Fwd: NEW CALENDAR FOR YOU

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From: noelle finnerty <skylark.nf@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Subject: NEW CALENDAR FOR YOU
To: stephan black <sblack84@gmail.com>




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Fwd: NEW CALENDAR FOR YOU

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: noelle finnerty <skylark.nf@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:02 AM
Subject: Fwd: NEW CALENDAR FOR YOU
To: Raymond Shupena <rshupena@hotmail.com>

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: noelle finnerty <skylark.nf@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:01 AM
Subject: NEW CALENDAR FOR YOU
To: stephan black <sblack84@gmail.com>




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a fair trade project proposal

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Video explaining Debt Crisis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNwNp3dMt6M&feature=player_embedded

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Target Everything In The Budget, Including Military Expenditures

"What Doan fails to understand -- as do so many liberals when it comes to domestic expenditures -- is that spending money does not guarantee positive results.  Military outlays are not the same as defending America, just as spending money on the Department of Housing and Urban Develop is not the same as housing America.  In fact, most of what the Pentagon does has little to do with protecting this nation."

The Politics of Plunder
Target Everything In The Budget, Including Military Expenditures
Doug Bandow
Aug. 1 2011 - 2:37 pm

The impending limit on federal borrowing has triggered more than a few proposals for slashing future government outlays.  Most Americans recognize that they no longer can afford Washington's corral full of Sacred Cows.

But many conservatives, who otherwise shout most loudly for fiscal responsibility, believe in Big Government for least one federal department:  the Pentagon.  No matter what the U.S. spends, it is never enough.  Indeed, leading neoconservatives continue to press for a massive increase in "defense" outlays.

In opposing proposed reductions unrepentant hawks mouth left-wing rhetoric.  Anyone suggesting a smaller U.S. government role in the world is an "isolationist."  Proposals to merely slow planned spending increases are "cuts" that would "gut" the military.

Indeed, proposing fiscal responsibility at the Pentagon is equated with a desire to weaken defense.  For instance, columnist Lurita Doan accused President Barack Obama of intending "to hollow out the military." Worse, the president "seeks to render our military neither well-armed nor well-planned which calls into question our nation's ability to remain a free people for long."

Doan should take up comedy.  She believes the world's most powerful nation, allied with every major industrialized nation save China and Russia, deploying a globe-spanning military far beyond anything possessed by any other country, and spending roughly as much on the military as every other nation combined, is in danger.  Indeed, inflation adjusted outlays today are higher than at any point in the Cold War, Korean War, or Vietnam War.  Yet in her mind a spending reduction would risk America's freedom.

What Doan fails to understand -- as do so many liberals when it comes to domestic expenditures -- is that spending money does not guarantee positive results.  Military outlays are not the same as defending America, just as spending money on the Department of Housing and Urban Develop is not the same as housing America.  In fact, most of what the Pentagon does has little to do with protecting this nation.

The U.S. remains the main member of NATO,  yet Europe's GDP and population both exceed those of the U.S.  Nor does the continent face any serious military threats:  Russia's military is but a pale imitation the Soviet Red Army.  America's continuing security guarantee subsidizes Europe's generous welfare states.  In effect, the Neo-con hawks would cut Medicare at home to preserve socialized medicine abroad.

Similar are Washington's security commitments to Japan and South Korea.  Until last year the former had the second largest economy on earth, but Tokyo relied on America for its protection.  If someone needs to deter potential Chinese adventurism, it is Japan.

The Republic of Korea has upwards of 40 times the GDP of North Korea.  The former also has a high-tech economy, twice the North's population, and friendly relations with its neighbors.  Despite allegedly fearing a North Korean invasion, for years the ROK sent money and food to its enemy; Seoul recently sent another shipment of food aid northward even after Pyongyang's military provocations last year.  Yet the U.S. is supposed to defend South Korea, apparently forever.  Why?

Worse than turning industrialized allies into international welfare queens are America's unnecessary attempts at global social engineering.  Rep. J. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) has criticized spending reductions which would result in an America "that can go fewer places and do fewer things," but going to most of those "places" and doing most of those "things" does not advance U.S. interests.  For instance, the Clinton administration took the U.S. into a war in the Balkans over the Serbian territory of Kosovo, a cause without the slightest relationship to American security.

President George W. Bush started a war in Mesopotamia to find nonexistent WMDs, triggering a violent social collapse which killed or wounded tens of thousands of Americans, cost upwards of 200,000 Iraqis their lives, and left Iran greatly strengthened.  This conflict, with the high number of badly injured military personnel, has turned into a large unfunded liability, with costs ultimately likely to exceed $2 or $3 trillion.

President Barack Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan in a desperate attempt to create a competent, honest, and effective national government ­ a fool's errand with little benefit to America even in the unlikely event that it succeeds.  Yet on average, it costs $1.2 million to deploy a single serviceman or woman in Afghanistan.

Even more devoid of rational justification is the "kinetic military action" in Libya, America's third needless war in the Muslim world in a decade.  The only good news is that the administration's participation has been so anemic that total costs remain under $1 billion.

Terrorism remains a concern, but the threat from thugs with box-cutters attempting to hijack airplanes does not match that of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.  Indeed, al-Qaeda has been largely neutralized through good intelligence, deadly Special Forces operations, limits on terrorist funding, and international cooperation.  In contrast, large-scale military operations like in Afghanistan and Iraq are counter-productive, creating more terrorists than they kill and creating a recruiting cause around the world.

Other dangers could arise in the future, but they remain far away.  The most plausible challenger to the U.S. is China, which last year officially claimed the world's number two economy.  However, the People's Republic of China remains a poor nation facing extraordinary economic, social, and political challenges.

Even if that government harbors aggressive ambitions, which is by no means certain, its ability to achieve any malign objectives will remain limited for years.  Indeed, the current estimate for Chinese military expenditures runs $100 to $150 billion, a fraction of America's spending, even not counting war outlays.

At this rate Beijing is not catching up with the U.S., let alone surging ahead.  For instance, the PRC has just launched its first carrier ­ a Soviet cast-off purchased from Ukraine as scrap.  The U.S. possesses 11 large and well-armed carrier groups.  A surprise Chinese attack on Pearl Harbor is not in the offing.

What China is doing is emphasizing defense by working to neutralize America's ability to attack China.  Submarines and missiles increasingly give the PRC the ability to sink U.S. carriers.  The resulting threat is not to America's ability to defend itself, but to defend allies which should be defending themselves.  Only in recent years has this nation enjoyed virtually unrestricted power around the globe.  That era is coming to an end.  Constantly boosting military outlays would only delay the inevitable, since China and other nations will do whatever it takes for them to not remain forever vulnerable to American military action.

Without major and long-term spending cuts, the U.S. government is headed towards fiscal crisis.  Every program should be on the cutting block:  middle class entitlements, political pork, corporate welfare, special interest subsidies, foreign aid, and military outlays.  In fact, the latter is really welfare, just for American arms producers and foreign countries.

It's time to turn the Department of Defense's job back to defense­of America.  Even George Melloan, a former editor with the hyper-hawkish Wall Street Journal, now acknowledges the need to exercise "greater discretion" in the use of force.

This approach would make the U.S. more secure, contra the hyperbolic rhetoric of some.  Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned of "American lives lost."  House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon predicted an inability "to provide for the safety and security of our country."   But none of America's recent wars have made this country safer.

Reducing military spending requires scaling back Washington's international objectives.  The U.S. no longer can garrison the globe, underwriting rich friends and remaking poor enemies.  Instead, Washington will have to do what it should have been doing all along, look after America and Americans.


http://blogs.forbes.com/dougbandow/2011/08/01/target-everything-in-the-budget-including-military-expenditures/

Seven startling things most people still don't know about the national debt, banking and the money supply

Originally published August 2 2011
Seven startling things most people still don't know about the national debt, banking and the money supply
by Mike Adams

Most people, even smart people, know surprisingly little about the way money really works in Big Government. With the debt ceiling fiasco suddenly raising awareness of the possibility of a total global financial blowout, now seems like a good time to remind people of seven disturbing facts about money that are almost never acknowledge in the old media.

Fact #1 -- There is no FDIC insurance fund.

The money at your bank is insured against loss by the FDIC's insurance fund, right? Nope. That's total fiction. There is no actual money in the fund. The FDIC insurance money has already been looted by the U.S. Treasury which has simply replaced the money with a bunch of IOUs.

Why does this matter? Because it means that if the U.S. government goes into default, so will the FDIC! And that means all your bank funds have zero insurance. That's gonna be a big shock for tens of millions of people when they finally figure this out one day...

Fact #2 -- There are no social security funds, either.

When you pay social security taxes, all that money goes into a trust fund that's held for safekeeping until the day it pays you back, right?

Ha! That's the "sucker's view" of social security that only ignorant people believe. In reality, there is no money in the social security trust fund because it too has all been looted by the U.S. Treasury and spent. In truth, social security is already broke. Can't wait for people to wake up and figure this one out, either...

Fact #3 -- The U.S. Treasury is stealing money from you every day, even if you pay no taxes!

Here's a mind-boggling truth that most people just can't seem to get their heads around: The U.S. Treasury is stealing money from you every single day by the simple fact that they keep creating new money and handing it out to wealthy banksters. Well, technically this is being done by the Federal Reserve, which isn't even part of the federal government. But it's all done in cahoots with the Treasury, which is eroding the value of your money through these money creation and distribution actions.

That's why prices keep going up all around you, folks: Food isn't suddenly worth more money; the truth is that your money is worth less! That's how the Treasury and the Federal Reserve steal from you without even breaking into your home.

Probably 99.9% of the population has no understanding of this phenomenon -- the erosion of currency valuation through the centralized government printing of more currency. And yet it is a government scam that has been carried out against citizens of the world time and time again, spanning millennia! As history has clearly shown, every nation that goes down the path of printing more currency to pay its bills eventually ends up in a runaway hyperinflation scenario followed by economic collapse. The USA will be no different.

Fact #4 -- The "balanced solution" isn't balanced.

Don't you love the quirky White House Press Secretary who keeps spewing out the phrase "balanced solution" even while the debt deal leaves the U.S. budget entirely unbalanced?

When you're spending more money than you're earning, that's not financial balance. When the White House says "balanced" what it really means is "compromised" -- as in, half way between the Republican position (spend us into purgatory) and the Democratic position (spend us into oblivion). Neither party has any real solution to the cancerous growth of Big Government. That's because they are creatures of Big Government!

Politicians can no more solve the problems of Big Government than arsonists can solve the problem of office fires. Because they are, themselves, creatures of runaway debt spending (how else do you get elected these days?), they simply do not possess the cognitive framework from which real financial solutions must stem.

Fact #5 -- The government is going to steal everything from you before it collapses

Oh my, this is a tough one for people to get their heads around... especially those who naively trust governments to act in the interests of the People. The simple truth of the matter -- and I've publicly made this prediction before -- is that the government is going to STEAL almost everything you own as it heads toward a total financial implosion. This will include:

• The government theft of private retirement accounts. The feds will claim they're taking them over "for your protection." Yeah, right. And then one day they will simply all vanish. Kiss your IRA goodbye...

• The government theft of precious metals. Within the next 3 years, watch for a national emergency to be declared, followed by government confiscation of gold and silver. The feds will take your gold and hand you paper money in exchange. The paper money, of course, will be all but worthless shortly thereafter. Only the suckers, of course, will actually turn in their metals...

• Government takeover of your bank accounts. As banks begin to fail in the big collapse, the government will step in and take ownership of the failed institutions, just as it did with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which used to be publicly-owned companies but are now largely just government finance operations). This will put your bank accounts under the direct control of the White House, which can use executive orders to do things like banning all wire transfers out of the country or limiting daily withdrawals and transfers. Sure, you'll still "own" your money in the bank, you just won't be able to freely access it!

Fact #6 -- Most people have no idea about fractional reserve banking, derivatives, the money supply or the Federal Reserve

It's not just that most people don't understand banking and finance; it's that even members of Congress have no idea how all this works. With few exceptions (like Ron Paul), they're just clueless!

Get this: Even most bankers don't even know how fractional reserve banking really works. They don't understand derivatives, either, which is why they screwed them up so badly in the housing boom that crashed in 2007. And because bankers, investors and bureaucrats have no idea how it all works, they unwittingly turn it all into a runaway catastrophe.

Allowing ignorant adults to play with debt and derivatives is like letting infants play with nuclear weapons. It can only lead to something messy.

Fact #7 -- Most people are betting their lives on the dollar

People buy insurance for their cars, their homes and even their health. But when it comes to money, 99 out of 100 people in America are betting their entire financial existence on the U.S. dollar! They get their paychecks in dollars, their savings accounts are in dollars, and all their assets are denominated in dollars. As a result, they have no diversity to protect them against dollar devaluation.

That's kinda crazy, considering just how quickly the dollar could collapse in the near future and become totally worthless. That's why smart people are diversifying their assets and converting dollars into land, gold, silver or even storable food. Here in central Texas, even ammunition has a long-term barter value that far exceeds dollars.

Looking around at the financial behaviors of others, I'm just stunned at how many people are betting everything on the dollar because they never realized they had any other option (that's the way the government likes to keep it, of course!).

Coming soon: A huge national finance education of the masses
Mark my words, folks: The great financial collapse of America is now closer than ever. While I can't put an exact prediction date on it, there's absolutely no doubt that it's coming. The morons in Washington aren't doing anything to avoid it, either -- they're all just cashing in as much as they can before the big collapse rolls in.

Bunch of cowards and crooks running this country. They don't understanding banking and finance, and they're determined to make sure you don't either. Because the less you know about what's really going on, the longer they can continue to loot the U.S. economy while people stand around and do nothing.

How bad is the situation, really? Just yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden called Congressional Tea Party members "terrorists" for their insistence that the U.S. budget be balanced. So now, the mere idea of calling for a balanced budget turns you into a "terrorist" to be prosecuted under the Patriot Act.

And why not? Demanding financial sanity MUST be labeled an act of terrorism for our criminal government to continue its own criminal looting operation. Next we'll probably see the President ordering the arrest and prosecution of any members of Congress -- i.e. "terrorists" -- who do not go along with unlimited increased in the debt ceiling.

Now you see what the terrorism laws are really all about: They are legislative weapons to be used against political enemies, not actual terrorists. Meanwhile, Big Government is technically engaged in the use of financial weapons of mass destruction against the People, yet no one notices.

A bizarre world we live in, folks. It is dominated by the mindless masses and run by criminal sociopaths. Those who demand real solutions are labeled terrorists, and those who try to explain all this to everybody else are labeled "alarmists."

Just wait until this house of cards collapses, though. There will be a day of reckoning in which a whole bunch of apologies will be owed to all those people who tried to warn the nation what was really happening (and where it would lead us).


http://bit.ly/pXEK3l

11 Reasons Why The 9/11 Fable is So Popular

July 31, 2011
11 Reasons Why The 9/11 Fable is So Popular
by Saman Mohammadi

1. The bigness of the lie. Adolf Hitler said: "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it." William Hazlitt said, "the greater the lie, the more enthusiastically it is believed and greedily swallowed." And Hannah Arendt said:

    This doubt of people concerning themselves and the reality of their own experience only reveals what the Nazis have always known: that men determined to commit crimes will find it expedient to organize them on the vastest, most improbable scale. Not only because this renders all punishments provided by the legal system inadequate and absurd; but because the very immensity of the crimes guarantees that the murderers who proclaim their innocence with all manner of lies will be more readily believed than the victims who tell the truth. (The Portable Hannah Arendt; pg. 120).

2. Mythical archetype of Osama Bin Laden and Islamic terrorists. Osama Bin Laden's iconic image and the creed of Islamic jihad against Western civilization is exciting historical material. It makes for a good Hollywood script. People are captivated and scared at the thought of Muslims rising against their oppressors, striking at the heart of the West and destroying America's two biggest cultural artifacts, the Pentagon and World Trade Center. But it is fiction, not reality.

The imperial masters of fiction crafted the Osama Bin Laden myth to symbolically represent the new spirit of the times and the changing nature of the global order in the post-Soviet Union collapse.

How do you lead a disoriented and leaderless mob? The Neocons, CIA, Mossad, and MI6 know the trick. You put your own manufactured revolutionary figurehead in front of the mob to mislead it and misdirect it towards violence and vengeance. In this case that figurehead is Bin Laden. This trick works the same in every society and in every age. Getting in front of the mob with a flag and a simplistic creed to follow is one of the ancient tricks of statecraft.

3. Most people are children who are easily controlled by fear and mentally guided by authoritative rhetoric. They will believe any absurdity if voices of authority tell them it is true. Authority is their father, and government is their mother. The State is infallible to them. They are psychologically incapable of mental rebellion and of questioning government stories and government statements.

4. Peer pressure, and the fear of mockery and ridicule. A lot of people, especially on the left, are afraid of being called a kook and a conspiracy theorist so they don't ever go out on a limb and tell the truth as they know it. They believe it is insane to question the foundations of the official 9/11 story so they don't even bother to examine the facts and evidence that serves as the bedrock of the 9/11 truth movement. The human herd stampedes on the fields of facts and the valleys of truth to get to the desert of ignorance.

5. Terrorism is regarded as a mysterious, hidden and arcane phenomena, and by showing proof that the CIA, Mossad and MI6 are behind terror attacks in the West we give people the knowledge to re-examine their beliefs and to act.

The idea that false flag terrorism can be explained by examining historical data (Operation Gladio in Europe, Pearl Harbor Attack, Gulf of Tonkin, U.S.S. Liberty) and by researching all the evidence complied by average citizens is an idea that discomforts a lot of people. They are put on the spot, because suddenly their false perception of the 9/11 events and terrorism in general unravels and shatters.

6. The financial-terrorism-media-military-industrial-Zionist-congressional complex is a beast of prey that puts out propaganda everyday to create a culture of disinformation and myth. This beast controls the most sacred opinions of the people.

As a result of the government-media war against the public mind the truth is mistaken for a product of insanity while the lie is cherished and protected. In this state most people are like fish in the water, they have no grasp that they are living and breathing in an ocean of lies.

7. Mass social, cultural, and political brainwashing. Western society is controlled by totalitarian governments and a totalitarian media system that includes television, print media, publishing companies, films, music, and other aspects of the culture industry. Conformity is preached and uniformity of thought is encouraged. A radical diversity of opinion about the war on terrorism, 9/11, and other government myths is not allowed.

8. A lack of knowledge of history. A lot of people are unaware of Operation Gladio, the U.S.S. Liberty attack, and the reality of false flag terrorism.

9. A lack of skepticism, curiosity and a sense of wonder. 9/11 truth deniers believe all knowledge about terrorism is settled, and that the government has a monopoly on truth. So they feel free to give up their mental independence on the question of 9/11 and go with the flow instead of using their analytical skills to dig deeper.

10. A lack of humility to admit ignorance. 9/11 truth deniers have a very high opinion of themselves and a low opinion of 9/11 truth-tellers. Why? Because they are arrogant, fearful and close-minded individuals.

11. The 9/11 lie is sacred. To question the lie and say the shadow governments of the United States and Israel were behind the attacks is sacrilegious and blasphemes. Questioning the lie threatens not just an entire worldview, but civilization as we know it. The individual's sense of well-being is based on the lie being real, and he/she undergoes the terror of psychological transformation when coming to face to face with the monstrous truth about 9/11.

The lie is a psychological attack on the community, the individual, and nature. The criminal conspirators behind the attacks and the cover-up want to destroy not just the truth and the dark history of that day, but the very idea of truth itself.


http://bit.ly/nqACLf

$16,000,000,000,000 Default

$16,000,000,000,000 Default
Posted on August 2, 2011 by Lew Rockwell

From the Ron Paul campaign:

"Politicians need to understand that without real change default is inevitable. In fact, default happens every day through monetary policy tricks. Every time the Federal Reserve engages in more quantitative easing and devalues the dollar, it is defaulting on the American people." -- Ron Paul (July 18, 2011)

Now we know why the Fed was so opposed to an audit.

According to the recent GAO report on its limited audit of the Federal Reserve, the central bank secretly pumped $16 trillion into American and foreign banks during the recent economic crisis. All of the Fed's fat cat cronies were taken care of at the expense of the American public, without any transparency whatsoever. And now the big spenders in Washington are doing everything they can to raise the debt ceiling so we can borrow and spend more money we simply DO NOT HAVE.

The latest debt deal will reportedly cut spending by only slightly over $900 billion over 10 years (Jake Tapper, ABC News, July 31, 2011). But we will have a $1.6 trillion deficit after this year alone, meaning those meager cuts will do nothing to solve our unsustainable spending problem. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve continues to wipe out the value of our dollar. All of this is speeding us toward an even deeper crisis, one that will hurt every American and could permanently wreck our economy.


Put These Numbers in Perspective

Congress has been in a frenzy over the suggestion that we not raise the debt ceiling, and simply spend what we take in.

The U.S. GDP is $14.8 trillion. The entire U.S. debt spanning over 200 years is $14.5 trillion. The current debt ceiling compromise is over cuts that would be enacted over the next decade to the tune of $900 billion. The budget debate in early 2011 was over $1.5 trillion. But there was no debate over the $16,000,000,000,000 ( GAO Report) handed out to failing corporations and banks around the world in just a few short years.How can we afford to have the Fed give away more than our entire national debt in just three years?

We have been fighting in Congress these past few weeks over raising our debt ceiling by about $2.4 trillion ( GAO Report), an amount the Fed secretly loaned out to just one bank. There truly is something wrong here.Letting the Fed have its way with the American peoples' money, and allowing the government spending to grow unchecked is not a sustainable way to govern. We must cut off the credit card and begin living responsibly.


Why Can't We Get Serious About the Debt

Partisan politics always trumps serious debate.

"If my Republican friends believe that increasing our debt by almost $800 billion today and more than $3 trillion over the last five years is the right thing to do, they should be upfront about it. They should explain why they think more debt is good for the economy. How can the Republican majority in this Congress explain to their constituents that trillions of dollars in new debt is good for our economy? How can they explain that they think it's fair to force our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren to finance this debt through higher taxes? That's what it will have to be. Why is it right to increase our nation's dependence on foreign creditors?" – Senator Harry Reid (Mary Katharine Ham, The Daily Caller, March 16, 2006)Obviously, the Senate Majority Leader is arguing a little differently in the present day.

"We can't back out on the money we owe the rest of the world. We can't do as the Gingrich crowd did a few years ago ­ close the government." – Senator Harry Reid ( NBC, January 9, 2011)


Cut or Borrow? Who's Telling the Truth?

Obama believes our credit rating would have declined if we did not raise the debt limit.

"For the first time in history, our country's AAA credit rating would be downgraded, leaving investors around the world to wonder whether the United States is still a good bet. We would risk sparking a deep economic crisis -– this one caused almost entirely by Washington." – President Barack Obama ( White House, July 25, 2011)

But credit rating agencies, not bureaucrats, believe our rating will inevitably decline based on increasing our debt.

"We are taking a negative action not based on the delay in raising the debt ceiling but rather our concern about the high level of debt to GDP in excess of 100%. Nonetheless, since the US's debt is denominated in dollars, a hard default is unlikely." ( Egan Jones, July 16, 2011)"Because the U.S. has, relative to its 'AAA' peers, what we consider to be very large budget deficits and rising government indebtedness and the path to addressing these is not clear to us, we have revised our outlook on the long-term rating to negative from stable." ( Standard & Poor's, April 18, 2011)"Standard & Poor's threatened…to downgrade the United States' prized AAA credit rating unless the Obama administration and Congress find a way to slash the yawning federal budget deficit within two years." (Steven Johnson, Reuters, April 18, 2011)


One Man Leads by Example, Voting Record, and Principle

In Washington, rhetoric often belies actual principles. But there has been one person who remains consistent in both rhetoric and action -- Texas representative, doctor and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul.

"What should bother Americans most is that under cover of this debt ceiling circus, we learned from a recent GAO one-time, limited audit that the Federal Reserve secretly pumped $16 trillion into American and foreign banks over three years. To put that into perspective, our entire national debt is $14.5 trillion, and our annual deficit will be about $1.6 trillion, meaning the Federal Reserve created and appropriated more than our entire national debt to banks around the world in a few short years."

"I have no doubt that we face financial collapse and ruin if we continue to grow our debt. The ratings agencies have stated that if we do not cut spending by at least $4 trillion in the next few years we will face a downgrade of our triple-A rating. We need to make major spending cuts now, in this budget, and we can no longer afford to allow more deficit spending based on promises of future cuts."

"For decades, politicians have promised future restraint in exchange for hikes in the debt limit. We are always told that we must act immediately to avoid a crisis. But time and time again, politicians reveal themselves to be untrustworthy and we soon find ourselves in a crisis being led by the same folks who wish only to maintain the status quo."

"That is something that the American people should not tolerate." – Ron Paul

Blast a politician? It could mean jail

Blast a politician? It could mean jail Harold | August 2, 2011 at 9:41 am | Categories: Abortion, Corruption, Criminal Activity, Executive, Freedom of Speech, Government, Judicial, Progressives, Sovereignty, U.S. Constitution | URL: http://wp.me/pmtmV-6l0

Bob Unruh, WND 8/1/2011 Obama judge's ruling says defamation claim lurks for those criticizing ballot candidates A federal judge who owes his lifetime appointment to Barack Obama today concluded that a pro-life organization whose leaders criticized a politician for supporting Obamacare for funding abortions just might be guilty of defamation – and possibly worthy of [...]

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Huge Fine and Possible Jail for Rescuing Baby Bird

http://moonbattery.com/?p=636

 

 

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Food Fascists: Hot Dogs Are Just as Bad as Cigarettes

http://moonbattery.com/?p=632

 

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Spider-Man Corrects His Race

http://moonbattery.com/?p=652

 

 

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Video: Sharia courts in action

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Must-See Video: News report on sharia law in Australia


Dear Thomas

As we have noted many times, naysayers intent on keeping their heads in the sand dismiss the threat radical Islam, jihad and sharia law pose to the United States.        

A recent example of this was the July 10th article in The Tennessean newspaper, in which a university professor pooh-poohed concerns about sharia law.

These naysayers not only refuse to see how the threat of radical Islam is currently playing out in America. They also refuse to acknowledge how radical Islam and sharia have impacted Europe, the UK, and Australia—and what that means for us.

That's why this eye-opening news report about sharia law in Australia is so pertinent to us. Rest assured, 15 years ago, when early concerns were being raised in Australia about the threat of radical Islam, there were plenty of naysayers who said such concerns were unfounded.

As you watch the video, keep in mind that eight years ago a Muslim organization did a survey of Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, and found that 81% agreed that sharia law should be imposed in Muslim lands.

It's a safe bet that most of those surveyed would also agree that sharia law should eventually be imposed in America.

One last point. Did you see the news story last week about Islamists in the UK posting notices of "sharia-controlled zones?"




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Government is a great fiction where everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else.

Federico Bastia

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Fwd: Congressional Reform Act of 2011

Congressional Reform Act of 2011



The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-old) took
only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded
it. That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell
phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven
(7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of
public pressure.

I'm asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty
people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have
the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.


AMENDMENT


Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in
office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

2.. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.
All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social
Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social
Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It
may not be used for any other purpose.

3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all
Americans do.

4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional
pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in
the same health care system as the American people.

6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American
people .

7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective
1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with
Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers
envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s),
then go home and back to work.


If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only
take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message.
Maybe it is time.

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX CONGRESS!!!!!

If you agree with the above, pass it on. If not, just delete.

You are one of my 20+. Please keep it going.



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Federico Bastia

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US military asks Iraq for immunity

By LOLITA C. BALDOR and REBECCA SANTANA
Associated Press

BAGHDAD (AP) -- The top U.S. military officer said Tuesday that
American troops must be given immunity from prosecution as part of any
agreement to keep them in Iraq beyond the end of the year and that
this protection must be approved by Iraq's parliament.

The comments by Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen could make it
more difficult for the troops to stay here.

Mullen and other U.S. officials have been pushing Iraq to decide
whether they would want additional American forces to stay in the
country past their Dec. 31 departure date, and the immunity issue has
been one of the key sticking points.

"An agreement, which would include privileges and immunities for our
American men and women in uniform will need to go through the COR,"
said Mullen, referring to the Council of Representatives as Iraq's
parliament is known.

Washington has offered to let up to 10,000 U.S. troops stay and
continue training Iraqi forces on tanks, fighter jets and other
military equipment.

Mullen told reporters in Baghdad that Iraq's president and prime
minister have promised to quickly consider the offer, and stressed
that time is running out.

U.S. officials have said repeatedly that they need to know soon
whether Iraq wants them to stay longer so they can figure out which of
their forces must stay and which must go. Right now, about 46,000
American forces remain in country, and this fall their departure will
begin ramping up.

"A significant part of this is just a physics problem. You get to a
point in time where you just can't turn back and all the troops must
leave. That's why it's so important to make the decision absolutely as
soon as possible," he said.

But Iraqi lawmakers and government officials have been leery about
taking a public stand on whether they want American forces to stay or
go.

U.S. troops are still unpopular with many Iraqis who are tired of
eight years of war. One of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's top
allies, anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, has made it his mission
to drive American forces from the country, leaving the prime minister
in a tough position.

Neighboring Iran is also lobbying for American forces to leave Iraq.
The U.S. says Iran is behind a campaign of violence against American
forces that began back in March and is intended to make it appear
Shiite militias are driving the Americans from the country.

Mullen accused Iran of supplying the militias with arms and
interfering with Iraq's internal affairs.

"These are hardly the acts of a friend. It is clear that Tehran seeks
a weak Iraq and an Iraq more dependent upon and more beholden to a
Persian worldview," he said.

Mullen credited U.S. and Iraqi forces with bringing down the violence
in recent weeks by going after Shiite militias, something Iraq's
Shiite leadership has been reluctant to do in the past.

Mullen met Monday night with al-Maliki and Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani. He said they know a decision must come soon but acknowledged
that they face "internal challenges, associated with reaching this
decision."

"They're very aware of the urgency of the issue," said Mullen. "It was
apparent to me in meeting with both the prime minister and the
president that they're anxious to resolve and reconcile those
differences. but that's really up to them."

Al-Maliki said in a statement on his website late Monday that he hoped
Iraqi political blocs would be able to reach a consensus Tuesday night
when they are expected to meet.

The Shiite prime minister stressed that regardless of the decision on
U.S. troops that he wanted Washington and Baghdad to continue
cooperation, especially in the area of air defense.

Iraq is unable to provide for its own air sovereignty. Over the
weekend al-Maliki announced that Iraq would purchase 36 F-16 fighter
planes from the U.S., which is a jump from the 18 that Baghdad
initially planned to buy.

But even after the purchase goes through it would take years of
training for the Iraqi Air Force to be able to protect its air space.

© 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may
not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more
about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
----
American troops must be given immunity from prosecution?
---
Since when did an invading military need immunity from prosectution?

Washington has offered to let up to 10,000 U.S. troops stay and
continue training Iraqi forces ...
U.S. officials have said repeatedly that they need to know soon
whether Iraq wants them to stay longer ...
---
these are the people who need to be removed from our government asap
by any means necessary

Mullen accused Iran of supplying the militias with arms and
interfering with Iraq's internal affairs
---
a warmonger always needs a new enemy

Iraq is unable to provide for its own air sovereignty.
---
their country ... their problem

al-Maliki announced that Iraq would purchase 36 F-16 fighter planes
from the U.S
---
that ought to help even things up between the muzzies in Iraq and jews
in Israel

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[Fwd: Woman claims she was groped by Carroll Shelby; raped at his home]

Any bets on the truth of this one? Sure does not sound right to
me. If he was demanding all that from her, then why did she stay
working there. I see all kinds of things wrong with this one.

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Obama got elected president...

Nobody elected the Koch Brothers, Richard Million Scaif, Pete Coors,
or the Waltons to any constitutional mandated office! Do you think The
Tea Fags will ever distinquish the differench between Free Enterprise
and Corporate capitalism? Nope! The are stooopid! Doncha know!
Wheeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got your socialism right here! Bend over and get some free love!!!!

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interesting inbetween

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martine_Rothblatt

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Debt-Ceiling Fraud

"Well, it was easy. I know conservatives. I have watched them for decades. They always cave. They've caved ever since the New Deal, when they threw in the towel and embraced the new welfare-state way of life that liberals (or progressives as many of them now like to call themselves) were foisting on American society."

Monday, August 1, 2011
Debt-Ceiling Fraud
by Jacob G. Hornberger

I told you so! For the past several months, I have been saying that the Republicans were going to cave on the lifting of the debt ceiling. I've been writing it and I've been proclaiming it on my weekly Internet show.

And sure enough, that's exactly what they did. After weeks of huffing and puffing about the enormous size of the national debt and the out-of-control federal spending, they caved, once again, and voted to lift the debt ceiling.

You might ask, "Jacob, how did you know that they would cave? They've been saying for weeks that they would never cave -- that they would never vote to lift the debt ceiling."

Well, it was easy. I know conservatives. I have watched them for decades. They always cave. They've caved ever since the New Deal, when they threw in the towel and embraced the new welfare-state way of life that liberals (or progressives as many of them now like to call themselves) were foisting on American society.

After fervently opposing FDR's Social Security, a program that originated among German socialists, conservatives ended up being one of this socialist scheme's biggest defenders.

When LBJ, following in the statist footsteps of FDR, succeeded in getting Medicare and Medicaid enacted, conservatives caved and exuberantly accepted the program.

In fact, as I have repeatedly emphasized for the past 21 years here at The Future of Freedom Foundation, there now isn't a dime's worth of difference between conservatives and liberals -- they both fully and completely embrace the welfare-state way of life and the warfare-state way of life that afflict our nation, along with the interventionist/regulatory system under which Americans must live.

Consider the following programs and ask yourself whether conservatives and liberals aren't both firmly committed to their existence and continuation: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling, education grants, farm subsidies, foreign aid, community grants, food stamps, corporate bailouts, stimulus spending, unemployment compensation, foreign wars, undeclared wars, a standing army, the military industrial complex, a foreign military empire, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, torture, immunity for torturers, sanctions, embargoes, Gitmo, the war on terrorism, the Patriot Act, the enemy-combatant doctrine, paper money, the Federal Reserve, and, well, you get my point.

The fact is that the federal government has become the primary caregiver for the American people, and both conservatives and liberals are fine with that. The federal government has also become the world's policeman, intervener, interloper, invader, aggressor, sanction and embargo imposer, torturer, kidnapper, renditioner, and tribunal conductor, and both conservatives and liberals are fine with that too.

There was never any doubt that the debt ceiling would be lifted. As I have been repeatedly saying, the whole thing is one great big fraud on the American people, and unfortunately all too many Americans still permit themselves to be taken in by this fraud, thanks in large part to the deference-to-authority mindset that was drilled into them in the 12 long years they were forced to receive government schooling.

Think about it. Why do they even have a debt ceiling? What they're saying with a ceiling is what we libertarians hold: Too much debt is a very bad thing, both for a person and for a government. The fact that they put a ceiling on the amount of debt the federal government can incur is an implicit acknowledgement of that principle.

Yet, what do they do every time the ceiling is reached? They fuss and fuss and wring their hands … and then simply raise it again, so that we can go through this entire charade two years from now, when most everyone will have already forgotten the debt-ceiling charade of 2011.

Now, do you honestly think that from now until the next time the debt ceiling is reached, they're going to slash federal spending so that it won't be necessary to raise the ceiling a couple of years from now?

If you actually believe that, you're one of their public schools' greatest success stories.

Did you see them slashing spending the last time the debt ceiling was raised a couple of years ago? Did you hear them say, "We've got the ceiling coming up in 2011. We've got to stop spending so much money"?

Of course not. In addition to all the regular welfare-warfare state spending programs, they even embarked on additional big ones, with nary a concern about the approaching debt ceiling.

Remember the bailouts? Remember the stimulus plans? Remember the bombing of Libya? These were all big spending binges, all of which sent a simple message: "We don't give a hoot about that approaching debt ceiling. We'll just fuss and fuss and wring our hands and then raise it again."

It will be no different in the next two years. They will continue spending, taxing, borrowing, and inflating until the debt ceiling is reached again. It's what they've done for decades. Why do you think the value of the dollar is worth 5 percent of its value in 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established? It's because they've spent, borrowed, and inflated to fund their beloved welfare-warfare state for decades, raising the debt ceiling each time to accommodate it all.

Here was a grand opportunity for anyone interested in dismantling big government. If the debt ceiling had not been raised, the government would have been forced to sustain its operations with incoming tax revenues. What's wrong with that? What's wrong with not being able to go get a new credit card when you're already maxed out?

Here was a grand opportunity for conservatives. They could have proposed abolishing all sorts of departments, agencies, and bureaucracies. My preference would be to start with the crown jewels -- Social Security and Medicare, but if that would have scared them they could have begun with the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, and Labor. Didn't even Ronald Reagan support abolishing some of them? They could have ended the drug war. They could have terminated foreign aid. They could have brought the troops home from everywhere and discharged them. They could have simply said, "The money isn't there. We can't afford the entire welfare-warfare state anymore."

They could have made some serious inroads into big government. But they didn't, because deep in their hearts, conservatives love big government. They just love to preach libertarian mantras at the same time.

I've said it before but it bears repeating: The real battle facing our nation is not between the federal government and the terrorists. Instead, the battle is between libertarians and the statists. With their out-of-control spending, borrowing, taxing, regulating, and bombing, the statists are taking our country down, in the same way that those same policies took down the Soviet Union.

With our firm and unwavering commitment to sound money and our fierce opposition to out-of-control spending, borrowing, taxing, inflating, welfarism, interventionism, warfarism, the drug war, and imperialism, the simple fact is that we libertarians are the only hope for the statist woes that conservatives and liberals have brought to our land.

Let me say a word about the liberal statists, who are all sad and droopy-eyed because their beloved leader, Barack Obama, let them down by refusing to raise taxes on the rich. Unlike the conservatives, who know better but simply capitulate anyway, the liberals honestly believe that the key to a wealthy and prosperous society lies in massive, ever-growing government expenditures, taxes, and inflationary debasement of the currency.

That's one of the major dividing lines between liberals and libertarians. We libertarians know that such policies are the key to impoverishment, while liberals say they are the key to prosperity. That's the financial and economic choice that the American people must make in this battle between statism and libertarianism.

In making that choice, people should keep in mind that liberals have never been able to show why their policies are unable to make the people of Cuba and North Korea wealthy and prosperous. After all, wouldn't the governments in such nations simply have to inflate the money supply, debase the currency, tax the rich, and increase government spending and debt in order to produce wealth and prosperity?

Liberals are always befuddled over that one. They just never know how to answer it. The reason? Their policies are cockamamie, especially given that liberal policies are precisely why Cuba and North Korea are so poor. They've already done all the things that liberals prescribe -- Social Security, Medicare, public schooling, central bank, paper money, federal spending, military spending, welfare, debt, taxation, etcetera, etcetera. That's why they're poor!

And that's the road the statists have us on -- the road to bankruptcy, the road to impoverishment and, with the inevitable economic crises, ultimately the road to dictatorship. It's the road to the socialist paradises of Cuba and North Korea, right here in the United States, thanks to liberal economic statism.

There is only one way to get off the statist road, and that's libertarianism. The question is: Will a sufficient number of Americans join us in our grand and glorious cause to restore a free, prosperous, peaceful, and harmonious society to our land before it's too late?

http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-08-02.asp

Most of Newt Gingrich’s Twitter Followers Are Fake

politics
Most of Newt Gingrich's Twitter Followers Are Fake
By John Cook
Aug 1, 2011 4:05 PM

Yesterday Newt Gingrich laid out a new argument for why he should be the GOP presidential nominee: He's got the most Twitter followers. But according to a former Gingrich staffer, he bought them.

Gingrich complained yesterday that the press is ignoring his prodigious Twitter audience: "I have six times as many Twitter followers as all the other candidates combined, but it didn't count because if it counted I'd still be a candidate; since I can't be a candidate that can't count." Which is true! Gingrich currently boasts 1,325,842 followers, whereas competitors Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann have yet to crack 100,000.

But if Newt is winning the Twitter primary, it's because of voter fraud. A former staffer tells us that his campaign hired a firm to boost his follower count, in part by creating fake accounts en masse:

Newt employs a variety of agencies whose sole purpose is to procure Twitter followers for people who are shallow/insecure/unpopular enough to pay for them. As you might guess, Newt is most decidedly one of the people to which these agencies cater.

About 80 percent of those accounts are inactive or are dummy accounts created by various "follow agencies," another 10 percent are real people who are part of a network of folks who follow others back and are paying for followers themselves (Newt's profile just happens to be a part of these networks because he uses them, although he doesn't follow back), and the remaining 10 percent may, in fact, be real, sentient people who happen to like Newt Gingrich. If you simply scroll through his list of followers you'll see that most of them have odd usernames and no profile photos, which has to do with the fact that they were mass generated. Pathetic, isn't it?

That's quite a different explanation for Gingrich's Twitter popularity than the one offered by this Politico story on the subject: "[I]t's his personal touch: He tweets and manages his Twitter feed himself, his campaign confirmed to POLITICO. All told, he has tweeted 2,611 times in the 29 months since he joined the site."



While it would be impossible to survey all of Gingrich's followers, a cursory glance immediately turned up a few accounts that featured odd names, no personal information, no followers, no posts, and a small follow list. And there's certainly a healthy market out there for buying Twitter followers, either by hiring a company to strategically follow accounts that will follow you back or by paying for dummy accounts. If Gingrich did goose his Twitter numbers, it would help explain why he has, for instance, more than twice as many followers as Sarah Palin, which just doesn't sound right.

The Gingrich campaign didn't respond to a message seeking comment.

UPDATE: A couple folks have pointed to one possible explanation for Gingrich's high follow count -- he is on Twitter's recommended follow list, a privilege that has launched other political accounts to similar heights. But not all -- John Boehner and Sarah Palin are both on the same list as Gingrich, and neither one comes close to approaching his numbers.

[Photo via Getty Images]

http://gawker.com/5826645/most-of-newt-gingrichs-twitter-followers-are-fake

Cruel Laws

Cruel Laws
Walter E. Williams

What does it take to be able to own and operate a taxi and earn $30,000, $40,000 or more a year? You need to purchase a used car and liability insurance. Compared with other businesses, the startup cost to become a taxi owner/operator is modest; that's until you have to come up with money for a license. In May 2010, the price of a license, called a medallion, to own one taxi in New York City sold for $603,000. As referenced in my recent book, "Race and Economics," New York City is not alone. In Chicago, a taxi license costs $56,000, Boston $285,000 and Philadelphia $75,000. It's not rocket science to understand the effect of laws that produce these prices: They discriminate against anyone getting into the taxi business who lacks tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars or bank credit to be able to get a loan.

Suppose you're a trucker with an interstate license to ship goods but you want to expand to shipping goods within your state. Is it fair for the government to permit your competition to show up at your hearing, with their attorneys, to protest that your services are not needed and therefore you are denied what's called a "certificate of necessity," which would allow you to ship goods within the state? Attorney Timothy Sandefur discusses this despicable process in his recent article "CON Job," published by the Cato Institute (summer 2011). "Certificate of necessity" monopolistic restrictions exist across the country, governing a variety of industries, from moving companies and taxicabs to hospitals and car lots. The intention and the effect of these laws is to protect incumbent practitioners from open market competition, enabling them to charge higher prices as a means to higher income.

Interior designing has almost no startup costs. Not so if you want to practice in Florida. State law mandates that anyone who wants to practice interior designing have six years of education and experience, including graduating from a state-approved interior design program and completing an apprenticeship under a state-licensed interior designer.

Then the applicant must pass a state-mandated licensing exam. The sole purpose of the law is to keep the outs out so the ins can charge monopoly prices.

If interior designing is not for you, how about being a tour guide in Philadelphia or Washington, D.C.? Neither city will permit you to be a tour guide without a government-issued license.

In Phoenix, you could earn a living doing something as simple as shaping eyebrows, a safe and common practice known as "eyebrow threading." To do so legally, the Phoenix government requires you to take hundreds of hours of irrelevant training and spend thousands of dollars on classes. None of those classes actually teaches you how to practice eyebrow threading.

One would think that civil rights organizations, leftists and progressives would be fighting the battle for people's rights to earn a living. The fact of business is that they are often on the other side, and it's the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Justice that has been waging war against entrenched incumbents who use government to protect them from competition. In fact, the Institute for Justice has current court battles against restrictions on tour guides, eyebrow threading and interior designing, as well as several more found at its website ( http://ij.org/economicliberty). The Institute for Justice has had remarkable success in lawsuits, breaking many economic barriers, such as those against hair braiding in Arizona, Minnesota, Mississippi, Ohio and California and taxi restrictions in Denver, Minneapolis, Cincinnati and Indianapolis.

Arbitrary licensing and permitting laws foreclose many occupations that are ideally suited to people of modest means, particularly minorities. Here's my bet: Ask any liberal politician, from the president and the Congressional Black Caucus to civil rights organizations and black local politicians, whether he'd take up the fight to eliminate these barriers to upward mobility. You'll get answers, but they won't be a simple yes. The reason is the ins contribute to their political campaigns and the outs don't.


Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. To find out more about Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com .

http://www.creators.com/opinion/walter-williams/cruel-laws.html

Pics and toons 8/2/11 (4)

 

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Pics and toons 8/2/11 (3)

 

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Pics and toons 8/2/11 (2)

 

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Pics and toons 8/2/11 (1)

 

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DEBT CEILING

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