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Friday, December 30, 2011

Duped: The ‘war on terror’ is the fast track to tyranny.

The Patriot Act is so good sounding isn’t it. And the Department of Homeland Security, who would object to that?

So what are the stories about FEMA camps? And why does it look like Homeland Security is inordinately involved in hassling people in the homeland?

It looks like the Department of Homeland Security was established to protect the government from the people of the homeland.

STRONGMEN HAVE BEEN SCARING THEIR PEOPLE INTO SUBMISSION FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS

Of course, Obama - like Bush - claims that tyrannical measures are necessary to fight the war on terror. But FBI agents and CIA intelligence officials, constitutional law expert professor Jonathan Turley, Time Magazine, Keith Olbermann and the Washington Post have all said that U.S. government officials “were trying to create an atmosphere of fear in which the American people would give them more power”, and even former Secretary of Homeland Security – Tom Ridge – admits that he was pressured to raise terror alerts to help Bush win reelection.

And Hitler, Stalin and other strongmen throughout history have also claimed that tyrannical measures were necessary to fight their wars on terror:

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.”
- Plato

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
- U.S. President James Madison

“Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death”.
- Adolph Hitler

“Why of course the people don’t want war … But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship … Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

“The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened”.
- Josef Stalin

Windows Updates: "Acer - Display - ACER S271HL"? I have a Dell…

After seeing this II did an internet search and found this:

I've just checked if there were any Windows updates out there for my
setup and noticed an optional one for "Acer - Display - ACER S271HL," even though I don't have any Acer hardware. So I wonder why such updates show up for me. I thought Windows Update was smart enough to pick only applicable updates for a given setup. Was I wrong?

In fact, Windows Update isn't "always smart enough". Never take irrelevant updates if they are offered. If you need advice, post a question in the newsgroup appropriate for the OS you're using.

There was one case, where an update like that, affected the ability
to input using the keyboard of the computer. Which makes the computer difficult to fix. And that update was offered to *everyone* at the time. It was only by one person being affected, and warning others,
that other people were protected from peril. Eventually, about a day later, Microsoft removed that item from Windows Update.

But if everyone had blindly taken that optional update, there would have been a lot of computers to repair. That one was a HID (human interface) driver, a filter driver for touchpad, and for some reason, Windows Update concluded every computer needed a copy.

Security updates are relatively safe. They have a pretty good track
record. But optional hardware driver updates, do not have a good record.
Paul

Hypocrisy: Michelle begs for 3 bucks while on a 4 million dollar vacation

On a $4M Vacation, Michelle Seeks $3 From Backers

by Keith Koffler on December 30, 2011, 1:21 pm

Speaking from her paradisical $4 million Hawaii vacation, Mrs. Obama wants to know: Do any of President Obama’s supporters have $3 to spare for his reelection?

This is approximately like coming upon Warren Buffett on a street corner with a McDonald’s cup asking if he can have 15 cents.

Michelle’s request was part of an email sent to the Obama 2012 list today.

Over the next 11 months we’ve got an organization to grow, voters to register, and people to get fired up.

I hope you’ll close out this year by donating $3 or more now to help make sure we’re ready for the next one . . .

Thank you so much, and happy new year,

Michelle

The obscene juxtaposition of the first lady on a $4 million vacation while asking what would have to be middle to low income earners for three bucks – who else would they be targeting with such an appeal? – is yet another example of lack of perspective the Obamas seem to be gaining while in power.

Mrs. Obama takes extravagant vacations to Spain and southern Africa. The president golfs obsessively and is currently dining at Honolulu’s ritziest restaurants. All while asking their fellow Americans to “sacrifice” during this time of not plenty.

And they blow $4 million – mostly taxpayers’ money – on a vacation, while wondering if the small people can come up with $3.

What about renting a beach house next year at the Jersey shore? I mean, if we’re all going to sacrifice.

Nero played a fiddle, Obama golfs!

“We’re out in the cold and the rain and the wind because we care about America.

He(Obama) just finished his 90th round of golf,” Mr. Romney told the crowd of hundreds that came despite the temperature which, with the wind-chill factored in, felt like 24 degrees.

May 6, 2011 the DOW dropped 650 points in half an hour. It could happen again, and worse!

Flash Crash Threatens to Return With a Vengeance

By: Gillian Tett, Financial Times

What should investors watch in 2012? As the new year dawns, there are plenty of short-term issues on the horizon, ranging from the eurozone to fiscal gridlock in the US to upheavals in the Middle East.

But amid that list there is also another, often ignored, question to ponder: could 2012 produce a repeat of the “flash crash”, the bizarre episode that hit the U.S. equity markets back on May 6 2010?

Think about it for a moment. A full 18 months have passed since the strange episode that caused the Dow Jones [.DJI 12239.09 -47.95 (-0.39%) ] to tumble 650 points in half an hour, wiping $850 billion off share prices, before rebounding. Since then, the issue has faded from view amid the eurozone drama.

But to this day, nobody has fully explained what really happened on May 6. Nor is there any evidence that the fundamental problems that caused the flash crash have been resolved. That leaves some scientists fearing that not only is a repeat of that flash crash possible, but it is probable — and next time round, it could be even more damaging.

To understand this, take a look at a fascinating transatlantic research paper published by the Bank for International Settlements. One of the paper’s co-authors is Dave Cliff, formerly a financial trader who now runs the UK government’s Large-Scale Complex Information Technology Systems project, an endeavour that analyses the risks of IT systems in sectors including healthcare, nuclear energy and finance. The other, Linda Northrop, runs a similar project at Carnegie Mellon University, which was initiated a decade ago by the US military.

In recent years, these two teams have used engineering and science skills to analyse what they call socio-technical risks, or the dangers that occur whenever complex technological systems proliferate, creating “systems of systems” that nobody understands. In early 2010, well before May 6, they released a brilliantly prescient report that predicted that a systems failure loomed.

Since then, they have continued their research, with sobering conclusions. Most notably, these researchers believe that the flash crash was not an isolated event; on the contrary, it was entirely predictable given how IT systems have proliferated to create a system of systems that is now interacting in unpredictable ways that regulators and investors cannot comprehend, far less control.

Usually, this danger is not visible to investors. After all, markets generally work well, leaving financiers in the grip of a phenomenon that Diane Vaughan, the sociologist, called the “normalcy of deviance” (based on her work on the Challenger 1987 space shuttle disaster): because people have sailed close to the wind and survived, they assume they can continue to do this — and turn a blind eye to anything that seems uncomfortably bizarre.

But the risks and near misses are rising all the time. Take May 2010. At the time, the wild gyrations in prices were deemed shocking. However, Cliff and Northrop think it could have been dramatically worse: if the systems failure had been a little later that day, prices would not have had a chance to recover before the US market’s close, which would have caused carnage when Asian [.N225 8455.35 56.46 (+0.67%) ] and European markets [.FTEU3 1001.39 8.61 (+0.87%) ] opened.

“The true nightmare scenario would have been if the crash’s 600-point down-spike, the trillion-dollar write-off, had occurred immediately before [US] market close,” they note. “The only reason that this sequence of events was not triggered was down to mere lucky timing. . . the world’s financial system dodged a bullet.”

RELATED LINKS

Current DateTime: 12:29:36 30 Dec 2011
LinksList Documentid: 45823101

And such luck may not be repeated. Since May 6, there has been a series of other, mini flash crashes in commodity markets. While regulators claim that introducing trading limits will fix the issue, there is scant evidence that this will really work, given the scale of this technological innovation.

Is there any solution? Cliff and Northrop offer one idea that might help: regulators and bankers should replicate what some scientists have done elsewhere and join forces to create a cross-border computing centre that is capable of extremely advanced, large-scale financial simulation. Their idea is that this would essentially replicate what is done in meteorology or complex engineering to map the markets — creating the equivalent of wind tunnels to test new financial products and ideas, and warn of looming trouble.

It sounds pretty sensible to me. There is even an obvious platform for this: the U.S. is currently creating an Office of Financial Research, which could host such a device. But don’t hold your breath; sadly, the OFR is floundering in its efforts to define its role, and most regulators still prefer to forget May 6 rather than admit in public that they are struggling to understand how modern markets really work. And that, sadly, is unlikely to change, unless there is another flash crash. It is not a comforting thought; least of all given all that is happening in the eurozone.

Osama’s burial at sea: This is as likely to have happened as the story we were fed!

I don’t believe the official slop. I don’t believe we got Osama, I believe he’d been dead for a couple years or more. I believe Seal Team Six was eliminated to ensure the truth didn’t leak out!

Girl Scouts liberal leadership exposed; the communists are everywhere!

Joe McCarthy was right! The nation has been so infiltrated with communist dialogues that that have penetrated virtually all national organizations at the leadership levels.

But he was neutralized by a tactic that is in use today, the ‘label’ tactic.

The tactic is from Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”:

Tactic 5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

Tactic 13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

McCarthyism, racist, homophobe, birther, truther, denier, tea bagger, and I forget the label used against those who oppose illegal immigration, were all terms created by communists to smear, deride and neutralize those who oppose their communist plans and ideology by personalizing them, and polarizing them.. 

15-Year-Old Behind Blaze Story on Girl Scouts Speaks Out: ‘We Were So Deceived’

Jonathon M. Seidl

On Tuesday, we broke the story of the Girl Scouts using one of its books to direct young girls to the liberal site Media Matters to combat media misinformation. The story took off, with everyone from Fox News to the Drudge Report covering it. The girl at the center of the story was 15-year-old Sydney Volanski, who first noticed the Media Matters reference last year and left the organization over it. Now, Sydney is speaking out.

Sydney joined the crew of “Fox & Friends” on Thursday morning to explain what she found and also to talk about her website, “Speak Now: Girl Scouts Website,” which she co-edits and that was set up to expose other liberal bias within the Scouts.

“My sister and I started a website to help inform families of the more leftward leanings of Girl Scouts because they promise to be neutral politically and about certain social issues,” she explained, “but when you examine the women that they promote and the websites and books that they refer girls to, there is a clear liberal ideology, like with the Media Matters site.”

“With Speak Now: Girl Scouts we’re just trying to spread awareness to families because we were so deceived,” she added. “For eight years we were in Girl Scouts and we didn’t realize that Girl Scouts was promoting such a liberal ideology.”

Sydney went on to claim the Scouts have promoted Planned Parenthood and abortion advocacy groups in the past, using that as example of more liberal bias in the organization.

On a side note, Girl Scouts spokesperson Michelle Tompkins — who did not answer any of our follow-up inquiries — did give a statement to Fox saying that the organization’s material is regularly reviewed and updated and that upcoming versions of the book will not include references to Media Matters. That’s similar to what we were told. However, there are still plenty more questions we asked, such as how Media Matters came to be placed in the book, who wrote the page that the reference appears on and what group, if any, will replace Media Matters once the new publications are released.

You can watch Sydney’s entire interview with Fox, below:

Watch the latest video at <a href="http://video.foxnews.com">video.foxnews.com</a>

Thursday, December 29, 2011

You can’t trust government! The forefathers setup a system of checks and balances for that reason!

Slow Kill Holocaust: Proof the Government is Killing You

Proof that the government is poisoning the population. With their stated goal to reduce population worldwide, the eugenicists who run the world government state have resorted to any means to reduce fertility, including the outrageous measures identified in the 1969 Planned Parenthood - World Population memo written by Frederick S. Jaffe.

That memo proposes reducing U.S. fertility via postponement of marriage, discouraging tax incentives for parents, encouraged increases in homosexuality, adding fertility control agents to the water supply and encouraging women to work, as well as measures including forced abortion and payments to encourage abortions.

Many of these draconian calls for involuntary fertility control reflect some of the most controversial entries in the 1977 Ecoscience volume written by current White House science advisor John P. Holdren & population bomb scare-monger Paul Ehrlich.

From bisphenol-a, to GMO crops, fluoride in water and countless other toxins slow killi...More

Stock up before the bottom drops out! Not with silver or gold, you can’t eat them, but with food!

What are you going to do when it takes a day’s wages to by a loaf of bread?

I pulled what little money I had in out of a 401k and bought silver with it to have something to trade with when the dollar crashes because of the US debt and the governments inability to deal with it honorably.

The FED has been creating money out of nothing (Quantitative Easing (QE) ) to prop up the economy but sooner or later someone has to pay the piper.

We’ve been experiencing inflation with rising fuel and food prices but the government is hiding that fact by discontinuing the counting of food and fuel prices in it’s method of determining inflation.

But the day is coming when they won’t be able to stem the tide. The debt is too large and the QE’s weakening of the dollar will inevitably lead to a collapse of historic proportions.

Food is going to become more desirable than gold as hyperinflation kicks in, after all, you can’t eat gold.

What are you going to do when it takes a day’s wages to by a loaf of bread?

I decided not to wait to find out. I looked for an economical way to stockpile enough food to ride out the coming collapse.

I found a way to buy survival foods incrementally instead of having to come up with a hefty lump sum amount of money to by a year or two or three’s of freeze dried provisions.

I found GoFoods, a company that makes quality survival foods for reasonable prices,  and a way to get the provisions on a recurring basis at a cost that wouldn’t bust my budget.

I joined and became an independent business owner (IBO) because of the convenient auto-ship that allows me to get survival food incrementally feature.

I also thought that you may be thinking the same things I was thinking before I came across GoFoods and I can help you by telling you what I found.

You have go through an IBO to buy from GoFoods. I did not join GoFoods to get rich but to get prepared.  But since this is their business plan, you can buy or join GoFoods at my website below.

You will probably want to share this opportunity with family and friends and choose to join as an IBO yourself…not to get rich, but to share with your family and friends how to get prepared for the coming collapse. Click on the image below: 

image

Election fraud? Sorry, vote's over

The Obama misery could have been avoided altogether if he had simply been vetted either by the media looking at his past or officials verifying his eligibility.

Court rules inauguration cancels 'standing' in Obama case


By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WND

The judges on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that election fraud suspected in the 2008 presidential campaign essentially was canceled by the inauguration of Barack Obama.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit that was filed on the same day Obama was inaugurated in Washington by a team of taxpayers, voters, presidential candidates, members of the military and others who alleged Obama failed to meet the Constitution's requirements for the presidency.

The case represents the work of two groups of plaintiffs, one led by lawyer Orly Taitz and the other by attorney Gary Kreep of the United States Justice Foundation.

Taitz said her plaintiffs definitely will pursue further action, probably a request for rehearing at two levels of federal court, while Kreep told WND he was working with his clients on the results, and they soon would make a decision regarding an appeal.

Get Jerome Corsi's "Where's the Real Birth Certificate?"

The issue was the "standing" of the groups bringing the complaint against Obama. The district court essentially said nobody had standing to bring a complaint, but the appellate judges said the individuals who were politically connected to the race should hold an interest in a fair outcome – including whether there was an ineligible candidate aboard the ticket.

(Story continues below)

The individuals were Alan Keyes and Wiley S. Drake, candidates for the White House on the American Independent Party ticket in California; Gail Lightfoot, a member of the California Libertarian Party; who was a write-in candidate; and Markham Robinson, a certified California elector for the American Independent Party.

The judges' panel observed: "These plaintiffs argue that they have standing because, as candidates running against Obama in the 2008 election, they had an interest in having a fair competition. … If Obama entered the presidential race without meeting the requirements for the office, they contend, the candidates did not have a fair opportunity to obtain votes in their favor."

The opinion from judges Harry Pregerson, Ray Fisher and Marsha Berzon explained the concept is called "competitive standing," and they affirmed it as legitimate grounds for concern.

"This notion of 'competitive standing' has been recognized by several circuits," the opinion said. "We, too, have upheld the notion of 'competitive standing.' In Owen v. Mulligan, we held that the 'potential loss of an election' was an injury-in-fact sufficient to give a local candidate and Republican party officials standing. In that case, the candidate for local office sued the Postal Service for giving his rival a preferential mailing rate, in violation of its own regulations."

The opinion said the case had the candidate and party officials seeking "to prevent their opponent from gaining an unfair advantage."

However, in Obama's case, the court panel simply said once the inauguration was held, the claims evaporated.

"The original complaint was filed on Jan. 20, 2009, at 3:26 p.m. Pacific Standard Time, after President Obama was officially sworn is as president," the judges wrote. "Once the 2008 election was over and the president sworn in, Keyes, Drake and Lightfoot were no longer 'candidates' for the 2008 general election. Moreover, they have not alleged any interest in running against President Obama in the future.

"Therefore, none of the plaintiffs could claim that they would be injured by the 'potential loss of an election,'" the court said.

Actually, Obama flubbed the Jan. 20 public oath, and retook it later, out of public view, according to the White House.

In a footnote, the judges confirmed that "some cases" have held that competitive standing continues beyond a given election, but they don't think so in this case.

The court also dismissed a quo warranto action – essentially a court case demanding to know by what authority a given official is acting – because they believe such an action can be filed only in the District of Columbia, as well as FOIA claims requesting information.

The case also unsuccessfully alleged violations of the federal racketeering law, RICO.

"We've sent our recommendation to the plaintiffs," said Kreep. "I was surprised [by the opinion] given the comments made by the justice Berzon about this was an important constitutional issue that needed to be resolved."

Taitz told WND that it is important to note that the court did not confirm that Obama is eligibile; just that there were technical troubles with all of the current case claims.

Read more: Election fraud? Sorry, vote's over http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=380197#ixzz1hPlp84Fn

Obama has a Trump card

After over 2 years of not releasing a birth certificate, Obama needed a reason to all of a sudden come out with his forged one so Trump started talking about. Trump’s banter was meant to lessen suspicion by making it seem like Obama was responding to Trump’s blathering.

If Trump runs it’s to take votes away from the Republicans and keep Obama in the White House! 

TRICKED YOU: I'M NOT REPUBLICAN!

Was it ‘Looney’? Perot accused Bush Sr. of ‘dirty tricks’ in 1992 campaign

If I knew then what I know now I would not have dismissed this allegation as quickly as I did. As I look back, now Bush Sr. is like the godfather of the new world order.

Reagan had thwarted their plans to get the NWO’s former head of the CIA into the worlds most powerful position for eight years, with Bush now in the White House Perot had become a serious problem with his third party run. They had to try to take Perot out, thus the dirty tricks. But they weren’t enough to prevent Bush from losing to Clinton.

Ironically, just as a man of super integrity had stymied their plans to further the NWO earlier, Perot allowed a man of low degree to defeat Bush Sr. and thus stymie their plans again…they would have to wait until Bush Jr. came along! With Bush Jr. in the White House, the NWO got their Patriot Act and their perpetual Middle East wars.

THE 1992 CAMPAIGN: The Overview; PEROT SAYS HE QUIT IN JULY TO THWART G.O.P. 'DIRTY TRICKS'

By RICHARD L. BERKE
Published: October 26, 1992

At a time when Ross Perot's candidacy once again appeared to be transforming the Presidential contest, the Texas billionaire offered a new explanation today for his decision in July to abandon the campaign. He said he had withdrawn after hearing that President Bush's campaign was scheming to smear his daughter with a computer-altered photograph and to disrupt her wedding.

Mr. Perot offered no evidence, only quoting friends and an unidentified "top Republican."

"I can't prove any of it today," he said on tonight's CBS News program "60 Minutes." "But it was a risk I did not have to take," he added, "and a risk I would not take where my daughter is concerned."

A spokesman for the President dismissed Mr. Perot's assertions as "all loony."

The accusations of a series of "dirty tricks," made on "60 Minutes," in a newspaper interview and in two campaign appearances today, were in stark contrast to the reasons Mr. Perot gave when he withdrew on July 16, a move that engendered much criticism from his supporters. [ Excerpts, page A12. ] Revitalized Democrats

He bristled at the idea that many Americans were viewing him as "a quitter," but the reasons he gave were that he thought the Democratic Party had been revitalized and that he did not want to force the contest to go to the House of Representatives.

Mr. Perot has often spoken of threats to himself or his family and has embraced conspiracy theorists from both the far left and the far right wings of politics. [ Page A12. ]

In addition to the accusations about his daughter, Mr. Perot said in an interview with The Boston Herald that he had a videotape of a senior member of the Bush campaign, whom he did not identify, talking to a contract employee of the Central Intelligence Agency in Dallas. He did not say how he got the tape or if he knew what they were discussing. Mr. Perot accused the unidentified C.I.A. employee of being hired to tap into his computerized stock trading program to prevent him from having the money to revive his campaign.

Marlin Fitzwater, the White House spokesman, told reporters in Billings, Mont.: "It's all nonsense. There's nothing to it. I don't want to attack Perot, but I don't know where he's getting it from. I mean, fantastic stories about his daughter and disrupting her wedding and the C.I.A. -- it's all loony."

Obama must’ve been thinking about the US being broke: "Let's See If My Credit Card Still Works"

Obama At Store Register: "Let's See If My Credit Card Still Works"

"It will be really embarrassing if it doesn't," remarked President Obama as he was attempting to pay for some items he bought while Christmas shopping. (at the 2:39 mark in the video)
Obama was taking some time out of the Washington bubble and went shopping (photo-opping) at a Best Buy store and Petsmart in Alexandria, Virginia.

The country was Bushwhacked, but we accepted because, after all, the Bushes are sort of conservative

The man who used the phrase ‘new world order’ publically didn’t alarm us because he wasn’t an evil Democrat. W’s ‘war on terror’ and Patriot Act didn’t alarm us because he wasn’t an evil Democrat.

What we failed to realize, at the time, was that the real rulers of the nation are both Republican and Democrat and neither Republican nor Democrat.

Why do you think we always move towards communism/socialism/liberalism/progressivism and never back towards individualism no matter which party is in power?

They sit at the top directing the nation towards the new world order and use the Republican and Democrat labels as it best suits that goal.

There is no Republican and Democrat, no Left and Right, there is only the new world order and they control the populace with the deception of a left right paradigm!

The New World Order’s Choice


Elder Bush gives his blessing to Romney

Boehner Caves on Payroll Tax Cut Folly

Question: Where does the funding for Social Security and Medicaid come from?

Answer: The funding for Social Security and Medicaid comes from payroll taxes.

Question: How does cutting payroll taxes by robbing Social Security and Medicaid funds help anybody?

Answer: It enables Obama to make the false claim that he cut taxes. It also helps Obama continue destroying America!

Congress approves short-term payroll tax, unemployment benefits

  • Pipeline bill heads to White House

By Stephen Dinan

The Washington Times

House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is followed by reporters after holding a news conference on the payroll tax cut on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)House Minority Whip Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is followed by reporters after holding a news conference on the payroll tax cut on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2011, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Congress closed out its legislative year on Friday the same way it began: with a divided House and Senate agreeing to a short-term extension, in this case renewing the payroll tax holiday for two more months, but leaving the bigger work for later.

The bill does force President Obama to make a final decision on permitting the Keystone XL pipeline, which he had vehemently objected to, but it delivers him a major victory by extending unemployment benefits for the long-term jobless yet again, without any of the new conditions the GOP had sought to impose.

The cavernous House chamber and the more intimate Senate floor were nearly empty as both chambers passed the bill in pro forma sessions. If any member in either chamber had objected, the deal would have been scuttled, but nobody did.

“I hope this Congress has had a very good learning experience,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat. “Everything we do around here doesn’t have to end up in a fight.”

Presiding over the House session was Speaker John A. Boehner, the man who has been battered by the entire tax exchange.

** FILE ** Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, after a Democratic caucus lunch. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)<br />** FILE ** Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., meets with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011, after a Democratic caucus lunch. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Mr. Boehner initially seemed to approve the two-month deal worked out by the Senate, then after the HouseGOP balked he announced on Sunday the House would insist on its yearlong bill instead. But as pressure mounted, Mr. Boehner’s colleagues fled and he had no choice but to change course and concede defeat.

“Our conference told the speaker to draw a line in the sand, the speaker stood up and drew it for us, and then our conference began to desert him,” said Rep. Rob Woodall, a freshman Republican from Georgia. “Our speaker was ready to lead us, the question is, are we ready to follow.”

Mr. Woodall was one of the dozen House Republicans who opposed even the GOP’s own bill, arguing that it didn’t make budget sense to use savings over 10 years to offset a one-year or two-month tax cut — as both House and Senate bills did.

The short-term bill is the latest punt in a year full of them: Early on, Congress passed repeated stopgap spending bills as it wrestled with long-overdue 2011 funding measures. And throughout the year it has passed repeated extensions of the highway bill, small business programs and the Federal Aviation Administration.

All sides agree the two-month tax cut extension is inadequate, and all sides also said they had wanted to secure a full-year deal — but with senators already home for vacation and House Republican leaders stepping on their own messaging, the capital city declared the two-month deal a winning compromise.

The bill extends this year’s payroll tax cut through the end of February, and also continues unemployment benefits though for fewer weeks than in the past, and grants full payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients. Under the terms of a 1997 budget deal, those doctor payments were scheduled to be cut 27 percent.

Lost revenue from the payroll tax cut is offset by a new fee on mortgages.

House Republicans had sought a yearlong extension of the payroll tax cut, extended full doctor payments for two years.

It also provided for additional unemployment benefits though only under new rules that would have allowed states to impose drug-testing and would have pushed beneficiaries to get a graduate equivalency degree. Democrats objected and those provisions are not in the two-month bill.

House Republicans tried to save face by insisting Friday’s agreement takes care of the paperwork burden a two-month extension would impose on businesses. Democrats, who won a near-complete victory in the showdown, agreed to that addition.

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Senator releases report on federal government wasteful spending, probably just tip of iceberg!

Dr. Coburn Releases New Report on Wasteful Government Spending in 2011: "Wastebook 2011"

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) today released a new oversight report, “Wastebook 2011” that highlights over $6.5 billion in examples of some of the most egregious ways your taxpayer dollars were wasted. This report details 100 of the countless unnecessary, duplicative and low-priority projects spread throughout the federal government.

“Video games, robot dragons, Christmas trees, and magic museums. This is not a Christmas wish list, these are just some of the ways the federal government spent your tax dollars. Over the past 12 months, politicians argued, debated and lamented about how to reign in the federal government’s out of control spending. All the while, Washington was on a shopping binge, spending money we do not have on things we do not absolutely need. Instead of cutting wasteful spending, nearly $2.5 billion was added each day in 2011 to our national debt, which now exceeds $15 trillion,” Dr. Coburn said.

“Congress cannot even agree on a plan to pay for the costs of extending jobless benefits to the millions of Americans who are still out of work. Yet, thousands of millionaires are receiving unemployment benefits and billions of dollars of improper payments of unemployment insurance are being made to individuals with jobs and others who do not qualify. And remember those infamous bridges to nowhere in Alaska that became symbols of government waste years ago? The bridges were never built, yet the federal government still spent more than a million dollars just this year to pay for staff to promote one of the bridges.”

Examples of wasteful spending highlighted in “Wastebook 2011” include:

• $75,000 to promote awareness about the role Michigan plays in producing Christmas trees & poinsettias.

• $15.3 million for one of the infamous Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska.

• $113,227 for video game preservation center in New York.

• $550,000 for a documentary about how rock music contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

• $48,700 for 2nd annual Hawaii Chocolate Festival, to promote Hawaii’s chocolate industry.

• $350,000 to support an International Art Exhibition in Venice, Italy.

• $10 million for a remake of “Sesame Street” for Pakistan.

• $35 million allocated for political party conventions in 2012.

• $765,828 to subsidize “pancakes for yuppies” in the nation’s capital.

• $764,825 to study how college students use mobile devices for social networking.

Read the full report: here

The GOP led House has sent 28 Jobs Bills to the Senate! BUT the Democrat led Senate has sat on all 28

You get the sense that the DNC wants these things to fail

The Democrat led Senate wants the GOP led House to fail so Obama can run against a ‘do nothing’ congress…and because Obama is bent on destroying America!

Cuban Actress Blasts Actor Sean Penn as 'Communist A**-hole

LISTEN: Cuban Actress Blasts Actor Sean Penn as 'Communist A**-hole;' He Calls Her a 'Pig'

Amanda Gaines
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON -- An actress and former international beauty pageant queen had a heated run-in with actor Sean Penn at Los Angeles International Airport recently, in which she says he called her a pig and she responded by calling him a communist.

Maria Conchita Alonso, who is known for her role in the movies "The Running Man" and "Predator 2," was picking up her wheelchair-bound mother at LAX when she noticed fellow actor Sean Penn standing by the same luggage carousel. Alonso had not interacted with Penn since she wrote an open letter to him in March 2010 criticizing him for supporting socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. She says the meeting was meant to happen when the pair were waiting for information on Penn's and Alonso's mother's lost luggage.

"I go 'Hello,' and he smiles and says, 'Oh, you lost your bag too?" Alonso told Steve Malzberg on WMAL. "And I'm like, 'No, my mother (lost her bag).' And at that moment he recognizes me because he didn't recognize me before, and he goes, 'Oh, it's you.'"

Alonso says she calmly told Penn she wanted to speak with him about the tension over Chavez when Penn blew up at her.

"He goes, 'I don't want to talk to you. You speak badly about me. You insult me on TV," Alonso said.

Alonso says the conversation escalated when Penn accused Alonso's brother of attempting to assassinate Chavez, which Alonso says is not true.

"So I'm like, 'You are in favor of Hugo Chavez and [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.' Because I also saw a picture of footage from TV where Chavez and Ahmadinejad are together and Sean Penn is next to them. And, you know, he's like 'I've never said that about Ahmadinejad. You're a pig.' And I go to him, 'And you are a communist, Sean Penn!'"


GALLERY: SEAN AND MARIA - NOT TWO PEAS IN A POD. BUT THESE CELEBS ARE!


Alonso may have been referring to an interaction between Chavez and Ahmadinejad in September, when the Venezuelan President asked the Iranian President to release two detained American hikers at the urging of Penn.


Penn and Alonso share a scene in the 1988 movie "Colors"

The actress says the exchange of words in the airport caused a scene where others were looking on with amusement or shock.

"The second time I called him a communist, I said 'You're a communist a**hole," Alonso said. She added that she later regretted using profanity, but is not sorry.

"I'm not apologizing for calling him a communist because that is what he is," she told WMAL, adding that it's "sad" because Penn is "an amazing actor."

Alonso's criticism of Penn stems from comments he made on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" in which he painted Chavez in favorable terms for the nation's work with aid in Haiti.

"It was a sort of ironic collaboration that birthed our organization in Haiti between the support of Venezuela and the United States army," Penn told the HBO host in early 2010. "And we hope that those kind of collaborations can set an example for future approaches to many other issues. And today was a very productive day. So again I just want to thank President Chavez."

Alonso, who was born in Cuba, wrote an open letter to Penn condemning his comments. The interaction at LAX was the first time the two had met face-to-face since then.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Moscow: I seriously doubt America will have elections in 2012

Was the National Defense Authorization Act-NDAA the last brick in the wall?

Have we lost our freedoms to laws passed with patriotic sounding names like The Patriot Act and the one referenced above?

Iron Curtain Begins Descending onto the United States of America

By Sher Zieve 

As Barack Hussein Obama’s real (internal) poll numbers continue to plummet into oblivion, Obama and his increasingly complicit Congress secretly pass laws that will enslave, incarcerate and even murder their fellow Americans–for the explicit purpose of those who are currently in power remaining in power.  It is now becoming clearer and clearer that both the Marxist-Democrats and their RINO brothers and sisters may not allow the 2012 elections to occur.

The latest anti-liberty and unconstitutional atrocities include but, are not limited to, some of the following items:

1. DHS still lists Christians, anti-abortionists, homeschoolers, libertarians, conservatives, and military rank and file as terrorists.  Note:  Islamists are still not included on the list

2. Christian preachers are now being arrested, and often beaten up, by police.   A few preachers who have been arrested include two Houston pastors who were arrested for (legally) preaching against homosexuality on the same corner for the past two years.  One of the police officers told them that they were ‘doing nothing wrong’.  That was just before the cops grabbed their video camera, forced them to the ground, placed them in handcuffs and took them to the station.

The charges against them are unclear but, appear to include preaching a message the Houston cops didn‘t like.  However, WND reports:    “Their hearing will be in Houston Municipal Court, which is run by [lesbian] Barbara E. Hartle, who, according to the Dallas Voice, is listed by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund as “one of only a few out members of the Texas judiciary.”

WND also reports that Pastor Michael Marcavage, founder of the evangelistic Repent America ministry, was placed on the FBI’s terrorist watch list for “nonviolent religious speech which government officials perceive as [merely] controversial.”  Controversial?  Being controversial is now a crime?  In another incident, Pastor Rives Grogan and his 11 year old son were illegally arrested for preaching against abortion in a public (and allowed) free-speech zone.

3. The most recent and titanic infringement on the rights of all US citizens is a bill (National Defense Authorization Act-NDAA).  Although Section 1032 subsection (b) (1) and (2) of S 1867 (passed in secret and behind closed doors) states that US Citizens and legal resident aliens are not subject to military incarceration, US Senators (including now self-outed Marxist Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham) are gleefully interpreting Section 1031 to include all US citizens being subject to “Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.”

In other words, we may now experience what those recently nationwide refurbished FEMA camps look like.  This is no longer conspiracy theory, folks.  Senators Carl Levin (D-MI), John McCain (R-AX) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) amongst many others have now not only threatened all of us with arrest but, are threatening the very foundations of what used to be our country.  The masks have come off of our elected officials and most of them now resemble either Josef Stalin or Adolph Hitler.

Every totalitarian government starts out in almost the identical way.  First, it begins with some sort of political correctness indoctrination, then it begins taking away liberties a little at a time, then it explains that it can make decisions (including your money) for you better than you can.  It decides that it can not only indoctrinate you children better but, can raise them better that you.  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin said:  “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.”

The next to final step of all of these brutal and repressive governments is to make scapegoats of law-abiding citizens and raise up the lawbreakers as “acceptable.”  Note:  The TEA Party vs. OWS comparison comes readily to mind.

The final step is the incarceration and, ultimate, genocide of those who oppose their own enslavement.  We now stand in the beginning of the final phase-solution of the existence of the United States of America.  The Executive and Legislative branches of our government are now consistently operating outside of US law and have firmly become the enemy of We-the-People.  You may not want to hear this.  The truth often cuts deeply.  The government has moved beyond rogue and has now entered the complete and final Dictatorial Tyranny stage.  Will you stand and fight or will you lie down and die?  The choice is still yours…but, not for much longer.

The Iron Curtain has now almost fully descended onto the borders of the United States of America.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.”

–The unanimous Declaration [of Independence] of the thirteen united States of America

DHS List: You Might Be A Domestic Terrorist If…:
at patdollard.com

Pastors charged after telling ‘gays’ about sin:
at wnd.com

Preacher to FBI: Put up or shut up!:
at wnd.com

Missionaries Jailed for Preaching Against Abortion in Free Speech Zone:
at thepostemail.com

US Senate passes its version of NDAA bill, which would allow military to detain anyone on US soil:
at theopenglobe.org

McCain says American Citizens Can Be Sent to Guantanamo:
at progressive.org

S 1867 (NDAA) Sections 1031 & 1032:
at thomas.loc.gov

The establishment is in disarray at the prospect of a Ron Paul win in Iowa

Use your brain, if the elites are against Ron Paul, then Ron Paul is not of the elite.

No, you will probably do like you always do, blame the media for picking our candidates while you listen to the media and run away from Ron Paul!

Ron Paul will change Washington for the good as much as Obama has changed it for the bad! Free your mind!!!

Will Ron Paul kill the caucuses?

Republican presidential hopeful, Ron Paul, waits to speak during a town hall meeting at the Fisher Community Center, in Marshalltown, Iowa. | AP Photo

GOP elites in Iowa are worried about the ramifications of a Ron Paul victory there. | AP Photo

Close

By JONATHAN MARTIN and ALEXANDER BURNS | 12/20/11 4:30 AM EST

SIOUX CITY, IOWA –The alarms are sounding in Iowa.

Conservatives and Republican elites in the state are divided over who to support for the GOP nomination, but they almost uniformly express concern over the prospect that Ron Paul and his army of activist supporters may capture the state’s 2012 nominating contest — an outcome many fear would do irreparable harm to the future role of the first-in-the-nation caucuses.

In spin rooms, bar rooms and online forums, the what-to-do-about-Paul conversation has become pervasive as polls show him at or near the top here just weeks before the January 3rd vote.

Paul poses an existential threat to the state’s cherished kick-off status, say these Republicans, because he has little chance to win the GOP nomination and would offer the best evidence yet that the caucuses reward candidates who are unrepresentative of the broader party.

“It would make the caucuses mostly irrelevant if not entirely irrelevant,” said Becky Beach, a longtime Iowa Republican who helped Presidents Bush 41 and Bush 43 here. “It would have a very damaging effect because I don’t think he could be elected president and both Iowa and national Republicans wouldn’t think he represents the will of voters.”

What especially worries Iowa Republican regulars is the possibility that Paul could win here on January 3rd with the help of Democrats and independents who change their registration to support the libertarian-leaning Texas congressman but then don’t support the GOP nominee next November.

“I don’t think any candidate perverting the process in that fashion helps [the caucuses] in any way,” said Iowa House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, adding that he didn’t know if that’s necessarily how Paul would win.

While there’s no evidence of an organized effort, public polling shows that Paul’s lead is built in large part with the support of non-Republicans – and few party veterans think such voters would stick with the GOP in November.

“They’ll all go back and vote for Obama,” predicted Beach.

The most troubling eventuality that Iowa Republicans are bracing for is that Paul wins the caucuses only to lose the nomination and run as a third-party candidate in November — all but ensuring President Obama is re-elected.

“If we empower somebody who turns around and elects Obama, then that’s a major problem for the caucuses,” said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

Leading Republicans, looking to put the best possible frame on a Paul victory, are already testing out a message for what they’ll say if the 76-year-old Texas congressman is triumphant.

The short version: Ignore him.

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,” said Gov. Terry Branstad. “If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”

The Paul rise comes at a moment when many Iowa GOP elites are already angst-ridden about their beloved quadrennial franchise. The fretting began four years ago when long-shot Mike Huckabee cruised to an easy caucus win, only to lose the nomination to John McCain, who finished fourth in Iowa after ignoring the state for much of 2007.

The concern has only grown in this election cycle. Romney has kept the state at arms-length for much of this year; Michele Bachmann won the Ames Straw Poll only to quickly recede to single-digits in state and national polls, raising questions about the future relevance of what is a fundraising bonanza for the state party.

Further, the decline in the number of candidate events here — and the prominent role debates and cable TV have played in this year’s election — have sparked difficult questions about whether Iowa’s retail-heavy traditions are a thing of the past.

Paul officials note that they’ve embraced the Iowa way. And even establishment Republicans like Branstad concede that the congressman has done it “the old-fashioned way” and enjoys the best organization of any of the candidates.

Alarm as Dutch lab creates highly contagious killer flu ‘and wants to publish it’

I’ve heard the term ‘mad scientists’ before, usually in monster movies. This makes Frankenstein look like a nursery rhyme. Why would they do this?

This must by a NWO psych-ops ruse preparing to set up another false flag martial law event. They tried the bird flu scare previously but the public didn’t buy it and overwhelmingly refused to take the shots.

Fear of terrorism as university prepares to publish key details

Steve Connor

Ron Fouchier, researcher behind the science

A deadly strain of bird flu with the potential to infect and kill millions of people has been created in a laboratory by European scientists – who now want to publish full details of how they did it.

The discovery has prompted fears within the US Government that the knowledge will fall into the hands of terrorists wanting to use it as a bio-weapon of mass destruction.

Some scientists are questioning whether the research should ever have been undertaken in a university laboratory, instead of at a military facility.

The US Government is now taking advice on whether the information is too dangerous to be published.

To see the graphic: The last outbreak - A deadly virus even before the latest twist

"The fear is that if you create something this deadly and it goes into a global pandemic, the mortality and cost to the world could be massive," a senior scientific adviser to the US Government told The Independent, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The worst-case scenario here is worse than anything you can imagine."

For the first time the researchers have been able to mutate the H5N1 strain of avian influenza so that it can be transmitted easily through the air in coughs and sneezes. Until now, it was thought that H5N1 bird flu could only be transmitted between humans via very close physical contact.

Dutch scientists carried out the controversial research to discover how easy it was to genetically mutate H5N1 into a highly infectious "airborne" strain of human flu. They believe that the knowledge gained will be vital for the development of new vaccines and drugs.

But critics say the scientists have endangered the world by creating a highly dangerous form of flu which could escape from the laboratory – as well as opening a Pandora's box for fanatical terrorists wishing to make a bio-weapon.

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed hundreds of millions of birds since it first appeared in 1996, but has so far infected only about 600 people who came into direct contact with infected poultry.

What makes H5N1 so dangerous, though, is that it has killed about 60 per cent of those it has infected, making it one of the most lethal known forms of influenza in modern history – a deadliness moderated only by its inability (so far) to spread easily through airborne water droplets.

Scientists are in little doubt that the newly created strain of H5N1 – resulting from just five mutations in two key genes – has the potential to cause a devastating human pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people. The study was carried out on ferrets, which when infected with influenza are the best animal "model" of the human disease.

The details of the study are so sensitive that they are being scrutinised by the US Government's own National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which is understood to have advised American officials that key parts of the scientific paper should be redacted to prevent terrorists from using the information to reverse-engineer their own lethal strain of flu virus.

In an unprecedented move, the Biosecurity board is believed to have told the US Government that there is a serious possibility of potentially dangerous information being misused if the full genetic sequence of the mutated H5N1 virus were to be published in open scientific literature.

A senior source close to the Biosecurity board, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Independent that the National Institutes of Health, which funded the work, is about to make a decision on how much of the scientific paper on the H5N1 super strain should be published, and how much held back.

"There are areas of science where information needs to be controlled," the scientist said. "The most extreme examples are, for instance, how to make a nuclear weapon or any weapon that is going to be used primarily to kill people. The life sciences really haven't encountered this situation before. It's really a new age."

The study was carried out by a Dutch team of scientists led by Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, where the mutated virus is stored under lock and key, but without armed guards, in a basement building.

Dr Fouchier, who declined to answer questions until a decision is made on publication, said in a statement released on the university's website that it only took a small number of mutations to change the avian flu virus into a form that could spread more easily between humans.

"We have discovered that this is indeed possible, and more easily than previously thought. In the laboratory, it was possible to change H5N1 into an aerosol-transmissible virus that can easily be rapidly spread through the air," Dr Fouchier said. "This process could also take place in a natural setting.

"We know which mutation to watch for in the case of an outbreak and we can then stop the outbreak before it is too late. Furthermore, the finding will help in the timely development of vaccinations and medication."

A second, independent team of researchers led by Yoshihiro Kawaoka of the universities of Wisconsin and Tokyo is understood to have carried out similar work with similar results, which has underlined how easy it is to create the super virus with a combination of deliberate mutations and random genetic changes brought about by passing avian flu manually from the nose of one ferret to another.

Some scientists have privately questioned whether such research should have been done in a university department that does not have the sophisticated anti-terrorist security of a military facility. They also point out that experimental viruses kept in seemingly secure laboratories have escaped in the past to cause human epidemics – such as a 1977 flu outbreak.

"There are people who say that the work should never have been done, or if it was done it should have been done in a setting where the information could be better controlled," said the source close to the biosecurity board.

"With influenza now it is possible to reverse engineer the virus. It's pretty common technology in many parts of the world. With the genomic sequence, you can reconstruct it. That's where the information is dangerous," he said.

"It's scary from a number of different angles. You want to have the vaccines and therapeutics in place, and you need to have a much information as you can about a particular virus, but you also worry about it from a biosecurity perspective."

Profile: researcher behind the science

Ron Fouchier

The Dutch virologist started as an expert in HIV, having received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 1995. After research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, he began a new career in the virology department at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, studying the molecular biology of the influenza A virus.

At a conference in Malta in September, he described his work as something that was "really, really stupid," but ultimately useful for the development of vaccines.

Monday, December 19, 2011

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama—But Not Jesus

U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree Pays Homage to Obama—But Not Jesus

By Terence P. Jeffrey

Capitol Christmas Tree, Barack Obama

This ornament, celebrating President Barack Obama, adorns the Capitol Christmas Tree that was officially lighted on Dec. 6, 2011. (CNSNews.com/Terence P. Jeffrey)

(CNSNews.com) - The 63-foot Sierra White Fir that was lighted at the U.S. Capitol Grounds on Dec. 6 as the official 2011 Capitol Christmas Tree includes a prominently displayed ornament paying homage to President Barack Obama, but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree's base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

On the north side of the tree--at a height of about 4 feet and easily visible to people standing near it---there is an ornament that says: “I ♥ President Obama.”

Ron Paul Warns Martial Law Being Established in USA...

Mitt won’t warn you, Newt won’t warn you, why? Because they are most likely part of the ruling class. Ron Paul is not! A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against the new world order!

Rush won’t tell you, Hannity won’t tell you, why? I think they just can’t get over the left, right, paradigm, i.e., the matrix. The false world created to make you think you are free. At the top, where the ruling class reigns, there is no left and right, left and right are just tools to keep you in line.

Rush and Hannity get close. They talk about the RINO’s or  the Republican establishment. They don’t go to the next step, the Republican establishment and the Democrat establishment are one establishment. The shadow government…

Ron Paul Warns Martial Law Being Established in USA...

Related:

Website asks; Is martial law around the corner? I’ve been posting the warning for nearly 4 years…

Government hospital ‘accidentally’ bans Bibles; it must be in the works!

Walter Reed accidentally bans Bibles

By:Liz Farmer | 12/18/11 8:10 PM
Examiner Staff Writer Follow Her @LizFarmerDC

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is backtracking on an order that banned family members from bringing Bibles and other religious materials to injured soldiers and a religious organization is demanding an explanation.

Issued on the date of the official consolidation of the region's two military medical centers, the memo on visitor and patient policy contained a section stating "No religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading material, and/or artifacts) are allowed to be given away or used during a visit." The Sept. 14 memo came from the desk of Col. Norvell Coots, the commander of the Walter Reed Healthcare system.

A spokeswoman for Walter Reed told The Washington Examiner on Friday that the policy was "written incorrectly," and that a ban on religious items was never enforced.

"Family can and always have been able to bring in any religious materials," said spokeswoman Sandy Dean, adding that the hospital provides chaplain services for many faiths.

The medical center rescinded the policy in early December after the Family Research Council brought it to the attention of several members of Congress who then contacted Walter Reed.

"It should have been more thoroughly reviewed," Dean said.

Related Document

  • Download the memo from Walter Reed’s commander
  • But FRC President Tony Perkins is skeptical.

    "If you can't get it right in a memo [from the commander], who can you trust?" he said.

    The religious organization has now filed a Freedom of Information Act request asking for copies of all communications regarding the making of the policy.

    The policy was signed by Coots' chief of staff, C.W. Callahan. But Dean said a "group of people" wrote the four-page memo and could not attribute the line on religious items to one person.

    Dean said the policy's intent was to "preserve people's religious rights," but many have lambasted the wording, saying it was a far cry from that intent.

    Iowa Rep. Steve King, one of the Republican congressmen who initially contacted Walter Reed, said through a spokeswoman that he's not surprised the medical center is taking weeks to rewrite its policy after rescinding it this month.

    "It'd be easy for me to write it -- but obviously they need someone other than the original author to come up with a new idea," he said.

    Dean said she did not immediately have an update on the status of the rewrite but said officials were being careful "that the policy we do come out with is respecting everyone's religious rights."

    lfarmer@washingtonexaminer.com

    What Constitution: is Private Property a Thing of the Past in America?

    Trustee to Seize and Liquidate Even the Stored Customer Gold and Silver Bullion From MF Global

    The bottom line is that apparently some warehouses and bullion dealers are not a safe place to store your gold and silver, even if you hold a specific warehouse receipt.  In an oligarchy, private ownership is merely a concept, subject to interpretation and confiscation.
    Although the details and the individual perpetrators are yet to be disclosed, what is now painfully clear is that the CFTC and CME regulated futures system is defaulting on its obligations.  This did not even happen in the big failures like Lehman and Bear Sterns in which the customer accounts were kept whole and transferred before the liquidation process.  
    Obviously holding unallocated gold and silver in a fractional reserve scheme is subject to much more counterparty risk than many might have previously admitted.  If a major bullion bank were to declare bankruptcy or a major exchange a default, how would it affect you? Do you think your property claims would be protected based on what you have seen this year?
    You always have counter-party risk if you hold gold and silver through another party, even if they are a Primary Dealer of the Federal Reserve. As Ben said, the Fed offers no seal of approval.  
    If a Bankruptcy Trustee can pool your bullion into the rest of the paper assets and then liquidate it at prices that are being front run by the Street, you will have to accept whatever paper settlement that they give you.
    The customer money and bullion assets are not lost, or rehypothecated or anything else.  This is a pseudo-legal fig leaf, a convenient rationalization.
    The customer assets were stolen, and given to at least one major financial institution by MF Global to satisfy an 11th hour margin call in the week of their bankruptcy, even as MF Global was paying bonuses to its London employees.
    And in an absolutely classic Wall Street move, they are still charging the customers storage fees on the bullion which they have misappropriated from them. lol.

    And now that powerful financial institution does not want to give the customer money and metal back.  And they are apparently so powerful that the Trustee and the Court are reluctant to try and force its return to the customers, which is customary in this type of preferential distribution of assets prior to a bankruptcy, much less assets that were stolen.  And keep in mind that in those last days the firm sent checks instead of wire transfers to customers so they could bounce them, and in a few cases even reversed completed wire transfers!
    And so in the great Wall Street tradition they are trying to force the customers and the public to take the loss.   The regulators and the exchange are aghast, and are trying to imagine how to resolve and spin this to preserve investor confidence and prevent a run on the system.
    'Let them eat warehouse receipts.'
    For many this would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. They had been cautioned and warned repeatedly, but chose to trust the financial system. And now they are suffering loss and anxiety, frozen assets, and the misappropriation of their wealth.
    How more plainly can it be said? The US financial system as it now stands cannot be trusted to observe even the most basic property rights as it continues to unravel from a long standing culture of fraud.
    Get your money as far away from Wall Street as is possible.  And if you want to own gold and silver, take delivery and store it in a secure private facility outside the fractional reserve system.

    Barrons
    The Silver Rush at MF Global
    By ERIN E. ARVEDLUND
    December 17, 2011
    It's one thing for $1.2 billion to vanish into thin air through a series of complex trades, the well-publicized phenomenon at bankrupt MF Global. It's something else for a bar of silver stashed in a vault to instantly shrink in size by more than 25%.
    That, in essence, is what's happening to investors whose bars of silver and gold were held through accounts with MF Global.
    The trustee overseeing the liquidation of the failed brokerage has proposed dumping all remaining customer assets—gold, silver, cash, options, futures and commodities—into a single pool that would pay customers only 72% of the value of their holdings. In other words, while traders already may have paid the full price for delivery of specific bars of gold or silver—and hold "warehouse receipts" to prove it—they'll have to forfeit 28% of the value.
    That has investors fuming. "Warehouse receipts, like gold bars, are our property, 100%," contends John Roe, a partner in BTR Trading, a Chicago futures-trading firm. He personally lost several hundred thousand dollars in investments via MF Global; his clients lost even more. "We are a unique class, and instead, the trustee is doing a radical redistribution of property," he says.

    Bureau of Labor Statistics Illegally Feeding Numbers to NC’s Bev Perdue

    Government statistical agency helping NC Democrat

    byMichael Barone

    Follow on Twitter:

    The Carolina Journal, published by the Raleigh-based John Locke Foundation (for which I’ve given paid speeches on occasion) reports that staffers in North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue’s office have been getting advance word on monthly unemployment statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is highly illegal under federal law and violates what I have understood to be a strong tradition in the BLS and other government statistics that no one—no one at all, not even in the White House—gets advanced word ahead of the public announcement of government statistics.

    There’s obviously good reason for this: someone with advanced word could place bets in financial and community markets and make lots of money. That’s why Congress provided for penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for early release of this data. And there’s another excellent reason: government statistical agencies should be free of political influence to insure the integrity of the numbers on which many people depend. My understanding is that an important part of the bureaucratic culture of federal statistical agencies is a pride in their independence and integrity; this is something not to be lightly squandered. Maintaining that culture is vital if the government wants to get highly competent people to dedicate their careers to this important work. It doesn’t appear from the Carolina Journal story that Perdue tried to or indeed could have influenced the numbers; rather her staffers used the heads-up to craft their press releases, presumably to make Perdue look better. That probably hasn’t been very effective; her poll numbers have been dreadful and she seems to be behind Republican Pat McCrory (48%-39% in a PPP poll released last week) in her 2012 race for reelection. It is quite shocking to think that someone at the BLS is squandering the agency’s integrity just to give a Democratic governor a little edge in writing press releases.

    The Carolina Journal also reports that someone in the BLS was giving advance word of statistics to someone in the office of Perdue’s predecessor Democratic Governor Mike Easley in 2003 and 2004. This suggests that the culprit is someone at the BLS who is not a political appointee (since Republicans were in power back then) but with Tarheel Democratic connections or sympathies, and it may not be difficult to identify who that might be. There’s nothing in the Carolina Journal report to suggest that something like this is happening in other states. But it is something the U.S. House Education and the Workforce Committee should look into.

    Holder says his detractors claims are due to his race. Not so, it’s his communists ideology and ‘his’ racism

    The man who says whites can’t be victims of racism, the man who won’t charge Black Panther members at polling stations with clubs with voter intimidation, plays the race card…

    Justice Dept silent as Holder charges critics with racism

    By Matthew Boyle - The Daily Caller

    WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 29: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder (2nd L)) points his finger as he talks to a member of the press at the end of an event to launch a campaign to combat the purchase and sale of counterfeit and pirated products November 29, 2011 at the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House in Washington, DC. According to a news release from the Department of Justice, the campaign will educate the public on various forms of intellectual property theft, from counterfeit consumer goods and pharmaceuticals to illegal downloads and other pirated materials, with highlight on the potential health, safety and economic consequences for American citizens. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

    Attorney General Eric Holder accused his growing chorus of critics of racist motivations in a Sunday interview published in the New York Times. When reached by The Daily Caller Monday morning, the Department of Justice provided no evidence to support the attorney general’s claims.

    Holder said some unspecified faction — what he refers to as the “more extreme segment” — is driven to criticize both him and President Barack Obama due to the color of their skin. Holder did not appear to elaborate on who he considered to make up the “more extreme segment.”

    “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” Holder said, according to the Times. “Both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

    The White House hasn’t returned requests for comment on whether President Barack Obama agrees with his top law enforcement officer’s allegations of racial motivations.

    Holder’s accusations come as resignation calls mount from a growing list of 60 congressmen, two senators, every major Republican presidential candidate and two sitting governors, spurred on by the congressional investigation into Operation Fast and Furious.

    Additionally, seventy-five congressmen have signed onto a House resolution for a vote of “no confidence” in Holder as attorney general. Between the two lists, there are 86 total in the House who no longer trust Holder to head the Department of Justice.

    It’s not the first time the race card has come into play in efforts to protect Holder from criticism.

    Most recently, during a December 8 House Judiciary Committee hearing into Fast and Furious where Holder was testifying, Georgia Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson argued that Fast and Furious wasn’t that big of a scandal because “white supremacists,” among others he described, were able to purchase weapons at “gun shows.” Johnson, who was concerned Guam may “tip over and capsize” if more military personnel are sent there, later told TheDC that he thinks the tea party movement and the National Rifle Association “manufactured” Fast and Furious as a scandal to try to attack the president.

    The White House hasn’t denounced Johnson’s rhetoric, nor has Holder. The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), however, wouldn’t side with him — even unofficially — last week. (RELATED: Rifts in Congressional Black Caucus over Fast and Furious, Holder)

    Fast and Furious was a program of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, overseen by Holder’s DOJ. It sent thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels via straw purchasers — people who legally purchased guns in the United States with the known intention of illegally trafficking them somewhere else.

    At least 300 people in Mexico were killed with Fast and Furious weapons, as was Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. The identities of the Mexican victims are unknown.

    Holder has said he was unaware of the operation, despite having been sent several personal memos from his top deputies and assistants. The memos contained intimate details of how Operation Fast and Furious worked. “This investigation [Fast and Furious, which is named earlier in the memo] — initiated in September 2009 in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Phoenix Police Department — involves a Phoenix-based firearms trafficking ring headed by Manuel Celis-Acosta,” one such memo that Holder was provided reads. “Celis-Acosta and straw purchasers are responsible for the purchase of 1,500 firearms that were then supplied to Mexican drug-trafficking cartels. They also have direct ties to the Sinaloa Cartel, which is suspected of providing $1 million for the purchase of firearms in the greater Phoenix area.”

    In his Times interview, Holder again attacked the media who are covering the scandal. “Mr. Holder contended that many of his other critics — not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers — were instead playing ‘Washington gotcha’ games, portraying them as frequently ‘conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was’ to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light,” Times reporter Charlie Savage wrote in the front page Sunday Times story.

    Holder also attacked the media for covering the Fast and Furious scandal. Holder swiped at The DC in late November, alleging that The Daily Caller is “behind” the calls for his resignation because it has been reporting on the subject.

    “You guys need to — you need to stop this,” Holder told The DC at a White House event. “It’s not an organic thing that’s just happening. You guys are behind it.”