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The Latest from Planck's Constant |
| How the Global Warming Scam All Started Posted: 02 May 2012 07:43 PM PDT We've all seen how most apocalyptic Hollywood films begin: a single scientist accidentally discovers the spin of the magnetic core of the Earth is slowing down, or notices a small dot on a star-gazing map approaching Earth and runs to the US Government to warn the country that the world is about to end. Likewise, many of those who have been suckered into the global warming hoax 1 believe that a scientist or group of scientists suddenly came across studies of tree rings and found proof that the world has been getting warmer over the last two centuries coinciding with the industrial revolution. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was all politics. Here is how it started:
All the fear-mongering about too much CO2 is directed at people who are ignorant of the beneficial role that carbon dioxide plays in our environment. it happens that the Earth has been warmer, much warmer, a number of times in the past ten thousand years and that we, as a species flourished most greatly precisely during those warmer periods. 2 And just as good intentions usually end up causing more harm than good, all those idiots clamoring for alternative energy to replace oil in order to reduce global warming may ironically be actually causing global warming by the deployment of ... wait for it ... wind turbines:
As for the photo of the young girls on Ibiza Beach at the top of this article: I might be wrong about man-made climate change - I must admit I do feel a lot warmer right now.
Notes(1):
(2):
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John Boehner To Halt Fast And Furious Investigation, Sell Out To Holder And White House
February 7, 2012 By Doug Book 72 Comments
Yesterday, Coach is Right published facts concerning an avenue which honest and courageous congressional Republicans might follow in their efforts to bring to justice those responsible for the criminal misadventure of Operation Fast and Furious and its subsequent cover-up. The following represents current news of a vastly different approach.
Congressman John Boehner, the House Speaker better known for displays of weeping than of courage, is reportedly cutting a deal with Eric Holder which would provide a "mutually satisfactory" outcome in Barack Obama's criminal, gun running endeavor Operation Fast and Furious.
Months ago, Boehner prevented Darrell Issa filing a charge of perjury against Holder even after documents proved the Attorney General's May 4th House testimony concerning the date of his first "acquaintance" with Fast and Furious to be an outright lie. And now the weepy Speaker will OFFICIALLY let the most corrupt Department of Justice head in the nation's history off the hook for complicity in the Regime's murderous scheme to savage the 2nd Amendment rights of the American people.
The terms of the betrayal John Boehner is currently putting together:
The Committee will accept the scalps of [Lanny] Breuer and [Jason] Wienstein, DOJ will release enough of the (documents) to condemn them, claim cooperation (thus giving the appearance of recognizing congress's oversight authority), and Holder will survive – looking like a "leader" for offering them up (along with a few lower level ATF and DOJ folk). The Committee will chalk one in the "Win" column for oversight and holding people accountable. DOJ will have the same for cooperating and accountability.
Lovely, isn't it! Hundreds are dead, including two American agents. One of those dead, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was literally set up for murder by an FBI INFORMANT who, on December 14th of 2010, accompanied and LED the drug cartel rip gang responsible for Terry's death. The other victim, ICE Agent Jaime Zapata was NOT PERMITTED by LAW to even possess a weapon with which he might have defended himself from his killers!
Yet John Boehner will be pleased to sell them out in order to lay claim to the pathetically comic mantle of a tough-minded Republican leader who brought down 2 Obama Regime, Department of Justice higher-ups. That is, with the approval of the White House, of course.
But in point of fact Boehner will, as usual, simply be doing do what is politically safe and expedient rather than what is RIGHT. He will continue his customary role of bowing and scraping before leftist media and political types who allow useful idiots like himself to remain in positions of strictly limited authority only on condition they make no waves and create no embarrassment for the real ruling class in the nation's capital.
Are the House committee sources of Mike Vanderboegh–the citizen journalist responsible for so much of what we know of the Fast and Furious scheme and its DOJ sponsored cover-up–right about the looming betrayal to be perpetrated by the Speaker?
We will know by the actions of House leadership and the designated sacrificial lambs in this little exercise of DC collusion. If Republican leadership demand NO prison time for any of the lambs, the fix is in. If any of those being sold down the river in return for the Regime's continued ability to escape responsibility actually ARE on the way to jail, yet somehow unable to trade extremely damaging evidence against the DOJ or White House for protected status, we'll ALSO know the fix is in.
Either way, allowing Eric Holder to stroll scot-free over the graves of Brian Terry and Jaime Zapata would place John Boehner among the most disgraceful and despicable traitors to the American public in our nation's history. But don't expect him to shed any tears over such a trifle. Little Johnny isn't THAT sensitive.
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Salon -- RNC Worried About Ron Paul
Posted on May 3, 2012 by LHR, Jr.
Left-wing media, like right-wing media, are in general shills for the regime. Take Salon.com, which is worried -- like the RNC and Romney -- about what it calls " The Ron Paul convention takeover plot." Oooh, scary. Will Ron "steal" the nomination or just "wreak havoc" in Tampa? Why, some of the Paul peons might even "relentlessly heckle" their betters rather than knuckle their forelocks. Can't have that. It might give other plebs ideas above their station. Keep the scam going, with the usual corporatist Democrat versus the usual corporatist Republican. That way the oligarchs can't lose.
xxx
Thursday, May 3, 2012 02:09 PM EDT
The Ron Paul convention takeover plot
Don't look now, but he's racking up delegates at under-the-radar contests -- and Republicans are officially spooked
By Steve Kornacki
This seems like an odd moment for the Republican National Committee to start worrying about Ron Paul.
Now well into his second campaign for the GOP presidential nomination, he still has yet to win a single statewide Republican primary or caucus, and he'll presumably be trounced by Mitt Romney in the remaining contests on this year's docket. More to the point, the political world stopped paying attention to Paul about two months ago, and the threat of him bolting the GOP and running as an independent – a scenario long feared by Republicans – passed long ago.
And yet, the RNC's chief counsel felt the need this week to issue a warning to the Nevada state GOP about the Paul campaign. At issue is this weekend's Nevada Republican convention, where delegates to the national convention will be chosen. The state's caucuses in February were a truly messy (that's the polite word) affair, but Romney was the clear and overwhelming winner.
On Saturday, though, Paul supporters are expected to flood the state convention and could account for the lion's share of attendees. This is what prompted the RNC's counsel to warn the state party that its delegation might be denied seating in Tampa if it's dominated by Paul-ites.
The RNC isn't just nervous about Nevada. In the past few weeks, as Romney cemented his hold on the nomination and the media turned its attention to the general election, Paul supporters have wreaked havoc at numerous district caucuses and state conventions, producing some startling results. For instance, 20 of Iowa's 28 national convention delegates will likely be Paul supporters – even though the Texan finished third in the state's January caucuses with 21 percent of the vote. And 20 of the 24 delegates selected in district caucuses in Minnesota recently are Paul backers, even though he was trounced by Rick Santorum in the state's February caucuses. Similar stories have emerged from Louisiana, Colorado and Massachusetts, with the list likely to grow.
This is possible because of the GOP's multi-tier delegate selection process. In many caucus states, the "official" results that most people saw this winter were from nonbinding straw polls conducted in conjunction with precinct-level caucuses. But when it comes to choosing national convention delegates, the real action is at district caucuses and state conventions. In the past, this distinction hasn't mattered much, but for the Paul forces – who lack the numbers to win statewide primaries but have the devotion to pack any room, anywhere, at any time – it has offered an inviting loophole. When turnout is small and no one is looking, the Paul folks can win, and that's what's been happening in a number of states.
To Paul die-hards, this will all culminate in a surprise for the ages in Tampa, with the political world suddenly realizing that Romney actually doesn't have the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination, thereby allowing Paul to extract major concessions or even steal the nomination for himself.
This isn't going to happen, but the actual number of delegates that Paul will control is a real mystery at this point, and the final number could be a lot bigger than anyone has expected. Besides the pledged delegates he's won so far and the extras he's collecting through caucuses and state conventions, Paul will also have some supporters disguised as Romney delegates. To understand how this works, just consider his campaign's mischief in Massachusetts, where Romney won 72 percent of the primary vote -- and with it, a monopoly on the state's pledged convention delegates. But to determine who would fill those pledged delegate slots, the state GOP held caucuses recently, and the Paul crowd came out in force, gobbling up 16 of the 19 available positions. In how many other states will this happen, or has it already happened?
And then there are the pledged Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum delegates, which are still committed to each of them, since they only "suspended" their campaigns. Are some of these delegates actually Paul backers too? And what will they do if and when they are formally released by Gingrich and Santorum?
From an official standpoint, there's still probably not much that Paul could do at the convention even with a significant chunk of delegates. With plurality support from five state delegations, he could have his name placed in nomination. That would give Paul and his supporters a little more time at the podium, presumably in a non-primetime hour, but the roll call of states would still be a formality, with Paul falling short. He could also push for (and maybe even force floor votes on) platform planks covering his pet issues, but again, his side would simply be outvoted. And anyway, it's likely that Romney is already planning to accommodate Paul with speaking time and some platform concessions anyway, for the sake of unity.
The threat of an outsize Paul contingent isn't about platform planks, though. It's about disruption. National conventions long ago stopped being about official party business and became slickly produced infomercials. But Paul's supporters aren't, generally speaking, party loyalists. For them, Tampa won't be a vacation -- it will be a mission. With the right numbers, they could slow the convention down with procedural distractions, messing with the party's careful scripting of the event. More alarming for Romney is the prospect of Paul delegates loudly and derisively jeering speakers, and maybe even Romney himself, creating an image of chaos and disunity. To understand this threat, just look at what happened at the recent Alaska state GOP convention, where Paul supporters relentlessly heckled two U.S. senators.
Delegate selection for Tampa will continue for the next two months. If the RNC's warning to Nevada is any indication, national Republicans (and the Romney campaign itself) are finally waking up to what the Paul campaign has been up to, and realizing that every delegate he grabs is potential trouble for them.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/03/the_ron_paul_convention_takeover_plot/singleton/
RNC to NV GOP: Don't let Ron Paul delegates take over national convention slots or don't bother coming to Tampa
By Jon Ralston
Wednesday, May 2, 2012 | 9:18 p.m.
In a letter delivered Wednesday to GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, the RNC's chief counsel said if Ron Paul delegates are allowed to take too many slots for the national convention, Nevada's entire contingent may not be seated in Tampa.
John R. Phillippe Jr. said that while his letter is not binding, "I believe it is highly likely that any committee with jurisdiction over the matter would find improper any change to the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegates, thus jeopardizing the seating of Nevada's entire delegation to the National Convention."
Clearly, the RNC fears that mischief at the Sparks convention this weekend could result in Ron Paul delegates taking Mitt Romney slots and then not abiding by GOP rules to vote for the presumptive nominee on the first ballot in Tampa. So they are trying to force McDonald to ensure that actual Romney delegates fill 20 of the 28 national convention slots, thus removing any mystery of who they will vote for.
This could be even more fun on Saturday because and I may be wrong I don't think these Paul folks respect authority too much. And now the new chairman, who is close to some of the Paul folks, has to be the enforcer.
Too delicious.
The letter is at right.
http://www.lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralstons-flash/2012/may/02/rnc-nv-gop-dont-let-ron-paul-delegates-take-over-n/
4/04/2012 @ 7:45PM
The Republican Alternative To Obamacare Is -- More Obamacare?
Rick Ungar, Contributor
As we await what many in the chattering class anticipate could be the striking of all or part of the Affordable Care Act by the Supreme Court, it seems like the time is right to explore what the Republicans might have in mind as a replacement.
It would be a fairly dramatic understatement to say that there has been little in the way of proposed alternatives on the part of the opponents of Obamacare.
However, Congressional Republicans appear to now be nervously acknowledging thatshould Obamacare go down at the hand of the Courtthey will have to make good on their promise to replace the law in order to give the American people the relief the ACA sought to provide.
So, what does the GOP have in mind, if anything?
The 'preparation gap' is somewhat astounding. After two years of calling the President's landmark healthcare reform every name in the book, Representative Fred Upon, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Congressional leader who would be among those most responsible to take the lead in fashioning a new approach to reforming our ailing health care system, suggests that the GOP wheels are just now "beginning to turn."
Consider that for a moment if you will. Despite the numerous bills that have already been introduced onto the floor of the House of Representatives, each designed to take apart the Affordable Care Act, the sponsors of these bills are, just now, beginning to think about what they will do if the Supreme Court short-circuits Obamacare before it really gets started. Health care reform would be placed squarely in the court of the GOP, Americans will expect them to have something in the oven to meet the challenge and the Republican wheels are, apparently, just now beginning to 'spin'.
Still, there have been a few proposals put forth by our Republican friendseither legislatively or via GOP sound bites and talking points. Many of these suggestions, while certainly representing nothing that would approach a coherent plan, do often bear one common feature -- they all adopt much of the very legislation that has been the target of their deepest displeasure.
Put another way, it appears that the GOP strategy for solving our healthcare crisis is, in no small measure, going to involve using Obamacare to replace Obamacare.
According to Chairman Upton, the GOP drafters of healthcare reform would very much want to retain the provision that would allow kids under 26 to stay on a parent's policy. Why? Because Upton acknowledges that the change has been both effective and popular.
And while Republicans have made the insurance mandates a 'cause celeb' in their battle to discredit the President, they appear more than willing to acknowledge that a program that doesn't provide healthcare coverage to those with pre-existing medical conditions is not going to be well accepted by the American public.
It is no secret -- on either side of the aisle -- that this can only be accomplished via mandated coverage in the private markets or by way of a government operated system to insure folks with pre-existing conditions.
Because the Republicans have long been so adamantly opposed to increasing the government's involvement in healthcare delivery, they came up with the ideamany years agoof forcing Americans to take personal responsibility for their health care needs by purchasing insurance.
But that was before Barack Obama adopted this Republican hatched solution.
Now, with nowhere else to turn and with a public that demands that they be able to obtain coverage, no matter what their medical condition, the GOP is left to propose more government involvement.
According to Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash), the GOP is ready and willing to put more federal money into government run, high-risk pools that will offer subsidized coverage to people who are unable to get private health insurance due to their existing medical problems.
Not only is Congresswoman McMorris prepared to expand the government's role in healthcare, she is offering up the very subsidies that are, supposedly, anathema to free-market Republicans who see no place for taxpayer money in the delivery of health care services.
And she is not alone.
One of the most active anti-Obamacare voices in the Senate, GOP Senator John Barrasso, himself a physician, is also beating the drum for government subsidies.
- "The main feature of a Republican plan could be federal assistance for the purchase of catastrophic health insurance with high deductibles, Mr. Barrasso said.
- "No one would go bankrupt or lose a home as a result of injury or disease," Mr. Barrasso said. But patients would face more up-front costs and would therefore have incentives to become more discerning consumers of health care, he said."
- Via New York Times
- "No one would go bankrupt or lose a home as a result of injury or disease," Mr. Barrasso said. But patients would face more up-front costs and would therefore have incentives to become more discerning consumers of health care, he said."
McMorris' plan, backed up by Senator Barrasso, would not only continue a hefty portion of the government subsidies included in the ACA, but would take a plan that was based on continuing the private health insurance system and turn it into a plan that greatly increases government involvement in delivering health care.
To be sure, there are features of what would appear to form the Republican solution that are not included in the President's approach. The GOP is mouthing the old standbys of solving our problems by doing something about medical malpractice and allowing cross-state sales of health insurance. However, they also know that that the effort to replace the ACA will be done under a pretty harsh spotlightone that will expose the completely false promise of these solutions.
Let's begin with medical malpractice. What, exactly, would the proponents of attacking malpractice do? Is Congress going to bar individuals who have been legitimately harmed by a gross medical errorwhether committed by a physician or a hospitalfrom redressing that error? When a family is left to pay millions of dollars in maintaining the existence of a child damaged for life as a result of a serious and grossly negligent medical error, will Congress legislate laws that effectively say 'tough luck'?
Let me tell you what is really happening here. Those who are voicing the reform of medical malpractice don't understand that the argument was traditionally based on doing something about the pain and suffering damages juries frequently awarded to victims of gross medical mistakes. These damages go beyond making a plaintiff 'whole' with respect to their financial losses resulting from a medical malpractice and seek to punish the negligent actor for the bad behavior. These are also the damages that make the headlines when juries award huge verdicts with endless zeros tacked on.
The thing is, two-thirds of the states have already put severe caps on what can be awarded by juries for pain and suffering damages, leaving those who continue to make the argument well behind the times. As a result, the days of lawyers behaving like 'ambulance chasers' are long gone, with plaintiffs often struggling to find representation when they have a legitimate claim. The lawyers simply are not interested because the big awards no longer exist. And yet, the politicians who point the finger at medical malpractice as a chief cause of our problems have not caught up to this reality.
As for reducing defensive medicine (unnecessary testing done to protect a physician or hospital in a medical malpractice suit) as a means of saving big dollars in the healthcare system, I'm all for it. But for the ideologues on the Right, an ideological conflict is presented that they do not know how to overcome.
All government would have to do is provide guidelines for how doctors utilize testing in certain medical situations and ordain that any physician or hospital who follows these guidelines would have the presumption of using proper medical procedure on their side should a legal battle ensure. However, the GOP vehemently opposes such guidelines in the belief that this involves government telling physicians how to practice and further inserts government into the patient-physician relationship.
In the real world, you can't have it both ways. Thus, a GOP Congress would be forced to make some choices that would fly in the face of their own ideology. Not wanting to make these choices, the result will be that a Republican led House of Representatives would do nothing in this regard.
It might also help you to know that medical malpractice accounts for 2 percent of our healthcare economy. So, if Congress wishes to outlaw medical malpractice as a way of lowering the cost of healthcare, they are going to take a lot of heat as the real numbers become available to the public and we all discover that completely doing away with medical malpractice suits would, at best, have a negligible impact on our problem.
As for sales of health insurance across state lines, I wonder when people are going to figure out that this is the ultimate in false solutions.
If you own an insurance company, it really doesn't matter where you base your home office you are going to price your policies based on the costs of care in the area in which you are selling. An insurance company based in Alabama, when selling to someone in California, is not going to base their premiums on the cost of a triple-bypass in Mobile. They are going to price it based on the cost of heart surgery in Los Angeles -- just as does an insurance company already operating in the State of California pursuant to a state license.
Further, when you remove the obligation that an insurance company be licensed in the state where they are selling, what you get are fly-by-night operations that sell very cheap policies that end up having very little in the way of benefits included in the policy. Why? Because, if they are selling me the same policy I purchase from California Blue Cross, they are going to have to charge me pretty much the same thing I pay to California Blue Cross. There simply is no magic in having one's location in another state if they insuring me for care that I will obtain primarily in the state in which I live. Accordingly, to get my business they will price insurance policies low and bury the actual coverage limitations in the small print. Without the benefit of consumer protections provided by my home state -- now having no jurisdiction over this out of state seller -- I've got nowhere to turn when something goes seriously wrong.
Still further, should I have a problem with my Alabama based insurance company, I'm not going to find it particularly comfortable to have to sue them in an Alabama court when I live in California.
Given that the few glimpses we've had of the GOP approach to healthcare reform reveals little in terms of a real and legitimate impact on costs, we can expect that their ideas must do at least as much as Obamacare to gain more universal coverage for Americans.
Not so much. While the Republicans are prepared to adopt many of the good ideas contained in the Affordable Care Act, their own contributions would do little to get anywhere near the increased availability for coverage provided in the ACA.
In the plan offered by Republicans as their response to Obamacare in 2009, the Congressional Budget Office determined that the program would result in 3 million additional people gaining healthcare coverage as compared to the 30 million who would so benefit under the Affordable Care Act.
I have often speculated that Congressional Republicans go to bed at night secretly saying a prayer that Obamacare will survive the Supreme Court test because they have nothing in their bag of tricks to serve as a replacement. When we review the ideas that they have provided to date, it becomes easy to see why they would be terrified of having to face up to an American public that has had their appetite whetted for real solutions to our out of control healthcare system. The truth is, they have nothing that will do much of anything to address the real problems. After two years of bellyaching, all they've got are the bromides and sound bites they've been using for years and, without the Affordable Care Act, we are going to need so much more.
So to those who have invested so much in ridding the nation of Obamacare, I say be careful what you wish for as you just might get it. And from what we've seen so far, you most assuredly are not going to like it.
contact Rick at thepolicypage@gmail.com
Twitter @rickungar
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/04/04/the-republican-alternative-to-obamacare-is-more-obamacare/
It's time for Americans to do what they should have done in 1989 -- dismantle the entire national-security state, including America's overseas military empire, the entire military-industrial complex, and the CIA. The Cold War is over, and the policies of the national-security state have produced the "war on terrorism."
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Obama Is Right -- It's Time for Reflection
by Jacob G. Hornberger
President Obama says that the one-year anniversary of the U.S. military's killing of Osama bin Laden should be a time of reflection rather than a time of celebration.
Indeed. Let's do some reflecting.
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials claimed that the attackers had been motivated by hatred for America's "freedom and values."
That was a crock, as I pointed out in September 2001. Actually, it was U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East -- that is, the bad things that the U.S. government was doing to people in that part of the world -- that gave rise to the anger and hatred that manifested itself in the 9/11 attacks.
Of course, that was the last thing that U.S. officials and apologists for the U.S. government's pro-empire, pro-interventionist foreign policy wanted people to focus on. If people began focusing on the real motivation for the 9/11 attacks, that might cause them to begin discussing and debating U.S. foreign policy and then possibly moving America in a different direction.
Most everyone living today has been born and raised under a national-security state, a system in which the military-industrial complex, the massive overseas military establishment, the CIA, the NSA, and other such agencies play a dominate role in American society. We have become so accustomed to the national-security state that only libertarians and a few liberals gives its existence a second thought. It's just a given that the national-security state must always be a permanent foundation of American life.
But let's not forget when and why the national-security state came into existence. Its primary roots go back to the end of World War II, when U.S. officials converted America's World War II ally and partner, the Soviet Union, into a new official enemy, one that was supposedly as threatening to the United States as Nazi Germany.
U.S. officials told Americans that despite the end of the war, it was now necessary that the United States remain on a war footing for the indefinite future. That meant that the standing army became a permanent part of the U.S. government, with ever-increasing budgets for the military and the military-industrial complex. It also meant the establishment of the CIA, which would end up involving the United States in all sorts of nefarious and sinister plots, including coups, assassinations, and invasions. It meant an FBI that would spy on, monitor and keep files on the activities of "suspicious" Americans. It meant embargoes and sanctions that would squeeze the lifeblood out of foreign citizens in the hopes that they would install pro-U.S. rulers into power. It meant massive death and destruction in Korea and Vietnam.
And it was all justified because of the national-security state's "war on communism" -- a war directed at the Soviet Union, the former partner and ally of the United States during World War II.
But in 1989, the worst nightmare of the national-security state occurred. The communist threat disintegrated. The Soviet Union went bankrupt, owing to out-of-control government spending. Germany was united. Soviet troops evacuated Eastern Europe.
The U.S. national-security state had lost its justification for its existence. There was only one logical course that should have been followed: to dismantle the national-security state.
That's not what happened, however. Instead, the national-security state decided to go abroad and poke some hornet's nests, especially in the Middle East, knowing full well that people were likely to become very angry.
There was the Persian Gulf intervention, when countless Iraqis were killed and maimed and when U.S. forces intentionally destroyed Iraq's water and sewage treatment plants knowing the adverse effect that would have on people's health, especially children.
There were 11 years of brutal sanctions on Iraq, which prevented those water-and-sewage treatment plants from being repaired and which decimated Iraq's economy.
There was U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright's infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were worth it.
There was the stationing of U.S. troops on Islamic holy lands, knowing the adverse effect that would have on Muslim sensitivities.
There were the deadly and illegal no-fly zones over Iraq.
There was the foreign aid to brutal dictators in the Middle East.
There was the foreign aid to the Israeli government.
It all added up to generate unbelievable anger and rage among people in the Middle East.
And it's not as if U.S. officials were unaware of the boiling cauldron of rage and hatred. There were the terrorist attacks on the USS Cole and the U.S. Embassies in East Africa. There was the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Prior to the 9/11 attacks, author Chalmers Johnson warned that unless the U.S. government changed course, the result would be terrorist retaliation on American soil. That's what his book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was all about.
Here at FFF, we were saying the same thing, prior to 9/11. See here, here, here, here, and here
In fact, in December 1999 Sheldon Richman wrote:
The 9/11 attacks was just a continuation of retaliatory attacks that had occurred before, attacks that were in retaliation for what the U.S. government was doing to people in the Middle East.
And the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were also just a continuation of the things the U.S. government had been doing prior to 9/11. They were certain to produce an endless stream of anger and hatred and an endless thirst for retaliation.
It's time for Americans to do what they should have done in 1989 -- dismantle the entire national-security state, including America's overseas military empire, the entire military-industrial complex, and the CIA. The Cold War is over, and the policies of the national-security state have produced the "war on terrorism."
It's time to restore our nation to a limited-government, constitutional republic. It's the only way to restore freedom, peace, harmony, and prosperity to our land.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-05-01.asp
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Obama Is Right -- It's Time for Reflection
by Jacob G. Hornberger
President Obama says that the one-year anniversary of the U.S. military's killing of Osama bin Laden should be a time of reflection rather than a time of celebration.
Indeed. Let's do some reflecting.
Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials claimed that the attackers had been motivated by hatred for America's "freedom and values."
That was a crock, as I pointed out in September 2001. Actually, it was U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East -- that is, the bad things that the U.S. government was doing to people in that part of the world -- that gave rise to the anger and hatred that manifested itself in the 9/11 attacks.
Of course, that was the last thing that U.S. officials and apologists for the U.S. government's pro-empire, pro-interventionist foreign policy wanted people to focus on. If people began focusing on the real motivation for the 9/11 attacks, that might cause them to begin discussing and debating U.S. foreign policy and then possibly moving America in a different direction.
Most everyone living today has been born and raised under a national-security state, a system in which the military-industrial complex, the massive overseas military establishment, the CIA, the NSA, and other such agencies play a dominate role in American society. We have become so accustomed to the national-security state that only libertarians and a few liberals gives its existence a second thought. It's just a given that the national-security state must always be a permanent foundation of American life.
But let's not forget when and why the national-security state came into existence. Its primary roots go back to the end of World War II, when U.S. officials converted America's World War II ally and partner, the Soviet Union, into a new official enemy, one that was supposedly as threatening to the United States as Nazi Germany.
U.S. officials told Americans that despite the end of the war, it was now necessary that the United States remain on a war footing for the indefinite future. That meant that the standing army became a permanent part of the U.S. government, with ever-increasing budgets for the military and the military-industrial complex. It also meant the establishment of the CIA, which would end up involving the United States in all sorts of nefarious and sinister plots, including coups, assassinations, and invasions. It meant an FBI that would spy on, monitor and keep files on the activities of "suspicious" Americans. It meant embargoes and sanctions that would squeeze the lifeblood out of foreign citizens in the hopes that they would install pro-U.S. rulers into power. It meant massive death and destruction in Korea and Vietnam.
And it was all justified because of the national-security state's "war on communism" -- a war directed at the Soviet Union, the former partner and ally of the United States during World War II.
But in 1989, the worst nightmare of the national-security state occurred. The communist threat disintegrated. The Soviet Union went bankrupt, owing to out-of-control government spending. Germany was united. Soviet troops evacuated Eastern Europe.
The U.S. national-security state had lost its justification for its existence. There was only one logical course that should have been followed: to dismantle the national-security state.
That's not what happened, however. Instead, the national-security state decided to go abroad and poke some hornet's nests, especially in the Middle East, knowing full well that people were likely to become very angry.
There was the Persian Gulf intervention, when countless Iraqis were killed and maimed and when U.S. forces intentionally destroyed Iraq's water and sewage treatment plants knowing the adverse effect that would have on people's health, especially children.
There were 11 years of brutal sanctions on Iraq, which prevented those water-and-sewage treatment plants from being repaired and which decimated Iraq's economy.
There was U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright's infamous statement that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children from the sanctions were worth it.
There was the stationing of U.S. troops on Islamic holy lands, knowing the adverse effect that would have on Muslim sensitivities.
There were the deadly and illegal no-fly zones over Iraq.
There was the foreign aid to brutal dictators in the Middle East.
There was the foreign aid to the Israeli government.
It all added up to generate unbelievable anger and rage among people in the Middle East.
And it's not as if U.S. officials were unaware of the boiling cauldron of rage and hatred. There were the terrorist attacks on the USS Cole and the U.S. Embassies in East Africa. There was the 1993 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
Prior to the 9/11 attacks, author Chalmers Johnson warned that unless the U.S. government changed course, the result would be terrorist retaliation on American soil. That's what his book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire was all about.
Here at FFF, we were saying the same thing, prior to 9/11. See here, here, here, here, and here
In fact, in December 1999 Sheldon Richman wrote:
- Apologists for activist government never tire of telling us that the benevolent state is our protector and that without it we'd be at the mercy of monsters. It is about time that we understood that the U.S. government does more to endanger the American people than any imagined monsters around the world. How so? By pursuing its Grand Foreign Policy of meddling anywhere and everywhere. It stands to reason that if you stick your nose in other people's quarrels you will acquire enemies.
The 9/11 attacks was just a continuation of retaliatory attacks that had occurred before, attacks that were in retaliation for what the U.S. government was doing to people in the Middle East.
And the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were also just a continuation of the things the U.S. government had been doing prior to 9/11. They were certain to produce an endless stream of anger and hatred and an endless thirst for retaliation.
It's time for Americans to do what they should have done in 1989 -- dismantle the entire national-security state, including America's overseas military empire, the entire military-industrial complex, and the CIA. The Cold War is over, and the policies of the national-security state have produced the "war on terrorism."
It's time to restore our nation to a limited-government, constitutional republic. It's the only way to restore freedom, peace, harmony, and prosperity to our land.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-05-01.asp
Tuesday, May 1, 2012 12:12 PM EDT
Since bin Laden's death
The War on Terror and its various civil liberties assaults have escalated, not been reversed or even slowed down
By Glenn Greenwald
In the wake of Osama bin Laden's summary execution one year ago, many predicted that the War on Terror would finally begin to recede. Here's what has happened since then:
- *With large bipartisan majorities, Congress renewed the once-controversial Patriot Act without a single reform, and it was signed into law by President Obama; Harry Reid accused those urging reforms of putting the country at risk of a Terrorist attack.
- * For the first time, perhaps ever, a U.S. citizen was assassinated by the CIA, on orders from the President, without a shred of due process and far from any battlefield; two weeks later, his 16-year-old American son was also killed by his own government; the U.S. Attorney General then gave a speech claiming the President has the power to target U.S. citizens for death based on unproven, secret accusations of Terrorism.
- * With large bipartisan majorities, Congress enacted, and the President signed, a new law codifying presidential powers of worldwide indefinite detention and an expanded statutory defintion of the War on Terror.
- * Construction neared completion for a sprawling new site in Utah for the National Security Agency to enable massive domestic surveillance and to achieve "the realization of the 'total information awareness' program created during the first term of the Bush administration."
- * President Obama authorized the use of "signature" drone strikes in Yemen, whereby the CIA can target people for death "even when the identity of those who could be killed is not known."
- * The U.S. formally expanded its drone attacks in Somalia, "reopening a base for the unmanned aircraft on the island nation of Seychelles."
- * A U.S. drone killed 16-year-old Pakistani Tariq Aziz, along with his 12-year-old cousin, Waheed, three days after the older boy attended a meeting to protest civilian deaths from U.S. drones (another of Tariq's cousins had been killed in 2010).
- * NATO airstrikes continued to extinguish the lives of Afghan children; in just the last 24 hours, 5 more Afghan children were killed by the ongoing war.
- * The FBI increased its aggressive attempts to recruit young Muslim-American males into Terror plots which the FBI concocts, funds, encourages, directs and enables, while prosecuting more and more Muslims in the U.S. for crimes grounded in their political views and speech.
- * For the first time, perhaps ever, a U.S. citizen was assassinated by the CIA, on orders from the President, without a shred of due process and far from any battlefield; two weeks later, his 16-year-old American son was also killed by his own government; the U.S. Attorney General then gave a speech claiming the President has the power to target U.S. citizens for death based on unproven, secret accusations of Terrorism.
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/01/since_bin_ladens_death/singleton/
Freddie Mac Needs More Taxpayer Money
"Government-controlled mortgage giant Freddie Mac is requesting $19 million in additional federal aid after posting a loss for the first quarter of this year." ( Washington Post)
Really, this story is getting old.
Perspective
Bailing Out Statism
The Collapse of Fannie and Freddie Is Government Social Engineering Gone Bad
Sheldon Richman
December 2008 • Volume: 58 • Issue: 10 •
The key to understanding the saga of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- the newly nationalized twin government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that dominate home financing -- is this:
They were created -- intentionally -- to distort the housing and mortgage markets. That is, government planners were not content to let voluntary exchange and spontaneous market forces configure those industries unmolested. So -- holding the taxpayers hostage -- they intervened.
Make no mistake: The collapse of Fannie and Freddie is government social engineering predictably gone bad.
In a free society supply and demand would govern markets. The demand for houses would be determined by people's preferences and the wealth and income at their disposal. Supply would be determined by relative profit expectations, which is to say, by the demand for housing and the competing demand for the required inputs.
A distortion occurs when government planners and rent-seeking corporate allies, under cover of humanitarian social policy, engineer a deviation from natural market outcomes. (Rent-seeking here refers to the quest for politically derived as opposed to market-derived profits.) Dressed up as promotion of the American Dream through homeownership, the planners used the political meansultimately, the threat to imprison uncooperative taxpayers -- to channel wealth to the construction, real-estate, and financial industries. The primary instruments of this social engineering were Fannie Mae, created as a government agency during the New Deal and -- cough -- "privatized" in 1968 to get it off-budget, and Freddie Mac, created as a "private" GSE in 1970.
The GSEs don't make mortgage loans. Rather, using borrowed money, they buy mortgages from original lenders, encouraging banks to make more loans and immediately pass them on to others. Pooling lots of mortgages together, the GSEs create mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and either sell them or (more frequently) keep them, assuming the risk of default. In fact Freddie and Fannie created the secondary mortgage market that has come in for criticism since the subprime problem developed.
Freddie's and Fannie's activities were designed to channel money to mortgage lenders so that they could loan widely, especially to people who might have been priced out of a fully private mortgage market. The system inevitably lowered lending standards and interest rates. If these activities had been performed not by GSEs but by real private companies, they would have been subject to market checks. But they were not. They're not called government-sponsored enterprises for nothing. As such they have special advantages over real private companies, permitting them to do things on a scale larger than would have occurred in a free market. The advantages include tax exemption, government loans, an implicit bailout promise, and lower capital requirements.
The result was a far more concentrated lending market and hence greater vulnerability to changing conditions. Fan and Fred hold or insure $5.4 trillion in mortgage debthalf the national totalmaking the taxpayers ultimately responsible now that the GSEs are under federal conservatorship. Three-quarters of new mortgages are GSE-backed. So the government has just become the country's major mortgagee.
The GSEs have lost well over $10 billion since the mortgage meltdown occurred, and they were getting close to being unable to borrow enough money to roll over their debt. This and fear of a more general economic meltdown are what prompted the government to step in, exposing the taxpayers dramatically. The bailout will begin with a billion-dollar infusion. Then the government will start buying shaky Freddie- or Fannie-backed mortgage securities in the marketplace. A $5 billion purchase will get things going, but up to $200 billion has been promised. It will no doubt be more.
Where will this money come from: taxation, borrowing, or the printing press? What will that do to our economic well-being?
The New York Times is wrong. This is not "an extraordinary federal intervention in private enterprise." It is the state bailing out statism. Let's hear no more about the "laissez-faire" Republicans. That myth serves only to protect advocates of state intervention regardless of party.
It is with deep sadness that I note the death in October of our long-time contributing editor Norman Barry after a long illness. Over the years Norman kept Freeman readers informed about free-market and statist developments in Europe and elsewhere, always with optimism about the future of liberty. He was a professor of social and political theory at the University in Buckingham, which, he proudly noted, is the United Kingdom's only private university. Among his many Freeman articles, my favorite is "Freedom and Morality in the Plays of Tom Stoppard" (August 1999, http://tinyurl.com/6h9s5s). He was a gentleman, a prolific scholar, and a pure pleasure to work with.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/perspective-bailing-out-statism/
Morning in America
by Scott Lazarowitz
That was Ronald Reagan's 1984 reelection campaign slogan, which manipulated the voters to give Reagan a second term of deficit-spending, expanding the welfare/warfare state, and further enlarging Big Government.
Barack Obama will do similar manipulating of the masses.
For many decades it has not been "morning in America," given America's extreme decline, economically and culturally. Many Americans today are dependent and ignorant, and more and more aspects of daily life have been politicized and centralized into an increasingly frightening and totalitarian Washington, D.C.
Many Americans are impatient, intolerant, short-sighted, self-centered, and our irresponsible, spend-happy Congress merely reflects the general population.
Last Fall's Black Friday shopping frenzy was a clear example of what Americans have become.
In Washington, Congress has continuously, selfishly and irresponsibly been voting to raise the debt ceiling to pay for all its goodies to please the lobbyists and in their own push for reelection. "Let my constituents' grandchildren pay for my extravagance!" say the selfish congressmen. The Republicans are no different from the Democrats.
And the government has been encouraging Americans to overspend on their credit cards, buy homes they can't afford, and encouraging students to go into debt already at age 18.
Meanwhile, if the Republicans actually do repeal Obama's Soviet health care plan, they want to replace it with a Republican version of SovietCare.
With conservatives like this, who needs liberals?
The reckless, clueless Congress voted to give the President the power to have the military arrest and detain indefinitely anyone he feels is a "terrorist" or otherwise criminal, without being required to show evidence against the accused. The real reason for this may very well be as a preemptive action when America's predictable economic collapse and civil unrest occur.
After all, why then did the Department of Homeland Security order hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition? That's for a domestic agency, not the military.
Because of the War on Drugs that Obama is prosecuting, and the sick obsession with drug users that local police neanderthals seems to have these days, innocent middle-aged women who never harmed anyone are being arrested and tortured for buying Sudafed at the store.
In America today, the progressives and liberals celebrate Barack Obama as a "warrior" President, by continuing to be in denial of Obama's daily drone bomb murders of innocent civilians overseas. Meanwhile, the left's Messiah cracks down on medical marijuana users and whistleblowers like a remorseless beast while simultaneously protecting torturers and government agents spying on Americans.
With liberals like this, who needs conservatives?
And the schools now are prisons. Many of them have police patrolling hallways.
In America today, according to the American Dream Blog, little pre-teen kids are being arrested and handcuffed from school for giving another kid a wedgie, for bringing a plastic butter knife to school, for using perfume, and for burping in class. A 6-year-old boy was charged with sexual assault when playing tag.
Whatever happened to common sense in America? What kind of teacher or school administrator would call police on these children? When I was growing up, no cop I ever heard of would even think of arresting a child, and for those things.
In the government schools, the teachers unions want smaller class sizes and higher pay and more benefits, for a nine-month school year. As Elizabeth Warren might say, "Good for them!"
But teachers don't want to be tested and promoted based on merit and ability. Many teachers today are themselves poorly educated. America's international educational ranking has gradually sunk especially since Jimma Carter imposed the federal Department of Education on us.
When I was in school, we had large classes, and teachers were in control. We didn't have teachers and school administrators and parents drugging their kids up on Ritalin and SSRIs, and other poisonous, mind-altering, behavior-altering drugs back in the dark ages of civility, respect for others and an encouragement to learn.
And now there are anti-bullying and zero tolerance policies, pushed by ignoramuses and control freaks who have no common sense at all.
But some school districts and state legislatures are trying to reform their "Zero Tolerance" policies. Here's my way of reform: Abolish government schools completely!
And so many people now seem to be paranoid and think that any stranger is a potential child molester, and people are so sensitive now that if you say the wrong thing, you'll be accused of harassment or worse. I would never be a teacher now out of fear of false accusations or lawsuits. Much of the idiocy in today's America is due to the politicization and centralization of education. There is no more freedom of thought, freedom of conscience or freedom of expression.
And God forbid one might walk down a neighborhood street alone where there are kids, our of fear of being viewed as "suspicious." With the DHS "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign, everyone is suspicious of everyone else, and you can't trust your neighbors anymore. Not because they might molest your children or steal your lawn furniture, but because they might report you to local government bureaucrats as "suspicious," or for doing something on your own property without a government-bureaucrat's permission.
And these days with the growth of government and its intrusions into every intimate aspect of our everyday lives, one is viewed as "suspicious" for wanting to homeschool one's kids or for refusing vaccines. Government Child Protective Services (sic) social workers and the police own your children. If a neighbor thinks something in your home is "suspicious," watch out! Based on false accusations, your kids can be taken away and abused by government bureaucrats. Was there always a little Hitler or Stalin in these government bureaus all across America?
Just a few decades ago, we never would have thought that a "Child Protective Service" could be so corrupt that it would involve itself in child sex trafficking. The late Georgia state senator Nancy Schaeffer's investigation into these things may have cost her her life.
America's popular culture and Hollywood have also contributed to the decline of our society, and the elites have targeted the children. It is the cultural and political elites who are the biggest threats to the children, certainly not everyday parents and average Joes.
And when did so many things in America become so sexualized? Why do so many parents these days seem to allow their little pre-teen girls to wear those skimpy little clothes, revealing a lot of skin and making them look like sluts? And at the same time, kids get arrested for merely hugging a friend in school! What a sick, backwards, demented society America has become!
In America today, police are strip searching people who have been arrested for overdue parking tickets, for walking a dog without a leash, and other minor "offenses," and the Supreme Court said this kind of treatment by perv-cops toward innocent civilians is okay.
The TSA is now well known for its workers' sexual molesting of little children and disabled elderly Americans. The TSA has been committing sex-related crimes against innocent civilians for several years now at the airports, and are now moving on to commuter rail and buses, and local bus routes where the misfits and hooligans harass innocent commuters.
The U.S., as Naomi Wolf has asserted, now uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses. I can't believe that there would have been one Supreme Court justice just 30 or 40 years ago who would have approved of strip searching innocent civilians arrested for minor offenses. Perhaps those justices who lived through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, and who knew of Hitler and Stalin's sick abuses of the civilian population, would have seen the handwriting on the wall if such a strip search case appeared before them.
If Obama declares martial law and directs the military to arrest and detain protesters and critics of the government (a.k.a. "terrorists") – an order sure to be approved by those lettered imbeciles of the Supreme Court – how safe will we and our children be when many members of the military have no problem with sexually assaulting their own comrades?
Supreme Court justices in times past were well educated and informed in history. But it is very hard to believe that today's Supreme Court who claim to believe in "original intent" would actually know original intent if they fell over it.
"The Fourth Amendment? What's that?"
"The Fifth Amendment? Never heard of it."
"Inalienable?" (Crickets.)
In America today, many good cops who protect innocent civilians from the bad cops' barbaric violence are punished. As William Grigg observed, the good cops are "targeted for the unforgiveable offense of 'crossing the Blue Line' by taking the side of a Mundane being attacked by a member of the Brotherhood." Was it always this way? (No, because in times past, most people had a sense of morality. But not today, alas.)
Cops used to be protective of innocent civilians. But nowadays, so many of them seem to enjoy harassing and bullying innocent civilians, male and female. The neanderthals seem to get off on it. Many cops these days are getting away with actual crimes, while their comrades come to their defense.
These University of California, Davis campus police officers just nonchalantly pepper-sprayed protesters sitting peacefully on the ground. I can't see how anyone could do that to people. In the old days, I don't think that cops or university police would have done that. If protesters were asked to leave and they didn't leave, then usually the cops physically removed them (and usually without causing too much harm). But spraying pepper spray in their faces? What kind of sick sadist would do that?
On May Day 2012, some Occupy protesters, observing May Day with protests and occupying, had already experienced just how much like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany America has become, especially in New York.
This "Us vs. Them," government vs. civilians attitude has become quite prominent, especially since 9/11. People with government and police authority have been given such artificial authority, and it seems to go to their heads. Many of them act like Nazis now.
"It's morning in America" for the power-grabbing politicians, bureaucrats and armed police, especially now that they are getting their FEMA camps in place, and have ordered their hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition for DHS.
America is a banana republic basket case, and the real psychopaths and lunatics are the rulers and their minions and brownshirts.
Can innocent, peace-loving, freedom-loving civilians survive in this People's Republik of Amerika in the case of total economic collapse, food shortages, civil unrest, and martial law?
Or is there some sort of alternative way to handle the societal and cultural decline and totalitarian centralization that are taking us down?
http://lewrockwell.com/lazarowitz/lazarowitz43.1.html
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