"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."
July 29, 2010 On the Bloated Intelligence Bureaucracy I have often spoken about the excessive size of government, and most recently how waste and inefficiency needs to be eliminated from our military budget. Our foreign policy is not only bankrupting us, but actively creating and antagonizing enemies of the United States, and compromising our national security. Spending more and adding more programs and initiatives does not improve things for us; it makes them much much worse. This applies to more than just the military budget.
Recently the Washington Post ran an extensive report by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the bloated intelligence community. They found that an estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. Just what are all these people up to? By my calculation this is about 11,000 intelligence workers per al Qaeda member in Afghanistan. This also begs the question – if close to 1 million people are authorized to know top secrets, how closely guarded are these secrets?
They also found that since the September 11 attacks, some 17 million square feet of building space has been built or is being built to accommodate the 250 percent expansion of intelligence organizations. Intelligence work is now done by some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private contracting companies in about 10,000 locations in the United States.
The former Director of National Intelligence, Adm. Dennis Blair, has asserted that US intelligence now has the authority to target American citizens for assassination without charge or trial. How many of these resources are being devoted to spying on American citizens for nefarious reasons at home rather than targeting foreign enemies abroad?
- by Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk
Government Has Run Amok Since 9/11 Those who understand the exploitative nature of big government suspected that the U.S. response to the 9/11 attacks had little to do with the security of the American people and much to do with power and money. Still, the magnitude of the scam, as revealed by the Washington Post last week, is astonishing.
Naturally, the politicians justify the growth in intelligence operations on national security grounds. To make sure such attacks never happen again, they said, new powers, agencies, personnel, and facilities were imperative.
Now the truth is out: the post–9/11 activity has been an obscene feeding frenzy at the public trough. Any resemblance to efforts at keeping Americans safe is strictly coincidental.
- by Sheldon Richman / Future of Freedom Foundation
Gene Healy: Our big-government war on terror Guess what happens when you combine a crisis atmosphere with a gusher of federal funds? You get a dangerous, wealth-gobbling bureaucracy that fails to achieve its ostensible goal, whether that's better health care, ending drug abuse -- or uncovering terrorist threats.
That's the lesson of "Top Secret America," last week's high-profile Washington Post series on the post-9/11 "Intelligence-Industrial Complex."
You'd think a classic story of government overreach and incompetence would resonate with conservatives, but their reaction was mostly muted and dismissive.
- by Gene Healy / The Washington Examiner
Top Secret America - Coming to Frontline Fall 2010 FRONTLINE goes inside the Post's two-year examination into the huge, unwieldy, top-secret world the government has created in response to 9/11.
'Top Secret America:' The Rest Of The Story On the surface, the Post report appears to be a valiant effort by a major mainstream newspaper (second in influence to only the New York Times) to expose widespread government abuse and chicanery. But don't get too excited yet. In Joel Skousen's World Affairs Brief, Skousen writes, "The [Post] series has just enough tantalizing information to sell a lot of papers, but almost nothing that exposes the illicit side of US operations--a large portion of which is involved in recruiting, training, and running covert agents--only a small portion of which are spying on real enemies. A lot of spying targets our allies and patriotic Americans who the government worries could someday provide a source of rebellion against the growing totalitarian state." Skousen further charges that there is a "dark side" to "each agency of [federal] law enforcement." The Washington Post report (for all its failures) should serve to remind the American people of just how vulnerable we are (and have always been) to totalitarian government, how fragile liberty and freedom are, and how necessary it is that we remain eternally vigilant to resist the machinations of power-mad Machiavellians in Washington, D.C.
- by Chuck Baldwin / NewsWithViews
U.S. Taxpayers On Hook For $23.7 Trillion? U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program. The Treasury's $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8 trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report released. "TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and complexity," Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
- by Dawn Kopecki and Catherine Dodge / Bloomberg
Goldman Reveals Where Bailout Cash Went Goldman Sachs sent $4.3 billion in federal tax money to 32 entities, including many overseas banks, hedge funds and pensions, according to information made public Friday night. Goldman Sachs disclosed the list of companies to the Senate Finance Committee after a threat of subpoena from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Ia. Asked the significance of the list, Grassley said, "I hope it's as simple as taxpayers deserve to know what happened to their money." He added, "We thought originally we were bailing out AIG. Then later on ... we learned that the money flowed through AIG to a few big banks, and now we know that the money went from these few big banks to dozens of financial institutions all around the world." Grassley said he was reserving judgment on the appropriateness of U.S. taxpayer money ending up overseas until he learns more about the 32 entities.
- by Karen Mracek and Thomas Beaumont, Des Moines Register / USA Today
One Economic Chart That You Should Permanently Burn Into Your Memory Today most Americans are completely obsessed with the silliest of things. They wonder how Lindsay Lohan is going to fare in jail and they agonize over who LeBron James is going to play basketball for. But when it comes to the things that really matter, most Americans are completely clueless. For example, while most Americans would agree that we are experiencing difficult economic times right now, most of them would also argue that our economic system is in fundamentally good shape and that things will get back to "normal" at some point. Those of us who are trying to warn America of the impending economic nightmare are dismissed as "doom and gloomers" and "conspiracy theorists". But of course, as with so many things, the passage of time will tell who was right and who was wrong. Below there is a chart that I want all of you to burn into your memory. It is a chart of total U.S. debt as a percentage of GDP from 1870 until 2009. This chart clearly and succinctly communicates the horror of the debt bubble that we are currently dealing with. When this debt bubble pops, it is going to make the Great Depression look like a Sunday picnic.
- by The Economic Collapse Blog
U.S. Cities, Counties Poised to Cut 500,000 Jobs, Report Finds U.S. local governments may cut almost 500,000 jobs through next year to cope with sliding property taxes, a decline in state and federal aid and added need for social services, according to a report released today. The report, a result of a survey by the National League of Cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties, showed local governments are moving to cut the equivalent of 8.6 percent of their workforces from 2009 to 2011. That suggests 481,000 employees will lose their jobs, according to the report, which said the tally may yet rise. While a separate report by the National Conference of State Legislatures Tuesday said U.S. state revenue is recovering from the drop in tax collections caused by the 2007 recession and the slow pace of job growth since, the greatest blow to local governments will be felt from now through 2012, the local groups said. They called on Congress to pass a bill that would provide $75 billion in the next two years to local governments and community-based groups to stoke job growth and forestall deeper cuts. The need for state and local governments to balance their budgets has weighed on the economy, damping the recovery. Spending fell at an annual pace of 3.8 percent during the first three months of this year, the steepest drop since the onset of the recession
- by William Selway / Bloomberg
The Death of Paper Money Ebay is offering a well-thumbed volume of "Dying of Money: Lessons of the Great German and American Inflations" at a starting bid of $699 (shipping free.. thanks a lot).
The crucial passage comes in Chapter 17 entitled "Velocity". Each big inflation -- whether the early 1920s in Germany, or the Korean and Vietnam wars in the US -- starts with a passive expansion of the quantity money. This sits inert for a surprisingly long time. Asset prices may go up, but latent price inflation is disguised. The effect is much like lighter fuel on a camp fire before the match is struck.
People's willingness to hold money can change suddenly for a "psychological and spontaneous reason" , causing a spike in the velocity of money. It can occur at lightning speed, over a few weeks. The shift invariably catches economists by surprise. They wait too long to drain the excess money.
- by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard / Telegraph UK
Let Them Eat Losses This had nothing to do with the so-called "Trickle Down" theory. This was "Gush Up." In Bush/Obama economics, the richest and biggest that had lost billions through bad investments, or were in danger of going bust, had to be rescued. If the Über-Rich weren't saved, there would be nothing left to trickle down to the population below. By government decree, those taxpayers who had never felt any trickle to begin with, now had to finance the failed financiers.
If taxpayers found themselves unable to understand the thinking behind "Gush Up," it was not surprising. Why should it make sense? Nothing else did. The entire financial system had been hijacked by bandits. It was criminal from beginning to end.
- by Gerald Celente / LewRockwell.com
Exposing the Fed Scam Yesterday, Ron Paul took part in the House Financial Services hearings, starring Fed chairman Ben Bernanke. Observing the continuing trends of growing deficits and high unemployment, the free-market Congressman questioned the effectiveness of the very same policies which caused the problem to begin with. He asked Bernanke, "Is there a point where you might say maybe my theories are wrong and I have to change my course? Or will you pursue this five more years, or ten more years? What would it take to make you reassess your basic fundamental beliefs?" Bernanke artfully navigated around the brunt of the question: "Pursue what?"
- by Joel McDurmon / American Vision
The Congressman and the Fed Chairman July 22 2010 - Part 2 Congressman Paul gives an opening statement and questions Ben Bernanke
The FED's Real Monetary Problem Since being "converted" to both libertarianism and, by extension, Austrian economics I have developed a passion for money. The monetary regime lies at the heart of so many symptoms of societal conflict that studying the nature of money seems axiomatic to me. In our current mixed economy of Keynesian Shamanism and Monetarist Voodoo reading through even poor synopses of the Austrian business cycle was like finding the Rosetta stone. The money promulgated by the Federal Reserve and backed the full force and aggression of the U.S. Government could easily be seen as the motive force for all manner of secondary and tertiary effects, especially after a reading of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. There is nothing in the FED's arsenal of monetary tools to combat this problem; the rejection of their basis for existence.
- by Thomas Luongo / LewRockwell.com
Peter Schiff's 3 Reasons Why Financial Reform Will Fail The Dodd-Frank financial regulation reform bill is now law. The bill is being touted as the most sweeping financial legislation since Glass-Steagall, but with 2300 pages of rules and proposals it's hard to know exactly how it will play out in the market.
Peter Schiff, president of EuroPacific Capital tells Tech ticker it will fail.
- by Peter Gorenstein / Yahoo Finance
"The White House lies and the media swears to it," says the trends forecaster. Celente calls the bill a "whitewash for the white shoe boys on Wall Street" and states it will do nothing to prevent the coming Crash of 2010. He points out that, unlike what the government says, the public will have to continue bailing out the too-big-to-fails when they fail.
To address the real problem, Celente argues, the crooks from Wall Street must be removed from the White House and the Glass-Steagall Act needs to be reinstalled to prevent banks from consolidating.
On politicians in Washington, Celente comments: "They're not out of touch. They're in bed and paid off (by Wall Street)." He mentions the only one left with any credibility is Congressman Ron Paul, who has a firm grip on what's going on.
- by LewRockwell.com
Most of the focus on this provision, to date, has been on the ramifications for high tech companies such as Apple and Intel. But the provision goes beyond the minerals used in high tech equipment, such as cobalt, copper and tantalum. Gold is also on the list.
- by Robert Wenzel / Economic Policy Journal
That Mysterious 380-Tonne Gold Swap And it may happen sooner than you think, and hopefully as soon as I had dared hope, as an article titled "Mysterious BIS gold swaps are likely a bullion bank bailout" by Adrian Douglas of MarketForceAnalysis.com refers to the odd goings-on at the Bank for International Settlement as concerns a mysterious 380 tonnes of gold being involved in a mysterious gold swap with some commercial banks.
I smell corruption, a foul odor not dispelled by Mr. Douglas noting, "While a central bank theoretically and practically could hold 380 tonnes of unencumbered gold, there is no way that a commercial bank is sitting on 380 tonnes of unencumbered gold." Hmmm!
His next sentence is pure horror film, if delivered in a darkly sinister voice, perhaps with some kind of foreign accent dripping intrigue. So lower the lights and set the spooky mood before saying, "So the gold in the BIS swaps came from" (pause for dramatic effect) "somewhere else." Yikes!
- by Richard Daughty / LewRockwell.com
Paper Money Breeds Inflation and Destroys the Currency's Value Congressman Paul discusses coinage at a hearing entitled "The State of US Coins and Currency"
How to Buy Your Kids a House I don't have a crystal ball, but I’ll bet I can tell you how much a house will cost in five years.
UBS released some interesting research last month on how much gold it takes to buy the average-priced home in the U.S. I put the data to a chart, and it’s quite revealing.
- by Jeff Clark / LewRockwell.com
Real Bills Revisited Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations worked out the foundations of a second type of credit that is based, not on savings, but on consumption. Later this theory was pejoratively called "Real Bills Doctrine" by its detractors. We stick to this name because the adjective "real" admirably captures the essence of a bill of exchange, making it different from anticipation bills, accommodation bills, treasury bills, which all have a measure of being "unreal". What makes real bills real is that they represent real goods and real services in greatest demand without which society would stop functioning in a matter of months, if not weeks or days. Examples are: bread, seasonal clothes, fuel in winter; the services of the miller and the baker; the spinner and the weaver, etc. Seasonal goods will be removed from the market by the consumer during the next 91-day period, before the turn of seasons changes demand. A real bill, as its name suggests, is just a notice of payment due that typically the wholesale merchant sends to the retail merchant along with his shipment of goods demanded most urgently by the consumers. It is a grave error to think that the bill represents a loan transaction. The wholesaler is not lending and the retailer is not borrowing. The credit is an inseparable part of the transaction, as confirmed by centuries and centuries of merchant custom
- by Antal Fekete / Financial Sense Online
Why Not Another World War? There is overwhelming agreement among economists that the Second World War was responsible for decisively ending the Great Depression. When asked why the wars in Iran and Afghanistan are failing to make the same impact today, they often claim that the current conflicts are simply too small to be economically significant.
There is, of course, much irony here. No one argues that World War II, with its genocide, tens of millions of combatant casualties, and wholesale destruction of cities and regions, was good for humanity. But the improved American economy of the late 1940s seems to illustrate the benefits of large-scale government stimulus. This conundrum may be causing some to wonder how we could capture the good without the bad.
- by Peter Schiff / LewRockwell.com
Welfare & Warfare Most people in America associate the Democratic Party with spending on welfare programs and the Republican Party with spending on warfare. Until reading Niall Ferguson's brilliant The Ascent of Money, I never realized that welfare and warfare have gone hand in hand for over a century. The immortal German warmonger Otto von Bismarck was the first politician to introduce social insurance legislation in the 1880s. His reasoning was not strictly humanitarian. According to Bismarck, "A man who has a pension for his old age is much easier to deal with than a man without that prospect." Bismarck was a shrewd politician who realized that when you provide people something for nothing, they will vote for you. When you go to war with France, a population sedated with entitlements is more easily malleable and controllable. David Lloyd George rolled out pensions and national insurance in Great Britain prior to World War I in order to win votes. Politicians began a century of addiction to welfare programs, as the poor voted for those that promised them the most. The world has now reached its limit of unfunded promises. The financial crisis in the last two years was caused by politicians throughout the world promising benefits to their citizens and paying for these benefits with borrowed money. Margaret Thatcher aptly summed up what has happened:
"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
The world has run out of other people's money.
- by James Quinn / Financial Sense
Why Foreign Policy Matters Most Many on the mainstream Right are now increasingly beginning to question American foreign policy. This is not only long overdue, but absolutely necessary before genuine conservatism can ever take root.
Conservatism and War Daniel McCarthy, editor of The American Conservative magazine, discusses the principles of conservatism as he see them, the dumbing down of different political schools of thought into left and right and the convenience of such a system in lending itself toward imperialism, the problem of the red-state military belligerence and the importance of the antiwar types on the right staying open to the idea that they can be reached and the Bush/Obama plot to discredit interventionism for all time.
Deficit Hawks or War Hawks? Last week's TGIF asked if the American people can afford a world-girdling foreign policy more befitting an empire than a republic. Look at it this way: War hawks make poor deficit hawks. Facing a $13 trillion national debt and trillion-dollar-plus annual budget deficits, we can’t afford to be complacent about foreign interventions costing $12 billion a month.
It's not just that the budget numbers are daunting: The very institutions of small-government republicanism are suffocated by the quest for global hegemony. As James Madison said,
Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few…. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
- by Sheldon Richman / The Freeman
Taking a Look at New 'Antiwar' Republicans Nine Republican members of the House sided with Democrats in July to start bringing troops home from Afghanistan. Though one can still count on two hands the number of congressional Republicans who publicly oppose the war, this latest development is not insignificant.
Only five Republicans had the guts to cast a similar vote three and a half months ago
Coupled with recent statements by GOP chief Michael Steele and Ann Coulter – and now World Net Daily's Joseph Farah - criticizing the Afghanistan war policy, it's clear something is happening. Antiwar.com recently interviewed Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who just broke ranks with the GOP to vote against funding the war in Afghanistan. His decision was not easy, nor a particularly popular one with the party machine. But to be frank, like Steele and Coulter, he is no Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, the most consistent anti-interventionist conservative in congress today. For Chaffetz and others, withdrawing from Afghanistan has more to do with the way Obama is running the war and the perceived hopelessness of the situation than an existential critique about global meddling and the greater war on terror.
For these new members of the war opposition, big budgets and nation building are unsustainable now. They complain the nation is "war weary."
But don't discount their support for a potential strike against the Iranian regime, or counter-terrorist operations in Yemen or Somalia - that's another story.
- by Kelley B. Vlahos / Antiwar.com
McCain on Iraq On July 15, I attended a reception in Washington DC to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam. Geoff Millard and I spoke to Sen. John McCain. When Geoff introduced himself as chairman of the board of Iraq Veterans against the War, McCain retorted, "You're too late. We already won that one."
McCain is now the second U.S. official to declare "mission accomplished" in a war that continues to ravage the people and land of Iraq. "[I]t would be a huge mistake to see Iraq as either a success story or as stable," Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle Eastern and South Asian History at the University of Michigan, wrote on Informed Comment. McCain's declaration of victory in Iraq is as specious as the one George W. Bush made after he strutted across the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003.
- by Marjorie Cohn / CounterPunch
The New Pentagon Papers: WikiLeaks Releases 90,000 Secret Military Documents Painting Devastating Picture of Afghanistan War It's one of the biggest leaks in US military history. More than 90,000 internal records of US military actions in Afghanistan over the past six years have been published by the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The documents provide a devastating portrait of the war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how a secret black ops special forces unit hunts down targets for assassination or detention without trial, how Taliban attacks have soared, and how Pakistan is fueling the insurgency. We host a roundtable discussion with independent British journalist Stephen Grey; Pentagon Papers whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg; former State Department official in Afghanistan, Matthew Hoh; independent journalist Rick Rowley; and investigative historian Gareth Porter
- by Democracy Now
White House pushes back on Wikileaks as House prepares to vote on war The White House on Monday sought to contain new doubts about the Afghanistan war sparked by the release of classified documents that suggest the United States is losing the fight. The 93,000 documents posted on Wikileaks.org were largely old news that included no new "broad revelations," White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing. "Based on what we've seen, I don't think that what is being reported hasn't in many ways been publicly discussed, either by you all or by representatives of the U.S. government, for quite some time," Gibbs said.Polls continue to show that the war in Afghanistan is unpopular. A CBS survey released earlier this month found 62 percent of respondents believed the war was going badly, up from 49 percent in May. Congressional sources said the leaked documents would at a minimum color the debate when the House picks up a war funding bill this week, and that it could peel off some votes for the legislation. The House will bring up the Senate's $58.8 billion version of the war funding bill on the suspension calendar on Tuesday, according to a Democratic leadership aide. The leaked documents have provided more momentum to a privileged resolution backed by Reps. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Ron Paul (R-Texas) aimed at forcing the Obama administration to pull U.S. military forces from Pakistan
- by Sam Youngman / The Hill
Defending the Leaks: Q&A With WikiLeaks' Julian Assange The Frontline Club in London has long been where foreign correspondents gather to swap boozy stories about far-flung adventures and bravado. But on Monday, the venerated club hosted a new star in international journalism - one with a decidedly different temperament. Tall, wan and with wispy, prematurely gray hair, Julian Assange gathered reporters tell them about the 90,000 classified documents from the war in Afghanistan he had released through his website Wikileaks.com. Assange, a former computer hacker who has never traveled to Afghanistan, met up with TIME's Eben Harrell in the attic of the Frontline club to discuss his site, his motivations and a set of documents that has upset the game plan of the Obama Administration
- by Time
Kucinich-Paul Resolution To Pull US Military Out Of Pakistan The five hundred million dollars in aid the US pledged to Pakistan this week is not the only backing the United States is providing the country considered an ally against terrorist elements. According to a statement by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), the White House has increased its military commitment to Pakistan without Congressional oversight or approval. The White House's abuse of its authority, Kucinich says in his statement, "must stop." On Thursday evening, he and fellow House member Ron Paul (R-Texas) introduced a privileged resolution to pull US forces from the country. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi gives the nod, the Kucinich-Paul resolution will jump the line of items before the House next week, right before Congress breaks for its August recess.
- by Daily Paul
Ron Paul: Why Do They Want To Kill Us? Because We Occupy Their Land! July 27, 2010
Congress Clears War Funding Tens of billions of dollars in new Afghanistan war funding cleared Congress late Tuesday, even as the House easily upended a liberal challenge to the increased U.S. military presence - and drone attacks - across the border in Pakistan. (The measure, sponsored by anti-war Reps. Dennis Kucinich (R-Ohio) and Ron Paul (R-Texas), was in reaction to reports that the government is running a secret war in Pakistan, which the lawmakers say violates the War Powers Act. It was voted down 38-372.) The back-to-back votes buy precious time for President Barack Obama to show progress on his strategy for the region. But even as the anti-war movement remains weak in Congress, Obama can't ignore a growing split among House Democrats over the cost of his military commitments at a time of tighter budgets and economic troubles at home. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.), who had managed the $59 billion war funding bill, voted against it in a final protest and helped to take 101 Democrats with him. A solid majority of the caucus -148 Democrats - still held firm with the president on the 308-114 vote, but the scene was in stark contrast with just a year ago when all but 32 Democrats supported a still larger $105.9 billion war funding measure for Afghanistan and Iraq operations
- by Jordan Fabian / Politico
America and Israel's Special Relationship Stephen M. Walt, professor of international affairs at Harvard University and co-author of the article and the book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with professor John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, discusses once-and-present Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's stubbornness in implementing the Oslo Accords, the newly released 2001 video which shows him bragging at his success, how the policies of the Likud Party and the American Israel Lobby are counter-productive for the long-term interests of the Israeli state, the one-state, two-state debate, the status of Muslim and Christian Arab-Israeli citizens within the borders of Israel proper, the seemingly endless and intractable conflict with Iran over their nuclear program and what the U.S. should be doing to resolve the conflict, the neoconservatives' responsibility for the disaster in Iraq and how it strengthened Iran's position in the region, the power of the Israel Lobby in Washington DC and prospects for change.
MP3 here. (41:49) Transcript below.
- by Antiwar Radio
GOP Wants Israel to Attack Iran? The crippling sanctions against Iran don't seem to be as damaging to the country as Republicans would like Now they have a much more damaging idea: The House Republicans are pushing for full support of Israel if it chooses to launch a military strike against Iran. The NIAC (National Iran American Council) has called on minority leader Congressmen John Boehner to reject the measure
House Republicans: Israel, Bomb Iran The House Republicans are pushing for full support of Israel if it chooses to launch a military strike against Iran. The White House has said that it doesn't really want an attack but with the looming elections, could that change? Is the United States government sending mixed messages to Israel about a possible attack?
Ahmadinejad: US Expansion Of War In Middle East Imminent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has stated that he believes the US, backed by Israel, is preparing to attack two countries in the middle East within months as part of an expansion of the ‘war on terror'.
Ahmadinejad also stated that the attacks would function as a psychological war on Iran, without specifying whether he believed Iran would be physically attacked or how he had reached his conclusions.
"We have precise information that the Americans have devised a plot, according to which they seek to launch a psychological war on Iran," Ahmadinejad told Iranian state media Press TV.
"They plan to attack at least two countries in the region within the next three months," he added.
Though Ahmadinejad did not elaborate on which two countries were in US crosshairs, it must be assumed he is referring to Syria and Lebanon – both Iranian allies and both previous targets of US backed Israeli aggression in recent years.
He added that the US has two main objectives:
- by Steve Watson / Prisonplanet.com
Why War In Gaza? What does Israel's war against the Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have in common with America's serial wars all over the globe, now centered on Afghanistan?
The common denominator is that American money and weapons are used in every such war. Israel enjoys the approval and unconditional support of the American government. That means that no act that Israel does or has done will arouse serious objection from America's leaders [regardless of party].
In this Part V, we will examine why the War for Palestine is no closer to ending now than it was when it began, 54 years ago, and why the American government is financing the Israeli side in its brutal path.
- by Charles E. Carlson / We Hold These Truths
Friendly Fire: The American Empire, Before the Fall (Featuring Bruce Fein) - Part 2 In this episode of Friendly Fire, John Whitehead goes head-to-head with constitutional scholar Bruce Fein about the fall of the American empire.
Contribution-Disclosure Measure Fails Senate Test Vote Legislation that would force greater disclosure of the political donations funding corporate and union campaign advertisements failed a key test vote in the Senate on Tuesday. Democrats were unable to muster the 60 votes needed to shut off a GOP-led filibuster holding up action on the measure, which is backed by President Barack Obama. The 57-41 vote broke along party lines. The vote could signal death-at least in the current Congress-of legislation meant to blunt the impact of a landmark Supreme Court ruling in January that struck down major portions of campaign-finance laws designed to limit the influence of special interests in political campaigns. Among other things, the legislation would force companies and labor unions to disclose more information about their campaign contributors and spending on elections. Democrats vowed to continue fighting for the legislation, complaining that the court ruling had opened the door for corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence campaigns
- by Greg Hitt & Brody Mullins / Wall Street Journal
A Tea Party Caucus When Kentucky US Senate candidate Rand Paul said that if elected he would seek to join forces with Tea Party-minded senators like Jim DeMint (SC), and possibly current senate candidates like Mike Lee of Utah and Sharron Angle of Nevada, former Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-MS) told the Washington Post, "We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples." Warning of any such possible bloc of rogue Republican senators, Lott added "As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them." You have to give Lott credit for his honesty. The long established process of becoming a respected Republican on Capitol Hill is for politicians to mouth conservative rhetoric in order to get elected, and then to advance their careers by supporting every bit of big government legislation favored by their party. When Tea Partiers now go after Republicans like Senator Bob Bennett, or give Senator Lindsey Graham holy hell at a town hall, mainstream pundits like to call the movement too "extreme" while scratching their heads and asking, "but aren't these "conservative Republicans ?" Answer: No. They never were, and this is a truth grassroots conservatives finally seem to be waking up to
- by Jack Hunter / The American Conservative
Politics or Principle "Politics or Principle" was the theme of Congressman Ron Paul's farewell speech in 1984 and of his two presidential campaigns. Advocating the principle of Liberty is the theme of those in the libertarian school of thought, including the American Revolutionaries and Founders, who advocated individual freedom, private property rights, and freedom of association and voluntary contract. Throughout history, the State has been Liberty's most egregious violator.
- by Scott Lazarowitz / LewRockwell.com
How Smart Are We? Many of the wonderful-sounding ideas that have been tried as government policies have failed disastrously. Because so few people bother to study history, often the same ideas and policies have been tried again, either in another country or in the same country at a later time – and with the same disastrous results.
One of the ideas that has proved to be almost impervious to evidence is the idea that wise and far-sighted people need to take control and plan economic and social policies so that there will be a rational and just order, rather than chaos resulting from things being allowed to take their own course. It sounds so logical and plausible that demanding hard evidence would seem almost like nit-picking.
In one form or another, this idea goes back at least as far as the French Revolution in the 18th century....
Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they preempt. The education and intellects of the elites may lead them to have more sweeping presumptions, but that just makes them more dangerous to the freedom, as well as the well-being, of the people as a whole.
- by Thomas Sowell / LewRockwell.com
Dumbing Down Society: Foods, Beverages and Meds Is there a deliberate effort by the government to dumb down the masses? The statement is hard to prove but there exists a great amount of data proving that the ruling elite not only tolerates, but effectively introduces policies that have a detrimental effect on the physical and mental health of the population. This series of articles looks at the many ways the modern man is being dumbed down. Part I looks at the poisons found in everyday foods, beverages and medications.
- by Vigilant Citizen
Washington DC vs America? There has been a lot of discussion about whether the US government and Washington have lost touch with the rest of America. As Washington is booming and it seems that Washington is doing well financially and politically, the rest of America believes otherwise. Is there a resentment brewing inside the rest of the United States?
The Breakup of the United States As the dissatisfactions of Americans with their national government grow, so does the likelihood of the breakup of the United States. I believe that most Americans can improve their well-being by ending the national government, that is, ending the Union. I believe that this goal should shape politics if politics is to do much good.
I don't think Americans are going to be the first people in the modern era to initiate a large-scale anarchy. But Americans might conceivably move back to a federal form of government something like that under the Articles of Confederation. If so, the problem is how to proceed. Many Americans feel (and are) trapped and thwarted by government power.
I see two paths. Americans can do this either acting as individuals formed into a body politic of 300 million Americans or as 50 body politics organized by state. I think action by state has a better chance of success.
- by Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com
Collecting Rainwater Now Illegal in Many States as Big Government Claims Ownership Over Our Water Many of the freedoms we enjoy here in the U.S. are quickly eroding as the nation transforms from the land of the free into the land of the enslaved, but what I’m about to share with you takes the assault on our freedoms to a whole new level. You may not be aware of this, but many Western states, including Utah, Washington and Colorado, have long outlawed individuals from collecting rainwater on their own properties because, according to officials, that rain belongs to someone else.
As bizarre as it sounds, laws restricting property owners from "diverting" water that falls on their own homes and land have been on the books for quite some time in many Western states. Only recently, as droughts and renewed interest in water conservation methods have become more common, have individuals and business owners started butting heads with law enforcement over the practice of collecting rainwater for personal use.
- by Mike Adams / Natural News
USA vs US Both systems concurrently exist today. However, the corporate system has been gaining predominance in the last 70 years. Many Sovereigns (We the people) have contracted with the corporate system unknowingly, unintentionally, and or without full disclosure given.
Once you learn the difference, you may have to make a decision for yourself, family and posterity. That decision may require changes in how you conduct yourself. You will have to undo what has been done to make your Sovereign status known. This is not taught in the corporate government's public school system, because you are not to know.
The elite of the "One World government" corporate system want and need to have power and control over the population (masses)they call "Human Resources."
- by USAvsUS
Chuck Baldwin on the Alex Jones Show 7/27/10 2 -
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15 Alex welcomes back to the show Chuck Baldwin, founder-pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida, and the presidential nominee of the Constitution Party for the 2008 election. Baldwin edited The Freedom Documents, an anthology containing 50 essential documents of American history. Alex and Mr. Baldwin will discuss Chuck's article DC Declares War On States and other important issues. Alex also covers the news and takes your calls.
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