a new petition requesting a formal inquiry. "The official Federal Emergency Management [Agency] and National Institute of Standards and Technology reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the circumstances of the towers' destruction. We are therefore calling for a grand jury investigation of NIST officials," Mr. Gage adds. –Washington Times
Dominant Social Theme: Something we, the mainstream media, need to mention at least in passing ...
Free-Market Analysis: We have no idea what happened on 9/11. But since 9/11 Commission members have reportedly disavowed the full government's story - and one has written a book claiming the commission was serially lied to by the Bush administration, the FBI, CIA, etc. - we have to conclude that there are elements of the official story that are not entirely accurate. We would think that the US government would want to get to the bottom of such a serious matter, in some way or other.
Now the Washington Times, a mainstream, beltway newspaper, is seemingly opening up the issue again. There was no need to cover yet another "trufers" story and yet the Times has done so - to the astonishment of the alternative blogosphere. We think, not to make a pun, that this is in fact a sign of the times. The pressure to understand what really happened on 9/11 simply won't go away. It is all over the 'Net and is in fact gaining momentum in our opinion.
- by The Daily Bell
Destroying America from Inside the Classroom I have reported many times in the pages of the DeWeese Report about how public school classrooms are being used, not for the teaching of academic knowledge, but for behavior modification to change the student's attitudes, values and beliefs. Barack Obama is now driving to control classroom curriculum based on United Nation's Globalism. Many parents want to deny this is happening. "Not in my child's school," they tell me. If you still don't believe it's happening in EVERY school that takes public money, then read below, open your eyes, and know the truth about what happens to your child in the schools you send them to every day.
- by Tom DeWeese / American Policy Center
History of Public Education Matt talked tonight about public schools and gave a pro-life reason why they need to be done away with. He supported his assertion with quotes from the founders of public education and showed that their intent was less than noble.
We Don't Need No State Education As long as politicians, bureaucrats, and anointed education experts control the money, competition and entrepreneurship will never reach full blossom. Competition, Hayek taught, is a discovery process, so until entrepreneurship can operate without political inhibition, we won't know what we are missing. Providers of educational services -- must they be schools? -- should be accountable not to bureaucrats but to customers -- parents and their children. Yet the various "school choice" plans maintain the State as the ultimate judge.
When education entrepreneurs need worry only about actual and potential customers who are laying out their own money -- and not State functionaries -- the political inhibitions will be gone, or at least will begin to fade.
- by Sheldon Richman / Campaign For Liberty
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