The rich get richer off of govt. subsidies
A new report from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) says millionaires have received $9.5 billion in government benefits since 2003.
Play CBS News Video
(CBS News) The U.S. may technically be deep in debt, but that hasn't stopped billions of your tax dollars from going to the wealthy.
CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports the first-ever compilation of how millionaires are using the social safety net comes from fiscal conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla). He's looked at tax breaks, government loans and other benefits showing that, in recent years, more than $9 billion has gone to those who are far from needy.
From tax write-offs for gambling losses, vacation homes and luxury yachts to subsidies for ranches and estates, billions of your tax dollars are supporting the lifestyles of the rich and famous. The new report from Coburn counts the ways.
Entitled "Subsidies of the Rich and Famous," it says millionaires have received $74 million in unemployment checks in recent years, $316 million in farm subsidies, $9 billion in retirement checks, and taken out $16 million in government-backed education loans for college.
Some big celebrities are among the beneficiaries: taxpayer-funded farm subsidies for NBA star Scottie Pippen and billionaire media titan Ted Turner.
Superstar Jon Bon Jovi paid only $100 in property taxes last year on his extensive N.J. real estate holdings because he "raises bees" on it and gets farm subsidies.
Pictures: Jon Bon Jovi
Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen gets farm subsidies for leasing property to an organic farmer and Quincy Jones, who produced the top-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson's "Thriller," got a $25,000 award from the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts for his contribution to music.
Pictures: Bruce Springsteen
Coburn says an award of "prestige" can be given to honor and recognize such megastars, but insists monetary payment is unnecessary -- and now unaffordable.
Taxpayer watchdog Leslie Paige works with Citizens Against Government Waste, a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization. She told CBS News, "Some of these programs are written so badly that, in fact, everybody's eligible for them, and the question has to be, and the taxpayers have to answer it -- are we OK with that? Are we OK with millionaires getting this money?"
Even millionaires who are out of work don't have to spend down their savings as fast as they might. They can collect unemployment on the shoulders of taxpayers. The IRS reports that 2,362 millionaires collected $20,799,000 in jobless benefits in 2009.
On "The Early Show," Attkisson added, "None of the celebrities mentioned answered requests for comment. And if there ever was a climate ripe for change, this could be the closest we've come. Facing a $15 trillion dollar debt, Congress is considering bills that would deny unemployment benefits to millionaires and cut farm subsidies for the wealthy. They're also talking about limiting Medicare and other entitlements for the rich."
Most Americans are fools, and Congress and the 1% just laughs at you sheep for being so dumb and complacent. Well, the truth is you deserve what you get because you let it happen and finance it as well !!!
Americans have allowed your government to sell you out for too long. It's time for you to take back Congress and restore legislation that protects yourselves, your environment, the creatures that share this planet with, and your posterity.
If you each do not do your part and take action now, the greed of big business and your lawmakers who suck up to them WILL at the very least destroy all quality of life.
This is no fiction as you have all the evidence you need to know the outcome of our present course. Environmental disasters, species on the brink of extinction and those already extinct, contaminated food and water, drugs that are as harmful as supposedly beneficial, out of control costs of living, famine, wars..... the list goes on and on.
None of these things will get better, only worse and history confirms this.
The People must act now. You must each do something if you are going to avoid the collapse of civilization as you know it and avoid creating a world of conflict, disease, and famine.
The most effective means of action are by the same means these calamities all occur; a complete disregard for the consequences of maximizing financial gain from private business ventures.
Here in the US, Congress supports such business ventures by making their schemes to maximize profits legal. Why ??? Because these business in turn donate vast sums of money to their political campaigns and graft. The irony is these vast amounts of funds come from the people, the majority, because they are just added into the cost of goods and services these companies peddle.
This is insane. To abolish this corruption you need to take away all political financial gain from Congress. The petitions below are a beginning to do just that.
Sign them if you agree, tell others and leave a legacy for your children and grandchildren.
Petition for full disclosure of Congressional Request for Taxpayer Funds
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/require-federal-agencies-reveal-special-funding-requests-members-congress-making-these-public-real/Sv4WRnHl
Petition to Abolish Special Interest Campaign Financing
http://http://www.getmoneyout.com/
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Let a Thousand 'Rogue' Grand Juries Bloom! by William Norman Grigg
Let a Thousand 'Rogue' Grand Juries Bloom! by William Norman Grigg
Amanda Culbertson has a conscience, which is another way of saying that she wasn't well-suited to government "work." Until recently she was employed by the Houston Police Department as a crime lab supervisor. In 2009, she became aware of serious problems with the reliability of the department's roadside blood alcohol testing vehicles, more commonly known as BAT vans.
Over the past decade, hundreds of police departments nation-wide have purchased the vehicles with the help of federal grants. The testing device deployed in them, the Intoxilyzer, is considered infallible by law enforcement agencies and most trial judges. However, the Kentucky-based company that manufactures the the Intoxilyzer has refused to disclose its source code. Without access to the source code, the device's findings are unverifiable. As one defendant points out, the machine could simply be a gimmicky random number generator, rather than a finely calibrated scientific instrument.
In 2008, it was discovered that a supervisor for the Houston Police Department had falsified BAT van inspection records for at least the previous eighteen months, thereby calling into question test results in at least 2,600 cases. When Culbertson was appointed to supervise the inspections, she learned that indifferently trained police officers allowed the units to overheat, which would skew test results. In addition, a glitch in the system caused the much-heralded Intoxilyzer to reset every time the air conditioner was turned on.
Over the course of several months, Culbertson tried to get officials in the police department and the Harris County DA's office to address her concerns. None of them was interested in disturbing what had become a very profitable scam.
In June, Culbertson and two of her colleagues quit their jobswith the HPD. "We could no longer choose between a paycheck and our integrity," Culbertson explained. Not surprisingly, she was called to testify by attorneys representing some of the hundreds of people facing DUI charges as a result of BAT van tests.
In professional terms, Culbertson landed on her feet: She was hired by a laboratory at Lone Star College that had a contract to conduct breathalyzer analysis for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter, the Harris County Commission – at the initiative of DA Pat Lykos – ended its contract with the Lone Star College lab. In effect, Lykos – in an act of vulgar retaliation – arranged for Culbertson to be fired.
Harris County's 185th criminal court grand jury, which had been investigating problems with the BAT vans, called Culbertson to testify, along with former Harris County Prosecutor Brent Mayr. Lykos dispatched two members of her flying monkey corps – assistant DAs Carl Hobbs and Steve Morris – to "monitor" the grand jury testimony.
Since Lykos and her office were suspected of covering up the use of tainted evidence and retaliating against a whistleblower, the DA and her underlings were barred from being present in any capacity other than as sworn witnesses. Accordingly, when Lykos's minions materialized during Culbertson's testimony, the Grand Jury Foreman ordered them to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to remove them or place them under arrest.
Lykos unsuccessfully sought a court order compelling the grand jury to grant access to her underlings. When that effort failed, the DA's office exploited a back-channel to obtain official transcripts of the grand jury testimony. That led to a summons from Judge Susan Brown to Hobbs and Morris, along with court reporters Javier Leal and Katherine Chagaris, who face the possibility of contempt citations and the prospect of six months in jail.
The Harris County grand jury's insurrection caused consternation in the DA's office, and astonishment in the local media. "All too often in the past, Harris County grand juries have functioned as rubber stamps providing prosecutors with indictments without impartial scrutiny of their substance," notes the Houston Chronicle. Of course, this is true of practically every grand jury since the enactment of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were created by committee to be an instrument of what the German National Socialists called Gleichschaltung – the "synchronization" of legal (as well as political and cultural) institutions with the dictates of the central government. Germany had been a federated constitutional republic prior to 1933, when Gleichschaltung got underway. Five years later, the FDR regime's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure – invoking the supposed need for "simplicity" and "efficiency" – began the same process in the United States.
The Advisory Committee had no legislative authority or popular mandate; it was a pure creation of the prosecutorial class. Thus it's hardly surprising that one of its most urgent priorities was to transform the grand jury from a citizen's assembly into an instrument of the prosecution. This meant "rectifying" – in the Orwellian sense – the Fifth Amendment by effectively removing the troublesome word "presentment."
The Fifth Amendment specifies that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...." A "presentment" is essentially a proprio motu indictment delivered by a grand jury without approval of a government prosecutor.
Presentments were often filed by grand juries investigating official corruption – such as the grand jury in Minneapolis that forced the resignation of the mayor and police chief in 1902, or the one that dislodged Boss Tweed and his politically sheltered cronies thirty years earlier.
This was an entirely appropriate function of the grand jury. The "grand jury in its primal, plenary sense ... was a group of men who stood as a check on government, often in direct opposition to the desires of those in power," points out constitutional scholar Roger Roots. Rather than being an instrument of the political class, Roots continues, "American grand juries initiated prosecutions against corrupt agents of the government, often in response to complaints from individuals." It also served as "a people's watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions."
For most of America's history, "the evil that the grand jury sought to address was the exercise of distant power locally," wrote Kevin K. Washburn in an article for the Fordham Law Review. "Indeed, the grand jury came to us as an institution that was respected for its profound ability to protect local communities – indeed, possibly rebellious ones – from central government authority. It was, in essence, a local check on Crown authority."
In 1734, grand juries twice refused to indict John Peter Zenger for "seditious libel." New York's Royal Governor William Cosby bypassed the grand jury by filing a "criminal information" against Zenger – only to see the trial jury nullify the sedition law and acquit the newspaper publisher. During the 1760s, Crown prosecutors in Massachusetts were constantly stymied by grand juries that refused to indict colonists accused of violating the Stamp Act and other impositions.
Both before and after American Independence, "the grand jury's primary method for exercising its power was not rigorous review of facts, but nullification of validly enacted laws," Washburn observes. They didn't dispute the prosecutor's presentation of the facts, but rather "the legislator's right to impose such laws, or at least the prosecutor's decision to enforce them in a given context."
Obviously, this kind of power simply couldn't be left in the hands of mere Mundanes. Accordingly, the term "presentment" was conspicuously absent from Rule 6 of the original Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which dealt with the role of the grand jury. Lester B Orfield, who served on the Advisory Committee, later explained that retaining the term "might encourage the use of the `run-away' grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney."
"Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury," wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.
What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.
Amanda Culbertson has a conscience, which is another way of saying that she wasn't well-suited to government "work." Until recently she was employed by the Houston Police Department as a crime lab supervisor. In 2009, she became aware of serious problems with the reliability of the department's roadside blood alcohol testing vehicles, more commonly known as BAT vans.
Over the past decade, hundreds of police departments nation-wide have purchased the vehicles with the help of federal grants. The testing device deployed in them, the Intoxilyzer, is considered infallible by law enforcement agencies and most trial judges. However, the Kentucky-based company that manufactures the the Intoxilyzer has refused to disclose its source code. Without access to the source code, the device's findings are unverifiable. As one defendant points out, the machine could simply be a gimmicky random number generator, rather than a finely calibrated scientific instrument.
In 2008, it was discovered that a supervisor for the Houston Police Department had falsified BAT van inspection records for at least the previous eighteen months, thereby calling into question test results in at least 2,600 cases. When Culbertson was appointed to supervise the inspections, she learned that indifferently trained police officers allowed the units to overheat, which would skew test results. In addition, a glitch in the system caused the much-heralded Intoxilyzer to reset every time the air conditioner was turned on.
Over the course of several months, Culbertson tried to get officials in the police department and the Harris County DA's office to address her concerns. None of them was interested in disturbing what had become a very profitable scam.
In June, Culbertson and two of her colleagues quit their jobswith the HPD. "We could no longer choose between a paycheck and our integrity," Culbertson explained. Not surprisingly, she was called to testify by attorneys representing some of the hundreds of people facing DUI charges as a result of BAT van tests.
In professional terms, Culbertson landed on her feet: She was hired by a laboratory at Lone Star College that had a contract to conduct breathalyzer analysis for the Harris County Sheriff's Office. Shortly thereafter, the Harris County Commission – at the initiative of DA Pat Lykos – ended its contract with the Lone Star College lab. In effect, Lykos – in an act of vulgar retaliation – arranged for Culbertson to be fired.
Harris County's 185th criminal court grand jury, which had been investigating problems with the BAT vans, called Culbertson to testify, along with former Harris County Prosecutor Brent Mayr. Lykos dispatched two members of her flying monkey corps – assistant DAs Carl Hobbs and Steve Morris – to "monitor" the grand jury testimony.
Since Lykos and her office were suspected of covering up the use of tainted evidence and retaliating against a whistleblower, the DA and her underlings were barred from being present in any capacity other than as sworn witnesses. Accordingly, when Lykos's minions materialized during Culbertson's testimony, the Grand Jury Foreman ordered them to leave. When that directive was ignored, the Foreman instructed the Baliff to remove them or place them under arrest.
Lykos unsuccessfully sought a court order compelling the grand jury to grant access to her underlings. When that effort failed, the DA's office exploited a back-channel to obtain official transcripts of the grand jury testimony. That led to a summons from Judge Susan Brown to Hobbs and Morris, along with court reporters Javier Leal and Katherine Chagaris, who face the possibility of contempt citations and the prospect of six months in jail.
The Harris County grand jury's insurrection caused consternation in the DA's office, and astonishment in the local media. "All too often in the past, Harris County grand juries have functioned as rubber stamps providing prosecutors with indictments without impartial scrutiny of their substance," notes the Houston Chronicle. Of course, this is true of practically every grand jury since the enactment of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure in 1946.
The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure were created by committee to be an instrument of what the German National Socialists called Gleichschaltung – the "synchronization" of legal (as well as political and cultural) institutions with the dictates of the central government. Germany had been a federated constitutional republic prior to 1933, when Gleichschaltung got underway. Five years later, the FDR regime's Advisory Committee on the Rules of Criminal Procedure – invoking the supposed need for "simplicity" and "efficiency" – began the same process in the United States.
The Advisory Committee had no legislative authority or popular mandate; it was a pure creation of the prosecutorial class. Thus it's hardly surprising that one of its most urgent priorities was to transform the grand jury from a citizen's assembly into an instrument of the prosecution. This meant "rectifying" – in the Orwellian sense – the Fifth Amendment by effectively removing the troublesome word "presentment."
The Fifth Amendment specifies that "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury...." A "presentment" is essentially a proprio motu indictment delivered by a grand jury without approval of a government prosecutor.
Presentments were often filed by grand juries investigating official corruption – such as the grand jury in Minneapolis that forced the resignation of the mayor and police chief in 1902, or the one that dislodged Boss Tweed and his politically sheltered cronies thirty years earlier.
This was an entirely appropriate function of the grand jury. The "grand jury in its primal, plenary sense ... was a group of men who stood as a check on government, often in direct opposition to the desires of those in power," points out constitutional scholar Roger Roots. Rather than being an instrument of the political class, Roots continues, "American grand juries initiated prosecutions against corrupt agents of the government, often in response to complaints from individuals." It also served as "a people's watchdog against arbitrary and malevolent prosecutions."
For most of America's history, "the evil that the grand jury sought to address was the exercise of distant power locally," wrote Kevin K. Washburn in an article for the Fordham Law Review. "Indeed, the grand jury came to us as an institution that was respected for its profound ability to protect local communities – indeed, possibly rebellious ones – from central government authority. It was, in essence, a local check on Crown authority."
In 1734, grand juries twice refused to indict John Peter Zenger for "seditious libel." New York's Royal Governor William Cosby bypassed the grand jury by filing a "criminal information" against Zenger – only to see the trial jury nullify the sedition law and acquit the newspaper publisher. During the 1760s, Crown prosecutors in Massachusetts were constantly stymied by grand juries that refused to indict colonists accused of violating the Stamp Act and other impositions.
Both before and after American Independence, "the grand jury's primary method for exercising its power was not rigorous review of facts, but nullification of validly enacted laws," Washburn observes. They didn't dispute the prosecutor's presentation of the facts, but rather "the legislator's right to impose such laws, or at least the prosecutor's decision to enforce them in a given context."
Obviously, this kind of power simply couldn't be left in the hands of mere Mundanes. Accordingly, the term "presentment" was conspicuously absent from Rule 6 of the original Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which dealt with the role of the grand jury. Lester B Orfield, who served on the Advisory Committee, later explained that retaining the term "might encourage the use of the `run-away' grand jury as the grand jury could act from their own knowledge or observation and not only from charges made by the United States attorney."
"Today, the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor, who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury," wrote federal District Judge William J. Campbell in a 1973 law journal article calling for formal abolition of the institution on the grounds of redundancy. This isn't to say that the grand jury is considered useless by the prosecutorial caste: It helps maintain the pretense that prosecutors are servants of the public will.
What is happening in Harris County is not an example of a grand jury going "rogue," but rather one behaving exactly as it should. It is interposing itself on behalf of the public by investigating a federally subsidized revenue-collection racket, and the abusive prosecutor who presides over it. Hopefully its example will prove to be contagious.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
" IT IS SPREADING THIS IS JUST THE START " SAYS G. K. TEMUJIN
It’s called thinking. Try it sometime rather then moving lock step to either end of the political spectrum. Americans are a bunch of stupid SHEEP { sorry sheep } easy to manipulate and subdue.
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
Approximately one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps. Poverty is rapidly spreading and large numbers of families have lost everything. People want answers, and it is understandable why so many are joining these protest movements.
Just a reminder friends Ranks of the “ Poorest Poor ” Reach New High, and Poverty Spreads to the Suburbs.
Today the AP reports on new census data showing that a record number of Americans 1 in 15 are now counted among the ranks of the “poorest poor,” or those who live on less than $5,570 annually for an individual or $11,157 for a family of four.
Let those numbers sink in for a moment. $5,570 to live on. For a year. In America. And 1 in 15 Americans is doing just that.
America must have higher taxes for the wealthy. They were higher in the 1960s and the economy rocked. Regarding how fair it is look at it like this.
A great part of government spending is defense , war and maintaining an overseas Empire.
What is unfair is someone making $60,000 paying a higher tax rate then someone making a million or even a billion.
The nonsense of “they invest in their business” is truly nonsense. We all know money invested back in a business is a write off and would remain as such. We’re talking taxable income here. The statement of “The rich create jobs in the US” is nonsense too. They created jobs when the US made the things they bought. Back to that old manufacturing again. The middle class buys things too and at one time they made what they bought. There is a self sustaining system that worked.
Remember when industrial labor unions were powerful and manufacturing was everywhere. It’s called “The Good Old Days”.
According to a recent poll, 83 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in "very poor" shape. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions of Americans have lost their homes and tens of millions of Americans have been sickened by what they have seen happen on Wall Street over the last ten years. It is easy to understand why people are frustrated, marching in the streets and anger grows each day.
As the economy continues to get worse, the protests will grow and unfortunately so will the violence. You can preach the benefits of non-violence all day long to some people but they just will not get it. America has reached a turning point, and what you are seeing now is only just the beginning of the madness. In the years ahead you are going to see rioting that is going to be absolutely unprecedented and violent. Heaven help us all if it gets out of hand.
In Oakland, windows were smashed, graffiti was sprayed on buildings and senseless acts of vandalism were committed. There were also quite a few intense confrontations with police and dozens of protesters ended up getting arrested.
Sadly friends America has become a powder keg, and it is going to be very difficult for anyone to control what is going on.
But Oakland was not the only city where protesters were becoming more aggressive.
In Seattle, protesters surrounded a Sheraton hotel where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was giving a speech. According to some media reports, some of the protesters were actually planning to make a "citizen's arrest".
Their plans were cancelled, however, when police dispersed them with a shower of pepper spray.
In New York City, a different kind of confrontation took place. Approximately 100 military vets showed up in uniform and marched over to the New York Stock Exchange. Once they arrived, they stopped directly in front of the building which was protected by a line of heavily armed NYPD officers. It was a tense moment, but fortunately there was no violence.
This kind of "stare down" cannot be a sign of good things to come. What would have happened if even a single person had lost their cool ???
While standing in formation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the vets were heard chanting the following slogans....
"We are veterans! We are the 99 percent!"
"Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!"
Things are certainly getting very, very interesting.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started off very peacefully, but sadly there is no guarantee that the violence we are seeing now is not going to escalate even further.
One recent survey found that 69 percent of those involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests "would support violence to advance their agenda".
That is a frightening statistic.
Hopefully everyone will calm down and the protesters will realize that they will get much farther ahead by non-violent means.
But once again, anger and frustration are difficult to predict or control. The more angry and frustrated that the American people get, the more chaotic the streets of our cities are going to become.
While the vast majority of Americans agree that we have major problems, there is tremendous disagreement about what the solutions are. There are some good ideas floating around out there, but there are also some groups that are promoting some very, very stupid , bad and insane ideas.
when Republicans defend the abuses of the big banks and the big corporations they are wrong to do so.
When Democrats defend big government and advocate even more big government as the answer, they are also very wrong.
The truth is that neither side is correct.
The USA needs to dramatically reduce the size of government and needs to dramatically reduce the size and the power of the big corporations.
That would mean a lot more liberty and freedom for not just America but the world, and it would empower individuals and small businesses.
But most people don not understand this. Most people think that they have to either take the side of the big corporations or the side of big government. Most people do not think most people are stupid sheep. Most people do not care.
The cold, hard truth is that most of the time big government and the big corporations are working together, and it is not for your benefit.
Most people feel a sense of powerlessness these days. Most people feel like things never seem to change no matter who they vote for. Once again sad but true.
Truth hurts my friends .
People want things to change, but they don't feel as though they have a way of bringing that change about.
This is not just happening in the United States. As the global economy has faltered, anger and frustration have been growing all over the planet.
In fact, the International Labor Organization is warning that civil unrest could erupt all over the globe if the current economic crisis gets even worse.
But the warning signs are here.
Pressure just keeps building and building and building. The bubble is going to pop.
According to a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of all Americans are "dissatisfied with how things are going in the country". At the beginning of this year, that number was only at 61 percent.
at some point another major financial crisis is going to erupt and the economy is going to get even worse.
So what will this country look like when that happens ???
The root cause of these problems is that a corrupt government has created rules, regulations, laws and unfunded entitlement programs that have created this situation. They have eroded the education system, taken over the money system, taken over the media, instilled a police state, institutionalized war and overwhelmed society with illegal aliens. That is what a third world country is . The feds are taking you there at the speed of light now.
The American People have some legitimate grievances. Things are quickly spiraling out of control and they are being left out of the conversation.
They knew many opposed the bailout by more than 90% but they did them anyway. They know they are opposed to the Patriot Act and the TSA but you do not see any of that going away.
You are in the first stage of the last superpower financial collapse. This stage began in September 2008.
You are still positioned in the middle of this first stage. The financial collapse may soon end when the US debt rating is cut again , government shutdown follows, US currency is devalued by the US Treasury and the global financial markets all crash in tandem [ LET'S HOPE IT DOES NOT GET THAT FAR ].
That’s when the real shit hits the fan: food riots, looting, arson, widescale economic displacement and unemployment, which leads to death, disease and starvation for those that had depended all this time on a check from the government or their employer to survive, and were caught unprepared !!!
To much vast Wealth of the power elite is treacherous, and the arrogant greedy are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied.In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples are destroyed.
“ But soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
but how much longer can this go on?’"
Suddenly, your debtors will take action.
They will turn on you and take all you have,
while you stand trembling and helpless.Because you have plundered many nations;now all the survivors will plunder you.Power elite ou committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the cities , towns and villages with violence.
“What sorrow awaits you who build wealth with money gained dishonestly !
You believe your wealth will buy security,
putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger.
But by the murders you committed,
you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. "
The very stones in the walls cry out against you power elite,
and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
“What sorrow awaits you power elite who build cities with money gained through dishonesty , thievery murder and corruption !!
The Walton empire is not a good example of Capitalism in action and has not been for many years now; it is a good example of Capitalism corrupted by greed.
Henry Ford was a Capitalist; he believed in making money, but also in paying his employees well enough that they could afford to buy the cars they were making. He knew that happy employees are productive employees, and that it is hard to be happy if you can’t afford to make at least a modest living.
The Walton / Walmart / Sam's Club empire has become all about taking in as much wealth as possible and paying out as little as possible, which is a corruption of the Capitalist aim. Those low prices aren’t just generosity, they are the result of buying cheap products (often from China), using strongarm tactics to get suppliers to charge nearly suicidal rates for their products, and paying very low wages to staff who are frequently overworked.
When folks get desperate, they do desperate things.
The world is moving into unprecedented times.
Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
" Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "
Approximately one out of every seven Americans is on food stamps. Poverty is rapidly spreading and large numbers of families have lost everything. People want answers, and it is understandable why so many are joining these protest movements.
Just a reminder friends Ranks of the “ Poorest Poor ” Reach New High, and Poverty Spreads to the Suburbs.
Today the AP reports on new census data showing that a record number of Americans 1 in 15 are now counted among the ranks of the “poorest poor,” or those who live on less than $5,570 annually for an individual or $11,157 for a family of four.
Let those numbers sink in for a moment. $5,570 to live on. For a year. In America. And 1 in 15 Americans is doing just that.
America must have higher taxes for the wealthy. They were higher in the 1960s and the economy rocked. Regarding how fair it is look at it like this.
A great part of government spending is defense , war and maintaining an overseas Empire.
What is unfair is someone making $60,000 paying a higher tax rate then someone making a million or even a billion.
The nonsense of “they invest in their business” is truly nonsense. We all know money invested back in a business is a write off and would remain as such. We’re talking taxable income here. The statement of “The rich create jobs in the US” is nonsense too. They created jobs when the US made the things they bought. Back to that old manufacturing again. The middle class buys things too and at one time they made what they bought. There is a self sustaining system that worked.
Remember when industrial labor unions were powerful and manufacturing was everywhere. It’s called “The Good Old Days”.
According to a recent poll, 83 percent of all Americans believe that the economy is in "very poor" shape. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, millions of Americans have lost their homes and tens of millions of Americans have been sickened by what they have seen happen on Wall Street over the last ten years. It is easy to understand why people are frustrated, marching in the streets and anger grows each day.
As the economy continues to get worse, the protests will grow and unfortunately so will the violence. You can preach the benefits of non-violence all day long to some people but they just will not get it. America has reached a turning point, and what you are seeing now is only just the beginning of the madness. In the years ahead you are going to see rioting that is going to be absolutely unprecedented and violent. Heaven help us all if it gets out of hand.
In Oakland, windows were smashed, graffiti was sprayed on buildings and senseless acts of vandalism were committed. There were also quite a few intense confrontations with police and dozens of protesters ended up getting arrested.
Sadly friends America has become a powder keg, and it is going to be very difficult for anyone to control what is going on.
But Oakland was not the only city where protesters were becoming more aggressive.
In Seattle, protesters surrounded a Sheraton hotel where JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon was giving a speech. According to some media reports, some of the protesters were actually planning to make a "citizen's arrest".
Their plans were cancelled, however, when police dispersed them with a shower of pepper spray.
In New York City, a different kind of confrontation took place. Approximately 100 military vets showed up in uniform and marched over to the New York Stock Exchange. Once they arrived, they stopped directly in front of the building which was protected by a line of heavily armed NYPD officers. It was a tense moment, but fortunately there was no violence.
This kind of "stare down" cannot be a sign of good things to come. What would have happened if even a single person had lost their cool ???
While standing in formation in front of the New York Stock Exchange, the vets were heard chanting the following slogans....
"We are veterans! We are the 99 percent!"
"Corporate profits on the rise, soldiers have to bleed and die!"
Things are certainly getting very, very interesting.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started off very peacefully, but sadly there is no guarantee that the violence we are seeing now is not going to escalate even further.
One recent survey found that 69 percent of those involved with the Occupy Wall Street protests "would support violence to advance their agenda".
That is a frightening statistic.
Hopefully everyone will calm down and the protesters will realize that they will get much farther ahead by non-violent means.
But once again, anger and frustration are difficult to predict or control. The more angry and frustrated that the American people get, the more chaotic the streets of our cities are going to become.
While the vast majority of Americans agree that we have major problems, there is tremendous disagreement about what the solutions are. There are some good ideas floating around out there, but there are also some groups that are promoting some very, very stupid , bad and insane ideas.
when Republicans defend the abuses of the big banks and the big corporations they are wrong to do so.
When Democrats defend big government and advocate even more big government as the answer, they are also very wrong.
The truth is that neither side is correct.
The USA needs to dramatically reduce the size of government and needs to dramatically reduce the size and the power of the big corporations.
That would mean a lot more liberty and freedom for not just America but the world, and it would empower individuals and small businesses.
But most people don not understand this. Most people think that they have to either take the side of the big corporations or the side of big government. Most people do not think most people are stupid sheep. Most people do not care.
The cold, hard truth is that most of the time big government and the big corporations are working together, and it is not for your benefit.
Most people feel a sense of powerlessness these days. Most people feel like things never seem to change no matter who they vote for. Once again sad but true.
Truth hurts my friends .
People want things to change, but they don't feel as though they have a way of bringing that change about.
This is not just happening in the United States. As the global economy has faltered, anger and frustration have been growing all over the planet.
In fact, the International Labor Organization is warning that civil unrest could erupt all over the globe if the current economic crisis gets even worse.
But the warning signs are here.
Pressure just keeps building and building and building. The bubble is going to pop.
According to a recent Fox News poll, 76 percent of all Americans are "dissatisfied with how things are going in the country". At the beginning of this year, that number was only at 61 percent.
at some point another major financial crisis is going to erupt and the economy is going to get even worse.
So what will this country look like when that happens ???
The root cause of these problems is that a corrupt government has created rules, regulations, laws and unfunded entitlement programs that have created this situation. They have eroded the education system, taken over the money system, taken over the media, instilled a police state, institutionalized war and overwhelmed society with illegal aliens. That is what a third world country is . The feds are taking you there at the speed of light now.
The American People have some legitimate grievances. Things are quickly spiraling out of control and they are being left out of the conversation.
They knew many opposed the bailout by more than 90% but they did them anyway. They know they are opposed to the Patriot Act and the TSA but you do not see any of that going away.
You are in the first stage of the last superpower financial collapse. This stage began in September 2008.
You are still positioned in the middle of this first stage. The financial collapse may soon end when the US debt rating is cut again , government shutdown follows, US currency is devalued by the US Treasury and the global financial markets all crash in tandem [ LET'S HOPE IT DOES NOT GET THAT FAR ].
That’s when the real shit hits the fan: food riots, looting, arson, widescale economic displacement and unemployment, which leads to death, disease and starvation for those that had depended all this time on a check from the government or their employer to survive, and were caught unprepared !!!
To much vast Wealth of the power elite is treacherous, and the arrogant greedy are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied.In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples are destroyed.
“ But soon their captives will taunt them.
They will mock them, saying,
‘What sorrow awaits you thieves!
Now you will get what you deserve!
You’ve become rich by extortion,
but how much longer can this go on?’"
Suddenly, your debtors will take action.
They will turn on you and take all you have,
while you stand trembling and helpless.Because you have plundered many nations;now all the survivors will plunder you.Power elite ou committed murder throughout the countryside and filled the cities , towns and villages with violence.
“What sorrow awaits you who build wealth with money gained dishonestly !
You believe your wealth will buy security,
putting your family’s nest beyond the reach of danger.
But by the murders you committed,
you have shamed your name and forfeited your lives. "
The very stones in the walls cry out against you power elite,
and the beams in the ceilings echo the complaint.
“What sorrow awaits you power elite who build cities with money gained through dishonesty , thievery murder and corruption !!
The Walton empire is not a good example of Capitalism in action and has not been for many years now; it is a good example of Capitalism corrupted by greed.
Henry Ford was a Capitalist; he believed in making money, but also in paying his employees well enough that they could afford to buy the cars they were making. He knew that happy employees are productive employees, and that it is hard to be happy if you can’t afford to make at least a modest living.
The Walton / Walmart / Sam's Club empire has become all about taking in as much wealth as possible and paying out as little as possible, which is a corruption of the Capitalist aim. Those low prices aren’t just generosity, they are the result of buying cheap products (often from China), using strongarm tactics to get suppliers to charge nearly suicidal rates for their products, and paying very low wages to staff who are frequently overworked.
When folks get desperate, they do desperate things.
The world is moving into unprecedented times.
Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Western Democracy: A Farce and a Sham by Paul Craig Roberts
Western Democracy: A Farce and a Sham by Paul Craig Roberts
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it up at taxpayer expense at "talks" in the French resort of Cannes on the Mediterranean.
The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels. Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is to be looted.
Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating politically. The Greek people sense that the EU "bailout" is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at the expense of the Greek people.
The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But it turns out that "we have freedom and democracy" is not supposed to be taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private interests.
The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way democracies are ruled.
The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.
The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as to the importance of "being part of Europe." That means being a member of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union, which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will vote for the back room deal.
Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.
If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook. This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.
Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician, instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western democracies.
If you need more evidence of this mythical creature called "Western democracy," consider that Western governments are no longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly violated statutory law.
What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a "mere scrap of paper." Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of "the war on terror," itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply "because the president said so." They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.
Very few commentators have said a word about this. The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to convict.
This is Amerika today. A president without any authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution, can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that they are a "threat." No evidence is required. No conviction. No presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.
In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as torture; there is only "enhanced interrogation." A mere word change has eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.
In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who tells the truth is a "threat." Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden, which, for favors from the "world’s only superpower," will turn him over to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.
Western "civilization" is totally corrupted by American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in the name of the hoax "war on terror."
What terror does the world actually see? The world sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The "war on terror" is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments industries.
In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by "security," porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and sexual groping. To carry on the hoax "war on terror," the US government has elevated itself above the law.
The American effort to achieve accountability to law, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence. One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters into "domestic extremists," the number one concern of Homeland Security. The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the sheeple will buy it.
The police have been militarized by Washington. Community police forces no
longer represent the local public that pays their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.
American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents, even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by
ethnicity or country of origin.
Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners. Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a "terrorist" from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.
Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porno-scanners to taxpayers in order "to protect the public from terrorists."
The only terrorists Americans will ever experience are those funded by their own tax dollars within their "own" government. A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.
November 4, 2011
Every day that passes adds to the fraudulent image of what is called Western democracy.
Consider that the entire Western world is outraged that the Greek prime minister announced that he is going to permit the Greek people to decide their own fate instead of having it decided for them by a handful of banksters, politicians, and bureaucrats living it up at taxpayer expense at "talks" in the French resort of Cannes on the Mediterranean.
The Greek economy is facing its fourth year of decline and lacks the revenues to service its national debt held by private European banks. The banks don’t want to lose any money, so a handful of power brokers reached an agreement with representatives of the Greek government to write off some of the debt in exchange for EU capital subsidies to be financed by inflicting severe austerity on the Greek population. Wages, salaries, pensions and medical care are being cut while the rate of unemployment rises to depression levels. Government employees are laid off. Valuable public properties are to be sold to private parties for pennies on the dollar. In short, Greece is to be looted.
Large numbers of Greeks have been in the streets protesting the austerity policy and have reached the point of anger of throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. Greece is disintegrating politically. The Greek people sense that the EU "bailout" is not bailing out Greece. It is bailing out the French, Dutch, and German banks at the expense of the Greek people.
The Greek prime minister, watching his party’s support and power crumble, announced that he would let the people decide in a referendum. After all, allegedly that’s what democracies do. But it turns out that "we have freedom and democracy" is not supposed to be taken literally. It is merely a propagandistic slogan behind which people are ruled through back-room deals decided by powerful private interests.
The Greek prime minister’s announcement that he would put the back-room bailout deal to a referendum shocked the EU hierarchy, Washington, and investors. Who does this Greek guy think he is permitting the people, who bear the cost of the deal, to have a say in it? Who let this Greek guy out of his cage? This is not the way democracies are ruled.
The EU power brokers are outraged over the Greek prime minister’s departure from normal procedure. But the Greek PM is relying on the Greek people to approve the deal, and not without reason.
The Greek people have been brainwashed for decades as to the importance of "being part of Europe." That means being a member of the European Union. When the Greeks realize that voting down the bailout of the banksters means being thrown out of the European Union, which is what they will learn between now and the referendum, they will vote for the back room deal.
Polls already indicate this. A poll for a Greek newspaper indicates that whereas 46% oppose the bailout, 70% favor staying in the EU, which the Greeks see as a life or death issue.
If this poll is a reliable indicator, the Greek PM has made a brilliant political decision. The Greek people will vote in favor of what they have been protesting violently in the streets. As the Greek people will do themselves in, the politicians are off the hook. This is the bet that the Greek PM has placed.
Whatever the outcome, keep in mind that the entire Western political and investor world was shocked that a politician, instead of simply imposing a back room deal, said he would let the people decide. Letting the people decide is a no-no in Western democracies.
If you need more evidence of this mythical creature called "Western democracy," consider that Western governments are no longer accountable to law. Contrast, for example, the sexual harassment charges that are plaguing US presidential candidate Herman Cain’s campaign with the pass given to high government officials who clearly violated statutory law.
What follows is not a defense of Cain. I take no position on the charges. The real point is different. In America the only thing that can ruin a politician is his interest in sex. A politician, for example, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, B. Omama, cannot be ruined by violating United States and international law or by treating the US Constitution as a "mere scrap of paper." Bush and Cheney can take America to wars based entirely on lies and orchestrated deceptions. They can commit war crimes, murdering large numbers of civilians in the cause of "the war on terror," itself a hoax. They can violate US and international laws against torture simply "because the president said so." They can throw away habeas corpus, the constitutional requirement that a person cannot be imprisoned without evidence presented to a court. They can deny the right to an attorney. They can violate the law and spy on Americans without obtaining warrants. They can send due process to hell. In fact, they can do whatever they want just like Hitler’s Gestapo and Stalin’s secret police. But if they show undue interest in a woman or proposition a woman, they are dead meat.
Very few commentators have said a word about this. The House of Representatives did not impeach President Bill Clinton for his war crimes against Serbia. They impeached him for lying about a sexual affair with a White House intern. The US Senate, which had too many sexual affairs of its own to defend, didn’t bother to try to convict.
This is Amerika today. A president without any authority whatsoever, not in law and certainly not in the Constitution, can assassinate US citizens based on nothing except an assertion that they are a "threat." No evidence is required. No conviction. No presentation of evidence in any court. Just a murder. That is now permissible to the Amerikan president. But let him try to get a woman who is not his wife into bed, and he is a cooked goose.
In Amerika there is no such thing any longer as torture; there is only "enhanced interrogation." A mere word change has eliminated the crime. So torture is permissible.
In Amerika today, or in the UK and the EU, anyone who tells the truth is a "threat." Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who made public information leaked to him by US government sources horrified by the criminal actions of the United States government, is now, as a result of Amerikan pressure on UK courts, being turned over to Sweden, which, for favors from the "world’s only superpower," will turn him over to the US regardless of law to be prosecuted on trumped-up charges.
Western "civilization" is totally corrupted by American money. There is no integrity anywhere. For a decade Washington has been murdering women, children, village elders, and journalists in the name of the hoax "war on terror."
What terror does the world actually see? The world sees the terror that Israel, protected by Washington, inflicts on the Palestinians. The world sees the terror that the US inflicts on Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Latin America and now Africa, with Syria, Lebanon, and Iran waiting in the wings. The "war on terror" is nothing but an orchestrated invented excuse for Amerika-Israel to achieve hegemony while enriching their armaments industries.
In Greece, at least the PM committed to giving the people a say in their fate. In America the people have no voice whatsoever. The sheeple are content to be protected by "security," porno-scanners, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention, and sexual groping. To carry on the hoax "war on terror," the US government has elevated itself above the law.
The American effort to achieve accountability to law, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, if not shut down by cold weather, ice, and snow, is likely to be shut down by police violence. One riot begun by provocateurs is all it takes to transform protesters into "domestic extremists," the number one concern of Homeland Security. The presstitute media will make the case against the rioters, and the sheeple will buy it.
The police have been militarized by Washington. Community police forces no
longer represent the local public that pays their salaries. Local police represent Washington’s war against America.
American citizens are all suspects. Anyone who goes through airport security knows this. The only law that the US government obeys is not even a law. It is a bureaucratic regulation that prevents, even in dire wartime, any profiling of suspects by
ethnicity or country of origin.
Consequently, all native born, flag-waving, American super-patriots are suspects when they board commercial airliners. Americans who have a life time of security clearances are subject to being porno-scanned or sexually groped. Airport Security cannot tell a "terrorist" from a CIA analyst, a Marine general or a US Senator.
Well-connected members of the ruling elite, such as Michael Chertoff, can become rich from selling the porno-scanners to taxpayers in order "to protect the public from terrorists."
The only terrorists Americans will ever experience are those funded by their own tax dollars within their "own" government. A people incapable of perceiving its real peril has no chance of surviving. America might be a military superpower, but it no longer exists as a free country with accountable government and a rule of law.
November 4, 2011
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