Is the war on terror a complete hoax?

(NaturalNews) What if there weren't any real terrorists threatening America and the whole thing was just made up to justify a military agenda? A rational person might say that if we're all going to give up our rights, and our Fourth Amendment, and have U.S. troops in the streets running checkpoints, then logically there should at least be some evidence that America has been infiltrated with terrorists, right? Or, more specifically, evidence from a reliable source that has not already been caught lying about terrorism, which would exclude the federal government, of course.

Look around you today: Do you see any terrorists? Any "towel heads" aiming guns at your family? Anybody walking around with a vest full of explosives? Nope.

Have you ever seen the TSA catch a terrorist at the airport? Ever read a news report of the TSA catching a terrorist? Ever heard of an Air Marshall stopping a terrorist in-flight? Nope.

Have you ever heard of the FBI halting a terrorist plot that they didn't fabricate, plan and carry out themselves? (All the terror plots "stopped" by the FBI are, on the record, planned and carried out by the FBI itself.) (http://www.naturalnews.com/033751_F...)

Seriously. Clear the cobwebs out of your head for a moment and think logically: Where are all these "terrorists" that we're supposed to be afraid of and give up our rights for? Where are they?

Now, of course, the government can and will, from time to time, stage some sort of terrorist event to remind everyone to be afraid. That's a given. In classic Orwellian protocol, any war that grants a government unlimited power will be indefinitely sustained.

This is why the "War on Terror" was declared against a tactic, not a nation or a person. That way, the so-called "war" can be carried out indefinitely. A war with no end. Perpetual tyranny. At first, if you remember, we were told we needed TSA agents at the airports because of Osama Bin Laden, remember? He was the "mastermind" who was going to cause airplanes to fall out of the sky. So what happened after he was killed and removed from the picture? The U.S. government announced the terror threat was now "even higher" because Bin Laden's loyal supporters would now seek revenge!

Do you see how, under this brand of sick logic, the war on terror will go on indefinitely? They can always claim someone else is dangerous... there's always a new boogeyman when it serves the interests of the state. That's why it's now obvious that this war has been entirely fabricated to achieve specific political and social agendas.

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034321_war_on_terror_paranoia_hoax.html#ixzz1h3MBRv57

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Ugly People Suffer Just As Much Discrimination As Other [Minorities]

The Daily Show
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It should be no surprise that Communist Party USA  has officially endorsed the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Anderson Cooper's CIA Past

CNN's Anderson Cooper spent summers interning for a career with the Central Intelligence Agency, according to a report at a gossip website.

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Federal Law Nullification Explained: federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all

“Nullification”:

“Nullification begins with the axiomatic point that federal law that violates the Constitution is no law at all. It is void and of no effect. Nullification simply pushes this uncontroversial point a step further: if a law is unconstitutional and therefore void and of no effect, it is up to the states, the parties to the federal compact, to declare it so and thus refuse to enforce it. It would be foolish and vain to wait for the federal government or a branch thereof to condemn its own law. Nullification provides a shield between the people of a state and an unconstitutional law from the federal government.”

This succinct expression of nullification is illustrated in the infographic below.

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“The right to property is rooted in the right we have to the free use of our own mind and talents, which it is government’s job to protect,” James Madison wrote.

If the "law" enforcement officers and this lady understood the Constitution, they would be more protective of this right to property instead of their "right of way".

What's more criminal here than breaking "right of way" ordinances is the point at which someone like these officers and this Delaware DOT ditz could maniacally come to the point in their existence of using force to steal property of others that did no harm. And for what reason? There are probably a whole host of psychological dysfunctional reasons that people like these officers and woman have for doing so - their jolly in power over others and making themselves feel important in worthless Delaware government jobs.

A real officer and DOT government worker would not enforce this law if they believed in the Bill of Rights.

How the US Government sees us as citizens: "...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

Who besides guys like me are part of the reality-based community? Many of the other elected officials in Washington, it would seem. A group of Democratic and Republican members of Congress were called in to discuss Iraq sometime before the October 2002 vote authorizing Bush to move forward. A Republican senator recently told Time Magazine that the president walked in and said: ''Look, I want your vote. I'm not going to debate it with you.'' When one of the senators began to ask a question, Bush snapped, ''Look, I'm not going to debate it with you.'' 

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html

NO JOKE: FOREIGN BANKS TOOK MOST FROM FED; BERNANKE KEPT SECRET

Foreign Banks Tapped Fed’s Secret Lifeline Most at Crisis Peak

 

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s two-year fight to shield crisis-squeezed banks from the stigma of revealing their public loans protected a lender to local governments in Belgium, a Japanese fishing-cooperative financier and a company part-owned by the Central Bank of Libya.

Dexia SA (DEXB), based in Brussels and Paris, borrowed as much as $33.5 billion through its New York branch from the Fed’s “discount window” lending program, according to Fed documents released yesterday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Dublin-based Depfa Bank Plc, taken over in 2007 by a German real-estate lender later seized by the German government, drew $24.5 billion.

The biggest borrowers from the 97-year-old discount window as the program reached its crisis-era peak were foreign banks, accounting for at least 70 percent of the $110.7 billion borrowed during the week in October 2008 when use of the program surged to a record. The disclosures may stoke a reexamination of the risks posed to U.S. taxpayers by the central bank’s role in global financial markets.

“The caricature of the Fed is that it was shoveling money to big New York banks and a bunch of foreigners, and that is not conducive to its long-run reputation,” said Vincent Reinhart, the Fed’s director of monetary affairs from 2001 to 2007.

When it comes to big government cover ups and corruption Obama and Napolitano make Bush/Cheney look like amateurs

When it comes to big government cover ups and corruption Obama and Napolitano make Bush/Cheney look like amateurs:

Probes Find 'Unprecedented' Political Review of FOIA Requests by Big Sis...

Issa: 'Nixonian'...


A political review of open records requests smacks of “Nixonian” tactics by the Department of Homeland Security, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Thursday.
Two investigations found that Freedom of Information Act requests sent to the DHS were reviewed by Obama administration political appointees.
“Through the course of an eight-month investigation, the committee has learned that political staff under the DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano have corrupted the agency’s FOIA compliance procedures, exerted unlawful political pressure, on FOIA compliance officers, and undermined the federal government’s accountability to the American people,” Issa said.
“These events have nurtured a fragile – and at times hostile – work environment that does not serve to fulfill the department’s primary mission to secure the nation from the many threats we face,” he added.
The department’s Office of Inspector General found that many records requests were filtered through Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s office.

Gaddafi, Sheen, or Obama: which one is Crazy, Maniacal, and Completely Insane?

The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits

The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
by Milton Friedman

The New York Times Magazine, September 13, 1970. Copyright @ 1970 by The New York Times Company.

When I hear businessmen speak eloquently about the "social responsibilities of business in a free-enterprise system," I am reminded of the wonderful line about the Frenchman who discovered at the age of 70 that he had been speaking prose all his life. The businessmen believe that they are defending free en­terprise when they declaim that business is not concerned "merely" with profit but also with promoting desirable "social" ends; that business has a "social conscience" and takes seriously its responsibilities for providing em­ployment, eliminating discrimination, avoid­ing pollution and whatever else may be the catchwords of the contemporary crop of re­formers. In fact they are–or would be if they or anyone else took them seriously–preach­ing pure and unadulterated socialism. Busi­nessmen who talk this way are unwitting pup­pets of the intellectual forces that have been undermining the basis of a free society these past decades.

The discussions of the "social responsibili­ties of business" are notable for their analytical looseness and lack of rigor. What does it mean to say that "business" has responsibilities? Only people can have responsibilities. A corporation is an artificial person and in this sense may have artificial responsibilities, but "business" as a whole cannot be said to have responsibilities, even in this vague sense. The first step toward clarity in examining the doctrine of the social responsibility of business is to ask precisely what it implies for whom.

Presumably, the individuals who are to be responsible are businessmen, which means in­dividual proprietors or corporate executives. Most of the discussion of social responsibility is directed at corporations, so in what follows I shall mostly neglect the individual proprietors and speak of corporate executives.

In a free-enterprise, private-property sys­tem, a corporate executive is an employee of the owners of the business. He has direct re­sponsibility to his employers. That responsi­bility is to conduct the business in accordance with their desires, which generally will be to make as much money as possible while con­forming to the basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom. Of course, in some cases his employers may have a different objective. A group of persons might establish a corporation for an eleemosynary purpose–for exam­ple, a hospital or a school. The manager of such a corporation will not have money profit as his objective but the rendering of certain services.

In either case, the key point is that, in his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation or establish the eleemosynary institution, and his primary responsibility is to them.

Needless to say, this does not mean that it is easy to judge how well he is performing his task. But at least the criterion of performance is straightforward, and the persons among whom a voluntary contractual arrangement exists are clearly defined.

Of course, the corporate executive is also a person in his own right. As a person, he may have many other responsibilities that he rec­ognizes or assumes voluntarily–to his family, his conscience, his feelings of charity, his church, his clubs, his city, his country. He ma}. feel impelled by these responsibilities to de­vote part of his income to causes he regards as worthy, to refuse to work for particular corpo­rations, even to leave his job, for example, to join his country's armed forces. Ifwe wish, we may refer to some of these responsibilities as "social responsibilities." But in these respects he is acting as a principal, not an agent; he is spending his own money or time or energy, not the money of his employers or the time or energy he has contracted to devote to their purposes. If these are "social responsibili­ties," they are the social responsibilities of in­dividuals, not of business.

What does it mean to say that the corpo­rate executive has a "social responsibility" in his capacity as businessman? If this statement is not pure rhetoric, it must mean that he is to act in some way that is not in the interest of his employers. For example, that he is to refrain from increasing the price of the product in order to contribute to the social objective of preventing inflation, even though a price in crease would be in the best interests of the corporation. Or that he is to make expendi­tures on reducing pollution beyond the amount that is in the best interests of the cor­poration or that is required by law in order to contribute to the social objective of improving the environment. Or that, at the expense of corporate profits, he is to hire "hardcore" un­employed instead of better qualified available workmen to contribute to the social objective of reducing poverty.

In each of these cases, the corporate exec­utive would be spending someone else's money for a general social interest. Insofar as his actions in accord with his "social responsi­bility" reduce returns to stockholders, he is spending their money. Insofar as his actions raise the price to customers, he is spending the customers' money. Insofar as his actions lower the wages of some employees, he is spending their money.

The stockholders or the customers or the employees could separately spend their own money on the particular action if they wished to do so. The executive is exercising a distinct "social responsibility," rather than serving as an agent of the stockholders or the customers or the employees, only if he spends the money in a different way than they would have spent it.

But if he does this, he is in effect imposing taxes, on the one hand, and deciding how the tax proceeds shall be spent, on the other.

This process raises political questions on two levels: principle and consequences. On the level of political principle, the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are gov­ernmental functions. We have established elab­orate constitutional, parliamentary and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes are imposed so far as possible in ac­cordance with the preferences and desires of the public–after all, "taxation without repre­sentation" was one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of checks and balances to separate the legisla­tive function of imposing taxes and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes and administering expendi­ture programs and from the judicial function of mediating disputes and interpreting the law.

Here the businessman–self-selected or appointed directly or indirectly by stockhold­ers–is to be simultaneously legislator, execu­tive and, jurist. He is to decide whom to tax by how much and for what purpose, and he is to spend the proceeds–all this guided only by general exhortations from on high to restrain inflation, improve the environment, fight poverty and so on and on.

The whole justification for permitting the corporate executive to be selected by the stockholders is that the executive is an agent serving the interests of his principal. This jus­tification disappears when the corporate ex­ecutive imposes taxes and spends the pro­ceeds for "social" purposes. He becomes in effect a public employee, a civil servant, even though he remains in name an employee of a private enterprise. On grounds of political principle, it is intolerable that such civil ser­vants–insofar as their actions in the name of social responsibility are real and not just win­dow-dressing–should be selected as they are now. If they are to be civil servants, then they must be elected through a political process. If they are to impose taxes and make expendi­tures to foster "social" objectives, then politi­cal machinery must be set up to make the as­sessment of taxes and to determine through a political process the objectives to be served.

This is the basic reason why the doctrine of "social responsibility" involves the acceptance of the socialist view that political mechanisms, not market mechanisms, are the appropriate way to determine the allocation of scarce re­sources to alternative uses.

On the grounds of consequences, can the corporate executive in fact discharge his al­leged "social responsibilities?" On the other hand, suppose he could get away with spending the stockholders' or customers' or employees' money. How is he to know how to spend it? He is told that he must contribute to fighting inflation. How is he to know what ac­tion of his will contribute to that end? He is presumably an expert in running his company–in producing a product or selling it or financing it. But nothing about his selection makes him an expert on inflation. Will his hold­ ing down the price of his product reduce infla­tionary pressure? Or, by leaving more spending power in the hands of his customers, simply divert it elsewhere? Or, by forcing him to produce less because of the lower price, will it simply contribute to shortages? Even if he could an­swer these questions, how much cost is he justi­fied in imposing on his stockholders, customers and employees for this social purpose? What is his appropriate share and what is the appropri­ate share of others?

And, whether he wants to or not, can he get away with spending his stockholders', cus­tomers' or employees' money? Will not the stockholders fire him? (Either the present ones or those who take over when his actions in the name of social responsibility have re­duced the corporation's profits and the price of its stock.) His customers and his employees can desert him for other producers and em­ployers less scrupulous in exercising their so­cial responsibilities.

This facet of "social responsibility" doc­ trine is brought into sharp relief when the doctrine is used to justify wage restraint by trade unions. The conflict of interest is naked and clear when union officials are asked to subordinate the interest of their members to some more general purpose. If the union offi­cials try to enforce wage restraint, the consequence is likely to be wildcat strikes, rank­-and-file revolts and the emergence of strong competitors for their jobs. We thus have the ironic phenomenon that union leaders–at least in the U.S.–have objected to Govern­ment interference with the market far more consistently and courageously than have business leaders.

The difficulty of exercising "social responsibility" illustrates, of course, the great virtue of private competitive enterprise–it forces people to be responsible for their own actions and makes it difficult for them to "exploit" other people for either selfish or unselfish purposes. They can do good–but only at their own expense.

Many a reader who has followed the argu­ment this far may be tempted to remonstrate that it is all well and good to speak of Government's having the responsibility to im­pose taxes and determine expenditures for such "social" purposes as controlling pollu­tion or training the hard-core unemployed, but that the problems are too urgent to wait on the slow course of political processes, that the exercise of social responsibility by busi­nessmen is a quicker and surer way to solve pressing current problems.

Aside from the question of fact–I share Adam Smith's skepticism about the benefits that can be expected from "those who affected to trade for the public good"–this argument must be rejected on grounds of principle. What it amounts to is an assertion that those who favor the taxes and expenditures in question have failed to persuade a majority of their fellow citizens to be of like mind and that they are seeking to attain by undemocratic procedures what they cannot attain by democratic proce­dures. In a free society, it is hard for "evil" people to do "evil," especially since one man's good is another's evil.

I have, for simplicity, concentrated on the special case of the corporate executive, ex­cept only for the brief digression on trade unions. But precisely the same argument ap­plies to the newer phenomenon of calling upon stockholders to require corporations to exercise social responsibility (the recent G.M crusade for example). In most of these cases, what is in effect involved is some stockholders trying to get other stockholders (or customers or employees) to contribute against their will to "social" causes favored by the activists. In­sofar as they succeed, they are again imposing taxes and spending the proceeds.

The situation of the individual proprietor is somewhat different. If he acts to reduce the returns of his enterprise in order to exercise his "social responsibility," he is spending his own money, not someone else's. If he wishes to spend his money on such purposes, that is his right, and I cannot see that there is any ob­jection to his doing so. In the process, he, too, may impose costs on employees and cus­tomers. However, because he is far less likely than a large corporation or union to have mo­nopolistic power, any such side effects will tend to be minor.

Of course, in practice the doctrine of social responsibility is frequently a cloak for actions that are justified on other grounds rather than a reason for those actions.

To illustrate, it may well be in the long run interest of a corporation that is a major employer in a small community to devote resources to providing amenities to that community or to improving its government. That may make it easier to attract desirable employees, it may reduce the wage bill or lessen losses from pilferage and sabotage or have other worthwhile effects. Or it may be that, given the laws about the deductibility of corporate charitable contributions, the stockholders can contribute more to chari­ties they favor by having the corporation make the gift than by doing it themselves, since they can in that way contribute an amount that would otherwise have been paid as corporate taxes.

In each of these–and many similar–cases, there is a strong temptation to rationalize these actions as an exercise of "social responsibility." In the present climate of opinion, with its wide spread aversion to "capitalism," "profits," the "soulless corporation" and so on, this is one way for a corporation to generate goodwill as a by-product of expenditures that are entirely justified in its own self-interest.

It would be inconsistent of me to call on corporate executives to refrain from this hyp­ocritical window-dressing because it harms the foundations of a free society. That would be to call on them to exercise a "social re­sponsibility"! If our institutions, and the atti­tudes of the public make it in their self-inter­est to cloak their actions in this way, I cannot summon much indignation to denounce them. At the same time, I can express admiration for those individual proprietors or owners of closely held corporations or stockholders of more broadly held corporations who disdain such tactics as approaching fraud.

Whether blameworthy or not, the use of the cloak of social responsibility, and the nonsense spoken in its name by influential and presti­gious businessmen, does clearly harm the foun­dations of a free society. I have been impressed time and again by the schizophrenic character of many businessmen. They are capable of being extremely farsighted and clearheaded in matters that are internal to their businesses. They are incredibly shortsighted and muddle­headed in matters that are outside their businesses but affect the possible survival of busi­ness in general. This shortsightedness is strikingly exemplified in the calls from many businessmen for wage and price guidelines or controls or income policies. There is nothing that could do more in a brief period to destroy a market system and replace it by a centrally con­trolled system than effective governmental con­trol of prices and wages.

The shortsightedness is also exemplified in speeches by businessmen on social respon­sibility. This may gain them kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already too prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be curbed and controlled by external forces. Once this view is adopted, the external forces that curb the market will not be the social consciences, however highly developed, of the pontificating executives; it will be the iron fist of Government bureaucrats. Here, as with price and wage controls, businessmen seem to me to reveal a suicidal impulse.

The political principle that underlies the market mechanism is unanimity. In an ideal free market resting on private property, no individual can coerce any other, all coopera­tion is voluntary, all parties to such coopera­tion benefit or they need not participate. There are no values, no "social" responsibilities in any sense other than the shared values and responsibilities of individuals. Society is a collection of individuals and of the various groups they voluntarily form.

The political principle that underlies the political mechanism is conformity. The indi­vidual must serve a more general social inter­est–whether that be determined by a church or a dictator or a majority. The individual may have a vote and say in what is to be done, but if he is overruled, he must conform. It is appropriate for some to require others to contribute to a general social purpose whether they wish to or not.

Unfortunately, unanimity is not always feasi­ble. There are some respects in which conformity appears unavoidable, so I do not see how one can avoid the use of the political mecha­nism altogether.

But the doctrine of "social responsibility" taken seriously would extend the scope of the political mechanism to every human activity. It does not differ in philosophy from the most explicitly collectivist doctrine. It differs only by professing to believe that collectivist ends can be attained without collectivist means. That is why, in my book Capitalism and Freedom, I have called it a "fundamentally subversive doctrine" in a free society, and have said that in such a society, "there is one and only one social responsibility of business–to use it resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits so long as it stays within the rules of the game, which is to say, engages in open and free competition without deception or fraud."

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death

So when I first read of U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler’s recent ruling on Obamacare, in which she states, among other things, that “mental activity” can be treated as “commerce,” even if that activity does not lead to observable, demonstrable action, and that no distinction can be made between the actions of one’s mind and physical actions, I immediately recalled a statement in Orwell’s novel Nineteen-Eighty Four:

Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime IS death.*

Judge Kessler, a Clinton appointee, has thus, whether she knows it or not, endorsed the notion of thought crime, or “crimethink.” The “thought crime” she is endorsing, which is not choosing to buy government-mandated health insurance after private consideration (or none at all), will not entail anything as severe as execution by the state. Instead, it would entail a hefty penalty (a special “tax”) on the recalcitrant, or even prison. Of course, paying the fine and/or serving time in prison may lead to one’s death, or at least to one’s reduced financial circumstances, but that is beside the point.

The details of the invidious fraud that is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are not the subject here. The particulars and mechanics of that scam have been written about extensively in other venues. What concerns us here is the attack on the mind, on the means of man’s survival.

Kessler’s ruling has been excoriated, mocked, and shredded by The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, Fox, and other leading news outlets. Five plaintiffs brought action against Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr., Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Timothy F. Geithner of the United States Department of the Treasury. They argued that the individual or compulsory mandate of Obamacare would cause them financial hardship, that it was beyond the power of Congress to enact or unconstitutional, and that it reduced God to second-fiddle in terms of the deity guaranteeing their health and well-being.

Read more:  http://www.capitalismmagazine.com/law/6319-court-endorses-thought-crime.html

Judge Upholds Obamacare: Congress May Regulate "Mental Activity"

“As previous Commerce Clause cases have all involved physical
activity, as opposed to mental activity, i.e. decision-making,
there is little judicial guidance on whether the latter falls
within Congress’s power.”

Images

The question that then becomes central to Judge Kessler’s analysis is whether the Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate the “decision making” or “mental activity” of individual citizens. Judge Kessler concludes that such “decision making” or “mental activity” is economic activity within Congress’ power to regulate.

Read more at Suite101: Judge Upholds Obamacare: Congress May Regulate "Mental Activity" http://www.suite101.com/content/judge-upholds-obamacare--congress-may-regulate-mental-activity-a352028#ixzz1FbXX7yqG

Why I Changed My Mind About Unions

As Sen. Barry Goldwater observed in Conscience of a Conservative, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of association for union members. But "[e]mployers are forbidden to act collusively for sound reasons. The same reasons [should] apply to unions...Let us henceforth make war on all monopolies -- whether corporate or union. The enemy of freedom is unrestrained power" -- whether it be unrestrained management power or unrestrained union power.

Read more:  http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/why_i_changed_my_mind_about_un.html

End Public Sector Unions...Period

...public sector "collective bargaining" is a bad joke, given that there are only chairs on one side of the bargaining table.  The bigger universe of interested parties have zero representation in the process.  There is no natural force working to keep costs in line.

Moreover, quite often the very politicians who are "negotiating" with the public unions are politicians who have been financed by those same unions.  At least Bernie Madoff ripped off his clients with some panache.  No such style is even required in a public sector union negotiation when the folks in charge are bought and paid for Democrats.

Under any circumstances and in any economy, it is simply a matter of time before these costs reach a tipping point.  We are at that time.  There is simply no more money to give to these public sector unions -- period.

And that is why we are seeing what we are seeing in Madison this week and it is why we have seen the emergence of Chris Christie as a national phenomenon.  And I welcome it.  Things are finally so bad -- that they are good.  And by good, I mean that folks now cannot help but pay attention to the issue of public sector unions.

I submit that the very existence of these unions has only been allowed to happen because it's the kind of issue an electorate is never forced to confront -- until they are forced to confront it.  And now they are. ...

 

Read more:  http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/02/end_public_sector_unionsperiod.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The U.S. Government: An insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army

American politics is one long argument about what government should or shouldn’t be doing, and how it should or shouldn’t be doing it. It’s rare that we step back, take in the larger picture and ask what it is doing. The release of the president’s proposed 2012 budget is a good time to do that. If you want to know what the federal government is really doing, just look where it’s spending our money.

Two of every five dollars goes to Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, all of which provide some form of insurance. A bit more than a buck goes to the military. Then there’s a $1.50 or so for assorted other programs -- education, infrastructure, environmental protection, farm subsidies, etc. Some of that, like unemployment checks and food stamps, is also best understood insurance spending. And then there’s another 40 cents of debt repayment. Calvin Coolidge once said that the business of America is business. Well, the business of the American government is insurance. Literally. If you look at how the federal government spends our money, it’s an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.

But you wouldn’t know it to listen to the debate over the budget. When House Republicans talk about cutting spending and the Obama administration talks about freezing spending, neither group is talking about the vast expanse of the government’s commitments. They’re looking at a small corner of the budget, the 12.3 percent known as non-defense discretionary spending. The stuff that’s not Medicare, not Medicaid, not Social Security or the military. It’s the odds-and-ends, so to speak.

Read more:  http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2011/02/the_us_government_an_insurance.html

How can health insurance be interstate commerce if it is not allowed by Congress itself to be sold across state lines?

States have regulated health insurance since the 1945 passage of the McCarran Ferguson Act, which, among other things, forbids interstate sale of insurance (health, auto, homeowners). States have regulated insurance ever since. Many insurance companies sell policies in different states but each is a separate company per state, and in doing so, must comply with a given state's regulations.

Some already purchase health insurance across state lines. The ERISA Act of 1974 allows businesses that self-insure their employees to include all employees in one health insurance pool, even if they live in different states. Self-insurance means that the company is responsible for paying the health expenditures of its employees after the employees have paid the specified deductibles and co-pays. Such companies typically hire an insurance company to process claims and are predominantly large employers who have chosen to self-insure to remove the insurance middleman. But why is third party payment by an employer allowed in the first place?

The fact is that true capitalism has never played a part in health insurance because of government intervention.  Government intervention is the problem that drives up costs.  Government intervention in the form of interstate commerce prevention and employer benefit income tax laws.  The non-payer cost factor is a side show compared to this true integral that drives up cost:  the moral hazard of government tax law policy with employee benefits.

Unions' Anti-Trade Agenda

In fact, a statement given by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stated, “We’ve seen U.S. multinational companies take advantage of the investment and other corporate protections in past trade deals to shift production offshore, while maintaining access to the U.S. consumer market and undermining the jobs, wages and bargaining power of American workers… So long as these agreements fall short of protecting the broad interests of American workers and their counterparts around the world in these uncertain economic times, we will oppose them.”
If it is jobs that the unions are worried about then what about the fact that “South Korea, Colombia and Panama are together worth almost $13 billion of new sales for our U.S. goods and services?” This is according to Rep. Kevin Brady, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade.
Because of all the new sales, Rep. Brady went on to say, “We are going to create a lot of jobs and find new customers that will help us get out of this economic recession, if we can open those markets.”
Is it really American jobs the unions are worried about preserving or it is union jobs that concern them?

Read more at:  http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=3063

VID: How Attempts To Save Penguins Don't Really Save Penguins Or The American Workforce #eco #green #fail

Social Security and the Fallacy of Government Compassion

"Social Security, of course, remains the vaunted third rail of American politics, the crown jewel of Roosevelt-era liberalism. Even conservative-minded Americans consider the program the one saving grace keeping the elderly out of the poor-houses. Like a national institution or memorial, it will be saved come whatever. Just the mere concept is an American value unto itself and we will make it endure, regardless of the costs or the puny payouts or the toll on the American worker.

Nothing written here is meant to endorse the privatization of Social Security, but I do submit that the American worker should not be coerced into planning his or her future on the edicts of Washington politicians and policy wonks. Social Security, like most government programs, offers one-size-fits-all solutions for a diverse nation of 300 million-plus and fosters dependency and conformity. From where in the Constitution does government derive the power to set my retirement age?"

Read more at:   http://blog.getliberty.org/default.asp?Display=3054

Half of All States Now Suing to Stop Obamacare

If it is allowed to be implemented, Obamacare will eventually do deep and irreparable harm to our nation’s budget deficit. But while Obamacare is more of a long-term threat to fiscal health at the federal level, it is a  clear and present danger to the states. Of the 34 million Americans who gain health insurance through Obamacare, over half (18 million) will receive it through Medicaid.
While Obamacare will pay for all of the benefit expansion for the first three years of the law, and 90% of it after that, Obamacare never pays for any of the state administrative costs for adding those 18 million Americans to their welfare rolls. That amounts to billions in unfunded federal mandates for states to absorb. That is why 33 Republican governors signed a letter to the White House and Congress making an emphatic appeal that Obamacare’s Medicaid provisions be repealed.
It is also why the newly elected governors of Ohio, Oklahoma, Maine, and Wisconsin have all decided to sue the Obama administration in hopes of stopping Obamacare. Specifically, Gov. Mary Fallin of Oklahoma has announced that the Sooner State will pursue its own case against the law, while Govs. John Kasich (R) and Scott Walker (R) (of Ohio and Wisconsin respectively) will add their states to Florida’s multi-state suit. And yesterday, newly sworn-in state Attorney General William Schneider announced Maine would also join the the Florida litigation. That brings the number of states on the Florida suit to 23 and the total number of states suing to stop Obamacare (which includes Virginia and Oklahoma) to 25.

Read more at:  http://blog.heritage.org/2011/01/12/half-of-all-states-now-suing-to-stop-obamacare/

Barack Obama, George Soros and Zbigniew Brzezinski are behind the fall of Egypt and the coming Islamic Revolution

But as it turns out, it’s not quite as simple as that. Obama’s words to the contrary, it’s highly likely that our president had a strong hand in bringing about the riots in Egypt. Beyond that, he was aided and abetted by the very man who engineered the financial meltdown that enabled Obama to get elected in the first place: George Soros.
The U.S. knew as early as December, 2008, that groups opposed to the Mubarak regime were already developing a plan to overthrow the Egyptian government. They received the information from a young dissident who the U.S. had sponsored to attend a meeting for international political activists that took place in New York City.
In addition, according to documents exposed by WikiLeaks, U.S. Ambassador to Egypt Margaret Scobey was aware of the plans of the Mubarak opposition group. Leaked documents also show that while the United States publicly supported the Mubarak government, U.S. Embassy officials continued to communicate with the activist in question throughout 2008 and 2009.
The problem is that in order for a country to hold “free” elections, it must have a democratic infrastructure, a democratic culture. In the most important sense, there is no Middle Eastern country that has this, except for Israel. Even our attempts to establish democracy in Iraq have done little to combat the influence of Iran or to insure that democracy will survive after we leave.

Read more

Muslim Brotherhood Fact Sheet #Egypt #Tahrir #Jan25

The Brotherhood’s goal is to turn the world into an Islamist empire. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a revolutionary fundamentalist movement to restore the caliphate and strict shariah (Islamist) law in Muslim lands and, ultimately, the world. Today, it has chapters in 80 countries.

“It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” —Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna[2]

·         The Brotherhood wants America to fall. It tells followers to be “patient” because America “is heading towards its demise.” The U.S. is an infidel that “does not champion moral and human values and cannot lead humanity.” —Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010[3]    

·         The Brotherhood claims western democracy is “corrupt,” “unrealistic.” and “false.”—Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef [4]

·         The Brotherhood calls for jihad against “the Muslim’s real enemies, not only Israel but also the United States. Waging jihad against both of these infidels is a commandment of Allah that cannot be disregarded.” —Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010[5]    

·         The Brotherhood assassinated Anwar Sadat in 1981 for making peace with the hated “Zionist entity.”[6]It also assassinated Egypt’s prime minister in 1948 and attempted to assassinate President Nasser in 1954.[7]

·         Hamas is a “wing of the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to the Hamas Charter, Chapter 2. The Charter calls for the murder of Jews, the “obliteration” of Israel and its replacement with an Islamist theocracy.

·         The Brotherhood supports Hezbollah’s war against the Jews. Brotherhood leader Mahdi Akef declared he was “prepared to send 10,000 jihad fighters immediately to fight at the side of Hezbollah” during Hezbollah’s war against Israel in 2006.[8]

·         The Brotherhood glorifies Osama bin Laden. Osama is “in all certainty, a mujahid (heroic fighter), and I have no doubt in his sincerity in resisting the occupation, close to Allah on high.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, Nov. 2007[9]

·         The Brotherhood “sanctioned martyrdom operations in Palestine.…They do not have bombs, so they turn themselves into bombs. This is a necessity.” — Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Dec. 17, 2010[10]

·         The Brotherhood advocates violent jihad: The “change that the [Muslim] nation seeks can only be attained through jihad and sacrifice and by raising a jihadi generation that pursues death just as the enemies pursue life,” said Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi in a September 2010 sermon.[11] Major terrorists came out of the Muslim Brotherhood, including bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (mastermind of the 9/11 attacks).[12]

·         The Brotherhood advocates a deceptive strategy in democracies: appear moderate and use existing institutions to gain power. “The civilizational-jihadist process…is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house…so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious overall other religions,” reads a US Muslim Brotherhood 1991 document.[13] It believes it can conquer Europe peacefully: “After having been expelled twice, Islam will be victorious and reconquer Europe....I am certain that this time, victory will be won not by the sword but by preaching and [Islamic] ideology.” — Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi, “Fatwa,” 2003[14]

·         The Brotherhood uses democracy, but once in power it will replace democracy with fundamentalist shariah law because it is the “true democracy.” “The final, absolute message from heaven contains all the values which the secular world claims to have invented....Islam and its values antedated the West by founding true democracy.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, Nov. 2007[15]

·         The Brotherhood’s view of women’s rights is to subjugate and segregate women: The ideal society would include “a campaign against ostentation in dress and loose behaviour…segregation of male and female students; private meetings between men and women, unless within the permitted degrees of relationship, to be counted as a crime for which both will be censured…prohibition of dancing and other such pastimes." —Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna, “Five Tracts”[16]

·         The Brotherhood supports Female Genital Mutilation: “[the Americans] wage war on Muslim leaders, the traditions of its faith and its ideas. They even wage war against female circumcision, a practice current in 36 countries, which has been prevalent since the time of the Pharaohs.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, 2007[17]

·         The Brotherhood will not treat non-Muslim minorities, such as Coptic Christians, as equals. “Allah's word will reign supreme and the infidels' word will be inferior.” —Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Badi, Sept. 2010[18]

·         The Brotherhood refuses to commit to continuing the Israel-Egypt peace treaty.[19]Muslim Brotherhood leaders have said that “as far as the movement is concerned, Israel is a Zionist entity occupying holy Arab and Islamic lands...and we will get rid of it no matter how long it takes.” —Former Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammed Mahdi Akef, 2005 and 2007[20]

·         The Brotherhood has anti-Semitic roots. It supported the Nazis, organized mass demonstrations against the Jews with slogans promoting ethnic cleansing like “Down with the Jews!” and “Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine!” in 1936; carried out a violent pogrom against Egypt’s Jews in November 1945; and made sure that Nazi collaborator and Palestinian Mufti al-Husseini was granted asylum in Egypt in 1946.[21]

·         The Brotherhood remains virulently anti-Semitic. “Today the Jews are not the Israelites praised by Allah, but the descendants of the Israelites who defied His word. Allah was angry with them and turned them into monkeys and pigs….There is no doubt that the battle in which the Muslims overcome the Jews [will come]....In that battle the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them." —Muslim Brotherhood Spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi[22]

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[1]Cited Lorenzo Vidino, “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe,” Middle East Quarterly, Winter, 2005 at http://www.meforum.org/687/the-muslim-brotherhoods-conquest-of-europeand in Andrew C. McCarthy, “Fear the Muslim Brotherhood,” National Review, Jan. 31, 2011, at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/258419

[2]“The Muslim Brotherhood,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/173

[3]Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” Sermon, Sept. 2010, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4650.htm

[4]Cited in Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad?

[5]Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” Sermon, Sept. 2010, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4650.htm

[6]Andrew C. McCarthy, “Fear the Muslim Brotherhood,” National Review, Jan. 31, 2011, at http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/258419

[7]Dore Gold, “The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Crisis,” Jerusalem Issues Briefs, Feb. 2, 2011, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=5953

[8]Cited in Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad?

[9]  “Reading into the Muslim Brotherhood’s Documents,” IkhwanWeb.org, June 13, 2007 at “The Muslim Brotherhood,” The Investigative Project on Terrorism, http://www.investigativeproject.org/profile/173

[10]Interview with leading Sunni scholar Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, on Al-Hayat 2 TV on December 17, 2010, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2731.htm

[11]Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” Sermon, Sept. 2010, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4650.htm

[12]Dore Gold, “The Muslim Brotherhood and the Egyptian Crisis,” Jerusalem Issues Briefs, Feb. 2, 2011, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=442&PID=0&IID=5953

[13]Steven Merly, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” Current Trends, April 2009, at http://www.currenttrends.org/docLib/20090411_Merley.USBROTHERHOOD.pdf

[14]Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, “Fatwa,” 2003, translated at Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad?

[15]Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad

[16]"Toward the Light" in Five Tracts of Hasan al-Banna, trans. by Charles Wendell (Berkeley, 1978), ISBN 0-520-09584-7 pp.126f

[17]Cited in Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad

[18]Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Muhammad Badi, "How Islam Confronts the Oppression and Tyranny,” Sermon, Sept. 2010, translated at MEMRI at http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/4650.htm

[19]“Muslim Brotherhood: ‘We are against Zionism,’” The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 4, 2011, at http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=206725

[20]Cited in Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad

[21]Mathais Kunztel, “Jew-Hatred and Jihad: The Nazi Roots of the 9/11 Attack,” The Weekly Standard, Sept. 17, 2007, archived at http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/Jew-Hatred%20and%20Jihad.pdf

[22]Cited in Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah-Halevi, “The Muslim Brotherhood: A Moderate Islamic Alternative to al-Qaeda or a Partner in Global Jihad?” Jerusalem Viewpoints, Nov. 1, 2007, at http://www.jcpa.org/JCPA/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DRIT=2&DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=111&FID=443&PID=0&IID=1920&TTL=The_Muslim_Brotherhood:_A_Moderate_Islamic_Alternative_to_al-Qaeda_or_a_Partner_in_Global_Jihad? 


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