--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Detainment Camps Going Live: FEMA Seeking Subcontractors to Provide
"Temporary Camp Services" In All 50 States
For the better part of two decades FEMA detention camps were believed to be
a figment of tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists. As more information
over the years has been made available through alternative news researchers
like Alex Jones in his full length documentary Police State 4 and former
governor Jesse Venutra's FEMA camp exposé, it is becoming increasingly clear
that the government has been taking steps for quite some time to ensure a
rapid and effective response in the event of a national disaster or U.S.
military deployment on American soil.
As many of our readers know, the U.S. Senate recently passed the National
Defense Authorization Act, which, it has been argued, authorizes the
establishment of domestic war zones and the subsequent detention of those
who are suspected of engaging in terrorist-related activity - including,
arguably, U.S. citizens. What you may not know, however, is that just days
after the passage of the act reports are surfacing that the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, under the auspices of the Department of
Homeland Security, is requisitioning private contractors to provide services
for government, defense & infrastructure pertaining specifically to FEMA
activities with respect to emergency services.
At first glance, this may seem like no big deal. Why shouldn't the
government prepare for emergencies?
However, a review of an email made available through Info Wars from Kellogg,
Brown & Root Services (KBR), a subsidiary of mega government contractor
Haliburton, notes that the contracting opportunities available through the
government and KBR are specifically for "temporary camp services and
facilities."
Key Excerpts from the email and Project Overview:
-Kellogg, Brown and Root Services (KBR) is seeking subscontractors on a
national basis to provide temporary camp services and facilities as part of
its current and future emergency services contracts for the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE),
and state/local government agencies.
-The continental US will be broken up into five regions – Services will be
required in each State within each region.
-Establish services listed below within 72 hours for initial set-up and
respond within 24 hours for incremental services. This is a CONTINGENCY
PROJECT and it should be stressed that lead times will be short with
critical requirements due to the nature of emergency responses.
Subcontractors must be flexible and able to handle multiple, shifting
priorities in an emergency environment. Supply lines needed must be short
but not necessarily pre-positioned.
-The personnel on site to be covered by these services will depend on the
size and scope of the recovery effort, but for estimating purposes the camp
will range in size from 301 to 2,000 persons for up to 30 days in length.
The full RFI from KBR is available for your perusal via SHTFplan and
details, among other things, the host of services that are required for
temporary camp facilities:
■Catering Services
■Temporary Fencing and Barricades
■Hand Washing Stations
■Laundry Services
■Medical Services
■Office Trailers / Administration Areas ■Potable Water
■Power Generation, Fuel Delivery / Supply and Electrical Distribution
■Refuse Collection ■Shower and Toilet ■Tentage, Flooring,
Electrical & HVAC ■Waste Water Removal For all intents and purposes,
FEMA / DHS is now activating camps across the nation – in all 50 states –
and ramping them up for detainment if and when the need arises.
Security, while not mentioned in the KBR release, is an issue addressed
previously under guidance of the U.S. military. In an August 2009 report we
highlighted that the Army is Hiring for Internment/Resettlement Specialists,
in which we noted:
It seems that the US Government is preparing for a high volume of military
prisoners. We suspect these will not be foreign nationals, as we either kill
them or detain them outside of the USA. So, one must conclude that these
corrections, interment and resettlement specialists will be supervising US
citizens. The military is calling them internment camps or resettlement
camps. Back in World War II they were called by a different name.
Additionally, we have learned over the last couple of years that FEMA has
requisitioned manufacturers for 140 Million Packets of Food, Blankets, and
Body Bags, while the U.S. military is Actively War Gaming 'Large Scale
Economic Breakdown' and 'Civil Unrest' which includes training for over
20,000 US military personnel for contingencies that may include riots and/or
mass detentions.
While mainstream media will not report this, and most of the population will
either ignore it or chalk it off as being once again blown out of proportion
by the alternative news sphere, the evidence is right in front of us – it is
overwhelming and very compelling.
Our government is, without a doubt, preparing for an event(s) that will
likely result in the mass detentions of tens of thousands of individuals
across the entire United States.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
nationalistic, racial, ethnic and tribal war to occupy and take over
much of the United States. Soon to follow they will admit that ethnic
cleansing and genocide targeting White Americans is also part of their
racist agenda.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
It could be a call about a patient in crisis. Or a member of the local
Muslim community in need of help. Or a reporter seeking comment after
another public official has accused local Muslims of being a threat to
America.
Arain takes a deep breath and then responds in a calm, clear manner,
no matter what the crisis. It's a trait his colleagues noticed years
ago.
"He is pretty unflappable," said Dr. Tom Davis, who works with Arain
in the neurology department at Vanderbilt University. "I don't think I
have ever seen him lose his cool."
The past few years have been a handful for Arain, an associate
professor of neurology and the spokesman for the Islamic Center of
Nashville. Local Muslims have faced an organized campaign that has
accused them of having ties to terrorism and that claims their faith
should be illegal.
His response to critics is calm and straightforward: Nashville's
Muslims love America and are law-abiding citizens. Their faith teaches
them to respect their neighbors and be good people.
Arain believes Christianity, Islam and Judaism share common values
about how to live as good citizens.
"I don't think there is a race or competition between our faiths," he
said. "The only competition is to do good to others."
That's a lesson his father, a civil engineer, taught him early on.
When Arain was growing up in Pakistan, his parents respected their
Hindu and Christian neighbors and taught their children tolerance.
They also taught Arain and his four siblings — two brothers and two
sisters — the value of education.
Arain and his brother Fazal, a doctoral student at Vanderbilt, are
both neurologists. Another brother, who lives in Calgary, Alberta, is
an architect. One sister is a geneticist in Oman, and the other is a
biochemist in Pakistan.
His wife, Aneeqa, has a master's degree in sociology. She hopes to get
a doctorate once their children — Jinan, 7, and Nidal, 11 — are a bit
older.
Arain's interest in neurology also started at a young age. His aunt
had epilepsy, and he first saw her have a seizure when he was about 7.
He studied medicine in Karachi, Pakistan, and did a yearlong residency
in Flint, Mich., before moving to Nashville in 1995. Michigan was too
cold, he said. He finished a residency and then a fellowship in
neurology at Vanderbilt before joining the faculty in 2000.
Today, he studies the disparity in care for epilepsy, especially for
patients who don't have access to medicine, and how the disease
affects people with developmental disabilities.
As a fellow, he began caring for patients with epilepsy at Clover
Bottom Development Center in Nashville and continues to do so today.
"That's been a very humbling experience," he said. "I feel like I can
contribute to their quality of life."
An arranged marriage
Aneeqa and Amir Arain first met on their wedding day back in 1997.
Their parents arranged the match, and the couple hadn't so much as
spoken to each other before that day.
"All my friends were shocked," Aneeqa Arain said. "They asked me, 'You
didn't even talk?' "
The couple say their parents did a good job in matching them up.
Before their wedding, Aneeqa lived in Karachi, not far from Amir's
hometown. Her aunt knew Amir's family and recommended the couple's
parents to each other.
Aneeqa said her husband is a giving man who never says no to anyone
who needs him. Sometimes that means taking late-night phone calls
about patients or being out in the evenings at interfaith events.
"He's always ready to help anyone," she said. "If someone tells him
they need help, he will go."
Finding balance is not easy for Arain these days. Along with his
teaching and clinic duties at Vanderbilt and volunteering at the
Islamic Center, he serves on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation of
Middle and West Tennessee and volunteers for regular medical clinics
at a local mosque. Weekends are for his son's soccer games and
spending time with his wife and daughter.
His face lights up when he talks about Jinan and Nidal.
The walls of his basement office at Vanderbilt Medical Center are
covered with drawings from his daughter. There's a castle straight out
of a fairy tale, a heart that reads "Dear My Family, I love you guys,"
and a smiling portrait of Arain.
"If you ask her what she wants to be in her life, she says she's going
to be an artist," he said, smiling. "I am OK with that, but my son
tells her that she cannot take art history as a profession because you
won't earn much money."
He hopes his son will follow in his footsteps as a doctor, but Arain
won't push him if he chooses a different career.
"That main thing is that he is a good human being," Arain said.
Interfaith curiosity
The Arains' home is filled with books on politics, poetry and
religion, many in Urdu, one of five languages that Amir Arain speaks.
His library includes copies of the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu scripture,
along with Christian and Jewish versions of the Bible.
Those books and his own curiosity about the beliefs of the other
people also drive his interest in interfaith issues. He and some
Jewish friends have studied the Jewish and Muslim scriptures together
and a few years ago shared an interfaith Seder meal at this house —
served on the first night of Jewish Passover.
Donna Whitley, a retired neurologist and a member of Congregation
Micah in Brentwood, calls Arain one of the kindest people she knows.
The two have been friends of years, and Whitley lent Arain her
father's kiddush cup —– used on the Sabbath and other Jewish
observances —– for the Seder.
"If I have ever been to a better Seder, I don't know when it was," she
said.
Davis, Arain's colleague, has taken part in interfaith events with
Arian. He said he respects Arain for both his clinical knowledge and
his calm demeanor.
Davis said he is most impressed with how Arain lives his faith and
values in day-to-day life.
"He's like the church member who taught Sunday school and volunteered
for everything, and who is big on believing that the best witness to
your faith is how you live, not what you say," he said.
Contact Bob Smietana at 615-259-8228 or bsmietana@tennessean.com, or
follow him on Twitter @bobsmietana.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
Monday, December 12, 2011
What the People Who Know Newt Gingrich Say About Him
Posted by Robert Wenzel
Over the weekend, WSJ carried this report from Peggy Noonan:
- What is striking is the extraordinary divide in opinion between those who know Gingrich and those who don't. Those who do are mostly not for him, and they were burning up the phone lines this week in Washington...
- Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
- Sen. Lindsey Graham told a reporter that Mr. Gingrich could be a historic president if he has "matured as a person and is, for lack of a better word, calmed down." That is as close as most of those who've worked with him get to a compliment...
- The biggest fear of those who've known Mr. Gingrich? He has gone through his political life making huge strides, rising in influence and achievement, and then been destabilized by success, or just after it. Maybe he's made dizzy by the thin air at the top, maybe he has an inner urge to be tragic, to always be unrealized and misunderstood. But he goes too far, his rhetoric becomes too slashing, the musings he shareswhen he rose to the speakership, in 1995, it was that women shouldn't serve in combat because they're prone to infectionsare too strange...
- Those who know him fear -- or hope -- that he will be true to form in one respect: He will continue to lose to his No. 1 longtime foe, Newt Gingrich. He is a human hand grenade who walks around with his hand on the pin, saying, "Watch this!"
- What they fear is that he will show just enough discipline over the next few months, just enough focus, to win the nomination. And then, in the fall of 2012, once party leaders have come around and the GOP is fully behind him, he will begin baying at the moon...
- They're afraid he'll start saying, "John Paul was great, but most of that happened after I explained the Gospels to him,"...
- ...this is a walk on the wild side.
- Former New Hampshire governor and George H.W. Bush chief of staff John Sununu told The Wall Street Journal this week: "Listen to just about anyone who worked alongside Gingrich and you will hear that he's inconsistent, erratic, untrustworthy and unprincipled." In a conference call Thursday, Jim Talent, who served with Mr. Gingrich in the House from 1993 through 1999, said, "He's not reliable as a leader." Sen. Tom Coburn, a member of the House class of 1994, called the former speaker's leadership "lacking," and according to a local press report, he told Oklahoma constituents last year that Mr. Gingrich was "the last person I'd vote for for president of the United States."
The Point Is to Constrain
By Nicholas Snow
Published: 12 December 2011
What is a constitution? The average person on the street will certainly know our country has one. But does she really know what it is for? A constitution is a set of rules meant to constrain the government from going beyond its stated purpose. Many claim the State exists to protect citizens' rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Madison's paradox sums up the problem nicely: If men were angels there would be no need for government but because men aren't angels a State is necessary. But now for the paradox: Government is made up of men and women, not angels, and government gives certain them power over others. So what is to stop them from abusing that power? Thus the point of a constitution is to constrain governments from such abuse.
Today's document is a review of Henry Hazlitt's A New Constitution Now from The Nation on December 5, 1942, by an unknown author. It's titled "Constitutional Practices vs. Constitutional Revolution." The author seems skeptical of Hazlitt's main and radical point, but is overall just descriptive. Hazlitt wanted to replace our current system with an English parliamentary system. Why? Because by 1942 Franklin Roosevelt had almost a complete disregard for the Constitution. Presidential power had grown. The constitutional constraints simply were not working. Hazlitt's case can still be made today.
Hazlitt's proposal was radical, not because of what he suggests we replace our current system with, but rather because he saw a problem in the first place. The reviewer wrote, "I feel that it indulges in rather too much exaggeration to be as effective as it might have been." Such attitudes can cause massive problems. It can lead to adoptions of amendments such as the 18th amendment (Prohibition), which was not meant to restrain the government's power but to actively extend it. Such attitudes can make a constitution no constitution at all.
The constitutional political economy project, which James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock revived in economics back in the 1960s, is no easy task. Politicians are not so noble as Ulysses, and are unwilling to bind themselves to the mast. And as Tullock pointed out, any government strong enough to create the chains to bind themselves are strong enough to break them anyway. The fact that Hazlitt saw the need for a constitutional revolution back in 1942, and that the case can still be made today, are not good signs.
Hazlitt's solution, a parliamentary system, might not be the way to go either. As he admitted later in life, his proposal didn't explain how to check the parliamentary power. No one has produced a real solution for how to maintain a limited government. Maybe there is no way. As Ludwig von Mises put it, "The state is the negation of liberty." The State's tool is coercion after all. Hazlitt was right about one thing though: The first step is to admit there is a problem.
Download the book review of A New Constitution Now here.
http://www.fee.org/from-the-archives/point-is-to-constrain/
Associated Press 'Fact Check' of Ron Paul
Posted by Thomas Woods on December 12, 2011 02:21 AM
An Associated Press article purporting to correct the errors of the candidates in last weekend's GOP presidential debate includes the following passage:
- RON PAUL: "We have dumped the debt on the American people through TARP funding as well as the Federal Reserve. So the debt is dumped onto people. And what did we do? We bailed out the people that were benefiting during the formation of the bubble. So as long as we do that, we're not going to have economic growth."
- THE FACTS: The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program was proposed by President George W. Bush and passed by Congress in 2008 to help rescue banks and other imperiled financial institutions. Nearly all of the money has been paid back, with interest.
- Most economists credit the program with keeping the financial system from freezing up and helping to prevent the worst recession in 30 years from becoming another Great Depression. The Federal Reserve does not operate on taxpayer money and does not receive any operating funds from the Treasury. In fact, it makes money every year from its banking operations, and turns over profits to the Treasury.
- THE FACTS: The $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program was proposed by President George W. Bush and passed by Congress in 2008 to help rescue banks and other imperiled financial institutions. Nearly all of the money has been paid back, with interest.
On the "TARP money was repaid" front, I note the comments of Dean Baker:
- We are also supposed to feel good that the vast majority of the TARP money was repaid. This is another effort to prey on the public's ignorance. Had it not been for the bailout, most of the major center banks would have been wiped out. This would have destroyed the fortunes of their shareholders, many of their creditors, and their top executives. This would have been a massive redistribution to the rest of society -- their loss is our gain.
- It is important to remember that the economy would be no less productive following the demise of these Wall Street giants. The only economic fact that would have been different is that the Wall Street crew would have lost claims to hundreds of billions of dollars of the economy's output each year and trillions of dollars of wealth. That money would instead be available for the rest of society. The fact that they have lost the claim to wealth from their stock and bond holdings makes all the rest of us richer once the economy is again operating near normal levels of output.
- Instead, we have the same Wall Street crew calling the shots, doing business pretty much as they always did. The rest of us are sitting here dealing with wreckage of their recklessness: 9.6 percent unemployment and the loss of much of the middle class's savings in their homes and their retirement accounts. And the lackeys of the Wall Street crew are telling us that we should be thankful that we didn't have a second Great Depression. Maybe we don't have the power to keep the bankers from picking our pockets, but we don't have to believe their lies.
- It is important to remember that the economy would be no less productive following the demise of these Wall Street giants. The only economic fact that would have been different is that the Wall Street crew would have lost claims to hundreds of billions of dollars of the economy's output each year and trillions of dollars of wealth. That money would instead be available for the rest of society. The fact that they have lost the claim to wealth from their stock and bond holdings makes all the rest of us richer once the economy is again operating near normal levels of output.
|
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.









