The problems Obama will face are growing – not subsiding.

In just the last month, the pump price of gasoline has risen 20¢ a gallon. While this is bad enough, it is still worse because it put the price at a level higher than it has been in February since 1981. The reason for the rise is totally out of Obama’s control; he can’t lie his way out of it. The Iranians want to squeeze the Europeans who are already looking at $8.00 a gallon gas, so they are denying France and England oil.

The Europeans will come here to buy their gasoline because our $3.52 per gallon looks great! When they do our price will go up whether we car pool, drive less, decide we won’t buy from this company or that company or not. The price of gas on January 19, 2009 was $1.85.

The percentage of those who are unemployed who have been unemployed for 6 months or more has gone from 16% to 45.1%. Never since the Great Depression has it been that high.

All of the following measurements of our national misery are presented as “On Obama’s Inauguration Day” compared to today. These numbers come from The Senate Republican Conference.

• The raw number of unemployed Americans: 12.05 million to 12.76 million. +710,000

• Americans living in poverty: 39.8 million to 46.2 million. +6.4 million

• American receiving Food Stamps 32 million to 46 million +14 million

• Misery Index (An index combining the unemployment rate and inflation rate) 7.8 to 11.3 up 45%

• Federal debt 10.6 TRILLION DOLLARS to 15.4 TRILLION DOLLARS up 44%

• Federal debt assigned to each American $34,731 up to $49,058

• Cost of health insurance costs per employed worker $3,354 to $4,129

• College tuition $6,591 up to $8,244 an increase of 25%

• The total number of available jobs 133.6 million down to 132.4 a loss of 1.2 million jobs

• The value of the average American’s home $169,700 down to $147,800

• No amount of phony statistics or lies can cover holes this big.

• The value of gold has gone from $855.00 to $1,777.30 - a 208% increased.

(The last item was added by the publisher of Flying Eagle Gold & Silver.)

Originally published under the title of “Freedom Vs. Socialism” at Impeach Obama Campaign (with minor adjustments from the publisher of this site).

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

One by one, the countries of Europe are losing their ability to sell their bonds at an interest rate that is sustainable for their economies and revenue bases without severe and socially disruptive restructuring, even if a central bank that will accommodate their spending by printing money or other countries will tax their citizens to pay for someone else’s debts.

The US will soon be faced with that same problem if we do not act soon. Will it be 2014? 2015? 2016? I think it will be earlier rather than later, as the bond market will look at Europe and what will soon be an imploding Japan and decide that the US is only different in size and scale. The interest on the debt is a growing part of the overall budget, and any rise will put severe constraints on spending or force large tax increases or require the Federal Reserve to monetize the debt. None of those have positive outcomes. Ignored long enough, it will bring about another Depression. [Read the full column]

“How many divisions does the Pope of Rome have?”

“In 1944, at a time when the Soviet Union bore the brunt of the struggle against Nazi Germany, it was important to convince Stalin that the Western democracies accepted him as an equal. “‘In the world of the future, for which our soldiers have shed their blood on countless fronts”, the British Prime Minister said in his bombastic style, “our three great democracies will demonstrate to all mankind that they, both in wartime and in peacetime, will remain true to the high principles of freedom, dignity, and happiness of the people. That is why I attach such paramount importance to good neighbourly relations between a restored Poland and the Soviet Union. It was for the freedom and independence of Poland that Britain went into this war. The British feel a sense of moral responsibility to the Polish people, to their spiritual values. It is also important that Poland is a Catholic country. We cannot allow internal developments there to complicate our relations with the Vatican…”

“How many divisions does the Pope of Rome have?” Stalin asked, suddenly interrupting Churchill’s line of reasoning.

Churchill stopped short. He had not expected such a question. After all, he was speaking about the moral influence of the Pope, not only in Poland, but, also, throughout the world. Once again, Stalin reaffirmed that he only respected force, and brought Churchill back down to earth from the nebulous heavens.” … Valentin Berezhkov, Stalin’s Interpreter. (SOURCE)

Sixty-eight years later, President Obama seems to be dismissing the Pope’s divisions just as Stalin did.

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, allow to me state clearly that I am not a Catholic. In fact, I am a Lutheran … an “old” Lutheran. By that, I mean that I am of the conservative side of the Lutheran faith. I have no truck with the liberal side of the denomination. Just so we are clear.

Dismissing the Pope’s divisions is just plain stupid. Strong word, you think? I don’t think so. If the President has to tick someone off … why the Catholics?

“About 24 percent of Americans call themselves Catholics today, but about 30 percent of Americans would have been brought up in the Catholic faith. The percentage of Americans who call themselves Catholics has remained steady at about 25 percent for over 50 years, but that is because those born Catholic here who leave the church are replaced by Catholic immigrants and by converts to Catholicism. About half of former Catholics join some form of Protestant faith community, usually evangelical; the other half are mostly unaffiliated with any religion, often calling themselves spiritual but not religious.” (SOURCE)

I would draw your attention to this sentence from the excerpt above: “About half of former Catholics join some form of Protestant faith community, usually evangelical;” (SOURCE)

Notice the word “EVANGELICAL.” Now, tell me, was my choice of the word “stupid” too strong, huh?

Obama is making the same mistake secularists have made for centuries and, as we can plainly see, continue to make today. A politician with an nth degree of situational awareness never, I repeat, NEVER, dismisses the Catholic Church. And yet, Obama chose to do so.

Look, I really don’t care what your position on abortion is. My position is very straightforward and very clear. I believe that abortion is wrong … except … when the mother’s life is in danger.

We conservative commentators warned America of the dangers of ObamaCare. We told Americans it would be personally intrusive to a degree Americans have never known before. Now that the evidence is laid bare, it is utterly astounding at how many Americans STILL cannot grasp how their freedom has been eroded by the legislation from hell we call ObamaCare.

It is well past time to question the judgment of the man asking for a second term as President of the United States.

~ The Author ~
J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.

He is a thirty-year veteran of the broadcasting business, as an “in the field” and “on-air” news reporter (contributing to radio, TV, and newspapers) and a conservative broadcast commentator.

Longstreet is a veteran of the US Army and US Army Reserve. He is a member of the American Legion and the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A lifelong Christian, Longstreet subscribes to “old Lutheranism” to express and exercise his faith.

Federal Observer contributing columnist, J. D. Longstreet blogs daily at INSIGHT on Freedom.

"I come ready!"

Last night over dinner with a couple of my Italian buddies, we started to discuss this diabolical election.

My pal John seemed elated that Rick Santorum had surged in the polls. John bases his criteria strictly along ethnic lines the same way most Blacks base their criteria for Barack Obama.

John would vote for a thief, or a burglar, if that person was Sicilian, the same way most Blacks would vote for a Kenyan usurper, or member of the Hutu or Tutsie Tribes.

They hold no loyalty to their country the same way politicians hold no loyalty towards their constituents, but they are fun to dine with.

John was all excited about Ohio Attorney General, Mike DeWine, pulling his endorsement from Mittens Romney, and giving it to Santorum because he thought Santorum would make a better president.

That’s when I spit out my soup all over the floor while laughing maniacally.

DeWine endorsing Santorum was like receiving the “kiss of death.”

Santorum is toast now, that’s like Herman Cain receiving an endorsement from Sydney Biddle Barrow,”The Mayflower Madam.”

Mike DeWine ran John McCain’s Ohio Campaign and helped defeat him.

There must be something in the Ohio River that produces such wimps.

Ohio gave us those twin cry baby losers, John Boehner, and John Voinovich.

As a matter of fact, DeWine rode on the coat tails of Voinovich’s gubernatorial campaign to win his United States Senate seat in 1994.

So why does DeWine think that Santorum is a better candidate then the well funded multi millionaire, Mittens Romney?

What characteristics do DeWine and Santorum have in common?

DeWine is a gun grabber and takes pride in being the first senatorial candidate to be endorsed by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. He teamed with the ultra liberal California Senator, Dianne Feinstein, to ban gun ownership of US citizens who get convicted of a crime in a foreign country.

Santorum supported liberal gun grabber Arlen Specter for re election in 2004.

During the 90′s, Santorum supported Democratic Senator, Frank Lautenberger’s gun ban, and in 2005 he teamed again with Lautenberg, and Feinstein, to mandate trigger locks on hand guns.

Santorum has a long record of supporting anti-gun legislation and anti gun politicians.

Both of these dudes are Republican family value neo con war mongers.

Santorum, like his roll model,George W. Bush, sees himself as a compassionate conservative. A guy who calls himself conservative but likes a big intrusive liberal government.

Together, he and Bush passed costly education, and transportation legislation.

Santorum liked to use ear marks to fund Pennsylvania projects.

Much to the chargrin of his democratic opponents, Santorum stands against same sex marriage,bestiality, and sodomy, but he did support Bush’s efforts to fight AID’s, and third world debt relief which should please some of the anti American Marxist’s which comprise the Obama base.

Perhaps DeWine made his endorsement early Friday afternoon, before Santorum gave his anti illegal immigration speech in South Carolina Friday night.

Santorum’s Numbers USA report card went from a dismal D- minus to an A-minus, as the result of his speech about not rewarding illegal invaders for taking American worker jobs.

DeWine holds an “F” from Numbers USA for his position and votes on illegal immigration.

DeWine was another George Bush sycophant in favor of granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens.

He was also a fervid supporter of George Bush’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, the purveyor of Meals On Wheels, without any legal experience DeWine thought Miers would make an excellent justice and add diversity to the Supreme Court.

Fortunately, the voters decided that DeWine was too liberal and out of touch with conservative values in 2006, so they voted his ass out of office and replaced him with Sharrod Brown, a sleazy progressive democratic girlyman, who is a strong supporter of Queer, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, and Trans gendered freaks of nature.

Welcome to America … while it lasts.

Who will be next in line to endorse Santorum … Pee Wee Herman?

February 20, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributing columnist Rick Biesada is the co-founder of The Chicago Minuteman Project.

Angry White Male and The Horse He Rode In On by Rick Biesada can be special ordered through most book stores, or through the publisher at wholesale price off of the Angry White Male web site at http://www.stylefeeder.com/i/pf0v5r2j/Angry-White-Male-And-The-Horse-He-Rode-In-On-By-Rick-Biesada-Paperback.

The gotcha games that the weasels in Clowntown D.C. continue to play is enough to gag a maggot.

The Demorats have not had a budget in over 1000 days (they keep passing continuing resolutions) and now they put forth a budget which has absolutely no chance of passing, but Harry Reid will now be able to jump up and down and point his finger and say see, see, the damned Republicans are being obstructionists and holding up meaningful legislation.

John Boehner isn’t any great shakes as speaker either, he and Eric Cantor (no relation?) were at first blustering about no compromises, we will not pass this extension and then caved with the excuse that “we need to pick our fights very carefully”, but in point of fact, they are actually helping Obama and his bunch to defund Social Security, in as much as the payroll tax is the only mechanism that funds Social Security, and this little fiscal slight of hand is adding another $100 Billion to the deficit when Social Security already has a shortfall of over $100 Billion dollars during the last two years.

Borrow and spend is the road to financial ruin, so my question to all of you boobs in Clown Town D.C. is where and when is this fiscal insanity going to end?
Did all of you crooks major in stupidity or did you play hookey instead of attending your accounting 101 classes in school?

While all of this financial chicanery is going on, Hillary Clinton is all excited because Iran has expressed a desire to negotiate over their nuclear program, and so is North Korea, but the really scary part to me is, this dumb broad who thinks she is the smartest woman who ever lived, hasn’t got enough street smarts to find her way out of a phone booth with a map.

It would appear, there are no competent people within our government, and that being the case, all incumbents need to be tossed out into the street and onto the unemployment line where they so richly deserve to be.

It is a good thing that we are a civilized country, or that pack of snakes would all be meeting a firing squad at dawn or some other dramatically appropriate time.

If you look back to when you were in Jr. High School, there were always the kids who wanted to be the leaders of the pack and the socialites and you could almost bet that they were the ones who were going to turn out to be lawyers and/or politicians which takes me back to the second paragraph of this article: THEY WERE, AND ARE, ENOUGH TO GAG A MAGGOT.

As an added little treat I have included the following…

“Obama’s impressive list of accomplishments”!

• First President to apply for college aid as a foreign student, then deny he was a foreigner.

• First President to have a social security number from a state he has never lived in.

• First President to preside over a cut to the credit-rating of the United States.

• First President to violate the War Powers Act.

• First President to be held in contempt of court for illegally obstructing oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico .

• First President to defy a Federal Judge’s court order to cease implementing the Health Care Reform Law.

• First President to require all Americans to purchase a product from a third party.

• First President to spend a trillion dollars on ‘shovel-ready’ jobs when there was no such thing as ‘shovel-ready’ jobs.

• First President to abrogate bankruptcy law to turn over control of companies to his union supporters.

• First President to by-pass Congress and implement the Dream Act through executive fiat.

• First President to order a secret amnesty program that stopped the deportation of illegal immigrants across the U.S. , including those with criminal convictions.

• First President to demand a company hand-over $20 billion to one of his political appointees.

• First President to terminate America ’s ability to put a man in space.

• First President to have a law signed by an auto-pen without being present.

• First President to arbitrarily declare an existing law unconstitutional and refuse to enforce it.

• First President to threaten insurance companies if they publicly spoke-out on the reasons for their rate increases.

• First President to tell a major manufacturing company in which State they are allowed to locate a factory.

• First President to file lawsuits against the states he swore an oath to protect (AZ, WI, OH, IN).

• First President to withdraw an existing coal permit that had been properly issued years ago.

• First President to fire an inspector general of Ameri-corps for catching one of his friends in a corruption case.

• First President to appoint 45 czars to replace elected officials in his office.

• First President to golf 73 separate times in his first two and a half years in office, 90 to date.

• First President to hide his medical, educational and travel records.

• First President to win a Nobel Peace Prize for doing NOTHING to earn it.

• First President to go on multiple global ‘apology tours’.

• First President to go on 17 lavish vacations, including date nights and Wednesday evening White House parties for his friends; paid for by the taxpayer.

• First President to have 22 personal servants (taxpayer funded) for his wife.

• First President to keep a dog trainer on retainer for $102,000 a year at taxpayer expense.

• First President to repeat the Holy Qur’an and tell us the early morning call of the Azan (Islamic call to worship) is the most beautiful sound on earth.

Sooooo.. how is that “Hope and Change” been working out for us?

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

Submitted to the Federal Observer for publication, by the author, Aaron Cantor USAF (ret), February 18, 2012.

The Inquirer’s series “Assault on Learning” (March 2011) reported that in the 2010 school year, “690 teachers were assaulted; in the last five years, 4,000 were.” The newspaper reported that in Philadelphia’s 268 schools, “on an average day 25 students, teachers, or other staff members were beaten, robbed, sexually assaulted, or victims of other violent crimes. That doesn’t even include thousands more who are extorted, threatened, or bullied in a school year.”

I graduated from Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin High School in 1954. Franklin’s students were from the poorest North Philadelphia neighborhoods ­ such as the Richard Allen housing project, where I lived ­ but there were no policemen patrolling the hallways. There were occasional after-school fights ­ rumbles, we called them ­ but within the school, there was order. Students didn’t use foul language to teachers, much less assault them.

How might one explain the greater civility of Philadelphia and other big-city, predominantly black schools during earlier periods compared with today? Would anyone argue that during the ’40s and ’50s, back when Williams attended Philadelphia schools, there was less racial discrimination and poverty and there were greater opportunities for blacks and that’s why academic performance was higher and there was greater civility?

Or how about “in earlier periods, there was more funding for predominantly black schools”? Or how about “in earlier periods, black students had more black role models in the forms of black principals, teachers and guidance counselors”? If such arguments were to be made, it would be sheer lunacy. If white and black liberals and civil rights leaders want to make such arguments, they’d best wait until those of us who lived during the ’40s and ’50s have departed the scene.

Over the past couple of decades, I’ve attended neighborhood reunions. I’ve asked whether any of us recall classmates who couldn’t read, write or perform simple calculations, and none of us does. Back in those days, most Philadelphia school principals, teachers and counselors were white.

At Stoddart-Fleisher junior high school, where I attended, I recall that only one teacher was black, and at Benjamin Franklin, there might have been two. What does that say about the role model theory? By the way, Asian-Americans are at the top of the academic ladder, and, at least historically, they rarely experience an Asian-American teacher during their K-through-12 schooling.

Many black students are alien and hostile to the education process. They are permitted to make education impossible for other students. Their misbehavior and violence require schools to divert resources away from education and spend them on security, such as hiring school police and purchasing metal detectors, all of which does little for school safety.

The violent school climate discourages the highest-skilled teachers from teaching at schools where they risk assaults, intimidation and theft. At a bare minimum, part of the solution to school violence and poor academic performance should be the expulsion of students who engage in assaults and disrespectful behavior.

You say, “What’s to be done for these students?” Even if we don’t know what to do with them, how compassionate and intelligent is it to permit them to make education impossible for other students?

The fact that black parents, teachers, politicians and civil rights organizations tolerate and make excuses for the despicable and destructive behavior of so many young blacks is a gross betrayal of the memory, struggle, sacrifice, sweat and blood of our ancestors.

The sorry and tragic state of black education is not going to be turned around until there’s a change in what’s acceptable and unacceptable behavior by young people. That change has to come from within the black community.

Written by Walter E. Williams and published on CNSNews, February 14, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

As almost everyone knows by now, Romney has been a senior, influential member of the Mormon Church, which has been roundly criticized for being an inauthentic Christian religion and for various beliefs and practices made comical in the hugely successful Broadway show The Book of Mormon. But there is one particular Mormon practice that is so upsetting to most people who learn about it that deserves to become an issue in this presidential campaign.

I want Mitt Romney to stand up and have the courage and decency to proclaim to Americans exactly whether he personally supports the Mormon practice known as proxy baptism. If you are not a member of the Mormon faith, then you should take this very seriously. Proxy baptism is like email spam, junk mail and unwanted marketing phone calls that invade our lives, destroy our privacy, waste our time and make our blood boil. Actually, proxy baptism is a zillion times worse. It represents the invasion of one religion against all others and atheism also.

In a nutshell, proxy baptism refers to the Mormon practice of baptizing a living person on behalf of someone who is dead and was not a member of the Mormon Church. The goal is to get that non-Mormon person into Mormon-defined heaven, which is totally different than what all other religions think of as heaven. The dead person nor anyone related to the dead person does not necessarily give permission or express any desire to be so baptized.

Standing in for dead people are young Mormon men and women dressed in white robes in Mormon temple ceremonies worldwide, which is considered an honor for them.

Over time many people who are not Mormons have mounted attacks on this practice, viewing the Mormon practice as a serious invasion of their lives and beliefs. Someone who has received considerable attention as such a critic is Nobel-laureate Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and a top official from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He has focused on posthumously baptizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Despite his attempts to stop Mormons doing this and despite promises they would, the practice has continued.

I think it totally reasonable for everyone to demand that Romney take a public position on this Mormon practice. Specifically, I want Romney to declare in clear, unambiguous language whether he has participated in such proxy baptisms, whether he believes that this practice is appropriate, and whether or not he understands why non-Mormons would object to this practice.

Should Americans resent a US President that supports Mormon proxy baptizing? Absolutely.

Officially, the Mormon Church has refused to abandon this practice. “With deepest respect to our Jewish friends, the church cannot abandon fundamental aspects of its religious doctrine and practice,” the church says on its website, “and it should not be asked to do so.” Many millions of non-Mormons have apparently been proxy baptized, including famous people: Adolph Hitler, Christopher Columbus, most signers of the US Declaration of Independence, Paul Revere, William Shakespeare, Golda Meir, Albert Einstein, President Obama’s mother and Irving Berlin, for example. There is no attempt by the church to document that non-Mormons had expressed any desire to be baptized into the Mormon faith. And church attempts to limit proxy baptizing to a member’s or family member’s ancestors apparently have failed.

Interestingly, those in the Hindu faith have said that Hindu feelings would naturally be hurt if their ancestors were baptized without their will. Similarly, the Catholic Church has also publicly objected to the Mormon baptism of its members.

To be fair and non-partisan, I also believe that US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid who also is a Mormon should similarly be pressured to state publicly his positions on proxy baptizing. After all, because this practice is imposed on non-Mormons, we have a right to know whether elected officials endorse it.

If there is any part of Mitt Romney’s life that he should be able to speak honestly about it is his religious beliefs. So go ahead Mitt, tell Americans exactly what you believe about this Mormon proxy baptizing practice. Be severely honest just as you have been severely conservative.

In sum, the central issue is RESPECT. Mormons are not respecting the religious beliefs of people they are proxy baptizing. Similarly, all the evil people hitting me with spam emails, junk mail and unwanted phone calls show me no respect whatsoever. Do I believe that Mormons have the power to send non-Mormons into their heaven? Hell no. I do not believe that even Mormons will get into their conception of heaven. Of all religions that I have ever learned about I find Mormonism the most ridiculous and cult like. I just hope if any reporter has the courage to ask Romney about proxy baptizing that they also ask him if he is wearing his magic underwear that as a dedicated and very senior member of the Mormon Church he is supposed to be wearing all the time…

February 17, 2012

~ The Author ~
Joel S. Hirschhorn is the author of Sprawl Kills – How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money and Delusional Democracy – Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government. He is a former Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources at the National Governors Association and a senior staffer for the U.S. Congress.

~ The Forefathers’ Finances ~

“Viewed from the 21st century, life in colonial America was like living on a different planet,” said University of Virginia professor Ronald Michener in a piece on economics of the time in The Colonial Williamsburg Journal.

A planet, as it turns out, that would become the Krypton of American politics, producing legends such as Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and our first president, George Washington. This Presidents Day also marks George Washington’s 280th birthday, giving us a good excuse to look back and get a better idea of what life was like in the colonies, from currency to the price of a stiff drink.

Happy birthday, George.

~ Income ~
Evaluating Washington’s financial worth is much easier said than done, considering how much currency and the economy have evolved over the centuries. David Walbert, a colonial historian, says it is especially difficult to ascertain a colonialist’s wealth from today’s perspective.

“One claim said George Washington’s net worth would make him a billionaire in today’s money, and yet he didn’t have indoor plumbing,” Walbert says. “It’s really apples and oranges.”

Despite the significant cultural divide, it’s too tempting for us not to look back and draw a modern-day comparison to a national figure. Online news site 24/7 Wall St. published an estimation of each president’s net worth, using factors such as land, estimated lifetime savings and money paid for services. Its figures found Washington’s worth to be about $525 million in today’s money, among the wealthiest presidents.

His average salary then was $25,000. Compare that to the average salary at that time, which, using crude conversion, was around $2,900 to $4,925. Washington’s salary equaled 2% of the total U.S. budget in 1789. Although he originally refused payment, eventually he accepted the salary.

Walbert agrees Washington was certainly exceptionally wealthy, though usually one’s wealth would need to be ascertained by comparing what items they owned to what other items or labor might have cost at the time.

~ Currency ~
Often varying from colony to colony, money of the time consisted of what Walbert calls “a very ad hoc system of currency.” Sometimes, there simply wasn’t enough to go around or to even pay taxes. As a result, a snappy new hat could set you back anything from a couple of days’ labor to a helping of tobacco, and everything in between.

The most widely used currency operated off of the British system of pounds, shillings and pence, but good luck wrapping your 21st-century mind around the convoluted 18th-century idea of “simple.” The values were divided in the most casual of ways, and the use of the familiar values of a farthing, tuppence or crown makes it sound like even the simplest of purchases would turn into an advanced SAT question.

“As complicated as it seems now, it probably made it a whole lot easier for people to keep track of their money,” Walbert says.

If the thought of your pocket becoming a loaded piggy bank of various coins and paper denominations doesn’t sound appealing, some colonialists would probably agree.

“For some time, there was what was called ‘proclamation money,’” Walbert says, “where a certain amount of tobacco could be traded for currency just because that’s all people had.”

~ House ~
Many of the colonists who came over from England were poor, leading them to voluntarily indenture themselves as servants for up to seven years just to get some of that sweet, sweet liberty — and of course, a bit of land.

There was so much timber and land to go around, assuming the natives were OK with it, that building a house was astonishingly cheap compared to what we would think of today. At the same time, your friends would probably become very busy if you decided to throw a “house-buildin’ party,” which is essentially what the colonialists would do to help out their neighbors. Filling the house with furniture was cheap, too — again, because you would make it yourself.

“There was not a lot of manufacturing going on in the colonies because it was actively discouraged by the British government,” Walbert says.

Even worse, Ikea didn’t exist yet. Furniture shipped from around the world in boxes for assembly wasn’t possible, but the wealthiest colonialists still had the high-end items brought over from Europe.

Washington furnished Mount Vernon exquisitely, including fine armchairs, desks and a harpsichord he bought for 20 guineas, or gold pieces worth 21 shillings. Even with the complex conversion and varying value of the dollar, (estimated from as little as $27.90 in today’s dollars to $508) it was still pricey.

~ Alcohol ~
If you asked many colonialists about their daily routine, a lot of them would probably draw a blank. That’s because colonialists, by and large, got smashed at a level and consistency that would give Don Draper heartburn. It was cheap, accessible and often homemade. In “The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition,” W.J. Rorabaugh estimated the consumption in 1770 of distilled spirits at 3.4 gallons per capita per year, with some estimates going up to 3 pints per week.

A gallon of domestic rum went for as little as 1 shilling and 8 pence in the mid-18th century, meaning just about anyone could afford to get completely sauced. Beer was sometimes even cheaper, as many colonists would brew their own from just about anything they could ferment in order to ensure they could get their buzz.

Sarah Lohman, who publishes the historical food blog FourPoundsFlour.com, recently undertook the noble task of attempting to replicate a typical day of colonial drinking according to Rorabaugh’s account. She made it about halfway through before having to throw in the towel, which could be forgivable when understanding the routine called for whiskey and hard cider drinks before actually starting your day — an amount of alcohol Benjamin Franklin would say would leave you “halfway to Concord.”

~ Clothes ~
In George Washington’s day, if you didn’t have anything to wear, then you literally didn’t have anything to wear. If you lived on a farm, you were basically on your own to assemble something presentable until you made it into town. If you were fortunate enough to live in a town, clothing might be more accessible, but you would pay dearly for those fashion points.

“Clothing was extraordinarily expensive by today’s standard,” Walbert says. “Wool had to be spun into thread by hand and then woven into cloth by hand, creating a lot of labor.”

As a result, it’s estimated a yard of fabric sold for about $5.60; pretty pricey for the time, and likely not the quality of fabric Brooks Brothers would clamor for, either. Likewise, decent bedsheets were remarkably expensive because they had to be shipped over from England at up to six times the cost of the bed itself.

Washington and his pals could afford only the best, of course. Like many men of the time, they wore powdered wigs like they were going out of style – maybe because they were about to in a few decades. Average Joe Colonialist might have had a harder time, though, affording the estimated $145 for the “grandpa left the curlers in too long again” look.

Written by Travers Korch and published on Fox Business, February 09, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Memo

To: President Barack Obama

Schatzi, it’s been over a year since I last wrote you. Please forgive me. It’s been so hot here I can barely stand to touch the keyboard. Not that I don’t appreciate the green energy projects you funded to cool off this place, but dear, you know even with the trillions you spent, those projects just keep going under. Yes, I know it helped put billions in the pockets of your donors, but hell is not freezing over you know and we could use energy for the air conditioners.

Anyway, I forced myself to endure the scorching temperatures and pitchforks to congratulate you on those brilliant HHS regulations forcing people to fund insurance coverage for abortions, sterilizations and birth control against their consciences.

Darling Adolf just loved to do that sort of thing. Remember – are you old and well read enough to remember? He figured out that if he could get people to operate against their conscience on small things, big things like Judenrein would be easier. Of course, that was just a start.

Martin Bormann said it just right: “National Socialism and Christianity are irreconcilable.” For the party to rule, he said the Churches’ influence in the leadership of the people “must absolutely and finally be broken.” He was taking about the Nazi party, but heavens, Democrats, Nazis – state control is state control.

So, this move by your Administration is just a great first step. You had all the social justice crowd in the church supporting you ,and now those wicked bishops — how many divisions do they have anyway? – had to step in to try to put a stop to this.

Well, the match is set.

On your side you have some real geniuses. I mean all the media is helping you sell the fairytale that you are battling people who want to force women to forego contraceptives. Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a real feather in your cap; arguing that all women deserve free contraceptives and that religious institutions shouldn’t be imposing their values on their employees is, you should pardon the expression, pure Goebbels. And you can count on the press to let her get away with this big lie.

The media want to replace old fashioned religion with civic religion as much as you and I do. So, some Catholics have and continue to threaten to shut down their social welfare services rather than comply with such things? Great. The sooner the people learn that the state is the provider of all things, the better — for you and your party. Of course, not necessarily better for them or their country, but that’s not the point, is it?

I suppose you have some other good ideas in the wings at HHS . Off the top of my head here are some ideas for you: Make public schools serve pork and require all kids to eat it; force Christian Scientists to see physicians and take medicine; make the Mormon Tabernacle Choir admit Moslems; ban religious circumcisions of males; draft the Amish into the military; outlaw Lutheran lutefisk parties and bake sales.

My goodness, the possibilities once you control the levers of power! And what could possibly give you more power than controlling healthcare delivery? Imagine the rake offs, too. Plastic surgeons want liposuction and botox coverage? Let them kick in to your party. Somebody’s poor mom is too old for treatment, cross your palm with silver and a hospital bed becomes available. Why am I telling you this, you of all people? I mean Mr. President Chicago Way, right?

And then your opponents are playing this rather stupidly. Letting you and the press frame this as a women’s rights issue, not a Constitutional issue. (Is it just gossip or is it true that Harvard Law School where you attended and the University of Chicago Law School where you were a lecturer, are mortified? Who cares. That Constitution is so old and updated anyway. Ask Justice Ginsburg, even she’s not crazy about it.) Maybe next year you can wait until Congress is in recess and replace it with something newer from Zimbabwe. Well, you certainly don’t need me to advise you on how to destroy religion or the Constitution.

I was delighted to see how you are reviving the Sturmabteilung. Of course, you can’t credit us — we all discussed it here and understand. Calling it a Truth Team, a “grassroots communications team” will go over much better, but, schatzi, we all know where you got that idea. The explanation is another bit of brilliant propaganda: “The goal is to ensure that when Republicans attack President Obama’s record, grassroots supporters can take ownership of the campaign and share the facts with the undecided voters in their lives.”

I mean even Michelle Obama’s Mirror calls it the “SS. See something, Say something.” I think she means it sarcastically but check out the great logos she’s come up for the Truth Team!! We couldn’t do better and we tried in between roastings.

She didn’t even get to Project Narwhal, a data-mining outreach operation designed to snare even more low information voters than the media can rope in.

And it’s working on ill-educated single women, who’d apparently gladly give up their right to worship as they choose in order to get someone else to pick up their contraception tab, never realizing they’re giving up something for nothing, because there really is no free lunch.

I figure a couple years of this and there will be no private insurance companies because they’ll be run out of business, or employer provided health insurance because it’s all going to be too expensive. And then you’ll have the entire country in the palm of your hand.

If I had a heart, liebchen, it would be singing right now.

P.S. I keep meaning to tell you – when you tilt your chin skyward like that, you remind me so of the Italian heart throb Benito.

Written by Clarice Feldman and published on American Thinker, February 19, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Juxtapose those images with a 2008 party rally in a Denver stadium. The Greek columns, the giant television screens, the laser light show: all dedicated to elevate a man who promised the wars would end, the earth would heal, and the oceans would halt their rise. Peace and justice at last. He was the one we were waiting for. Goebbels would have been proud. 

Il Duce’s portrait was ubiquitous in 1930′s Italy. The stolid face with the up thrust chin, looking down over the nose became symbolic of Mussolini’s fascism. “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” “State intervention in economic production arises only when private initiative is lacking or insufficient, or when the political interests of the State are involved. This intervention may take the form of control, assistance or direct management.” Does any of this look or sound familiar?

Some images are meant to be powerful. From the works of master painters, to stained glass, to the inexpensive, gilded frame picture in many homes, Christ is frequently depicted with a halo. From background lighting, to a campaign symbol, to the presidential seal, a certain public servant is also frequently depicted with the appearance of a halo. Can we guess what image the latter’s halo is meant to convey?

Words can be powerful, too, either spoken or written on paper. “Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” Some words are even carved in stone. “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” What were the Jesuits at Georgetown thinking?

Fascists, communists and other dictators discredited, if not outlawed, religion. The state was the ultimate authority, moral or otherwise. The state in many cases was personified by an individual from whom all things flowed. What did Christians do to keep them from power? The same as today, not enough. From the “feel good, rock and roll, light show” mega churches to the original Bride of Christ, only token, unorganized resistance has come forth. In fact, past devout Christians were better organized and more numerous than today and were still unsuccessful.

What happened to the Christians that faced lions for their faith? Real lions, not the talking cartoon characters. Were they co-opted by promises of government social welfare? Or were they cowed by the threat of the loss of their 501(c)3 status? Judging from the watered down socialism coming from today’s pulpit, either is possible. Protest church funded abortion via the Affordable Health Care Act? Contact your congressman. Lobby for the government to provide forced charity? Sure. Deny Communion, let alone excommunicate those who promulgate mortal sin? Nah, too controversial. Pathetic. Don’t think this administration doesn’t know it, either. They think this a fight they can win.

Government is a necessary evil, but an evil nonetheless. The mistake that Christians, or any other religion for that matter, make when they accept and encourage government social justice is that all modern government is eventually at the point of a gun. Look at other formerly Christian countries. Preach what is in the Bible, go to jail for hate speech. Resist hard enough, meet the point of a gun. Remember, we’re no longer a Christian country. The state said so. Oh, something else to think about. Refuse to pay taxes of which part go to the government charity programs that your church lobbied for and approved of? Meet the same end. That blood is on somebody’s hands.

“But the Constitution protects our freedom of religion!” Really? We haven’t seen the Constitution jump up out of its glass case and do anything. It’s just a piece of paper. Its only power comes from citizens acting on its behalf. Don’t think the administration doesn’t know this, either.

Many have argued that the left is fighting for freedom from religion. No, there will always be religion. Fundamental change was promised; change from God given rights to state granted rights are being delivered. When the state eliminates God, the state becomes god. And the state is a jealous god, especially when it takes guidance from a book dedicated to Lucifer.

Written by Ebben Raves and published on American Thinker, February 19, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

If people would take just a little bit of time and learn about the process by which our Constitution came into existence, and the difficulties encountered by those who supported it, then they would realize that the reason the Bill of Rights existed is because the majority of those who opposed the Constitution feared that it did not provide adequate safeguards against governmental intrusion upon their pre-existing rights. As former Supreme Court Justice William Brennan said, “The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.”

However, along with a right comes the responsibility to exercise it in a manner that does not endanger the safety of others, nor can you, in any fashion, restrict others from exercising their rights as well. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

Now let me give you a simple example to explain this concept. Let’s say you like music…a lot! Do I have the right to tell you that you cannot listen to it, or that I can dictate what kind of music you must listen to? No, you are free to listen to whatever music you want, as often as you want. BUT, if it is 2 a.m. and I am trying to sleep, and you are playing your music so loud that I cannot do so, YOU are abusing your right and preventing me from enjoying my right to a peaceful night’s sleep. You have the right to listen to your music, but it is saddled with the responsibility to listen to it at a reasonable level so as not to bother your neighbors.

Let’s take this a step further now. Say you like to eat…a lot. Do I have the right to tell you what you can, or cannot eat? No, you can eat whatever you want, in whatever quantities you want? But, if by your unhealthy eating habits you become so overweight that it causes you to become unable to function at your job; or if your unhealthy eating causes you to come down with diabetes or some form of heart disease, you DO NOT have the right to demand that I subsidize your life or your medical care with tax dollars taken from MY paycheck. You made the choice to eat unhealthy foods, and you alone must bear the responsibility for your choice.

Now there is something about these two examples that I would like to take a moment to discuss. If you would take a moment to read the Bill of Rights you will see that there is no mention of the right to listen to music, or the right to eat for that matter. So, does that mean that those rights do not exist? Hardly.

When James Madison first proposed the amendments under consideration for the Bill of Rights, he delivered a speech before the House of Representatives, in which he said, “It has been objected also against a bill of rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration, and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the general government, and were consequently insecure.”

In fact, that is the purpose for the Ninth Amendment, which states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” The Bill of Rights would have been a full length book had the Framers sat down and listed every single right the people retained under the Constitution. Instead, they listed those they felt were of great importance, and then added the Ninth Amendment as an umbrella to cover the remaining rights not specifically listed.

Now to continue I’d like to discuss a subject that is bound to raise the mire of many, especially those who consider themselves a part of the Religious Right, that being the subject of gay marriage. I personally am against gay marriage, and the gay lifestyle for that matter. But do I have the right to demand that others obey MY personal set of morals and ethics? No, I do not.

I really don’t know that much about Hugo Adam Bedau other than he is a Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University who has done a lot of research on the death penalty. But he nailed it on the head when he said, “Government should allow persons to engage in whatever conduct they want to, no matter how deviant or abnormal it may be, so long as (a) they know what they are doing, (b) they consent to it, and (c) no one­ at least no one other than the participants­is harmed by it.”

Nobody, not you, not I, have the right to impose our views of what is right, and what is wrong, upon others when it comes to personal lifestyle choices as long as when those people don’t demand that we accept those views as our own. Believe me, if it is wrong, God will punish them for their behavior at the proper time, but it is not our place to judge, nor restrict them from doing what they choose in their homes. There, I’ve said it, let the comments and insults commence.

Now to up the intensity a bit, let’s talk about abortion, but before I do I need to provide you with a couple more quotes. Thomas Jefferson once said, “Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.”

Our nation’s Declaration of Independence states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Remember, I’ve already shown that you have nearly unlimited rights, and that would include the rights to your body as well. That part of the argument in favor a woman’s right to choose I am in agreement with. However, I am not in agreement with the fact that that right includes the right of ending another life without the consent of that life, even if it is only a 10 week old fetus.

Let’s just say you live in a neighborhood and most of your neighbors do not like you, or want you in their neighborhood. Do they have the right to rip you out of your home, drag you into the street, and end your life? Of course not, but that’s exactly what is happening with every abortion performed in the United States. Doctors are ripping babies out of their home, the womb, and ending that life because someone else decided that baby is unwanted. THAT violates that fetus’s fundamental right to life, and when you violate someone’s rights, you are guilty of a crime.

The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states, “No person shall be… deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…” It does not matter that the life in question is a two week old fetus, it is still a life, and without due process of law, it CANNOT be ended. That is where a woman’s right ends, when her actions infringe upon the inherent unalienable right of life for her unborn child.

You may have noticed by now, all the examples I have given are all rights which, if covered by the Bill of Rights, are covered by the Ninth Amendment, as they are not rights specifically listed. I will now change course and discuss ONE right which is.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution states, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

A right is a right, is a right…there are no limitations upon them as long as you do not infringe, or violate the rights of others when you exercise them. Going back to my example of your right to eat, I cannot say you cannot eat certain items because they may cause cholesterol and be harmful to your health. The Second Amendment states that I have the right to keep and bear arms. It places no limitations upon how many, or the type, of arms that I might choose to keep.

The Supreme Court has ruled, in the case of D.C. v Heller, that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not associated with service in the militia. That statement alone should suffice, be the end to all discussion. Unfortunately they then stated that like most rights the Second Amendment is not unlimited, leaving it open for interpretation.

James Madison once said that “The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.” When the government chooses to place LIMITATIONS upon a right, or demand that we obtain a license, or permit to exercise that right, they are INFRINGING upon it!

If you have a cake or a pie and I take a small sliver of it, have I not taken away a part of your pie? That is the case with every single law enacted which denies law abiding citizens the right to keep and bear arms. If I only take one sliver of your pie, you may not even notice it. But if hundreds of people each take a sliver, soon your pie will be gone. That is the case with the Second Amendment, hundreds of laws have been passed, each taking away of sliver of our right. Each sliver has taken its toll on that right, to where it is no longer possible to exercise our right as it was intended.

You may not choose to exercise your right, but that does not mean the right is gone, nor does it mean you, via your proxy your elected representative, can deprive me of that right. Samuel Adams once said, “If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

You can choose not to exercise a right; you can choose not to eat, or choose not to breath, but the moment you decide to once again exercise that right, it will be there waiting for you, it cannot be taken away by me, or by elected representatives who have taken an oath to defend that right.

That, my friends, is the nature of rights. They existed long before our government came into existence, and they will exist long after our government has faded away. It is only when people become so afraid of their government that they see their rights infringed upon. Thomas Jefferson is attributed with saying, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

It does not matter that, by saying government, I mean the local law enforcement agency; the state legislature, or the federal government, I mean to say that when you fear ANY government agency, you have tyranny! So, if you are afraid to strap a pistol onto your hip and leave your home, what does THAT tell you? That right is protected by the Second Amendment, and we don’t need a government to tell us when we can, or cannot, exercise an unalienable right! The Supreme Court, Diane Feinstein, and a whole slew of others who believe otherwise be damned!

IN 1785, James Madison wrote something entitled Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, in which he stated, “The free men of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle.”

That is what separates us from them. They did not wait until the infringements upon their rights and liberty had taken hold and legal precedents had been established to deprive them of their unalienable rights, they took action BEFORE that had happened. We, on the other hand, because we have been dumbed-down by our schools; because we have become fooled by the media; because we care more for what’s on TV than we do for our God-given rights, have allowed precedent after precedent to be set, to the point where we no longer have rights, we have privileges which can, and are, being revoked at will by our government.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with one final quote which, surprisingly, comes not from a founding father, but from Winston Churchill. Churchill once said, “Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

So there you have it, I’ve shot my wad, said it the way I’ve always wanted to, but couldn’t exactly find the right words.

If you still don’t get it about rights, go back to your damn TV’s and don’t read another word I write, because quite honestly, you don’t get it anyway.

For everyone else, keep your powder dry….

February 19, 2012

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com.

If you wish to comment, please go to Neal’s blog so that others may partake of your wit and your wisdom as well… http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal

Anyone taking notice of Obama’s latest budget has to conclude that his mission is to crash the nation’s economy and turn America into a Socialist worker’s paradise. The only problem is that Socialism has been a dismal failure everywhere it has been tried.

One only has to look at the collapse of the Soviet Union for confirmation of that, the Chinese abandonment of Communist economic theory, and Obama’s odd notion that a nation can spend itself out of ever-increasing debt.

I am not a fan of Paul’s isolationism, but he is absolutely right about getting rid of the Federal Reserve.

Established in 1913, the same year income taxes were instituted, the Reserve is not part of the federal government. It is, in fact, privately owned by a consortium of banks and that might include foreign banks as well.

In a remarkable essay, “10 Things That Every American Should Know About The Federal Reserve” by Michael T. Snyder, it is clear that the Constitution intended to have the U.S. Treasury to be soley responsible to “coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

Synder points out that the Federal Reserve System (the Fed) is a privately owned banking cartel and one granted the right to create money out of thin air.

It is, says Synder “a perpetual debt machine because “whenever more money is created, more debt is created as well.” On top of its ability to create money, the government then borrows it, increasing the cost to taxpayers by way of the interest that must be paid to the Fed.

The government issues U.S. Treasury bonds with which to secure a loan from the Fed and it, in turn, sells them to others. Money from nothing; interest on that money, and earnings from the U.S. Treasury bonds it then sells!

Synder noted that in fiscal 2011 the U.S. government paid out $454 billion just in interest on the national debt. “The truth is that our current debt-based monetary system was designed by greedy bankers that wanted to make enormous profits by using the Federal Reserve as a tool to create money out of thin air and lend it to the U.S. government at interest.”

“On July 1, 1914 (a few months after the Fed was created) the U.S. national debt was $2.9 billion dollars. Today it is more than 5,000 times larger.”

If Rep. Paul can convince enough people to end the Federal Reserve Americans might actually learn how many trillions it loans to “too big to fail” Wall Street banking institutions as well as to foreign banks, generally without oversight by the Congress.

The previous Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, confessed to be totally astonished by the housing bubble that led to the 2008 financial crisis, His successor, Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Fed, has been consistently wrong about the economy since taking office. In 2005 Bernanke said that housing prices had never declined on a nationwide basis and predicted full employment as far as the eye could see.

Those mysterious financial instruments, derivatives, were perfectly safe said Bernanke.

In 2008, he was still predicting housing prices would probably keep rising. In 2007 he saw no problem with the subprime mortgages that two “government sponsored entities”, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, kept pressuring banks to make. “A few months before Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsed, Bernanke said ‘The GSEs are adequately capitalized. They are in no danger of failing.’”

Any CEO or CFO with a record like that would be out on the street looking for a job. And this man is still in charge of the Federal Reserve.

The latest budget put forth by the Obama administration demonstrates the same level of incompetence and wishful thinking. “All the voters need to do is suspend belief for another nine months. And ignore the first four years,” opined The Wall Street Journal.

The budget essentially says that the government that is deeply in debt – with the size of it growing daily – has to do is to borrow and spend more! And, oh yes, Obama wants to raise taxes on everyone and everything.

While I would not vote for Rep. Paul to be President, I applaud his lonely campaign to get Americans to think about ridding the nation of the Federal Reserve and to begin exercising fiscal restraint before we become the next Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy or France.

February 19, 2012

© Alan Caruba, 2012

~ About the Author ~
Federal Observer contributor Alan Caruba writes a doily blog at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com.

Don’t you just love it when the good guys stick it to the bullies? The bullies have been running the playground for a hundreds years now, but finally, the other kids are drumming up the courage to push back against the bully and his minions and mindless, bought-off groupies.

Americans are showing up at town hall meetings like never before and they are angry and loaded for bear. They’re packing city and county halls with people who have finally woken up to the sly, covert intrusion of social justice, communism, socialism, radical environmentalism and the one-world-government, into our local, state and federal institutions. More frequently you will find these patriots at legislative hearings crying foul over special interest legislation and overt, blatant attacks on the constitution or the natural order. You will find them at budget hearings where every line item in a government’s budget is scrutinized and then made public for all to see, including all of the crony handouts and give-aways to their favorite voters, or donors.

School board meetings are becoming a lot more lively these days over what our kids are being taught. The parents of kids in a school southeast of Seattle, WA found out that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, requested that a special class be taught to their kids on Muslim tolerance by representatives of an organization that has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. The school board backed up when the parents descended on a town hall meeting and let ‘em have it. KOMO TV NEWS was there. The question is, why did the school board think that it was a good idea in the first place, or why did they think they could get away with it? Now that IS troubling! The word “bully” comes to mind.

Tea party groups, freedom organizations, property rights associations and even militias are popping up all over the place. It’s as if there has been a grand awakening, even though the vanguards have been warning everyone what was happening for years. It’s funny how people can suddenly see the light, after removing their head from the sand.

Now the Catholic Church has taken up the banner of religious freedom, as they came down hard on Obama Care’s infringement on their First Amendment rights in recent days. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church has tried to have it both ways for a long time in their righteous indignation of attacks on their religious conscience, but all the while pushing for government-enforced social justice, wealth redistribution and taxing the rich in the name of charity, or providing sanctuary to illegal aliens. No matter what the church’s motives are or were, they have succeeded in exposing another fatal flaw in government-run health care, to the critical eyes and ears of a slowly wising-up electorate. Obama responded in his usual “talks-out-of-both-sides-of-his-mouth” demeanor and changed the name of the thorny First Amendment issue to deflect growing criticism. Many Americans have seen through Obama’s subterfuge and labeled it for what it is, just more lies, hype and propaganda, out of the mouth of a pathological liar.

After years of warnings by the likes of Tom DeWeese (American Policy Center) Henry Lamb and Michael Coffman (Sovereignty International and Freedom 21) and Michael Shaw (Freedom Advocates), the damage being done to freedom, property rights and American sovereignty by the United Nations’ Agenda 21 policies of smart growth and sustainable development, is slowly filtering into the minds of urban and rural property owners. They are responding by strongly urging cities and counties to cancel their contracts with United Nations agencies like the International Council on Local Environmental Initiatives, or ICLEI. One county in Idaho (Bonner) has established a property rights council. Good for them! Success comes slow, but it is coming, city-by-city and county-by-county. The bullies are beginning to weaken under the rising onslaught of angry citizens.

In another positive development, just recently the Republican National Committee (RNC) signed a resolution against Agenda 21.

Since Rick Santelli uttered his famous Tea Party fighting words on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange on February 19, 2009, a resistance movement of patriots has exploded across the fruited plains and from sea to shining sea, in defiance of Obama and his socialist, anti-American agenda. A true grass roots tea party was born and when they finally opened their eyes, they didn’t like what they saw.

In August of that same year, town hall meetings took place between politicians (the bullies) and their constituents about the proposed new “Nationalization of American Health Care” act. As if a volcano had erupted, the bullies got an earful and some even cancelled their town hall meetings in fear for their safety. Once again, the American sleeping giant had awakened and he was hungry, angry and furious with the dolts that had awakened him from his long slumber. It now appears that his anger will be avenged, one way or another. The bully is being forced to go on the defensive.

Un-detoured by the angry outpouring of their constituents, the bullies shoved Obama Care down the throats of Americans while thumbing their collective noses at those they serve. This made most of the Tea Partiers and town hall attendants even angrier and the battle over Obama Care is far from over. We can only hope that by this coming June, the U. S. Supreme Court will finally answer this unconstitutional assault on American freedom once and for all and it will be repealed.

An uninformed reader might ask, “… what’s all the fuss about?” What’s making these tea party people so upset? What are they fighting?” Let’s see, where should we start? Let’s start with illegal immigration and Americans having to pay for the subsistence of people who come here illegally ….. by the millions. Why aren’t they being deported in large numbers? Why isn’t government enforcing immigration law? Why isn’t the government closing the giant holes in our borders? These are very relevant questions and the answers from government border on stupidity, gross negligence and outright arrogance, if not treason.

How about the cost of massive cradle-to-grave government-run entitlement programs that working and productive Americans have to fund? What about foreign aide to dictators, despots and re-building Islamic mosques that working and productive Americans also have to fund? And our foreign policy is nothing but driveling appeasement. Will America ever project its “walk softly but carry a big stick” countenance again, or have we become wimps so the rest of the world will “like” us? Obama’s appeasement policy is more dangerous to national security than all the terrorists combined. It makes us look weak and our enemies will aggressively exploit our perceived weakness, in fact, they already have. Now Obama wants to weaken us even more by reducing our stockpile of nuclear weapons and negligently gutting our defense budget, in the name of deficit and debt reduction. Is this smart fiscal and defense policy, or is it outright treason?

What about endless laws, local, state and federal, being passed that erode our freedom and liberty. How about the top-down social, multi-cultural and political correct brainwashing that is being force-fed to our kids in our public schools and colleges? And what about this con game of radical environmentalism, green energy and so-called man-caused global warming that are nothing more than grand wealth redistribution schemes that working and productive Americans are being forced to fund?

What about UN biospheres and the re-wilding of America plan that rural landowners are being forced to bear, while city folk get off scot-free? What about the government bailing out failing banks and financial institutions, on the backs of working and productive Americans?

Then there is the mainstream media that parrots everything the bullies in Washington DC and elsewhere are dishing out. The mainstream media was supposed to be the fourth estate that exposed corruption and double dealing in government. What happened to that role and what happened to journalistic ethics? They apparently have gone the way of the Do-Do bird. With the recent expose’ by the Daily Caller on Media Matters, the mouth piece and witch-hunt specialist and paid-for-bully for George Soros, it is clear that very powerful special interests are controlling the news media and those media outlets that try to be fair and balanced, are “fair” game for attack.

We won’t go into the government spending America into bankruptcy and making us subservient to the moneychangers (think our Federal Reserve and other international central banks), not to mention hostile foreign lenders, like China. This list doesn’t even begin to cover our government’s traitorous energy policy. We could go on and on, but if you don’t get the point, you never will. These reasons and more are why free Americans are rising up against the bullies.

Now in contrast, why should the 47% who pay no taxes, care about all these issues? They have no dog in the hunt, just so long as hard working and producing Americans are footing the bill. Oh, and do we dare mention that these 47% get to vote and by their vote they can ENSLAVE the remaining 53% who are working and paying taxes to support the 47%? So much for equal protection under the law!

But wait, something strange is happening! The bullies are growing nervous. In response to the ever-rising resistance to regional planning by the Tea Party and others, the American Planning Association is teaching its government and environmental followers of Agenda 21 a new language to use, in order to dupe the general public and demean those that are resisting. And the wise ones know that the environmentalists purposely changed the name of “man-caused global warming” to “climate change”, because “climate change” doesn’t have a stigma attached to it ….. yet. There is no lie or subterfuge that the bullies won’t tell or use, to fool or rob the public.

This sudden uprising by a large segment of taxpaying Americans that are demanding returning to the principles of freedom and the reduction of the size of government has got the bullies on the edge. They haven’t had to fight like this before. It all came so easy to them in the past because most Americans were either bought off, looking the other way, or rolling over and capitulating to the bully’s every whim. But now things are different. The bullies may have to really turn up the heat if they want to remain in power and you can bet, turn up the heat they will.

In fact, the blow back against this growing, grass roots resistance to the bullies has been and will continue to be massive, dirty and brutal. Cries of racism by the bullies will be never ending. Accusations of starving children and depriving seniors will pour out of the mainstream media like water over Niagara Falls, in support of the bullies. Massive advertising campaigns will appear, damning the protesters to the status quo, for wanting dirty air and polluted water. Propaganda, lies and distortions about the sour motives of those heartless miscreants with no compassion that oppose them, will fill the air waves, the print media and the Internet, as never before. To give you an idea of what lies are being told by your benevolent government, read this from the The Burning Platform, entitled “A Bad Week For Freedom.” It will blow your mind.

There are two major issues at stake for the bullies. The first is votes and the second is maintaining power with those votes. Without the votes, their power erodes rapidly and it can happen virtually overnight. It might just happen in November of 2012. “The Parallax Prophecies” predicts that the bullies will spend whatever amount of money it takes and will tell lie after lie to preserve the status quo and their political power. There are thousands of national and international special interests that will fund the bullies with billions of dollars, including all those voters who vote to live, instead of working to live. Are the bully’s days of getting everything they want, numbered? That will be up to the rest of Americans who are opposing the bullies. If there are not enough of them who are willing to “stick it in the face of the bullies“, the bullies will win again ….. and maybe forever!

And one more thing, we who are opposing the growth in government and peacefully calling for the return of a Constitutional Republic, ARE NOT the so-called fringe “sovereign citizens” that the FBI is so worried about and who believe they are above the law. We are law-abiding citizens that respect the law, just so long as the law and the government respect and protect our unalienable individual, constitutional, God-given rights. If the government does not respect and protect our individual rights, then the government has unilaterally decided it is above and not subject to the law. Such a government can no longer be respected or trusted and must be brought before and harshly judged by the people and corrective changes applied to bring the government back into compliance, or final subjugation to the bullies will be inevitable.

Let’s see is it possible that “bully” is synonymous with ….. ? You decide.

© Copyright Sunday, February 19, 2012 – All Rights Reserved

~ The Author ~
Ron Ewart is the President of The National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues. Ron may reached for comment via email at r.ewart@comcast.net.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Belittles the Constitution on Foreign Soil

The U.S. Supreme Court has only one job – to apply the Constitution of the United States to the cases before it. But many Justices arrogantly legislate from the bench – and even heap scorn upon this time-tested document.

In front of an Egyptian television audience recently, Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said “I’m operating under a rather old constitution…” She didn’t mean this with respect, as in “its power to protect individual liberty has withstood the test of time.” Instead, she was implying the Constitution is old and worn out – out of date and not valid.

I beg to differ; she is the one who is old, worn out, out of date, and no longer valid.

During that same interview on Egyptian TV, (during her State Department-sponsored trip to Cairo), she said: “I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012.“

Ginsburg said on-camera “Many constitutions written after World War II, such as the South African Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and even the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights are better models than the U.S. Constitution!”

Where in the hell does an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States get off with spewing this kind of treasonous garbage to the world?

The Machashaifeh

The first thought that comes to mind, is this senile old hag should be impeached at the very least.

Our Constitution was ratified by the colonies; the European Charter was repeatedly rejected across Europe, yet it was forced on the people, anyway, and it already is a failure.

Thomas Jefferson once said: “My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.”

“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”

Jefferson concluded with this very important admonishment: “Never spend your money before you have earned it.”

Unfortunately, the snakes that Inhabit the halls of our government (both parties) don’t care whose money they spend, as long as it isn’t theirs, they just keep on borrowing and spending like there is no tomorrow, and leave it to us to pay the tab.

If the political elites ever succeed in abolishing or slithering around the Second Amendment, and outlawing private ownership of guns, that will make almost every American Citizen a criminal (a badge I will wear with pride) under the law, because I don’t know of one gun owner in this country who would be stupid enough, to voluntarily surrender his weapon and leave him/herself to the tender mercies of a pack of out of control politicians.

That is why the Second Amendment is there in the first place to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government.

I don’t remember any expiration date on the oath I took all those years ago, and as far as I am concerned, it remains in effect as long as I am still breathing, and I don’t need to put my uniform back on to defend my country from a pack of snakes, MY LEVIS AND BOOTS WILL DO JUST FINE!!!

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

Submitted to the Federal Observer for publication, by the author, Aaron Cantor USAF (ret), November 28, 2011.

In the past five years the U.S. started the foreclosure process for more than 8.2 million homes. It has completed 4 million of them.

A new report and presentation from RealtyTrac says that there are currently at least 1.4 million U.S. properties in some state of foreclosure. Also, foreclosure activity is expected to rise from the ‘artificially low levels of 2011.’

We drew on the part of the presentation that focuses on what the foreclosure market looks like now, and what to expect in 2012. It highlights the California housing market since it’s the largest in the country.

Click here to see the presentation

SOURCE: Business Insider, February 19, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

I have a personal interest in seeing how the public would react to Obama’s Intel visit. I’m an engineer with many qualifications for working there. My test engineer background and semiconductor design experience should be in high demand ­if Obama is right that there is a shortage of high tech workers.

But that hasn’t been my experience. Except for a couple of short-term contracting jobs, I have found it nearly impossible to get interviewed at Intel. That company is far more interested in hiring cheap foreign workers than hiring local talent. (See this page to see how Intel gets away with hiring foreign workers even when qualified Americans are available).

My mission was to go to the Obama event to see if anyone was angry.

The first thing I saw as I approached the Intel plant complex [pictures, video] was a huge banner sign voicing support for ­the DREAM Act! Admittedly, there were barely enough people to hold the banner up.

Most of the rest of the Obama supporters were carrying anti-Sheriff Joe Arpaio signs, or signs asking Obama to increase taxes on rich corporations like Intel. Plus there were noticeable numbers of lefties unhappy with Obama’s war policies and a contingent of “Occupy” protestors.

Most of the the Open Border amnesty protesters were of Mexican descent. But a few were young, white, liberal college kids.

It didn’t seem the whites were mingling with the Mexicans, perhaps because their issues weren’t the same. Indeed, Obama supporters were generally all segregated into different groups, which is kind of ironic since they were all supposed to be liberals. Of course none of the young whites seemed to have a clue that the DREAM Act is anathema to their career futures.

For the most part, the Obama supporters seemed to be giving him weak approval conditioned on Obama’s ability fulfill their agenda items. There weren’t the usual groupies who love Obama just because of his race.

The second group on the opposite corner: a sizeable crowd of anti-Obama protestors.

This anti-Obama crowd was much more numerous than the group of supporters. Which is a real turnaround: in the past, when Obama appeared in Arizona, his supporters vastly outnumbered his detractors. Hmmm.

The majority of the anti-Obama crowds were Tea Party supporters who didn’t want Obama to raise taxes on anyone­ apparently including Intel, although it receives very generous tax breaks for operating in Arizona. I hadn’t seen so many Tea Party people in years. There was also a scattering of people who were there to support Sheriff Joe.

But one thing was notably absent from the anti-Obama crowd: the immigration issue [slide show]. There were a few protestors who wanted to stop illegal immigration, but their numbers were relatively small. My “Abolish H-1B” sign was the only one that tackled legal immigration. Which was particularly odd, considering that Intel imports enormous numbers of foreign workers­ and that the Indian population growth in Chandler is provoking many conversations among neighbors.

Bottom line: Americans still simply don’t make the connection between job loss and H-1B or other types of legal immigration.

I stood on the street and paraded around so that everyone could see my “Abolish H-1B” sign. I received a few quizzical stares, but nobody seemed interested in what my sign meant, or why I was there. There were plenty of TV news and newspaper reporters looking around, but they ignored me.

The only attention I got was from a 13-year old boy who took the trouble to ask me what H-1B is. As I was explaining it to him, his mother chimed in that her husband has said he is one of the only whites that still has a job at Intel. She was very concerned about the demographic shift that has occurred at Intel. But she didn’t seem to understand that H-1B was one of the major culprits.

Obama’s motorcade sped by very quickly as they entered the main entrance to Intel. Obama was not visible because he was hidden behind the dark windows on the presidential limousine. If he had a moment to notice anything, it would have been the large DREAM Act sign.

Two young black boys and their mother somehow wandered into our crowd. The boys, who were the only blacks I saw on either side of the aisle, said they came there to support Obama because he was the first black president.

Obama’s speech [video] was shallow and devoid of content. He avoided talking about jobs, except when he praising how many jobs Intel produces in the U.S. (No mention of who gets them).

Close to the end of the speech, Obama gave American kids a tongue-in-cheek warning that they need to be able to do math before they work at Intel. The transcript reveals one of the dumber jokes Obama used in his speech:

“And we need to invest in education. [Applause.] We want tomorrow’s workers ­ we want Arizona’s workers ­ to have the skills they need for the jobs like the ones that will be opening up here. And I have to tell you, I’ve been to these plants at Intel ­ young people, you’d better have done some math before you get in here. [Laughter.) You can’t just kind of wander in and you didn’t do some math in school.” (Laughter.)

Remarks by the President at Intel Ocotillo Campus, Chandler, Arizona, January 25, 2012

Obama’s joke is significant because it shows the disdain he has for Americans who get their education in the U.S. Obama seems convinced that young Americans just don’t have what it takes to compete in the global economy.

Attending the Intel demonstration t makes it obvious that Obama has lost a lot of popularity. Even the lefties seem to be unhappy with him, on a variety of issues – ­including the fact that despite all the rhetoric, Obama still hasn’t produced amnesty or stopped U.S. involvement in “nation-building” wars.

But still, Obama’s misguided policies on immigration didn’t seem to be a concern for his opponents at the Intel demonstrations, despite Obama’s support for amnesty, attacks on the State of Arizona for its fight to enforce immigration policy, and his unwavering support of H-1B and green cards for foreign students.

Arizonans, whether liberal or conservative, still don’t seem to connect Obama’s immigration policies to the employment problem.

Conservatives, such as the Tea Party activists, seem every bit as clueless as the Open-Border lefties about the impact immigration has on their careers and livelihoods.

Both sides are oblivious to the fact that Intel imports large numbers of H-1B visa holders to take jobs that Americans are qualified to do.

And neither side seems to understand that Obama wants more visas to bring more foreign workers into the U.S.

The pessimistic interpretation: Americans are invincibly ignorant. The optimistic interpretation: they have not yet begun to fight­ and still Obama is fatally unpopular.

~ The Author ~
Rob Sanchez is a Senior Writing Fellow for Californians for Population Stabilization and author of the “Job Destruction Newsletter” (sign up for it here) at www.JobDestruction.com.

SOURCE: VDare.com, February 17, 2012.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

Some good things have happened since my January 24 story about the horrible cost of ethanol, so I am following up with a specific appeal to all our readers. According to one of the ethanol industry lobbying organizations, and it should know, two bills have been introduced into the US Congress that would curtail or eliminate the “mandate” that we buy their product. One of these two is called, H.R. 3098, “the Renewable Fuel Standard Elimination Act”, and if you can trust the name, every driver who does not own a corn farm or an ethanol plant, should be for it. That is about 200 million of us, so there is no excuse for this legislation to fail, except for the cowardliness and greed of our Congressmen, when dealing with a wealthy lobby.

Here is why I am using the nouns “racket” and “racketeer” to describe the ethanol business? We are compelled to buy a product that we would reject if we could, and we pay more for it than we would pay for what we do want, gasoline. Furthermore, ethanol has no eleemosynary or humanitarian benefits to mankind that might outweigh its cost to us. Those who sell it to us combine with each other, using a part of their ill-gotten gain, to pay our Congress to dictate that we buy “ethanol.” This force is called corn ethanol “Mandates.”

Some 80 years ago our citizens were beset with a similar “racket” resulting from a “mandate” called Prohibition, that was also over a flavored “ethanol” called corn liquor, chemically identical to what we now burn in our cars. But, however criminal the racketeers of the “Roaring 20s,” no citizen was forced to buy and drink their ethanol; we are forced to buy and burn it in our cars.

Ethanol racketeers know they would not survive if the corn ethanol “mandates” are ended. Every one of them will be out of a job, every ethanol plant will be closed, and 5 or 10 million farmers will, we hope, go back to raising food instead of worth-less fuel. Grain will once again become more abundant and affordable for food. Five billion bushels of corn that are being converted into 13 billion gallons of corn alcohol, will once again be available for food. Tens of millions around the world who now face starvation may live.

Those who run the ethanol racket are not dumb or innocent, they are smart businessmen who know how to remain on very good terms with your Congressman. The ethanol racketeers are not without a plan. It is like that of the rabbit who outsmarted the bear in an old folk story, Br Rabbit begged of the bear, “Pleased don’t throw me in the briar patch.” The Briar Patch for the ethanol gang is an emergency compromise called HR 3097, which looks like it will sting, but will probably never curb the racketeers. We must not settle for it!

We to are wasting our time unless we know what we want before we pick up the phone or pen to paper. In my previous letter I estimated mandates have cost the average small family something like $1000.00 per year for the last six years, mostly in higher food costs. That should be incentive enough. The key words we need to know are END ALL ETHANOL MANDATES. Not some mandates part of the time, but all mandates all the time. End means end! Congress is actually thinking about doing this because they know ethanol is a racket. But they are under great pressure from the corn-ethanol lobby to compromise, and compromise legislation is already introduced. Tell your Congressman what “end” means.

Congress knows. Remember, in December the cowardly Congress dodged a debate on corn ethanol and allowed subsidies of $.45 per gallon paid to the Corn Ethanol Racketeers to expire, as well as, a protectionist import tariff of $.55 per gallon, saving consumers six billion dollars each year. They did the right thing by running away because they did not want to admit it was they who put this burden on us in the first place.

Congress can end the Racket, and so can the President. Congress has granted him outrageous latitude through his appointed Director of the Environmental Protection Agency and Secretary of Agriculture. President Obama can, if he will, hamstring the Mandates through his Director of the EPA, and Secretary of Agriculture. He probably will not do this, but he needs to know he will not get your vote unless he stands up to the ethanol racketeers. If the President takes action it will be easier to force Congress to finish the ending.

Those who have fought the corn ethanol racket through education have moved a mountain one inch by embarrassing the cowardly Congress into allowing subsidies to expire. Let us now move the mountain a mile! Kill all Ethanol Mandates and let ethanol compete, if it can, or fade away, if it can not.

~ Resources ~
Victory! Congress Allows Ethanol Subsidies to Expire

Corn-to-Ethanol: US Agribusiness Magic Path To A World Food Monopoly

World Food Situation

EPA Renewable Fuel Standards

PRN Newswire: A Chemical Engineer Evaluates Ethanol as a Fuel Kills 200,000 per year

Written by Charles E. Carlson and published February 16, 2012 at We Hold These Truths and submitted to the Federal Observer for republication.

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