Free-Market Analysis: Another day, another attempt by the mainstream media to marginalize Austrian economics. We're using the Economist article (excerpted above) as an example but in our view this is a powerful elite dominant social theme.

How does the article marginalize Austrian economics? By taking an oblique approach, reporting not on the phenomenal rise of free-market economics but on the blogosphere's enabling role. This is a little like reporting on the latest American Idol by describing the role the Internet played in his or her advancement. It's part of the story but not the main story.

So why does the Economist use this approach? Because the Economist is a prime Anglosphere power elitemouthpiece. The Anglosphere elites are trying to set up world government and the last thing they want or need is a popular economic philosophy showing that a New World Order is neither feasible nor practical.

The Economist and other mainstream media have marginalized Austrian economics for nearly a decade now, ever since the economic philosophy began to make a comeback thanks to the Internet. It has virtually overtaken Keynesian economics on the 'Net as the most popular and relevant economic theory. But mainstream articles about Austrian economics are rare and usually diffident.

The Anglosphere power elite REALLY dislikes Austrian economics for three reasons. First, it advocates human action and in doing so shows that the foundation of mainstream economics – econometrics – is merely a variant of the USSR five-year plan.

Modern mathematical projections can never be used to pass laws because the laws and regulations themselves change human behavior. This is why laws and regulations almost always seem to work exactly in the opposite way from which they are intended.

Second, Austrian economics shows us that the monetary basis of the world's modern economy – central banking – is a theoretical falsehood and ruinous reality. You can't fix the price of money anymore than you can pass laws and regulations to force changes in basic human behavior.

Modern central banking creates tremendous booms and busts. During the bust phase, those who control central banks further consolidate their control of modern economies and businesses. This analysis of modern monetary practices was developed by famous Austrians Ludwig von Mises and FA Hayek.

The final point inherent in Austrian economics is that money often does best when it is has some relationship to commodities, preferably gold. This is, however, the least clear part of Austrian theory and the most in flux.

Modern Austrians are often apt to agree with the idea that ANY money is viable so long as it is accepted in the marketplace and divorced from government/monopoly control. Libertarian Congressman Ron Paul falls within this latter category, arguing in his current presidential campaign that there ought to be monetary competition within the marketplace.

This article is a variant of the "ignore Austrian economics" meme. The article doesn't actually ignore Austrian economics but by lumping it in with two other economics "theories" it marginalizes the growth of Austrian – free-market – economics and, more importantly, minimizes its success.

Implicit in the article's composition is the idea that the INTERNET has driven interest in Austrian economics, and is driving interest generally in hitherto non-mainstream economic theories.

Of course, here at the Daily Bell we often talk about what we call the Internet Reformation. But we are carefully to make a distinction between the Internet Reformation and the Internet REVOLUTION. This is an article partially about the Internet Revolution.

The Internet Revolution is just another mainstream meme that seeks to minimize the truly radical aspects of the Internet and substitute for them a generally clichéd appreciation for the Internet as a facility that is "changing the way we live."

We see the Internet as a fundamentally subversive technology that is undermining the manifestations of global governance that the elites are working hard to implement. The Internet "Revolution" is technology "changing our lives" – as a mainstream commercial might put it.

The Internet Revolution might change our lives by making it easier to choose pet food for our favorite animals or compare prices for a long-sought-after getaway in the sun.

The Internet Reformation changes our lives by introducing us to information about the strategies that the elites are using to consolidate their New World Order – from phony wars to authoritarian legislation to ruinous economic policy that seems intentionally aimed at causing a depression.

The Economist article fits right into the elite's larger effort to marginalize Austrian economics by making it merely part of the larger Internet "phenomenon." Austrian economics, we see, would not have achieved popularity without modern technology, and neither would these "other" economic disciplines.

This is a deeply disingenuous analysis, in our view. One of the hallmarks of the Internet was how quickly it developed into a kind of echo chamber for views on freedom and free markets. It turned out there was a whole history of deep intellectual thought concerning human action and the markets that had been missing from the mainstream for 100 years or more.

Once the elites lost control of the conversation on the Internet they never got it back. But they've been chipping away by creating false flags – including individuals and whole theoretical schools that are tailored to cause confusion about free-markets and freedom generally.

The idea is to provide intellectual firepower for anti-freedom and pro-government activities. This is most important to the continued success of the current elite conspiracy, as those in charge seem well aware that they need to animate their various power grabs with various moral arguments.

This is, in fact, the reason dominant social themes are so important to the elites. They are coercive devices that do the work that brute force cannot. The Internet has been undermining these themes with regularity, however. This is one reason that the elites have turned to war and authoritarian legislation.

But chaos and brutality is not a good substitution for coercion, by which people willingly submit to increased world governance under the impression they will ensure their solvency and safety. This is the reason that the elites continue to promote dominant social themes even though the Internet has increasingly made them less effective.

The toolbox simply is not that big or deep, from what we can tell. This article is a good case in point. Let's take a quick look at the two "theories" that are trotted out in opposition to Austrian theory.

Chartalism's theoretical constructs are known as Modern Monetary Theory. Here's Wikipedia: "Because the government can issue its own currency at will, MMT maintains that the level of taxation relative to government spending (the government's deficit spending or budget surplus) is in reality a policy tool that regulates inflation and unemployment, and not a means of funding the government's activities per se."

Market Monetarism, the other "theory," has to do with the idea that central banks should target the "nominal employment" rather than price inflation or other indices. The idea is that the central bank should print enough money to ensure that people have jobs.

Of course, this is economically illiterate stuff. The reason the West is suffering from so much unemployment is BECAUSE the economy has been stimulated and re-stimulated by monopoly money printing for about a century now – and certainly for the past 30 years with increasing energy and power.

By now Western economies – and actually the world's – have been so distorted by this extra money printing (literally tens of trillions of late) that people simply don't know whom to lend to. It's not clear which companies are solvent and why.

Weapons companies, green companies, environmental energy companies, lobbying and law firms, educational and public unions – the list of companies being supported either by central bank money printing or by governments themselves is overwhelming.

This is the reason that the Western model of "capitalism" is dying. It has nothing to do with free markets themselves and everything to do with a monetary system that prints endless trillions to prop up the crony capitalist enterprises of the elites themselves.

You won't learn any of this in the Economist article – or in other similar articles. The problems of Western economies are simple enough. They have to do with the almost psychopathic amounts of control that the Anglosphere elites now exercise – via mercantilism – on governments and economies around the world.

Between wars, laws, taxes and monopoly and fiat money printing there is almost no aspect of modern society that the elites have not distorted virtually into bankruptcy.

This is the reason that Austrian, free-market economics has grown so popular so quickly. It actually explains what is going on and what is necessary to change it.

Such knowledge drives the powers-that-be wild. Thus, articles like this one in the Economist that explain, basically, that Austrian theory is merely one "opinion" among many and that those economists who advocate yet MORE central bank money printing and MORE monopoly control of money have valid points, too.

Conclusion: They don't.

SOURCE: The Daily Bell

© Copyright 2008 - 2012 All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking (FAFMT)

The best election money can buy as PJ Tatler on Pajamas media calls it.

Ever since the Midterm elections of 2010, a broad front of conservative voters united under a group called “The Tea Party”. They wanted to take the Grand Ol’ party back from the establishment, renew the conservative cause we once so proudly defended, and kick the RINO’s out of power. Successfully, we showed the GOP what true conservative voters are capable of when we helped them take back the House of Representatives - Something the odds were against.

However, since the GOP likes to go along to get along they want to silence the Tea Party in order to maintain their established power.

GOP

Grand Ol’ Party – Once the flag ship for Christian conservative values, honesty,  integrity, limited government, and power through WE THE PEOPLE. It represented the “American Dream” of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – NOT ANYMORE.

The GOP today is diversity preaching and engaged in all sorts of foul play just like the Liberals to hold on to their power. It’s a tug of war in the same mud. They no
longer care about the voice of the people, the voters; they just care about keeping the status quo and keeping the “establishment” in tact. It’s no wonder why WE THE PEOPLE have lost all confidence and trust in our so-called representation.

And yet the answer to right the ship is so simple. Stop being politicians and start being Statesman again. Stand up for less government and fiscal responsibility no matter what the cost, and keep your word.

However, instead of seizing the momentum of The Tea Party to strengthen the Republican Party so that Obama can be defeated the GOP does the opposite – THEY DECLARE WAR on their base the true conservative American voters.

THEY DECLARE WAR ON US – THEIR VOTERS and SUPPORTERS – UNBELIEVABLE

Instead of uniting the Conservatives and independents under one flag by working with them they divide the Conservative base even more, playing right in the hands of the Democrats – and for what?

Rush Limbaugh proved in ‘Real Clear Politics’ that the GOP’s joined forces with The New York Times declaring War on its own voters.

Limbaugh on Real Clear Politics: Bill Kristol on the Tea Party: "It's an infantile form of conservatism." Scott Reed, veteran strategist and lobbyist: "I think it's waning now," talking to the reporter of the story about the Tea Party's influence. "Party leaders have managed to bleed some of the anti-establishment intensity out of the movement, Reed said, by slyly embracing Tea Party sympathizers in Congress, rather than treating them as 'those people.' Did he mean to say that the party was slowly co-opting the Tea Partiers? 'Trying to,' Reed said. 'And that’s the secret to politics: trying to control a segment of people without those people recognizing that you’re trying to control them.'" This is a Republican consultant talking about how to neutralize the Tea Party. (Continue reading and watch the Video here)

The GOP in Ohio even wants to shut down The Tea Party period, as Godfather Politics reports.

Bottom Line is….

The GOP does not want a true conservative President in 2012. A true conservative President running on the principles of “Reagan Conservatism” for limited Government, Constitutional America, fewer regulations, less Taxes, and more power back to “We the people” would cramp their style.

The GOP wants a GOP puppet like John Boehner, who became Speaker of the House with help from the Tea Party (that we were good enough for), but as soon as he held the hammer in his hand he became a good GOP soldier representing power preservation, backdoor deals, and the betrayal of principles rather than standing up for true conservatism.

GOP Establishment/Elite (RINO’s) vs. Tea Party

The GOP establishment complains that grassroots Conservatives call them RINO’s (Republicans In Name Only) – Well, what else do you call people who “claim” to hold to conservative principles while running for office, but as soon as they’re elected they play “flip flop-balancing act politics” betraying and selling out everything the people believe in.

They add insult to injury by calling their own voter base “Grass Root Radicals”. And the GOP wonders why they lose elections.

Just take 2008 presidential candidate John McCain - He is the perfect example of a fence riding RINO that I can possibly think of.

McCain even dared to attack the Republican Tea Party Base as “Hobbits”.

Well, here is a message to Mr. McCain: The hobbits were the hero’s in the movie “Lord of the Rings” and typified the little underestimated underdog that conquers the big overpowering evil with determination and bravery, never abandoning the path of
honor and faith.

Next time you want to insult “Us” Senator McCain – First get your facts straight or at least watch the movie. I am proud to be a hobbit.

And that is why the GOP prefers a Mitt Romney over a Newt Gingrich or a Rick Santorum. Romney is the perfect presidential version of John Boehner. A true party soldier who will make sure that he will not forget those who helped him into office, and I’m not talking about the voters I’m talking about the GOP.

Newt Gingrich IS a walking hand grenade for the GOP Establishment (and I say that with the highest respect) because he does not cater to them or their distortion of facts. He wants to change the establishment not preserve it, heeding the will of the people, and proving he is not a party soldier, but a leader – And that is NOT what the GOP establishment wants.

Rick Santorum is considered to be the “most conservative,” but has nowhere near the experience nor the record of achievements that Gingrich has to really threaten
the GOP. And in my opinion, the GOP is giving Santorum just enough money to keep him in the race in order to derail Gingrich and assure Romney the victory.

Romney vs. Gingrich

After his victory in Florida Romney declared he wants to unite the GOP. How does he want to unite what he, together with the Party have previously divided through
trench warfare?

Does he really think he can first artillery everything we believe in and then just
miraculously say, oh now it’s over, and we are all one big happy family?

2012 Presidential election

If the GOP continues to fight against their base instead of listening to them this will be the last election for the GOP as a grand old party.

The call for a third party, widely ignored the past 3 years, becomes louder and louder. We are fed up that the elite think they can rule over our head. We are fed up with being treated like stubborn dumb children.

Let me make this clear Mr. Preibus, Chairman of the GOP:

YOU AND THE ELITE DO NOT OWN THE PARTY – WE THE REPUBLICAN VOTERS DO

And the winner is……

….Barrack Hussein Obama and the Democratic Party. The GOP financed trench warfare only plays into the hands of the radical fascist Obama regime. All they need to do is sit back and watch how we maul each other.

In 2010 we gave the GOP a chance to prove that they could do more than give lip service… They failed.

All they needed to do was keep their promises and work WITH us and not AGAINST us… They failed.

Let’s hope and pray that at least the Tea Party voters can look beyond the polls, take one for the team, and vote for whom we really think can kick Obama out of office.

And maybe after 2012 start a third party – a true conservative TEA PARTY OF WE THE CONSTITUIONALIST PEOPLE

For God and Country,  and the most amazing City on the Hill

THE UNITED STATES OF A FREE REPUBLIC AMERICA

Source:

Real Clear Politics – Rush Limbaugh: GOP Establishment Declares War on Tea Party

Washington Post – Florida Primary: Mitt Romney wins decisive Victory

Godfather Politics – Ohio GOP wants to shut out TEA Party

PJ Tatler @ Pajamas Media – The best election Money can buy

Of course, it could be exactly what it seems to be: the turning point in a failed war after more than a decade. And Davis could be just as courageous as he seems to be. On the other hand, this is GANNETT that we are talking about, the publisher of USA Today. We're not talking about the alternative media here. We're not talking Prison Planet. We're not even talking the Village Voice. Here's something about the publisher from Wikipedia:

Gannett Government Media, formerly the Army Times Publishing Company, is a United States company which publishes newspapers, magazines, Web sites, and other publications about the U.S. and other militaries. Founded in 1940, it was purchased by the Gannett Company in August 1997. It publishes four weekly newspapers aimed at current and former U.S. military personnel, collectively called the Military Times Media Group: Army Times (founded 1940), Navy Times (founded 1951), Air Force Times (founded 1947), and Marine Corps Times.

OK. Here's our point. Gannett is not exactly the "opposition" – not even the loyal opposition. Gannett's newspapers have gone along with every part of the authoritarian incrementalism that characterizes the modern-day Leviathan.

Gannett's editors are more likely to get worked up over a profile of a popular dog breed than an in-depth expose of government wrongdoing. In fact, we cannot even remember – collectively or otherwise – the last time we read an in-depth expose of government wrongdoing in a Gannett publication.

And then there is this. It's a good article, no doubt about it. But as the world's number one follower of elite dominant social themes (it's a lousy job but someone's got to do it) we sorta/kinda sense there's something else going on here.

We would tend to think, even, that Davis's article is part of a larger preparatory event designed to groom public opinion for the inevitable drawdown. We note that, according to the UK Daily Mail, "Colonel Davis has reportedly provided a full account of his findings in a classified report to several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, senators and House members."

OK. Davis may be a whistleblower but he's playing his tune in front of some mighty important people. We also note that this article comes on the heels of a widely publicized report by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta who recently announced that many US/NATO troops could leave Afghanistan by the end of 2013, not 2014.

Panetta's comments were made in conjunction with a "leaked" Pentagon report that the Taliban had not been sufficiently degraded as a fighting force in Afghanistan despite the US "surge." Davis's report merely reinforces this perception. Here's more from the article:

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress. Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19- year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

... Naturally, I am not authorized to divulge classified material to the public. But I am legally able to share it with members of Congress. I have accordingly provided a much fuller accounting in a classified report to several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, senators and House members.

When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid — graphically, if necessary — in telling them what's at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it.

Likewise when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign that cannot be won at an acceptable price, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military.

This is splendid stuff. But we wonder why it took ten years to come out. We've published dozens of articles in the past two years explaining why the Afghan war could not be "won." How come we could see this while the Pentagon, NATO and mainstream press were all reporting on the victories to come?

Are we that clever? No, of course not. The Afghan war was not, in fact, meant to be "won" in the normal sense. What it was meant to do – as we have argued many times – was to degrade the martial spirit of the tribal Pashtuns and Westernize the region.

The Anglosphere, in our view, has been at war with the Pashtuns and the Pakistan Punjabis as well for nearly 200 years, from what we can tell. Both the Pashtuns and Punjabis are among the most ancient tribes on earth. No one knows how long the Pashtuns have been occupying their land in Afghanistan. Perhaps thousands of years.

That's a lot of history to blow up. But no one can accuse the Anglosphere of modest goals. The great central banking families that want to run the world have focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan of late because these two regions have apparently posed a sizable obstacle to world domination.

We have argued for several years now that the Anglosphere's inability to fully control the sociopolitical processes in Afghanistan and Pakistan have meant that Afghan pacification is not possible. This has extremely important ramifications for any planned global governance.

As we attempt to figure out the current "messaging" issuing out of the West and the Pentagon regarding the Afghan war, we are coming up with several options as to what it all means.

Perhaps we can take it at face value: The West and the American public is simply being prepped for withdrawal from a war that the US cannot win and is depleting the US treasury beyond what is bearable.

Alternatively, there is no REAL pullout because Anglosphere mercenary troops, funded by various black-ops budgets, will simply continue the process of attempted conquest without the current formality.

Or perhaps there is a third option that currently escapes us. We've argued in the past that a US/NATO pullout will lead to de-facto partitioning of the country but perhaps the Taliban themselves will enter into some sort of understanding with the West that will allow the Anglosphere power elite to continue its quest for global governance.

The process taking place in Afghanistan now is a very important one. We remember, however, the Vietnam War and are fully aware that the Vietnamese (the government anyway) have not proven any impediment that we can see to the Anglosphere's larger plans for world domination.

Conclusion: It could be that the war has done what was necessary from the Anglosphere's point of view – engaged the Afghan tribes sufficiently so that Westernization may ultimately take place. Like many Anglosphere gambits, this one bears watching.

SOURCE: Daily Bell

© Copyright 2008 - 2012 All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking (FAFMT).

"The [Palestinian] Islamic Jihad's supporters have elevated him almost to a saintly status," wrote Palestinian academic Ziad Abu Amr in his book Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza. It was al-Qassam who merged religion and violence, advocating "God's book in one hand, and the rifle in the other."

Echoing Al-Qassam, both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have charters rejecting any peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Islamic Jihad calls for "The creation of a state of terror, instability and panic in the souls of Zionists and especially the groups of settlers, and force them to leave their houses." Hamas dismisses peace talks as a game beneath Palestinian dignity. "There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. The initiatives, proposals and International Conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The Palestinian people are too noble to have their future, their right and their destiny submitted to a vain game."

It is fairly rare for a mosque to be named for an individual. A plaque outside the mosque hails al-Qassam as the one who "declared Jihad against the British and Zionist invasion of Palestine. He was martyred on November 19, 1935 in Yabrod, Palestine. Al-Qassam has become a symbol of heroism, resistance, occupation, and invasion of steadfast Palestine."

The mosque's name changed in 1989 when it was run by Sami Al-Arian, a University of South Florida computer scientist who secretly served on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's shura council, or governing board. Al-Arian sheltered other board members, including Secretary General Ramadan Shallah. Shallah took over the Islamic Jihad in 1995, just six months after leaving Tampa.

A year earlier, when evidence shows Al-Arian was fighting to keep the Islamic Jihad alive in the face of a financial crisis, Al-Arian wrote to immigration officials on Al-Qassam Mosque letterhead seeking a work visa for Shallah to be the mosque's imam.

In interviews for Investigative Project on Terrorism Executive Director Steven Emerson's "Jihad in America" documentary and a subsequent newspaper investigation, Al-Arian denied the mosque's name indicated any bond with the Jihad or other terrorists. Al-Qassam "became a symbol in Palestine of the first to resist and fight for freedom," he said in 1995. "He was strengthened by religion and devotion to God."

Federal agents arrested Al-Arian nine years ago and he has not been back to the mosque since. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to provide services to the Islamic Jihad and records make clear his prominent role in the organization. In all those years, however, mosque leaders have not thought to rid their house of worship of Al-Qassam's name.

But they plan to welcome the public Friday evening to persuade the public they stand for the opposite of al-Qassam's message of "God's book in one hand, and the rifle in the other."

It would be like hosting a forum on the South's historic embrace of integration at the Church of the Martyr Bull Connor.

Both the mosque and CAIR seem oblivious.

"Ignorance leads to misunderstanding, which in turn leads to fear, hatred, discrimination, and even violence," said CAIR-Tampa executive director Hassan Shibly in the release. "By reaching out and getting to know each other, we can love each other as a community and recognize that our differences need not divide us."

But violence was at the heart of al-Qassam's message. Jihad, he said, was the only path to freedom. According to a booklet issued by the Islamic Association for Palestine, an arm in a Hamas-support network, al-Qassam instructed followers that "Jihad is a religious obligation till the Judgement (sic) Day. We all need to do Jihad in the name of God to free our countries from the colonialist to become Islamic States that apply God's laws.

"Arm yourself no matter what are the circumstances. Sell everything you have and buy weapons to fight the occupation."

The mosque maintains a significant link to the Al-Arian era through its president, Noor Salhab. In the early 1990s, Salhab leased his home to Al-Arian as office space for a think-tank called the World and Islam Studies Enterprise, where Shallah was a director.

Years later, another tenant drew scrutiny from federal law enforcement. Ahmed Mohamed was arrested by police in South Carolina with a trunk load of explosive material and a laptop containing jihadi videos. Mohamed posted one such video to Youtube, showing would-be jihadists how to make remote-controlled bombs "to be used against those who fight for the United States" since he considered them and their allies fighting in Arab countries to be "invaders."

Federal agents searched the house in 2007, looking for bomb-making ingredients including PVC pipes, chemicals, hacksaws and soldering irons. Mohamed is serving 15 years after pleading guilty to providing material support to terrorists.

Salhab is not responsible for his tenants' behavior. And leasing a house to two separate people implicated in terror-support cases could happen to anyone, right? But if the mosque and its partners in CAIR truly are interested in correcting misconceptions about their faith, they might start by removing the name as a show of sincerity.

About The Investigative Project on Terrorism

The U.S. Constitution generally guarantees the “Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus.” The writ of habeas corpus is a court order a prisoner can obtain requiring the jailer to come into court and justify his detention of the prisoner. It is a traditional way in which those held can demand a fair trial by jury in a civilian court. The writ of habeas corpus is a treasured part of our traditional liberty. Belief that the British were infringing it was one cause of the American Revolution.  (The writ is called a “privilege” rather than a “right” because it is a creation of the legal system rather than a natural right, like the right to free speech.)

Now, with that background, let’s look at the critical language of the Act, again step by step:

§1021: (a) Congress affirms that the authority of the President to use all necessary and appropriate force pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force . . . includes the authority for the Armed Forces of the United States to detain covered persons . . . pending disposition under the law of war.

Comment: The Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) is the resolution passed in the wake of 9/11 authorizing the President to fight terrorism. The National Defense Authorization Act is sometimes justified as mere clarification of the AUMF.

(b) . . A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

Comment: This provision includes people accused of certain terror-related crimes. Fine— but it does not exempt U.S. citizens or legal aliens with U.S. territory. Thus, far, it appears they can be “detain[ed] . . . pending disposition under the law of war.” But what does that mean?

c) . .  The disposition of a person under the law of war . .  may include the following:
(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force. . .

Comment: This clarifies that the government may detain anyone so charged “without trial until the end of the hostilities.” Apologists for the law point out that it permits other dispositions “under the law of war,” including civilian trial. But the point is that the law does not require those other dispositions. The administration can simply decide to detain you “without trial until the end of hostilities.”

(d) . . . Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Comment: This is a basis for the argument that all Congress is really doing is clarifying the AUMF. But this is cold comfort, because the position of the Obama administration is that the AUMF always authorized rounding up citizen-suspects and holding them without trial!

(e) . . . Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

Comment: This provision is sometimes touted as protecting citizens because it preserves existing Supreme Court decisions. The problem is that, as yet, there are no Supreme Court decisions that squarely provide the full measure of habeas corpus protection to citizens or legal aliens accused within our borders. This is true because neither the Bush nor the Obama administration has had the audacity to round up U.S. citizens without our borders and hold them indefinitely without trial.

Here are the principal Supreme Court decisions the law preserves:

(1) A post-Civil War case (Ex Parte Milligan) saying a citizen non-combatant  incarcerated outside the theater of war is entitled to habeas corpus. (This holding doesn’t help those accused of being combatants.)

(2) The World War II-era Quirin decision that permitted President Roosevelt to detain, try in a secret military hearing, and execute a U.S. citizen captured on U.S. territory and accused of being a German spy. Obviously, this decision—which is widely acknowledged to be egregious—offers no protection against the National Defense Authorization Act.

(3) The 2004 Hamdi case, which says that a U.S. citizen captured bearing arms in the war theater is NOT entitled to habeas corpus. He is entitled only to a minimal military hearing without a jury and without many of the traditional due process protections.. (Some apologists for the National Defense Authorization Act are claiming the Hamdi case granted a right of habeas corpus; this claim is flatly wrong.)

(4) The 2008 Boumedienne decision, which held that alien Guantanamo detainees are entitled to habeas corpus and a civilian hearing to show that they were non-combatants.

Obviously, none of these prior holdings addresses the habeas corpus rights of a U.S. citizen or legal alien apprehended within the U.S. and charged with being an enemy combatant. So there is no Supreme Court case providing the necessary protection preserved by the law’s provision that “existing law or authorities” are preserved.

§ 1022: (b) (1) . . . The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States.
(2) . . . The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to a lawful resident alien of the United States on the basis of conduct taking place within the United States, except to the extent permitted by the Constitution of the United States.

Comment: This section says that the administration is not REQUIRED to keep a U.S. citizen or legal resident alien in indefinite military custody. But it does not prevent the administration from doing so.

When you look at sections 1021 and 1022 of the National Defense Authorization Act objectively, they become scary in their potential. If the administration does try to use it to lock up American citizens without habeas corpus, the Supreme Court probably will void the incarceration and require a civilian trial. But in the normal course of events, vindicating one’s rights could take years.

Of course, in America, we traditionally don’t lock up citizens on mere suspicion. . . .

Or is that is now changing?

SOURCE: Tenth Amendment Center

In private life, Rob Natelson is a long-time conservative/free market activist, but professionally he is a constitutional scholar whose meticulous studies of the Constitution's original meaning have been published or cited by many top law journals. (See: www.umt.edu/law/faculty/natelson.htm.) Most recently, he co-authored The Origins of the Necessary and Proper Clause (Cambridge University Press) and The Original Constitution (Tenth Amendment Center). After a quarter of a century as Professor of Law at the University of Montana, he recently retired to work full time at Colorado's Independence Institute.

"At CPAC this week, I’ll make the case for clarifying the choice facing the American people: our principled plan to restore the American Idea versus the President’s failed agenda of debt, doubt, and decline."

John Hayward of Human Events was also on the call and wrote a great summary Paul's message,

Little of what lies ahead will be work for the faint of heart. Ryan has the optimism and energy of a man who believes he faces a great struggle that can be won... without the naivete of one who believes victory is inevitable. His strategic objectives are to "get us out of debt, back to prosperity, back to a free enterprise system." There is a large and organized contingent in Washington, with outposts across the nation, that does not want to do any of those things. They can shout louder than Paul Ryan, but they don't make nearly as much sense as he does.---See Rest of Human Events article here

Paul Ryan:  "On nearly every policy front, the President has made matters worse.  But I believe the American deserve better than simply a referendum on President Obama’s failed policies. They deserve a choice of two futures."

Town Hall's Kevin Glass: Paul Ryan Promises More Bold Action on Entitlements

"As reformers, it is our task in the year ahead to make clear the reform agenda needed to get us back on track – to get our economy growing, to tackle the rising cost of health care, to strengthen health and retirement security for all Americans, and to lift the crushing burden of debt so that hardworking families can prosper. We need reforms that expand opportunity and upward mobility."

"We must tackle head-on the President’s false attacks and failed policies, while advancing a broad coalition for principled solutions."  

"If we give the American people a clear choice, I have faith that they will reaffirm our Founding principles, giving us the moral authority to get America back on track."

More on Paul Ryan: Prosperity Action

For a Detailed Schedule of Events at this years CPAC 2012,  download this PDF

We look forward to his speech and attending CPAC, please click here for more details

Much closer to the average homeowner, property rights are being violated as restrictions are put on a homeowner’s ability to add on to the house or make improvements. In some extreme cases, access roads to houses are disallowed; even normal repairs are interpreted as new building and are banned. There are new building restrictions that dictate the kinds of materials that may be used for building and repairs. Now private homes are being invaded by electric companies, replacing, without permission, electric meters to comply with new regulations. Homeowners are losing their ability to even control their own thermostat.

In some communities, to meet arbitrary energy restrictions, local government is forcing homeowners to install new energy efficient appliances and windows,and even new roofs, on occasion. There are reports of inspectors actually entering homes and systematically removing incandescent light bulbs and replacing them with the new green models, without the knowledge and against the will of the property owner. Repairmen are instructed to lower temperatures on water heaters as they repair them, and so forth.

In short, private property rights, meaning the control of property by the owner is fast disappearing. While Agenda 21/Sustainable Development-inspired legislation gives lip-service to private property ownership, the language usually says something like, ―balance the rights of individuals and property owners with the needs of the community.‖ That line is, in fact, a direct quote from the ―Growth Policy‖ for Great Falls, Montana. Such wording is nearly universal in comprehensive development plans across the nation.

That mindset is growing in local government regulations as Agenda 21 practices are enforced. The promoters understand that their policies are literally ripping apart private ownership of property, but they lack the intestinal fortitude to be honest about their actions. So they acknowledge ―property rights,‖ and hope we don’t question how private control of ones own property is ―balanced‖ with the ―needs‖ of the ―community. How is that done? Who stands for the rights of the individual property owner or private business as government makes the rules to decide the ―needs‖ of the community?

To defend such a policy, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) and planning professionals such as the American Planning Association (APA) which contract with local governments to create such rules, come armed with an arsenal of experts ready to defend the anti-property rights policies whenever challenged. So, if a property owner appears before the County Commissioners to complain that a certain regulation has damaged his property rights, or perhaps has damaged his ability to conduct business, for example, the NGOs immediately jump into action to defend the policy. They bring in a battery of ―experts‖ with officials titles to write official sounding reports that serve to overwhelm the elected officials and cut off any honest debate. A local citizen simply has no chance to fight back against this heavily-funded, powerfully-connected onslaught.

Obviously, if Agenda 21 and its mindset of government control is to be reigned in, clearly, something needs to be done to provide a strong voice for protection and defense of the property owners. Such a plan of action has now been developed by County Commissioner Cornel Rasor of Bonner County, Idaho. He calls it a Property Rights Council.

Rasor, Chairman of his County Commission, has been an opponent of Agenda 21 and a proponent of property rights for many years. After being elected to the County Commission several years ago he recognized the threat centralized control of development posed to private property and set out to develop a strategy to protect constituents’ property rights and their right to control their own property. As a result, the concept he created is a ―Property Rights Council‖ (PRC) as an official arm of the county government. It now exists in Bonner County, complete with a full time director on the County payroll.

Key to the success of a Property Rights Council is the proper definition of property rights. Scott Bauer, county attorney for Bonner County, Idaho and one of the driving forces to get it established, explained their approach in defining property rights this way: ―Practically speaking for each PRC case -file we translate the expression p”roperty right”with the expression c”ontrol right.” We take a property right to be a right to control some asset, resource, or physical thing. A PRC case is analyzed in terms of whether the proposal advances public control or private control (code for public/socialized property or private property).

Property controlled by a ‘public entity’ is property controlled by an entity that utilizes a measure of socially sanctioned coercion to control the private assets in its possession and to take those assets from private individuals or groups without their full/complete consent. Applying this to land-use controls, new proposed zoning (anti- development or anti-use controls) socialize preexisting privately controlled real property and place it coercively into public control. Using this framework the PRC looks for the mix of public/private control over an asset or assets and promotes more private control and less public.

Further, Bauer explains that the root property rights philosophy used in the PRC is based on John Locke’s theories of natural property rights. This is the same root used by America’s founding fathers, especially Thomas Jefferson, when they created the US constitution. So using such definition as the basis of PRC policy is right in line with imposing Constitutional law through PRC decisions.

Here’s how the Property Rights Council works, as both a protector for property owners and as an official advocate for private property rights: A PRC is a citizen’s council of between 7 – 9 citizen volunteers, vetted and approved by the County Commission and assigned the task of researching and offering free market recommendations to resolve property rights conflicts.

The mission of the PRC is to review county government activities and inter-governmental activities to determine whether the activities may cause adverse impact to private property rights. The PRC then is charged with supplying to county officials an opinion on that impact. The review includes study of county, state and federal regulations to assure County Commissioners are aware of their impact on property rights and help them prepare proper action that, at all times, assures protection of private property rights in the legal framework of local government. In short, the PRC does the research and provides free market solutions to elected officials that don’t normally have the time or education to do so.

The PRC will also be charged with training county employees to look for property rights violations as they go about their daily tasks in running county government. This could impact the permit process; the way inspectors treat property owners; elimination of invasive or unnecessary regulations; and over-zealous ticket writers.

Perhaps of most importance, the PRC provides the framework for countering the Sustainablist’s legal assault. Specifically, the PRC will interface with a network of free market think tanks which can and will provide legal opinions, reports, and even lawyers to substantiate the property rights legal position. They provide expertise, credibility and a legal force to counter the massive force of the Sustainablists that now overwhelm county officials when a property rights question is at issue. There is a nation-wide network of free market think tanks through the State Policy Network (SPN).There are other such think tanks available in every state. So, when a constituent comes before the Commission with a complaint, now he will not be alone. He will benefit from the PRC’s efforts to protect his rights.

The PRC will deal with issues ranging from wetlands regulations that usurp private property rights; watershed overlays; and zoning. The process can be used to determine the damage caused by such federal regulations as Endangered Species, Conservation Easements, EPA regulations on water and energy use, etc. Decisions made by one PRC could have far reaching effect on those made by other PRCs across the nation. A national database can be established of pending and resolved issues, providing guidance to other PRCs. It will be a precedent-setting decision-making body that could mark the beginning of the restoration of property rights for all Americans.

To assure the PRC contains the proper members (those who advocate and support private property rights) it will be vitally important that the County Commission submit applicants to intense scrutiny as to their ideas and philosophy. PRC members can request the dismissal of another PRC member for cause. The public can request a PRC member be removed for cause. There will be term limits for each member to assure constant movement in the council. The members of the Council will be volunteers.

Commissioner Rasor and Bonner County attorney Scott Bauer are succeeding, under great pressure and criticism, to establish a Property Rights Council to protect citizens and their property from the massive force of the planners who are implementing Sustainable Development across the nation. Their goal now is to help others establish such councils in every community, in every state.

Rasor and Bauer are making themselves available to anyone seeking to create a council. They have created tools and an action plan to help local activists start the process to create their own local PRC. They will teach those interested how to lay the ground work; how to select and approach the proper commissioner to get the ball rolling in their community; and finally to get the whole concept on the docket for consideration. To help with that process, Karen Bracken, a property rights activist from Tennessee is serving as the main contact to help activists get started with their own Property Rights Council. Karen will provide preliminary information, and as the process moves forward, she will connect activists directly with Commissioner Rasor and Scott Bauer for more detailed planning. Karen can be reached at her email address: karenbracken5@gmail.com.

Contact Karen and get started in the battle to secure private property rights as the first step to countering the massive fire power of the vast network of planning advocates, self-appointed stakeholders, and NGOs that have invaded communities across the nation to enforce top-down control over every aspect of your life and property. Property Rights Councils can and will be the ultimate weapon to defeat Agenda 21 and restore freedom.

Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence. Go to americanpolicy.org for more information

The details of the robo-signing scam were spelled out in my last article, here.  The robo-signing fraud and its implications are expanded on below.

Why All the Robo-signing?

Over half the homes in the country are now held in the name of an electronic database called MERS—Mortgage Electronic Registration Services.  MERS is a smokescreen behind which these mortgages were sold to trusts that sold them to investors.  The mortgages were chopped into pieces and sold as “mortgage-backed securities” (MBS), which traded in a supposedly liquid market.  That meant the investors could sell them in the money market at any time on a day’s notice.  Yale economist Gary Gorton gives this example:

Suppose the institutional investor is Fidelity, and Fidelity has $500 million in cash that will be used to buy securities, but not right now. Right now Fidelity wants a safe place to earn interest, but such that the money is available in case the opportunity for buying securities arises. Fidelity goes to Bear Stearns and “deposits” the $500 million overnight for interest. What makes this deposit safe? The safety comes from the collateral that Bear Stearns provides. Bear Stearns holds some asset‐backed securities [with] a market value of $500 millions. These bonds are provided to Fidelity as collateral. Fidelity takes physical possession of these bonds. Since the transaction is overnight, Fidelity can get its money back the next morning, or it can agree to “roll” the trade. Fidelity earns, say, 3 percent.

That is where the robo-signing came in.  Foreclosure defense attorneys armed with the tools of discovery have discovered that robo-signing — involving falsified signatures assigning mortgages back to the trusts allegedly owning them — occurred not just occasionally or randomly but in virtually every case.  Why?  Because the mortgages had to be left free to be bought and sold on a daily basis in the money market by investors.  The investors are not interested in making 30 year loans.  They want something short-term with immediate rights of withdrawal like a deposit account.

The Hazards of Borrowing Short to Lend Long

The problem is that when panicked investors all exercise that right at once, there is no cheap funding available to back the 30 year mortgage loans, rendering the banks insolvent.  And that is what happened on September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers, a major investment bank like Bear Stearns, went bankrupt.

According to Representative Paul Kanjorski, speaking on C-SPAN in January 2009, the collapse of Lehman Brothers precipitated a $550 billion run on the money market funds.  A report by the Joint Economic Committee pointed to the fact that the $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund had “broken the buck” (fallen below a stable $1 per share) due to its Lehman investments.  The massive bank run that followed was the dire news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented to Congress behind closed doors, prompting Congressional approval of Paulson’s $700 billion bank bailout despite deep misgivings.

The sleight of hand that brought the banking system down was that the mortgages backing the money market were supposedly held by trusts that had lent money to homeowners for 15 years or 30 years.  It was the classic “borrowing short to lend long,” a shell game in which banks have engaged for hundreds of years, routinely precipitating bank panics and bank runs when the depositors or the investors all pull their short-term money out at the same time.

The Shadow Banking System Is Still Unregulated

Periodic bank panics were averted in the conventional banking system only when the government agreed to insure the deposits of individual depositors in 1933.  But FDIC insurance covered only $100,000 (now $250,000), and large institutional investors had far more than that to invest.  The shadow banking system, in which deposits were “insured” with mortgage-backed securities, developed in response.  But the shadow banking system is unregulated and is just as prone to another collapse today as it was in 2008.  The Dodd-Frank banking “reforms” barely touched it.  As noted in an article titled “Risky Debt Use on Repo Market Hits 2008 Levels” in today’s Financial Times:

In the repo market, banks pledge their securities as collateral for short-term loans from money managers and other investors.  The market played a key role in the build-up to the 2008 financial crisis. Banks used toxic assets, such as repackaged subprime loans, to secure trillions of dollars worth of cheap funding.

When the US housing bubble burst, the banks’ trading partners refused to accept such securities as collateral and the repo market rapidly contracted.

However, a study by Fitch Ratings says the proportion of bundled debt being used as security in repo transactions has returned to pre-crisis levels.

Using the repackaged loans can increase risk in the repo market, the rating agency says. This is because the securities may be prone to sudden pullbacks such as the one experienced in 2008.

We could be looking at another banking collapse at any time; and to fix the problem, we first need to know what is going on.  The AGs should not agree to drop the curtain on the robo-signing scandal until all the evidence is on the table.  It is not just a matter of punishing the guilty; it is a matter of a banking scheme based on fraud, one that ultimately does not work and has jeopardized the homes, savings and investments of the public not just recently but for hundreds of years.

The Way Out

There is another way to design a banking system.  The deposits of large institutional investors do not need to be backed by sliced and diced pieces of our homes to be “safe” (something that has proven not to be safe at all).  The large institutional investors seeking safety are largely “us” – the pension funds and mutual funds in which we have stored our savings and on which we rely for support when we can no longer work.  Hundreds of years of history have demonstrated that the only reliable guarantor is the government itself.

Our pension funds and mutual funds need a government guarantee just as much as our individual deposits do.  But we don’t want to be guaranteeing the gambling and derivatives schemes of too-big-to-fail, for-profit Wall Street banks playing fast and loose with our money.  Banking and credit need to be public utilities, operated for the benefit of the public in plain sight of the public.

Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute,  http://PublicBankingInstitute.org.  In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how a private cartel has usurped the power to create money from the people themselves, and how we the people can get it back.  Her websites arehttp://WebofDebt.com and http://EllenBrown.com.

The indictment was announced by U.S. Attorney John Walsh, District of Colorado and Michael A. Holt, special agent in charge of the Denver office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The indictment was originally sealed in Denver pending He's return; it was unsealed in San Francisco on Jan. 12.

During his initial appearance Feb. 2, He was advised of his rights, the charges pending against him and the penalties associated with those charges. He is next due in court on Feb. 8 for arraignment and a detention hearing.

According to the indictment, He attempted to illegally export to China radiation-hardened computer memory circuits used in satellite communications, with a value of almost $550,000. The indictment charges He with conspiracy, attempted unlawful export of defense articles and attempted smuggling of defense articles, all related to his attempt to export to China items listed on the U.S. Munitions List. He had been residing in Oakland, Calif.

"Enforcing the Arms Export Control Act is critical to the national security of our country," said U.S. Attorney John Walsh. "Thanks to HSI and the other agencies working with them, we were able to prevent sensitive technology from getting into the hands of foreign nationals overseas who are not legally entitled to possess it."

"Illegally exporting radiation-hardened computer components is a serious threat to U.S. security," said Holt. "Our HSI special agents in Colorado Springs, San Francisco and Los Angeles worked together to investigate and eliminate this threat."

According to the indictment, He, the only employee of Oakland-based Sierra Electronic Instruments (SEI), purchased 312 radiation-hardened circuits from a Colorado manufacturer. The circuits purchased by He are categorized as defense articles within the International Trafficking in Arms Regulations. Lawfully exporting defense articles requires licensing from the U.S. State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls.

On April 28, 2011, an unindicted co-conspirator caused two wire transfers totaling about $489,720 to be sent to He's bank account in California. On or about May 9, 2011, He provided payment in full, $549,654, at the time He placed the order with the Colorado manufacturer. According to the indictment, on or about May 17, 2011, He provided false certification to the Colorado manufacturer that his company was purchasing the integrated circuits for an end-use in the United States only, and that He further acknowledged that the items were controlled by U.S. export laws and could not be transferred, transshipped or otherwise disposed of in any other country without the prior written approval from the U.S. Department of State.

On Dec. 11, 2011, He drove to the Port of Long Beach, Calif. and met with two men in front of a docked ship bearing a Chinese flag. The Chinese-flagged ship was registered to Zhenhua Port Machinery Company LTD, a subsidiary of the China state-owned corporation China Communications Construction. The ship had recently arrived from Shanghai, China, and was scheduled to return on Dec. 15, 2011.

He allegedly concealed 200 integrated circuits in several plastic infant formula containers placed inside five boxes which were sealed and labeled as "milk powder" written in Chinese. He transported the boxes in the trunk compartment of his vehicle. Neither He, nor his company, SEI, had a license to export defense articles of any description.

If convicted of count one, conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) and to smuggle goods from the U.S., He faces not more than five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. If convicted of count two, attempted export of defense articles in violation of AECA, He faces not more than 20 years imprisonment, and a fine of up to $1 million. If convicted of count three, smuggling goods from the U.S., He faces not more than 10 years in federal prison, and a fine of up to $250,000.

The Defense Security Service and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service provided critical assistance to HSI with this investigation. Assistance was also provided by the U.S. Attorneys offices located in the Northern and Central Districts of California.

He is being prosecuted by Special Assistant U.S. Attorney John Canedy with assistance from Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Kirsch.

The charges contained in the indictment are allegations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

“The President is required to submit a Midsession Review no later than July 16 each year.  The President is required to submit a Financial Report of the U.S. Government no later than December 15.  The President is required to submit a plan to shore up Medicare’s finances within 15 days of a funding warning by the Medicare Trustees.

“Not once has President Obama adhered to any of these deadlines:

·         The President’s Midsession Review has never been released by July 16;

·         The President’s Financial Report of the U.S. Government has never been released by December 15;

·         The President has not once responded to the Medicare Trigger.”

This is just one more example revealing that the President is not fulfilling his leadership role in our nation. To read more from the House Committee on the Budget about missed deadlines, click here or read below from a couple of weeks ago

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S MISSED BUDGET DEADLINES

An Unprecedented Disrespect for the Law

 
January 27, 2012The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit his budget request for the upcoming fiscal year no later than the first Monday of February.  Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced that for the third time in four years it will not adhere to this legal deadline.  The Office of Management and Budget cites “the need to finalize decisions and technical details of the document.”[1] This failure to meet statutory budget obligations has become a pernicious pattern for the President and his party’s leaders.  For over 1,000 days, Senate Democrats have failed to pass a budget resolution, ignoring the legal requirement to pass a budget resolution by April 15 of each year.

As House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan recently noted, “The decision to delay the release of his budget again could not come at a more precarious moment for our fiscal and economic future. Rather than tackle these challenges head-on, this President continues to punt, while his party’s leaders in the Senate have simply abandoned responsible budgeting altogether.”[2]

Despite trillion-dollar deficits and a growing urgency for Washington to put its fiscal house in order, President Obama continues to demonstrate an unprecedented disrespect for his legal obligations.  A review of the historical record reveals that no administration has so flagrantly ignored its budgetary roles and responsibilities.   The House Budget Committee has compiled a chronological review of Presidential budget submissions dating back to 1923.  Several key points from the data:

• In just one term, President Obama has missed the budget deadline more than any other President.

• In the 90 years covering FY1923 through FY 2013, President Obama is the only President to miss the deadline two years in a row.  He is the only President who has missed the deadline in three of the four years of a term.  And, he holds the record for the longest delay (at 98 days).

• All Presidents from Harding through Reagan’s first term met the statutory budget submission deadline in every year. In five of these years, a change in the law was requested and passed to extend the deadline, and the President always met it.

• Since the budget process moved the date of submission to the first Monday in February, the incoming President’s first budget submission has been delayed for practical reasons (the President’s inauguration is less than three weeks before the budget submission’s deadline). Yet President Obama’s first budget in his first year set a new record with a 98-day delay for his FY2010 budget.

• Since the statutory deadline was extended to the first Monday in February, with the exception of the first budget for a new President, this deadline has only been missed three times: Clinton FY1998; Obama FY2012; and Obama FY 2013.

The President’s flagrant disrespect for budget deadlines extends beyond the late submissions of his annual budget request.  The President is required to submit a Midsession Review no later than July 16 each year.  The President is required to submit a Financial Report of the U.S. Government no later than December 15.  The President is required to submit a plan to shore up Medicare’s finances within 15 days of a funding warning by the Medicare Trustees.

Not once has President Obama adhered to any of these deadlines:

• The President’s Midsession Review has never been released by July 16;
• The President’s Financial Report of the U.S. Government has never been released by December 15;
• The President has not once responded to the Medicare Trigger.

The President’s failures to meet his legal obligations are symptomatic of a failure to meet his more critical moral obligation to the American people by tackling our most pressing fiscal and economic challenges.

Last Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee in a 10-8 party-line voted to expand the U visa program as part of legislation to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), S. 1925.  Specifically, S. 1925 would significantly increase the annual number of U visas by permitting the “recapture” of thousands unused visas from prior years.  (CQ Today, Feb. 2, 2012) Senate Democrats voted to expand the U visa program as part of the VAWA reauthorization bill sponsored by Judiciary Chairman Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) in spite of the program’s lack of safeguards and inherent incentives to exaggerate claims in order to receive a green card for oneself and one’s family. (SF Weekly, Mar. 16, 2011)

Congress created the U nonimmigrant visa in 2000 to allow aliens who have suffered substantial physical or mental abuse as a victim of domestic violence, rape, or certain other crimes to obtain temporary legal status if they help law enforcement prosecute those crimes. (INA § 101(a)(15)(U))  The annual cap for U visas is 10,000 (excluding visas for immediate family members of victims), and U visa holders can remain in the country for four-years at a time, receive work authorization, and are eligible for a green card after three years. (INA § 214(p); USCIS Website on U visas)

During last week’s hearing, Ranking Member of the Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), estimated that the VAWA reauthorization bill would add as many as 34,000 U visas in the next fiscal year. “In this instance,” he said, “[Chairman Leahy] wants to go back to 2006 and claim that since we didn’t use all the visas allowed at that time, we should use them now.  We could be talking about 34,000 or more ‘unused’ visas.” (Sen. Grassley Press Release, Feb. 2, 2012)

Unfortunately, the Committee rejected a substitute bill offered by Senator Grassley (R-IA) to implement safeguards against fraud in the U visa program. Under Grassley’s proposal, to be eligible for a U visa, an alien would have had to: (1) report the criminal activity within 60 days; (2) have information that helps identify the criminal if that identity is unknown; (3) provide documentation from a doctor verifying that the alien actually experienced substantial physical or mental abuse as a result of the crime; and (4) the criminal activity would have to be under active investigation or prosecution. (CQ Today, Feb. 2, 2012)

Sen. Grassley was successful, however, in amending the bill to adopt a much-needed reform by increasing penalties for aliens convicted of drunk driving. Under Sen. Grassley’s amendment, which passed unanimously, a third driving under the influence (DUI) conviction would be considered an aggravated felony, making it a deportable offense under the Immigration and Nationality Act. (Id.)

The next step for S.1925 is the Senate floor for a vote by the full chamber.

Obama Administration to Help Visa Holders Find Jobs

The Department of Homeland Security announced last week it intends to issue regulations in the coming months to amend several visa programs in order to help aliens find jobs in the U.S. or keep the jobs they have.  (DHS Website, Jan. 31, 2012)

One of the major changes the Obama Administration intends to enact is expanding the scope of qualifying students who may stay and work for an extended period in the U.S. after graduation. President Obama plans to implement this policy shift by expanding the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program, which currently allows foreign students (F-1 visa holders) who graduate from U.S. colleges and universities in certain fields to remain in the U.S. to work for up to a year following graduation.  (See 8 CFR 214.2(f)(10)(ii))  Last spring, the Administration extended the program an additional 17 months for students graduating with a STEM degree to allow them to remain in the country to work for a total of 29 months upon graduation. (FAIR Legislative Update, May 23, 2011; ICE Press Release, May 12, 2011) The Administration’s latest announcement proposes to expand eligibility for the 29 month OPT program to foreign students currently completing a non-STEM degree so long as they have previously obtained one. The Administration also stated that it intends to continue reviewing additional fields to add to a list of qualifying STEM programs.

Another major policy shift proposed by the Administration is to grant work authorization to certain spouses of H-1B holders. Incorrectly touted by the business lobby as a “high-skilled” visa program, the H-1B program allows employers to petition for an alien to come to the U.S. to fill a vacancy in a “specialty occupation” that may not even require a four-year degree. Under the Administration’s proposal, certain spouses of H-1B visa holders would be allowed to work, taking scarce American jobs, while the H-1B holding spouse seeks a green card.

Other changes announced by the Administration would:

• Allow spouses of student visa holders to enroll in academic classes;
• Loosen documentation requirements to be eligible for an “outstanding professor and researcher” visa (INA § 203(b)(1)(B));
• Allow E-3 and H-1B1 visa holders to continue working for up to 240-days after their visa has expired; and
• Create an initiative to explore how current immigration law can be exploited to expanded entrepreneurial visa programs.

According to DHS’ website, the initiatives are aimed at making the U.S. “more attractive to highly-skilled foreign students and workers, thereby improving the competitiveness of U.S. companies in the world market and stimulating U.S. job creation.” (DHS Website, Jan. 31, 2012)

The Administration’s announcement flies in the face of research refuting the need to bring in foreign workers to fill STEM jobs. In November, FAIR’s research department released a report revealing that:

• There is no evidence that there is, or will exist in the foreseeable future, a shortage of qualified native-born scientists and engineers in the U.S.;
• Wages in STEM occupations have not kept pace with those of other college graduates; and
• Some employers even acknowledge that foreign workers were often prepared to work for less money than U.S. workers and this factored into the employers’ hiring decision.

(See FAIR Report, Jobs Americans Can’t Do? The Myth of a Skilled Worker Shortage, Nov. 2011)

The Administration did not state how soon these changes would be taking effect, merely that they would be sometime in the “future” and were part of the Administration’s dedication to “comprehensive immigration reform.” (DHS Website, Jan. 31, 2012)

House, Senate Judiciary Republicans Seek Action on Cook County

Last week, leaders from both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees took action to spotlight the Cook County, IL ordinance that obstructs the deportation of criminal aliens.  The ordinance, passed by the Cook County Board of Commissioners last fall, instructs county jails to ignore Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers placed on criminal aliens in local custody and bars ICE access to County facilities for investigative interviews or other purposes. (Cook County Code Sec. 46-37; FAIR Legislative Update, Jan. 17, 2011)

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, House Judiciary Chair (R-TX) demanded an explanation as to whether the Justice Department plans to sue Cook County to strike down the legislation.  “The safety of the residents of Cook County is at stake,” reads Rep. Smith’s letter. “Particularly when the Justice Department has proactively filed suits against localities that enact legislation that simply assists in the enforcement of federal laws, it is inexcusable that the Department has not consider[ed] filing suit against localities that blatantly defy our immigration laws,” he concluded.

Senate Judiciary Republicans sent a similar letter last week, addressed to both Attorney General Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano. Expressing incredulity at the Administration’s inconsistent policies, the Senators’ letter reads, “It is ironic and frustrating that the Administration has filed suit against several states for passing laws that aim to protect their citizens and help enforce immigration law while essentially turning a blind eye to jurisdictions that actively promote safe harbor policies.” (Read the letter here; see also Sen. Grassley Press Release, Jan. 30, 2012)

Both letters sent by the House and Senate cited a Jan. 4, 2012 letter sent from ICE Director, John Morton, to the President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, Toni Preckwinkle, expressing serious concern over the ordinance. (FAIR Legislative Update, Jan. 17, 2011) The letters also highlight the hypocrisy of Cook County enacting policies to ignore detainers while still requesting millions of dollars in federal funds through the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) for the reimbursement of holding aliens in local jails.  

Cost Study Attempts To Undermine AL Immigration Enforcement Law

Last week, the University of Alabama Economist Samuel Addy released a study on the state’s immigration enforcement law, HB 56, concluding that the law’s costs are greater than its benefits.  (Addy Report, January 2012)  Specifically, Mr. Addy finds that HB 56 will cause illegal aliens to leave Alabama, leading a “reduction in aggregate demand.”  (Addy Report, p.1)   The reduction in demand, Addy says, will cause: (1) a loss of jobs in the state, (2) a reduction in Alabama’s gross domestic product, (3) a reduction in state income and sales taxes, and (4) a reduction in local sales taxes.

Mr. Addy reaches these conclusions by setting forth what he calls a “cost-benefit analysis” of the law.  Addy sets forth several “potential economic benefits” of HB 56 to the state.  These include: (1) savings of public benefits provided to illegal aliens, (2) improved public safety, (3) more business, employment, and education opportunities for legal residents, and (4) restoring the integrity of state programs and services.  (Addy Report, p.3)  Remarkably, however, Addy dismisses these benefits as minimal and fails to attributes any dollar amount to them.  For example, he merely describes savings from public benefits given to illegal aliens, including public education, as “likely to be small and decline over time.” (Addy Report, p. 4)  FAIR estimates that the annual cost of educating children of illegal aliens alone is $187 million.  (FAIR National Cost Study, p. 48 (2010))

Unlike his analysis of the law’s benefits, Mr. Addy is more explicit about what he perceives to be the costs of HB 56.  According to Addy, these include: (1) the costs of implementation, enforcement, and litigation, (2) Increased costs for citizens, legal residents and businesses, (3) Damage to the state’s reputation reducing economic development opportunities, and (4) Economic impact of reduced aggregate demand.  (Addy Report, p. 5) Addy spends the bulk of his cost analysis focusing on what he believes will be reduced economic demand resulting from illegal aliens leaving the state.   This reduced demand, Addy concludes, will cause the state to lose anywhere from $2.3 to $10.8 billion in economic activity—an “estimate” in which the highest figure is nearly five times the lowest figure.  (Addy Report, p. 9)

In addition providing a lopsided cost-benefit analysis, Professor Addy’s principle argument is that a reduced population necessarily means reduced economic activity and therefore loss. This ignores the fact that a small state may have a healthier economy and tax revenue per capita than a much larger state.  (Gross State Product) GSP only measures the sum total of economic activity in Alabama.  It is not an indicator of economic prosperity or income levels, or a measure of the standard of living in the state.  Quality of jobs is more important than quantity in determining the economic health. If that were not true, a state would be as willing to host sweatshops as high tech manufacturing plants, which Professor Addy is implying Alabama should do.

Moreover, Professor Addy assumes that employers will not make the adjustments necessary to convert to a legal workforce by offering better wages, conditions, and benefits.  Many of the jobs done by illegal aliens only exist because employers have had access to low-wage, illegal labor.  Jobs necessary to the economy will remain, will offer better pay to legal workers, and will boost tax payments as well as reducing costs of providing for unemployed and /or impoverished legal residents of the state.

Ironically, the most reasonable conclusion from Professor Addy’s study is that HB 56 works.  His analysis of the impact of HB 56 is predicated entirely on the fact that illegal aliens will leave Alabama.  Thus, Professor Addy has acknowledges that increased enforcement will deter illegal immigration.

Arguments in Arizona SB 1070 to Take Place in April

Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear oral arguments on April 25 in the Justice Department’s suit against Arizona over its immigration enforcement law, SB 1070. (Reuters, Feb. 3, 2012; see FAIR Legislative Update, Dec. 12, 2011) The Supreme Court announced in December that it would review the case, but had not yet announced when oral arguments would take place. (See U.S. Supreme Court Order, Dec. 12, 2011) The Court is expected to hand down its opinion in late June.

For the first time, the Justice Department has made public a series of sensitive messages that passed to the highest levels of the agency within hours of an ambush that killed a U.S. border patrol agent along the Southwest border in December 2010, igniting a national scandal over a gun trafficking investigation gone wrong.…

The email messages show the former top federal prosecutor in Arizona, Dennis Burke, notifying an aide to Holder via email on Dec. 15, 2010 that agent Brian Terry had been wounded and died. “Tragic,” responds the aide, Monty Wilkinson. “I’ve alerted the AG, the acting Deputy Attorney General…”

Only a few minutes later, Wilkinson emailed again, saying, “Please provide any additional details as they become available to you.”

Burke then delivered another piece of bad news: “The guns found in the desert near the murder [sic] … officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about – they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store.”

Are we supposed to believe that Wilkinson “alerted” Holder to the news of Terry’s death, but did not mention the more devastating revelation shortly thereafter that the guns linked to the crime were purchased in Phoenix?! This hardly seems credible.You will recall Holder testified before the House Judiciary Committee on May 3, 2011, that he only had known about Fast and Furious for “a few weeks.” However, documents released by CBS News in October 2011 show Holder was receiving weekly briefings on Fast and Furious as far back as July 5, 2010. (See the documents here.)

Holder later said he did not understand the question posed to him by the committee and amended his claim, saying he may have known about the gun-running operation for “a couple of months.” But that still doesn’t square with the timeline suggested by the growing heap of credible evidence, which now includes a smoking gun email to Holder’s Deputy Chief of Staff linking Fast and Furious to the Brian Terry murder – all the way back in December 2010.

 Senate Republican Charles Grassley, who has been helping lead the charge to investigate Fast and Furious, said the report did not “pass the laugh test.” House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight Chairman Darrel Issa (R-CA) did not back down one bit from his previous threats to hold Holder and DOJ officials in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over documents regarding the scandal in what he suggests is a massive cover-up.

Meanwhile, in his congressional testimony on Thursday before Issa’s committee Holder continued to contemptuously deflect criticism and blame.

While noting that, thus far, no one at the DOJ has been disciplined for the Fast and Furious scandal, Holder then used his testimony to blame the scandal on Congress for failing to pass more gun control laws. He also suggested the whole Fast and Furious mess was just a political witch hunt. As reported byThe Washington Examiner:

Attorney General Eric Holder attributed the difficulty preventing gun-trafficking into Mexico to weak gun controls laws, when he blamed on the U.S. House, with particular reference to the House investigators asking him about Operation Fast and Furious.

“ATF’s ability to stem the flow of guns from the United States into Mexico suffers from a lack of effective enforcement tools,” Holder told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today. “Unfortunately, in 2011, a majority of House Members – including all members of the majority on this Committee – voted to keep law enforcement in the dark when individuals purchase multiple semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, and long guns – like AK-47s – in gun shops in four southwest-border states.”

Holder also suggested that the political partisanship is motivating the investigation. “I am determined to ensure that our shared concerns about these flawed law enforcement operations lead to more than worn-out Washington ‘gotcha’ games and cynical finger pointing,” he said.

This was no “flawed law enforcement operation.” This was an unlawful, dangerous and deadly blunder by the Obama DOJ that has led to the death of one person, and will likely kill many more – by Holder’s own admission. The attorney general must pay for this monstrous scandal with his job. A criminal investigation of his possible perjury is also warranted.

As you know, Judicial Watch has commenced a full investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal, filing Freedom of Information Act requests and related lawsuits. (You can read more about our investigationhere.)

Obama Doubles Down on Secrecy

 Another Judicial Watch secrecy battle gained international attention this week with the publication of a news story in The Atlantic Wire regarding JW’s dogged pursuit of the bin Laden death photos. JW filed a lawsuit to obtain them while the Obama administration continues to cling to the bogus claim that they must be withheld for vague national security reasons.

(Meanwhile, as I pointed out last week, the Obama Department of Defense (DOD) evidently had no problem leaking classified details of the Navy SEAL raid that led to bin Laden’s capture and killing to a Hollywood filmmaker to help make the president look good.)

Here’s what The Atlantic Wire had to say about our lawsuit and the Obama administration’s latest legal response:

The American public may finally bear witness to some, but probably not all, of the postmortem images of Osama bin Laden taken on the night he was killed in Pakistan. That’s the conclusion of Dan Metcalfe, the former director of the Department of Justice’s Office of Information and Privacy, after reading the government’s response in a lawsuit from activist group Judicial Watch seeking “all photographs and/or video recordings” taken during the raid in Pakistan.

“If you look closely at one small segment of the government’s brief, it in effect concedes that there are reasonably segregable, non-exempt portions of the records that are legally required to be disclosed,” Metcalfe told The Atlantic Wire.

Metcalfe, The Atlantic Wire notes, has defended the federal government in more than 500 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits in his career. And in his view the Obama administration “overplayed its hand” by making the overly broad assertion that all bin Laden images are off limits due to national security claims. And, more importantly, Metcalfe suggests government lawyers left a large loophole in their brief through which some of the bin Laden photos could likely slip.

Here’s why.

The Obama administration notes in its legal response to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that, “…even if any sensitive information about specific intelligence methods or specific military operations could be redacted from the records, as Judicial Watch suggests, the remaining material – i.e., post-mortem images of the dead body of the former leader of al-Qi’ada – would still be exempt from disclosure.”

So, in essence, government lawyers admit that “sensitive” information could possibly be segregated. (The FOIA experts interviewed for The Atlantic Wire article indicated the federal government could easily “chop up or slice” the images currently being withheld into non-sensitive material.)

Judicial Watch attorneys very carefully, and repeatedly, made reference to the segregability issue in a court filing, noting that the Obama administration defendants “fail to provide any evidence that visuals of tactics, techniques, procedures, or personnel cannot be segregated from the visual of bin Laden’s body.”

According to FOIA law, the government must release all information responsive to a FOIA request that can be segregated from sensitive or classified material. This mandate was reaffirmed by an executive order signed by President Obama on December 29, 2009.

Nonetheless, when questioned by Politico during a White House press conference on January 26, 2012, White House spokesman Jay Carney repeated President Obama’s position on the photos/video sought by Judicial Watch. Here’s the relevant excerpt from the press conference:

Q Thanks, Jay. I just want to ask about the photos of the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound. There have been reports that some of them may be released.

MR. CARNEY: Was that in the British media? (Laughter.)

Q No, that was actually in the Atlantic Wire — thank you. The President had said previously that he does not favor the release of any of these photos. Couldn’t there be portions of the imagery that could or should be released without implicating national security?

MR. CARNEY: I honestly have not seen those reports. The President’s position on the release of images of Osama bin Laden, in particular, was very clearly stated at the time and has not changed. I would have to either refer you to the Defense Department on the broader question of other photos that may exist, and I can take that question as well.

The Obama White House won’t be able to get away with glib references to the British tabloids in court to distract attention from its failure to follow the law. There they must defend their secrecy in light of the dictates of FOIA law. And like the experts interviewed for the Atlantic Wire story, we believe there is no way to defend the Obama administration’s legal position on the bin Laden death photos.

Stay tuned. Our lawyers will file a response to the Obama administration with the Court on February 8

Federal Court Criticizes Obama DHS on Stealth Amnesty Document FOIA Secrecy

Judicial Watch is locked in numerous battles with the Obama administration to force the release of government documents on a wide range of scandals, including government bailouts, Fast and Furious, Obamacare and illegal immigration, to name just a few.

In fact, we’ve filed over 325 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the Obama administration so far. And we have filed 44 FOIA lawsuits in federal court against this administration. This number grows by the day. We’d file more, but we only have so many lawyers.

All of this is to say that we know very well the games that Obama administration officials play to keep records secret from the American people- in violation of law. But it’s very helpful when a federal court recognizes this gamesmanship as well. And that’s what happened last week.

On January 27, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a ruling criticizing the Obama Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for failing to abide by FOIA law in a Judicial Watch lawsuit seeking records related to the agency’s policy of suspending some illegal alien deportations. (By way of review, this scandal involves a new policy by the Obama DHS to “prioritize” deportations, allowing illegal aliens to remain in the United States without fear of removal, including violent criminals.)

We filed our original FOIA request with DHS on August 30, 2010, and filed a subsequent lawsuit on March 23, 2011, after DHS stonewalled the release of records. The Obama administration filed a Motion for Summary Judgment in the lawsuit on August 4, 2011, asking the court to end Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.

The decision by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly was a bit of a mixed bag. She granted DHS’s motion regarding some select records, but also denied the motion in part while chastising the agency for its inadequate explanations as to why it was withholding certain documents. Here are the highlights from her ruling, which you can read in full here.

• Regarding assertions of attorney-client privilege, the Court listed a series of “egregious” examples demonstrating DHS’s unwillingness to specify reasons for exempting documents from disclosure and concluded, “In the end, DHS’s generalized and non-specific showing fails to satisfy the Court that the attorney-client privilege has been properly invoked in connection with the information withheld from Judicial Watch.”
• The Court drew the same conclusion with respect to DHS’s assertion of the attorney work-product privilege, which protects materials “prepared in anticipation of litigation or for trial by or for another party or its representative.” The Court ruled: “Absent a more particularized showing from DHS, the Court cannot conclude that DHS has applied the appropriate standard in this case…”
• Regarding the deliberative process privilege, which protects “documents reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising a part of the process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote, “The Court agrees with Judicial Watch that DHS has failed to provide sufficient factual context for much of the information withheld under the deliberative process privilege to allow the Court to conclude that the privilege has been properly invoked.”

Now, given the Obama administration’s obfuscation here, Judge Kollar-Kotelly had the ability to force DHS to disclose the records. But she went another route, allowing DHS one “final” opportunity to establish the applicability of these privileges to the information withheld from Judicial Watch.

As an aside, I find it a bit frustrating that private citizens and organizations have to cross every “t” and dot every “i” in FOIA litigation or risk having the hammer thrown down by the courts. Yet the federal government can outright lie, deny, stonewall and play every dirty trick in the book to avoid abiding by the law and still receive more chances to satisfy the court.

Nonetheless, the court’s ruling does clearly show the secrecy gamesmanship of the Obama DHS. And we’re pleased the court would not allow DHS to continue its contempt for FOIA law. We will aggressively continue our legal pursuit of these records.

There is no question that the Obama administration wants to obscure the truth about its lawless illegal alien deportation policy. And the Obama DHS believes it should be able to withhold records from the American people without explanation or justification.

The Obama administration’s campaign to suspend the deportations of most illegal aliens has been subject to intense scrutiny since 2010, when the press uncovered a United States Citizenship and Immigration Services memo that contemplated various “administrative alternatives” to bypass Congress and implement stealth amnesty for illegal aliens. A subsequent Houston Chronicle story exposed an effort by the administration to suspend the deportations of illegal aliens who supposedly have not beenconvicted of any “serious” crimes.

However, documents previously uncovered by Judicial Watch show that DHS officials misled Congress and the public about the scope of the immigration enforcement policy change, which gave wide latitude to local immigration officials to dismiss illegal alien deportation cases – including the dismissal of charges against illegal alien criminals convicted of violent crimes.

With the “cat out of the bag,” the Obama administration then officially announced that it would effectively halt any enforcement actions (on an alleged “case-by-case” basis) against any illegal alien who has not committed any other “serious” crimes. And then the administration immediately put this plan into action, using Denver, Colorado, and Baltimore, Maryland, as test cases for this dangerous and unlawful policy. According to The Associated Press:

In a trial run of a politically divisive program, U.S. prosecutors in Denver and Baltimore are reviewing thousands of deportation cases to determine which illegal immigrants might stay in the country – perhaps indefinitely – so officials can reduce a huge backlog by focusing mainly on detainees with criminal backgrounds or who are deemed threats to national security.

Federal deportation hearings for noncriminal defendants released from custody were suspended Dec. 5 for the review and resume this week. Similar reviews are planned across the country to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to focus deportations of illegal immigrants on those with criminal records or those who have been deported previously.

So now you see why our battle over these DHS records is so important. The idea of suspending illegal alien deportations is no longer a theoretical exercise. It is established national policy. Amnesty by Obama administration fiat is here. This is a constitutional crisis that you won’t hear about from the liberal media or, frankly, from much of anyone else these days.

And if the Obama administration is willing to release documents to Judicial Watch showing administration officials are lying when they say illegal aliens with criminal records will still be deported under this policy, just imagine the records they’re still trying to conceal. We need to know every detail about how and why this policy has been implemented to know best how to stop it.

CPAC 2012

Judicial Watch, one of America’s largest conservative grassroots organizations, is taking a leading role in CPAC 2012. If you are going to be in Washington DC for CPAC next week, please join us.

On opening day of CPAC in the Virginia Ballroom on Thursday, February 9 at 9:30 a.m., Judicial Watch will be hosting a press conference event announcing an important effort to help protect the integrity of the 2012 elections.

On Friday join us in the main stage area in the Marriott Ballroom as I moderate the panel discussion “Obamacare: Why It’s Unconstitutional and What Conservatives Need to Do” from 1:25-2:10 p.m. (The event immediately follows a scheduled presentation by Gov. Mitt Romney.) Then on Friday evening, Judicial Watch is sponsoring the premiere event at CPAC: the Ronald Reagan Banquet. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is the scheduled keynoter for that special evening. To watch these events via the Internetclick here during the scheduled time.

Saturday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. in the Taft meeting room we will be teaching a seminar on how you, too, can put the Freedom of Information Act to work to uncover government secrets.

Also, please feel free to come visit our information booth at any time in the Exhibition Hall during CPAC 2012.

Until next week,

Tom Fitton
President

Judicial Watch is a non-partisan, educational foundation organized under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. Judicial Watch is dedicated to fighting government and judicial corruption and promoting a return to ethics and morality in our nation’s public life.

Zeghal is formally affiliated with Harvard's Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. She was, to say the least, unprepared for the rise of Islamist politics in the Arab states over the past year. In a Harvard event in February 2011, she downplayed the role of radical movements like the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab upheavals, stating, in the words of the Harvard Crimson:

That the unrest should be seen as a nationalist revolution, rather than as a religious one like the 1979 Iranian Revolution. ... "If the Islamists come back -- and they have started to come back -- they will have to participate in a democratic transition as any other movement," Zeghal said.

Unfortunately, she was wrong: Islamists have used the Arab uprisings of 2010-11 for a power-grab, disregarding a "democratic transition."

Harvard also runs a Center for Middle East Studies (CMES), which includes an Outreach Center directed by one Paul Beran. The Outreach Center has been "awarded National Resource Center status by the US Department of Education's Title VI program and serves educators, students and the general public on topics related to the Middle East region."

Beran, who received his doctorate in international studies at Northeastern University in Boston, teaches "'Introduction to the Conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories' (GOVT E 1960/W) and 'Introduction to Middle East Politics' (GOVT E 1970/W) at the Harvard University Extension School, and directs the Egypt Forum, a program of training for K-12 educators on Middle East region studies and Egypt." He is also a member of the "Global Education Advisory Council for the Elementary and Secondary Education Department of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts," through which he influences the treatment of Middle East issues in the state's public schools.

A Presbyterian, Beran has been prominent in agitation for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel within that Christian denomination. In a December 11, 2005 speech to a "Teach-In And Organizing Conference" at Harvard on "Israel/Palestine: Where Do We Go From Here?," Beran declared:

Until now, those who acted as if 'Israel is always right' enjoyed a near monopoly over U.S. attitudes. Calls for divestment, however, have the potential to become the Achilles heel for pro-Israel perceptions in the U.S. ... [A]n angle with which to view such campaigns is that they carry the potential to be effective tools for waging a non-violent guerilla struggle [against Israel]. ... The first step for divestment campaigns is to have a broad base of cross-community support on which to fall back when the Zionist backlash against the campaigns commences. ... [C]ampaigns for divestment must be ready to fight.

On the same occasion, Beran referred contemptuously to the Anti-Defamation League, a leading American Jewish civil rights organization, as "that modicum of high browed Zionism."

Through the CMES Outreach Program Beran has mimicked ACMCU, the Harvard Islamic Studies Program, and other academic facilities in the West by embracing uncritically the claims of democratization in the Arab turmoil beginning in 2010, while continuing to focus negatively on Israel and its policies. Its roster of "Teaching Resources" proclaims breathlessly that teachers may "[e]xplore the Arab Transformation through Outreach Center presentations, lesson plans and teaching resources, articles, videos, artifacts and more!"

But the CMES Outreach Program inventory of broader "resources" includes material that is both objectionable and absurdly trivializing in its approach to Middle East issues.

For example, it offers as an item in its "Library Highlights Catalogue" the 2001 Iranian-made film Kandahar, directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, in which David Belfield, alias Dawud Salahuddin, Hassan Tantai (in his film credit), and Hassan Abdulrahman, is a star. Problem: Belfield, an African-American Muslim, confessed in an interview with ABC News 20/20 broadcast in 1996, and reaffirmed in a 2005 New Yorker profile and a New York Timesinterview in 2009, that he had assassinated Ali Akbar Tabatabai. A former employee of the Iranian Embassy in Washington under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Tabatabai was slain on his doorstep in Bethesda, Md., in 1980. Belfield committed the act as a paid mercenary of the new Iranian regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and he remains a fugitive from American justice.

CMES also commemorates the 2007 "Boston Palestine Film Festival" at the Harvard Law School, which screened "USA v. Al-Arian," a documentary supporting Sami Al-Arian, who pled guilty to conspiracy to provide services to the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and "Occupation 101," by Sufyan and Abdallah Omeish. The latter, we are told, "details life under Israeli military rule, the US role in the conflict, and the major obstacles to a viable peace." Other films at the event attacked Israel's security wall and alleged Israeli abuse of water resources.

The CMES Program's "Teaching Resources" are clearly aimed at young people, with such items as "Teaching About the Middle East Through Comics and Graphic Novels," "Teaching About the Middle East Through Hip-Hop" -- i.e., "rap music" -- and "Graffiti, Street Art, and Political Protest."

Under the rubric of "Curriculum Guides, Publications, and Fact Sheets," the program offers a list of "Young-Adult Literature on Israel Palestine," all "available from the Outreach Center." Of the six books included therein, four explicitly justify Palestinian violence against Israel, beginning with the unambiguously-titled A Stone in My Hand, by Cathryn Clinton (Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2002; grades 5-10). This book is described as follows:

Set in Gaza City during the first intifada in 1988, this is the story of 11-year old Malaak and her family. Malaak shows resilience through immeasurable losses. Written by an American author, this historical fiction attempts to portray the realities of the Israeli occupation in Gaza from a Palestinian perspective.

Other titles in the "Young Adult" list include Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood, by Ibtisam Barakat (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007; grades 4-10), and If You Could Be My Friend: Letters of Mervet Akram Sha'Ban and Galit Fink, by Litsa Boudalika (New York: Orchard Books, 1998; grades 6-10). The latter consists of a "collection of letters written from 1988 to 1991 during the time of the first intifada ... correspondence between a Palestinian girl living in a refugee camp in the West Bank and an Israeli girl living in Jerusalem." The list also recommends Samir and Yonatan, by Daniella Carmi (New York: Arthur A. Levine Books, 2000; grades 4-8), in which "[a] Palestinian boy comes to terms with the death of his younger brother, killed by an Israeli soldier."

Materials for public school use additionally feature "Teaching Sense Making Around Israel/Palestine: Power Point Introduction," a propaganda presentation signed by Beran himself. This "teaching aid" identifies "Five Problems" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "Refugees[,] Borders[,] Resources[,] Jerusalem[,] Settlements." "Palestinians as terrorists" is identified as an "unsophisticated" view, while "Israel is hegemon" figures as a "sophisticated" approach.

The same catalogue entices teachers with a Gaza Fact Sheet that endorses the Israeli pro-Arab group B'tselem but neglects mention of the terrorist Hamas movement, which controls the territory. The Outreach Center's search engine turns up lectures and readings by or drawn from the Israel-bashing discourse of Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and Edward Said.

It is clear that Harvard CMES and its director, Paul Beran, are committed to the adoption of a one-sided, anti-Israel, and pro-Arab introduction to Middle East issues for American schoolchildren. In its "subtler" way, the Harvard approach is as bad as or worse than that pursued by John Esposito at Georgetown.

Stephen Schwartz is executive director of the Center for Islamic Pluralism. He wrote this article for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Stephen Schwartz
American Thinker
February 5, 2012

http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/02/harvards_middle_east_outreach_center_propaganda_for_teachers.html

An unexpectedly rosy jobs report set off a chain reaction Friday, upending economists' gloomy predictions for the coming year, leading to a surge on Wall Street and potentially boggling the political calculus of the 2012 presidential campaigns.

The surprise — that the unemployment rate had dipped for the fifth straight month, to 8.3 percent — was first reflected in the stock market, where the Dow Jones industrial average soared to its highest mark since the beginning of the financial crisis. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, meanwhile, hit an 11-year high.

By noon, President Obama, whose reelection chances have been threatened by the nation's economic woes, seized on the figures as proof that the recovery from the recession "is speeding up."

They should convince us (along with numerous previous articles of late on the same theme) that there is a mysterious, organizing force behind Obama that has thrown its weight behind his election. Call it Money Power. Call it the power elite. Obama is its chosen receptacle. They may stop at nothing to gain his reelection.

And even among horrible presidents, he's truly a horror. Bush was a horrible warmonger and statist. Obama is perhaps even a bit less tolerable because of his sanctimoniousness. He doesn't have any principals (none of them do) but he surely believes in "Obama."

Of course it really doesn't matter. They are nothing but employees at this point, though before the Civil War they were perhaps something else. Some of them anyway. He's the latest chosen one, but chosen the way a promising employee is chosen.

Why is Barack Obama the chosen one? Who knows? The obvious answers for those who study conspiratorial – or directed – history is that Obama has Anglosphere Intel connections. His father and mother both supposedly worked for the CIA, or so its been reported at length in the alternative media.

This would explain one reason why Obama's records – even apparently including his kindergarten records – remain sealed. The release of too much data would likely make Obama's connections to the powers-that-be obvious and intimate.

And who are these shadowy powers-that-be? Why, they're what we call the Anglosphere power elite, a group of families initially located in the City of London for the most part that controls central banking around the world.

In aggregate, the power elite consists of these families (one in particular, from what we can tell) plus various enablers and associates in the religious, military and corporate worlds.

It is this small and inconceivably wealthy group that is driving everyone else – seven billion people – toward a New World Order that will resemble a feudal system in which a few will live in mile-long Keeps and the rest will serve in various serf-like capacities.

The ideal carrying weight of the world is around 500 million, according to these elites. We know this from the Georgia Guidestones. These strange, prophetic carvings state clearly how many people should reside on the planet.

The Georgia Guidestones are part of a larger elite "signaling" compulsion. Some believe that this is religious in nature and that the elites in aggregate worship the "Illuminated One."

But there is a much simpler explanation and it has to do with the way campaigns for supremacy are waged. One doesn't merely arrange one's troops and strategies in a certain manner. One also wages psychological war. One may even "signal" one's intentions. Its part of a methodology of demoralization.

Another strategy in the elite toolkit is something we call dominant social themes. These fear-based promotions are designed to frighten middle classes into giving up wealth and power to specially designed globalist receptacles such as the UN, IMF, World Bank, etc.

We recently noticed that Google has recorded thousands of cites for "dominant social theme" and for "Internet Reformation" – both phrases our modest paper has popularized. We're happy to add to the popular vocabulary, though even in aggregate we're certainly no Marshall McLuhan!

We also noticed the "re-elect Obama" meme a while ago and began to write about it. It's proven to be a popular observation. Many in the alternative news press who are apt to cover this sort of thing have noticed the fake "positive economic news" that is starting to be issued out of the controlled mainstream press.

Of course, here at the Daily Bell, we've been charting this power elite meme for quite a while – and we predicted that, if we were correct, the amount and rhetorical energy of the "American economy rising" meme would soon be evident.

We think it is. Such evidence is, to some degree, apocryphal. But it seems increasingly indisputable that the idea the US economy is in a "recovery" and is generating additional jobs has taken root throughout the American media.

Of course, the US is NOT in recovery, from my point of view. The US cannot be in recovery as a collective economy because the economy itself is filled with propped-up financial enterprises that in turn support the failed, monopoly fiat-money system that the power elite for the moment insists on continuing.

The charade expands because there is no other way, apparently, to re-elect Barack Obama. And Obama is seemingly important to power elite plans to create world government. They seem to want to keep him in power for another four years.

There is a lawsuit against Obama in Georgia that may knock him off the ballot in that state. I can't begin to imagine the pressure that will be brought on that presiding judge to ensure that Obama remains in contention in Georgia and everywhere else. [See Ed. Note at end of article.]

This despite the evident forgery of his "long" birth certificate that I've read contains four separate PDF layers and the continuing refusal of the administration to release pertinent personal records. Obama seems to be an obvious elite agent, and I have a sneaking suspicion that much of what he is supposed to accomplish may come in the second term. Call it a hunch.

It seems to me – and we have written about this at length – that there is a pincer-technique in play at the moment. It consists first of all of the Occupy Wall Street crowd controlled apparently by George Soros, which is doing what it can, in aggregate, to cast further doubts on free markets while playing up the sanitizing resources of big government.

The second part of the pincer is the mainstream media, which is whipping up antipathy against Wall Street and the "one percent." This is actually a kind of "French Revolution" strategy intended to foment class warfare. We've written about it at length.

Obama may be called on to do his part by helping to set up a kind of neo-Pecora Hearing in Washington DC. The Pecora Hearings were responsible for the current misery of the Wall Street regulatory regime that has done nothing but allow Wall Street itself to capture the larger regulatory apparatus.

The new Pecora Hearings, if they come about, will likely deal a death blow to America's capital-raising mechanisms and turn the US into a kind of Europe when it comes to entrepreneurial activity. In other words, those who wish to create business and wealth will be subservient to the regulatory and political class.

This would be, of course, the outcome sought by the Anglosphere elite that deems competition "a sin." It is feasible for people to have access to capital, but only those people who are "appropriate" and "chosen."

There is something else going on with Obama, too, which has to do with his skin color and putative Islamic background. He is being positioned as a "citizen of the world" in a disturbing way. There seems to be about him a whiff of globalist strategy that has not yet been exercised.

What this is isn't clear. Perhaps we shall know more if he achieves a second term. And he WILL achieve a second term if the elites have any say in it, or so it appears. The phony meme of an "improving economy" seems to show that clearly.

Anyone who knows anything about Austrian, free-market, business cycle economics understands we're in a bear-market super-cycle when it comes to fiat dollars. This is just like the 1970s, except on steroids. There is NO WAY that a fiat-dollar economy recovers in the middle of a gold-bull market leg. My humble perspective, anyway.

This gold bull probably has a lot further to travel, between the laxness of the silver/gold ratio and the (un)popularity of paper gold. When we see the silver-gold ratio closing and when junior mining stocks are being bid up like bullion we'll conclude the cycle is ending.

Of course, we may never see the end of this cycle. The idea that the elites will tolerate US$5,000 gold or whatever it gets to is a fairly dubious proposition, in my view. Something else may take the place of the current fiat-dollar-reserve standard that has been central to the world's economy for the past 50 years.

If I were a betting man, I'd probably give Obama a second term. Elite backing – if that's what we're seeing – signals a pervasive effort, in my view. It likely extends beyond media bias to programmable voting machines (with no paper trail) and other kinds of programmatic elements that will not leave anything to chance.

So ... four more years of Obama? There are always alternative scenarios, of course. Life is never certain. Someone like Congressman Ron Paul could still catch fire on the national stage and boost himself into true contention. Alternatively, Obama could be knocked off the ballot in various states, etc. It is even (just) possible that Mitt Romneycould win, though that probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

But still ... what we're seeing in the major media confirms my suspicion that the fix is in. Obama may not have performed well but his "sponsors" are signaling that he's still their man. Just watch the ongoing "resurgent economy" promotion expand if you've got any doubts. That may be the key. It's right on time.

The big question in my view is not whether he will be re-elected but what will he do afterwards.

Ed Note: Obama’s name will remain on the Georgia primary ballot, according to a recent ruling by a state law judge. "In a 10-page order, Judge Michael Malihi dismissed one challenge that contended Obama has a computer-generated Hawaiian birth certificate, a fraudulent Social Security number and invalid U.S. identification papers. He also turned back another that claimed the president is ineligible to be a candidate because his father was not a U.S. citizen at the time of Obama's birth ... The findings by Malihi, a judge for the State Office of Administrative Hearings, go to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who will make the final determination." (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

SOURCE: The Daily Bell

© Copyright 2008 - 2012 All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking (FAFMT).

The Reality of Hi-Tech Labor Statistics

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), last year the United States lost 19,740 computer jobs, 107,200 engineering jobs, and 243,870 science jobs. In spite of massive job losses, some 3 million guest workers were brought into the country, including about 100,000 engineers.

In California, a state that has disposed of tens of thousands of teachers, over 12,000 visas have been issued to supposedly meet the high demand for educators. It is incredulous to suggest that we have a labor shortage in the middle of a great depression.

What is truly amazing is that the majority of engineers and scientists working in the U.S. today are here on “temporary” visas; and the result has been a disaster, as over 70% of today’s development projects fail.

Where the myth that we need cheap foreign labor came from

Lester Thurow (b. 1938) was the Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management for 30 years. He has advised presidents and taught socialism to our country’s management and political leaders, convincing them to work against the best interests of the United States.  Among his many accomplishments, he predicted the Soviet Union would defeat Ronald Reagan, thus winning the economic contest; but a year later the Soviet Union laid in economic ruin after the principles that Thurow espoused failed. In 1986, Lester Thurow, Robert Reich, and others created the Economic Policy Institute. The board of directors for the institute includes: Richard Trumka (b. 1949), Ron Gettelfinger (b. 1944), and Andrew Stern (b. 1950). Trumka is the president of the AFL-CIO,  Gettelfinger was the president of the United Auto Workers, and Stern was the president of the Service Employees International Union  and a contributor to the Huffington Post.  Together these three men used union money to back Obama and his policies;  in return Obama made them the three biggest stockholders of GM and Chrysler by stealing the companies from their legitimate owners. In a nutshell, the Economic Policy Institute believes in a one-world command economy where every worker makes what is called a living wage. They spend union dues collected from American workers to support an organization that is dedicated to the deindustrialization of America. A living wage does not mean that everyone makes more money or enjoys a better standard of living. Instead, it means everyone is equally impoverished.  The Economic Policy Institute makes no excuses, using China as their standard, where lucky workers live in state owned dormitories where they are charged for room, board, and medical care. By the end of the year, they end up owing the company (state) money.

Unlucky workers have it much worse. On January 10th some 300 Chinese Foxconn employees who manufacture X-box 360 machines, said they would kill themselves if working conditions were not improved. Foxconn is the world’s largest producer of electronics for companies such as Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and a host of other companies.

If you like this article, you need this book and its only $9.99 Learn More

Foxconn is the largest exporter in Greater China and the second largest exporter in the Czech Republic. Their factories have been described as forced labor camps, where the working conditions are so bad, that anti suicide measures are necessary to keep workers from killing themselves. (See the section on the revival of modern slavery in the book: Totalitarianism: How the Socialist Faith is Destroying America.)

Thurow’s position is hardly original since his Economic Policy Institute is associated with the Frankfurt School, the MIT Sloan School for Business, and the London School of Economics (these are discussed in the book). In support of the “Iron Law of Wages,” the Frankfurt School conducted experiments to determine what a living wage is. These experiments were performed on an obscure African tribe called the “Ik,”  to determine what is necessary to insure “minimal biological survival”.  The “Ik” were chosen to conduct this study for a number of reasons. One was that they are totally motivated by hunger, and the other is they readily give up their children at the age of two.

In 2003, Thurow published the book, Fortune Favors the Bold: What We Must Do to Build a New and Lasting Global Prosperity, where he drops all pretence about the goals of free trade and globalization.  In it he says, “The world is moving from an industrial era based upon natural resources into a knowledge-based era based upon skills, education, research and development...  Businesses located anywhere can manage activities everywhere. National economies are slowly dissolving to be replaced by a global economy.”

Thurow attacks Christianity and American citizens saying, “On the far right, the fear is immigration and the threats it poses to national culture and ethnic homogeneity. Antiglobalizers see the nation to which they are attached, and with which they identify, slowly disappearing. As it does, they lose their sense of importance as someone different and better than someone else... Isolated national cultures,” he says, “are headed toward extinction if they are not already extinct.”  Thurow claims that Christianity is the chief obstacle to globalization, blaming Christians for the Oklahoma City bombing, although Timothy McVeigh was a self-proclaimed atheist.

In Making Globalization Work, former Columbia Professor Joseph Eugene Stiglitz  (b. 1943) actually brags about the supposed China miracle, claiming that he has “lifted a hundred million people out of poverty.”  As chief economist for the World Bank under Bill Clinton, Stiglitz stated this is the goal for the entire world, not just China. For his brilliant insight, Stiglitz received the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics;  but as described in the book, the reality of cheap labor is much darker.

The Myth of “Jobs Americans won’t do”

Not all jobs can be easily outsourced to China or India; for those that can’t, the U.S. government works to bring cheap foreign labor into America, both legally and illegally. The two excuses are a supposed shortage of skilled labor, and that we need cheap foreign labor to do the jobs Americans won’t do. Politicians and Journalists are constantly harping on the need for a temporary work visa program; but the position is blatantly false as there are over 20 different “temporary” worker programs. In addition, some 70% of the Hispanic population in California, and Texas, came from Mexico illegally, and they can’t all be doing jobs Americans won’t do.  The truth is the U.S. open border with Mexico permits millions of underclass workers to depress wages and benefits,  doing jobs that Americans typically do perform, but at higher wages and benefits than the aliens typically demand.  For skilled jobs, 31 percent of all illegal immigrants who actually work take service-occupation jobs, 19 percent are in construction, and 15 percent are in production, installation, and repair jobs. For unskilled jobs, illegal aliens bring crime, disease, and poverty – stressing social and education services beyond the breaking point.

Increasingly if you don’t speak Spanish, don’t even bother to apply. Spanish is slated to be the primary language for education in California,  and is the primary language in many U.S. Cities including Miami.  While job requirements often stress the need for strong communication skills, increasingly this does not mean English.

The Race Card and Immigration Law

Of course, when we demand that immigration laws be enforced, the inevitable race card makes its appearance. The problem is there is no such thing as a homogeneous Mexican race, anymore than there is an American race. In fact, the U.S. Government lists people as non-Hispanic black, non-Hispanic white, Hispanic black, and Hispanic white,  so that equating Mexicans who immigrate illegally to blacks who were persecuted for the color of their skin is a fraudulent one at best. The reality is that the word Mexican describes a nationality, not a race, which makes this a foreign invasion, not the persecution of those who have a legal right to live in this country.

The realities of illegal immigration were demonstrated in California on June 26th, 2011, at the Gold Cup finals between the U.S. and Mexico. Held at the Rose Bowl in California, some 80,000 Mexican fans booed and chanted obscenities at the U.S. team, denigrated the American National Anthem, and trashed the American flag. In contrast they cheered the Mexican team, flew the Mexican flag, and announced the game entirely in Spanish. Reporter Bill Plaschke of the LA Times embraced the display, concluding: “it was uniquely American”, extolling the virtues of multi-culturalism.

Guest Worker Programs Impact on US Labor

The most commonly used temporary work visas are called H and L visas, but these are government programs, so there is nothing temporary about them. These visas have sub categories, the most common of which is the H-1B visa used to bring hi tech people to America, such as mathematicians, chemists, engineers, and programmers. The second most popular is the L category, which is used to bring in business workers, office managers, and secretaries. There is also a P visa for foreign athletes and entertainers.

Lester Thurow praises the H-1B visas because it allows the United States to “let companies import the highly skilled workers they needed to be successful.”  Perhaps the most outspoken advocate of H-1B visas is Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, and one of the richest people in the world. When he was told that the federal government would limit the number of foreign engineers he could bring into the country, he slammed them for not removing the limit.

Contributing to this propaganda is the Danish researcher Jacob Kirkegaard who published Globalization of America: The Role for Information Technology in 2006, and The Accelerating Decline in America’s High-Skilled Workforce in 2007. Kirkegaard worked for the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a Neo-Marxist associate of the Brookings Institute, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  In an example of shameless propaganda, these books purport to prove the need for a more flexible H-1B program to meet the coming shortage of highly skilled workers – stating that unless drastic action were taken, America would not be able to meet its need for engineers. As a result hundreds of thousands of H-1B visas were authorized each year, where each participant can also bring his entire family. When combined with other guest worker programs this amounts to about 3 million workers a year, plus their families.

It should be pointed out that Kirkegaard is a foreign national, and couldn’t care less about improving the future of the United States.

Why Americans are leaving the Engineering Fields

In addition to visas, more and more American students were sold on the promise of a strong demand for scientists and engineers, flooding the universities and tech schools. Today, some 80% of college graduates cannot find jobs,  causing unemployment to explode. Incomes have fallen so low that there is no upside to spending a lot of money and six years in engineering school to pursue a career, where Americans are not welcome. Today graduate scientists with PhDs earn about $35,000 / year while, according to Business Week, the average toll both operator makes about $45,000 / year (depending on the state, this can reach over $100,000 / yr). In contrast, a journeyman engineer in 1994, made about $70,000 / year.

The assertion that there are more jobs than workers is a Scam

To make their case for more foreign labor, globalist companies routinely run ads for positions they have no intention of ever filling, especially foreign owned companies. They then make the claim that they need more visas to meet their needs – lobbying congress for a higher quota. In reality, however, the need for better skilled employees never enters into it, because the visas are filled by random drawings – where skills are never even considered. More often than not, foreign labor is used to replace Americans in existing positions; and while visa fraud is rampant, little is done to stop it.

In 2010, Congress wanted to add a requirement to the TARP bailout that corporations who received U.S. Tax Payers money would be prohibited from using H-1B workers; but Obama refused to sign the bill, which was then changed to specifically allow visas for high income workers, making over $80,000 per year – a salary that these workers never actually see. Today the Obama administration ignores the quotas on guest worker programs, bringing in more and more foreign workers by manipulating immigration laws. As an aside, one of the arguments for the importation of foreign labor is that they pay taxes. The reality is that the law prohibits the withholding of any taxes – as they are exempt from all U.S. taxation.

While workers from India and China are promised large salaries to come here, when they arrive they discover they are actually indentured servants, as the company holds their visa in the corporate pocket. These people end up sharing squalid apartments, or living in an office, sleeping on the floor. This has become a part of the new global labor system, where chattel slavery has been replaced with a new slavery where the victim is not technically owned, and is discarded when he or she is no longer useful.

Conclusion

China is being described as capitalism without democracy, and is touted as the solution to the world’s problems, even though the U.S. hasn’t had anyone in the White House that believes in a free market economy since Ronald Reagan. Remove America’s middle class who support China’s economy by purchasing their goods, and China falls apart too.  The creation of a new world order, composed of two classes, the ruling class and the working (slave) class is precisely what Marx wanted – regardless of the rhetoric.

Today we are witnessing the largest act of treason ever perpetrated by a government against its citizens since the fall of Rome. Both political parties perpetuate a giant fraud that is intended to do one thing, destroy the American middle class. If the country actually wants skilled U.S. workers, stop importing cheap foreign labor, and let the income for highly skilled workers rise to a point where the cost of a college education can be justified – something we call free market economics. Then drop the socialist dogma, and insist that schools actually teach math and science.

Read the Book

If you liked this article, or it helped you to understand what is happening to our country today, you should purchase:

 Totalitarianism: How the Socialist Faith is Destroying America.

This article is about 2,000 words, while volume 1 of the book is over 160,000 words – providing a lot more information. It is imperative that we Americans understand what is broken; otherwise we will be duped into working against our own best interest.

Information contained in the book will challenge almost everything you believe to be true. It describes an ongoing war between Hebrew-Christianity and Socialism, between Good and Evil, and why America is currently losing that war. Central to this description is a documented assertion that Socialism is a faith, the only definition that explains its actions.

A product of 7 years of research, the book presents a view of our nation, world, and history that is unique because it provides something you have probably never heard before, the truth. Unfortunately, the truth is often hard to swallow, but if you want to accept the same old party line, or believe that things are just fine as they are, continue doing what you are doing. If not, this book will help you understand what is happening, and what to do about it. Remember, once the magician’s secret is revealed, the illusion no longer holds any sway.   Learn More

Note: In the interest of full disclosure, the author owned and operated a small engineering services company for 17 years. What put it out of business was cheap foreign competition brought into the country under the Government’s guest worker programs. This wasn’t a case where there was a need that wasn’t being met, as people from India and China displaced Americans who were already doing the job.

Romney being Romney, the first problem panicked him, while the second probably hasn’t even occurred to him — and won’t, unless Gingrich or Santorum surges and a little Tea Party stroking is suddenly in order. So, within hours of the CNN fiasco, Mitt shifted into “I’m from the government and I’m here to help”mode and got jiggy with the minimum wage.·

Beloved of the Democrat-academe-media axis, and thus impressed on the craven Republican establishment, the minimum wage is the safety net in small compass. Whatever wage Romney would nominally make the minimum, the actual minimum wage will remain zero. As the Club for Growth’s Chris Chocola countered, the minimum wage is “an absolute job killer.” To appreciate why, read Kevin D. Williamson’s powerful essay, “Keeping Blacks Poor” (NR, February 2010 – linked here): In one fell swoop, this exhibition in government compassion not only prices low-productivity workers out of the labor market but stokes a crisis of permanent joblessness in some of America’s poorest areas.

It is, of course, impossible that a businessman as savvy as Mitt Romney does not grasp the wages of the minimum wage. He is pandering. He is the GOP establishment candidate. The establishment does not believe electoral success lies in winning voters over with the strength of conservative ideas. Elections, such Republicans believe, are won by batting your eyes at conservatives while planting your feet in the regnant progressive consensus. They are won by saying, “I care.”

Mitt does care. Really. The eye-popping $7 million he has given away to charity in the last two years dwarfs what most of the “rich,” as defined by President Obama, will gross over a decade or three. It certainly compares quite favorably to the beneficence of Senator John Kerry, the well-heeled 2004 nominee of the Poor People’s Party, whose tax returns tended to show a big fat zero on the charitable-donation line. But then, that’s the point, isn’t it? We are a compassionate society because of what ordinary Americans, whatever their means, can be relied on to give of themselves. “Compassion” is not what politicians do with other people’s money.

Where he most craves it, Romney will get no credit for his good works and no acknowledgement of the true intent behind his clumsy words. Progressive operatives are interested only in an edge, not a discussion. The rest of the “social justice” crowd figures that if you’re going to vote feelings rather than economics, then you might as well go with the other guys — they’re the pros. So unfortunately for Mitt, he’s stuck with us Regressives. Yes, we’ll put his faux pas in context and give his good intentions their due. But we’ll also tell you that Mitt Romney, the would-be president, could learn a lot from Mitt Romney, the virtuous citizen — that is, the typically American citizen.

We’ve now had 19 Republican debates, exploring the contestants’ views on everything from Gardasil vaccines to deep-dish pizza. Yet not a single journalist has thought to ask the most important question for a presidential candidate in a constitutional-republic-turned-welfare-state teetering on the brink of financial ruin: “What exactly does the Constitution authorize the federal government to do in order to ‘provide for the . . . general Welfare of the United States’”?

This clause appears in the preamble of Article I, Section 8. Its meaning was fraught with controversy until seemingly settled when FDR, threatening to pack the Supreme Court, cowed the justices into signing off on the New Deal. Progressives insisted the General Welfare Clause was a sweeping grant, citing Hamilton as their champion of omnipotent, centralized government. Though this distorted Hamilton’s notion of general welfare (which was not robbing Peter to pay Paul), the Left maintains that Leviathan is empowered to tax and spend for any ostensibly humanitarian purpose.

Not so. As James Madison explained, the Constitution was designed to limit government. The General Welfare Clause is not an open-ended license to enact someone’s transient notion of humanitarian good — particularly at someone else’s expense. Were that the case, the federal government would gradually eviscerate state sovereignty and usurp the liberties of the people. (See, e.g., the last 70 years.)

The General Welfare Clause, like its companion summons to “provide for the common Defense,” is merely the preamble’s framing of the high purpose behind Section 8’s carefully enumerated powers, which follow. The central government may provide for the general welfare only by those powers: to regulate commerce, see to the integrity of the currency, establish standards for naturalization, raise and equip the armed forces, and so on. If it is not spelled out in Section 8, it is not the federal government’s job — and there is nothing in there about Uncle Sam insuring our retirements, socializing medical care, or dictating a minimum wage.

It is not that Madison was “not concerned about the very poor.” He and the framers were simply possessed of a basic bit of wisdom that eludes us sophisticated moderns: The strength and genius of America lie in its people, not its government. Government, though necessary, tends to corruption, factional self-dealing, and sloth — especially as it gets more distant from the lives it affects.

In a country virtuous enough to produce citizens as civic-minded as Mitt Romney, caring for the very poor — like setting fair wages, educating the young, treating the sick, providing for the aged, achieving “the dream of home ownership,” deciding whether to have the salad or the fries, and the rest of life’s limitless desiderata — is best left to the people. They won’t need a government for most things because they and their private institutions will do a better job; and on those matters where government intervention makes sense, keeping it local is much more likely to keep it responsive, accountable, and affordable.

A few debates ago, Governor Romney wisely said he was proud of the taxes he’d paid because he’d surrendered only what was “legally required and not a dollar more. I don’t think you want someone as a candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes.” Mitt the citizen knew the millions he’d given to charity, despite not being legally required, did far more for the general welfare than the millions confiscated by Washington. Hopefully, Mitt the candidate will figure that out, too. Then, to prove his concern for the very poor, he’ll explain that dismantling the welfare state is the start of compassion, not the end.

SOURCE: National Review Online

Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

1. Detroit: Two Japanese Companies, Four Executives Guilty in Automobile Parts Price-Fixing and Bid-Rigging Conspiracies
   
   Two Japanese suppliers of automotive electrical components, Yazaki Corporation and Denso Corporation, have agreed to plead guilty and to pay a total of $548 million in criminal fines for their involvement in multiple price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracies in the sale of parts to automobile manufacturers in the United States; and four executives, all Japanese nationals, have also agreed to plead guilty and serve prison time in the U.S. Full Story

2. New York: Credit Suisse Employees Charged in Subprime Mortgage-Related Bond Manipulation Scheme
   
   A vice-president and two former managing directors at Credit Suisse were charged with fraudulently inflating subprime mortgage-related bond prices, which contributed to a more than $2.6 billion write-down in the bank’s reported net income. Full Story

3. Tampa: Florida Man Indicted for Attempting to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction
   
   Sami Osmakac, of Pinellas Park, Florida, was charged with attempting to use weapons of mass destruction against persons and property in the U.S., as well as possessing an unregistered machine gun. Full Story

4. New York: Seven Linked to Folk Nation Gang Indicted on Racketeering and Murder Charges
   
   Seven members, associates, and leaders of the violent Brooklyn street gang “Six Tre Outlaw Gangsta Disciples Folk Nation,” also known as the “Folk Nation,” were charged in a superseding indictment with crimes including racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering, murder conspiracy, attempted murder, robbery, assault, and illegal use of firearms. Full Story

5. Newark: Vending Company Executive Charged with Defrauding Pepsi of $2.9 Million
   
   Joseph Belasco, the chief financial officer of New Jersey vending company Culinary Ventures Vending, was charged with defrauding Pepsi Bottling Group of approximately $2.9 million through a decade-long scheme to receive commissions for customer referrals for which he was not responsible. Full Story

6. Los Angeles: Man Sentenced to 35 Years in Prison for His Participation in an Online Child Pornography Bulletin Board
   
   Billy Wade Carroll, of Dayton, Ohio, was sentenced to 35 years in prison and lifetime supervised release for his participation in the Lost Boy online bulletin board, which was dedicated to men who have a sexual interest in young boys and was established to provide a forum to trade child pornography. Full Story

7. San Antonio: FBI and Local Law Enforcement Announce Bandit Shield Initiative
   
   The Federal Bureau of Investigation and regional law enforcement announced the implementation of a new regional crime reduction venture, the Bandit Shield Initiative, which was developed to reduce bank robberies and to assist local, state, and federal law enforcement with their robbery investigations. Full Story

8. Chicago: Strip Club Operators Charged with Concealing More Than $4 Million of Income from the IRS
   
   The operators of an adult entertainment club were charged with conspiracy to impede the Internal Revenue Service in the collection of federal taxes, as well as separately operating an illegal Internet gambling business, in connection with allegedly diverting more than $4 million in unreported income to themselves from the two businesses. Full Story

9. New Orleans: Patient Recruiter Pleads Guilty in Louisiana Health Care Fraud Scheme
   
   A Georgia man pled guilty to his role in a Louisiana-based Medicare fraud scheme involving $1.15 million in fraudulent claims for unnecessary durable medical equipment. Full Story

10. Portland: $5,000 Reward Offered for Information in Fugitive Case

    The FBI is offering a reward of up to $5,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Rick Devan Hendrix, age 56, and Sarah Candace Deswert-Hendrix, age 30, who are wanted in connection with an alleged Internet fraud scheme. Full Story

Of the facts of each case there is no question. Obama has ignored the Little Rock shooting, and, in one of the most egregious whitewashings of jihad in a field thick with competition, termed the Fort Hood shooting “workplace violence.” Any objective examination of either, however, leaves no doubt that Nidal Malik Hasan and Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad were Islamic terrorists performing a terrorist action in the name of Islam, and thus their victims were precisely “military personnel wounded by terrorists.”

In April 2011, Muhammad, an American convert to Islam, explained that he had killed Long in a “jihad operation.” He was not a soldier fighting against Americans on a battlefield, or even apparently an al-Qaeda operative acting on behalf of a recognized terror organization. He was a Muslim who was acting in accord with the teachings of his religion as he understood them – that is, as giving him a responsibility before Allah to wage war against and subjugate unbelievers. He was acting in imitation of his prophet, who said: “I have been made victorious through terror.” And in his terror operation, he killed Private Long.

The Defense Department has taken no notice of Long’s killing; it doesn’t fit their paradigm of what terrorism is and what jihad is, and so apparently they think it is best ignored. But they could not ignore Fort Hood. In January 2010, the Defense Department released its report Friday on the jihad massacre at Fort Hood, and it is hard to imagine a document more full of denial and deception. The Pentagon seemed intent on ignoring and obfuscating the reasons why Hasan committed his murders.

Hasan had passed out Qur’ans on the morning of the shooting, and shouted “Allahu akbar” as he shot. He had raised alarm among his fellow Army psychiatrists by preaching jihad and hatred from the Qur’an when he was supposed to be giving a lecture about psychiatry. Yet despite these and other indications that Hasan was an Islamic jihadist who believed it part of his religious responsibility as a Muslim to wage war against Infidels, the words “jihad,” “Muslim,” “Islam” and even “Islamist” never appear in the Defense Department’s 86-page mélange of droning bureaucratese.

And how does the report propose to make sure that the military is prepared for “similar incidents in the future”? Not by learning anything about Islamic jihad and preparing accordingly. Rather, the report recommends action upon a series of empty, platitudinous recommendations: “identifying and monitoring potential threats;” “providing time-critical information to the right people;” “employing force protection measures;” and “planning for and responding to incidents.” That’s right: the Pentagon recommended that the military could be more prepared for the next terror attack by “planning for” it.

And the irony was thick when the report recommended that the military improve its ability to identify and monitor “potential threats” — this from a report that steadfastly refused to acknowledge the existence of the Islamic jihad doctrine that motivated Nidal Hasan to murder in the first place.

Political correctness was responsible for the murders of thirteen people at Fort Hood and the murder of Private William Long in Little Rock. And if political correctness had not held the political and military establishments in a stranglehold, the victims of these jihads would already have received Purple Hearts. That they have not received this honor is yet another monument to the cowardice and myopia that holds sway at the highest levels in Washington during the Obama administration.

SOURCE: FrontPage Magazine

Robert Spencer is a scholar of Islamic history, theology, and law and the director of Jihad Watch. He is the author of ten books, eleven monographs, and hundreds of articles about jihad and Islamic terrorism, including the New York Times Bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad.

We think it reinforces our perception that the Internet is a process, not an episode. And that's a fairly important perspective. It means that the current Western trend toward what we consider authoritarianism may be contradicted by the very technology that law enforcement is using to track the people that higher-ups consider to be bad guys.

Given that there are tens of millions of non-law enforcement affiliated young men (mostly) that are good at hacking and many fewer law enforcement agents and military ops, the numbers are not on the side of law enforcement. It seems to us that inevitably over time more government information will be compromised and publicized.

Most of the time, the perspective of the alternative media is that the Anglosphere power elite is an implacable entity that will use new technologies to impose a total Orwellian state on the world. But this has never entirely made sense to us, simply in terms of demographics.

There are billions of people who are not "elite" and only a handful who are. When an emergent technology such as is encompassed by the Internet becomes available, the human instinct is to exploit it to the full. Here's some more from the article:

"The FBI might be curious how we're able to continuously read their internal comms for some time now," the group gloated in a message posted to Twitter. Calls to law enforcement officials on both sides of the Atlantic were not immediately returned.

Amid the material published by Anonymous was a message purportedly sent by an FBI agent to international law enforcement agencies. It invites his foreign counterparts to join the call to "discuss the on-going investigations related to Anonymous ... and other associated splinter groups." The email contained a phone number and password for accessing the call.

The email is addressed to officials in the U.K., Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and France, but only American and British officials can be heard on the recording. Emails to the FBI agent and others coded in on the call were not immediately returned, but the discussion itself appears sensitive.

Those on the call talk about what legal strategy to pursue in the cases of Ryan Cleary and Jake Davis — two British suspects linked to Anonymous — and discuss details of the evidence gathered against other suspects.

It is fairly well known (or should be) that Google, for instance, keeps a kind of parallel facility available for US intelligence agents that allows them apparently to utilize company search tools to build a profile for a person. There have been plenty of comments about Facebook being used for similar purposes, and other entities as well.

It is probably safe to say that most or all of the major technological infrastructure has been penetrated and reconfigured to benefit Western Intel. But there is, nonetheless, a corollary to this tremendous authoritarian reconfiguration. It is possible that law enforcement methods now being used in secrecy will become exposed sooner or later as technology expands and adapts to current levels of security.

Over time, as law enforcement privacy abuses become more evident and the number of unfair or illogical laws continue to rise, it is perfectly possible that many on the Internet will find it increasingly fashionable to "strike back."

Why should this be the case? Because as the Internet itself – what we call the Internet Reformation – democratizes knowledge, the Anglosphere power elite that wants to create a New World Order begins to push back forcefully.

It is a kind of circular syndrome. The elites foment war, create unfair laws and generate recessions and depressions in order to keep people off balance and incapable of serious resistance. This sort of strategy works well in most eras. But this is not like most eras. The proximate problem of the Anglosphere is the Internet and its dissemination of information about the Way the World Works to those who choose to look.

The authoritarian tools of the elites are helpless to stem the tide when it comes to the Internet because the 'Net itself acts as a giant magnifying glass, publicizing the very repressive measures taken against it. This won't always be the case, we believe, but it is right now as this young technology continues to unfold. The elites are far better at controlling mature technologies than youthful ones.

Of course, another tool that the power elite uses to ensure its dominance even in the face of a challenge such as the Internet is to create numerous false-flag events that tend to make it more difficult for people to sort out the valid information that resides on the 'Net.

We're certainly not sure that Anonymous, or at least the well-publicized part of it, is exactly what it seems to be. There are aspects of Anonymous that are a good deal too "pat" for us to be entirely comfortable with. But the larger point we're making remains credible, in our view.

The elites can push back in any one of a number of ways but ultimately the weight of this technology may prove too great to withstand. Even were the elites to use the Internet to create military and economic chaos, we think the "order" that the elites are counting on creating as a result may be a good deal more difficult to come by than in past eras.

From the standpoint of the literally millions of individuals who work for Western Intel agencies, the problematic paradigm of the Internet is likely not going to go away. For every abusive sociopath working for an intelligence agency, there is likely a dedicated public servant who believes that what he or she is doing is for the betterment of society and humanity.

But in fact, these Intel agencies at the very top work for the great central banking families that want to run the world. This paradigm, from what we can tell, was developed privately and then migrated gradually to the "state" itself. Thus we have bifurcated Intel ops.

Most personnel are trying to carry out what they consider to be legitimate law enforcement work but at the top, the senior people are enforcing the globalist policies of the elites. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem, but in the Internet era, the steady drip-drip-drip of expanding authoritarianism will gradually raise the level of cognitive dissonance within these agencies.

As the elites take ever-more drastic steps to try to contain the impact of the Internet, they will not only radicalize an increasing segment of the world's population, they will begin to radicalize elements of their own organization.

Intelligence agencies often retain their integrity even when the larger culture is falling apart. But at some point, the same stresses and strains that are affecting the larger culture will become evident within the law enforcement community.

When the larger culture begins to see clearly that laws and wars are being manipulated to serve a larger agenda over which the average person has no say and actually disapproves of, then even those who are sworn to "serve and protect" will become doubtful about some of their assumptions.

Around the world now there are riots and revolutions. Europe, China ... even the US are wracked with social tension and cultural ambiguity. Much of this, in our view, is imposed by the power elite that is intent on creating chaos and installing world government before the Internet undermines the project entirely.

But as the impact of the Internet Reformation continues and expands – regardless of any attempts at "censorship," in our view – the momentum may shift. During the heyday of the Gutenberg Press's impact on society, Europe itself convulsed and the royal family was removed from power in England.

Some of this was no doubt due to power elite infighting but the larger level of chaos, in our view, exceeded anything the elites could entirely control. Various forms of social, economic and cultural enlightenment rose up and were disseminated.

We've dealt a great deal with private justice on this modest website, pointing out that the current "public justice" will be one of the last dominant social themes to become widely questioned.

There is no reason why people cannot resolve their differences without the virtual penal Gulag that the Anglosphere elite has helped develop around the world. Private justice has been the de facto standard for thousands of years, in fact. The more Draconian and unjustifiable the elite's use of public justice becomes, the more it is disseminated on the Internet and the more it builds opposition.

Without the megaphone of the Internet, the elites would apply tried and true repressive techniques with continued impunity and success. But that's not the case when one is in the throes of the world's second great information revolution.

Conclusion: The Internet is a process, not an episode. It is a moving target and while it is roiling the civilian population at the moment, eventually it will have an impact on the elite's intelligence operations as well. Even the elite's vast, intercontinental, neo-Praetorian Guard will not prove immune.

SOURCE: Daily Bell

© Copyright 2008 - 2012 All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking (FAFMT).

Even in the 1980s under the Reagan administration, the media mythos of the US emphasized its marketplace affiliations. The idea was that US civilization was succeeding because it was market based. But this rhetoric seems to have been abandoned in the 2000s.

The US sociopolitical stance, more and more, is one of "bigness" in which large entities are seen as successful or important no matter the reality of their evolution or current status.

It is a kind of trick, of course. Those with access to the levers of power will always be able to create large facilities. The issue is actually the competence of these facilities and whether they fulfill the purposes for which they were created.

Many modern, large-scale entities, especially those with government affiliations, are anything but competent. This is an entirely logical perspective. Large entities are usually advantaged ones. And the more artificial advantages an entity receives, the less apt it is to be exposed to market forces.

The less operative market forces are, the more inefficient and hapless the enterprise becomes – entailing yet more bailouts and special advantages. It is soon a vicious circle, a feedback loop of incompetence and even futility.

Has it been planned that way? The Anglosphere power elite that wants to run the world via global government is not apparently interested in stability or efficiency. Its handful of immensely powerful and wealthy leaders are interested mainly in DESTABILIZATION, from what we can tell. Bigness is yet another resource within their tool kit.

The more the West – and the world – is destabilized, the easier it will be, seemingly from their point of view, to impose world government. Starving, homeless, sick, war-weary populations are apt to put up less resistance to a New World Order than healthy, engaged citizens.

If one was to try to build a New World Order – global government – the logical manifestations would be hunger, misery, pestilence and violence. The causative agent would be bigness – of every kind. The bigger the better – especially if that bigness is buttressed by a bureaucracy supported by taxes and divorced from competition.

And what better way to inculcate bigness than to declare that certain hitherto private entities are "too big to fail"? It is a perfect dominant social theme. These power elite-generated fear-based promotions are intended to separate middle classes from wealth and power while reinforcing globalist agencies.

In fact, the idea that certain businesses are "too big to fail" is merely an extension of the propagandistic effort that gave us our current catastrophic central banking economy, worldwide. State-monopoly central banking is supposed to be an antidote to economic collapse. But always, the power elite will make arguments that are entirely opposed to the reality it wants to inculcate.

If the elites are arguing that government regulations and government funding will somehow make private enterprise more stable, you can be sure the reverse is true. The modern world is based on this sort of sick propaganda, which constantly informs people of solutions that generate exactly the opposite results from those that are putatively intended.

This kind of propaganda-as-program was unleashed on the West at least a hundred years ago, from what we can tell. In hindsight, it seems increasingly evident that those who campaigned for monopoly central banking (like JP Morgan himself) probably had a hand in the Panic of '07 that ultimately led to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act 1913.

Since that time, US government intrusion into all sectors of private enterprise has only grown. Various government activities are routine now that would have generated an outcry even in the 20th century a decade or two ago.

The invasive practices of "Homeland Security" are just on example. Hardly a day goes by without some new and obvious outrage: a child is tasered, an elderly woman with cancer is strip-searched at the airport, innocent people are shot when a SWAT team raids the wrong house looking for marijuana cigarettes.

But as obvious and horrid as these episodes are, the main evolution of government intrusion takes place within the context of sociopolitical policies. When bigness and its justifications are enshrined as statist polity, then fascism itself has becomes the dominant "ism."

This is what is happening now in the United States. Fascism is taking over capitalism not just within the context of a business evolution but as a matter of course. This is no accident, in our view. Its expansion has been falsely justified and then enshrined as law. Here's some more from the article:

A lot of attention has been paid to the law's provision directing regulators to give the designation to big banks and other financial firms, but it also includes a similar process for clearing and payments firms. The law automatically considers any bank with $50 billion or more in assets systemically important. Regulators haven't yet designated any other financial institutions thusly ...

The letters, sent in January, indicate regulators completed the first of a two-stage process to decide which financial-market utilities warrant tougher regulation. In the first step, regulators look at information they already have, such as an institution's exposure to counter-parties and links to other financial institutions, to determine which entities merit further scrutiny ...

Later, the council will vote on individual clearinghouses; a two-thirds majority is required to designate one as systemically important. Those that are ultimately designated so face heightened regulatory requirements and scrutiny. But they could gain new access to some of the Federal Reserve's loans, including the discount window.

It is hard even to begin to unpack the untruths in these three paragraphs. Clearinghouses are a necessary part of the financial process, but guaranteeing clearinghouses with federal money merely ensures that sooner or later there will be a cataclysmic financial disaster. (Ask any thinking person whether there is any facility in the world – government or otherwise – that can guarantee solvency and the answer should be "no.")

Now, those who have created central banks will argue that indeed government – or its agents – can ensure solvency but this is not true. A central bank can inflate away catastrophe via money printing but at some point that same money printing passes the costs of catastrophe onto hapless citizens who are burdened with higher prices and higher taxes as a result.

One trades financial instability for social instability. That's what is happening now, in fact. Extend the trend logically and one begins to perceive that while the financial system has been "stabilized" the social system has been DE-stabilized.

From the point of view of the power elite, social instability is perhaps preferable to financial instability. We reply: Be careful what you wish for.

Then there is the issue of regulation. Every regulation is a price fix, transferring wealth from those who have created it to those who have not and are unable to utilize it as efficiently. Regulations DISTORT economic activity and usually have results that are the opposite of what is intended.

Too-big-to-fail legislation is toxic on every level. It marries government to private industry, drains competition from the marketplace and ensures that the most important elements of the modern financial system are further constrained by regulatory fiat.

Of course, one could argue that the modern system – one that has been built on the monetary fraud of central banking – is not worth saving anyway. We would agree with that, in fact. The current financial system not only deserves to collapse, it DID collapse three years ago.

The dollar reserve system, from our point of view, is already dead. From what we can tell, central banks – at the behest of their controlling power elite – have injected some US$50 TRILLION into the system worldwide.

These horrible numbers are actually incomprehensible. The larger financial system is effectively frozen. It has not been allowed to shed its failing elements, and one could argue, in fact, that these failing facilities have been enshrined at the heart of the system's decisive economic dysfunction.

In other words, the very entities that are the most important to the system's current operation are the ones that should be allowed to fail. They exist only because the system – worldwide – is a kind of elite command-and-control operation that has little or nothing to do with free markets.

But as the current central banking system becomes more and more dysfunctional, the costs of keeping it going are rising exponentially. As we have pointed out, the current environment has a manifest logic, and it's not a pleasant one.

There is no economic justification for "too-big-to-fail" except the brutal logic that government funds must compensate for private failures. This will work for a while, but not forever. Eventually, the dysfunction will be too big even for governments' large pockets. In the meantime, we will have "isms" – specifically, growing fascism in the US. Europe, we would argue, is headed in the same direction.

Remove competition from the marketplace and you end up with a collection of enterprises that perform inconsequential functions incompetently. More importantly, you end up with a federalized private sector and a series of disastrous "public-private" partnerships.

The result is ruin – ruin of every kind. Militarism thrives in a fascist environment. So does a certain kind of ignorance, civic dysfunction and increasingly poverty and civil violence. Chaos looms. Of course, out of chaos ... order. A New World Order. That's obviously the plan.

But as we often point out, we would tend to believe that what we call the Internet Reformation will make the elite's main dream rather hard to achieve. The more that the powers-that-be plot to increase the dysfunction of the Western world and especially America, the more push back is generated, in our view. It may turn out that ordinary people in the Internet era are far more resistant to fascism – statism – than elites currently believe.

Conclusion: Will the world-spanning plans of the Anglosphere be realized? Just as too-big-too-fail is ultimately an insupportable concept, so is the idea of world government. They are both based on enormous economic fallacies and carry within their implementation the seeds of their own destruction.

SOURCE: Daily Bell

© Copyright 2008 - 2012 All Rights Reserved. The Daily Bell is an informative compendium of independent economic views and analysis, which is published by The Foundation for the Advancement of Free-Market Thinking (FAFMT).

The federal government should not be in the transportation business at all. A federal role was rationalized in the mid-Fifties to finance the construction of interstate highways. As National Review’s editors observed in 2005, that project was completed in the early Eighties, at which time the fuel tax that funded it should have been repealed and the upkeep of highways left to the states. “Instead,” they wrote, “Congress morphed the program into a slush fund for some of its most indefensible pork-barrel spending.”

The cover story for this permanent spendathon is that we now have a national highway “system” that ought to be financed by its main users. “Systems” is the abracadabra chanted by the progressives who run both parties when they’re about to pick your pocket. We don’t have a highway “system.” We have 50 states, whose widely varying transit needs are best known, and can be best addressed, by the affected local communities.

Plus, see how easily a “highway system” morphs into a “transportation system.” The taxes that Leviathan confiscates from drivers, purportedly for road construction and maintenance, are actually redistributed to subsidize other forms of transit preferred by progressives — including walking. For that, you can thank Republicans. With a compassionate wink from President Bush, the Republican Congress enacted an obscene $286.5 billion transportation bill in 2005, assigning the act one of those precious Washington acronyms — SAFETEA-LU (who cares what it stands for?). The editors accurately described it as a “monstrosity of wasteful spending.”

SAFETEA-LU featured all the uglies that outraged voters into telling the GOP to take a hike in the 2006 and 2008 elections. These included Alaska’s infamous $250 million “Bridge to Nowhere,” one of the bill’s 6,376 earmarks totaling $24 billion — you know, the sorts of budget-busting recklessness Republicans promised us they’d sworn off in order to get elected in 2010.

One of SAFETEA-LU’s worst aspects — and that’s saying something — was that it blew to smithereens the premise that federal transportation spending must be limited to the federal fuel-tax receipts collected to pay for it. As Red State’s Ross Vought explains, the Republican Congress increased expenditures on transportation by a whopping 31 percent. As the pols well knew, that was leaps and bounds beyond what the fuel tax would generate, especially given that collections flag when spiking gas prices reduce driving.

SOURCE: National Review Online

Rush Limbaugh at the Golden EIB

The GOP base is right to feel their efforts were wasted by Speaker John Boehner’s inept performance with that historic majority, but also indignant that they are mocked behind their backs (barely out of hearing) by the Beltway GOP.

The Attack on Allen West

Worse, independent strong conservative voices in the House like Republican Study Committee chairman Jim Jordan and nowTea Party hero Allen West have recently been or are the targets of the wrath of the GOP Establishment.

Establishment vs. The Base?

The Jurassic-Park-like political encounters between former Speaker Gingrich and former governor Romney for the GOP presidential nomination are seen as a struggle between Mr. Romney as the voice for the GOP Establishment and Mr. Gingrich as a seeming advocate for the Party’s conservative base.

Rush Limbaugh explains –

“Politics is about passion, and the Republican Party doesn’t seem to have it! There’s always fear of somebody. Fear of the media, fear of Democrats. Well, Newt doesn’t act like he’s got any fear. So how many wives does he got? ‘I don’t care!’ What did he do for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac? ‘I don’t care.’ What are his national disapproval ratings? ‘I don’t care! Finally somebody’s telling the bad guys who they are, what to do and that we’re not gonna take it anymore — or that we don’t want to take it anymore.’”

Looking at the policy side,  Mr. Gingrich has apparently confessed error about his support for the individual mandate in health-care financing, but his current support for what is a murky but substantial amnesty for illegal immigrants diminishes him as a reliable voice for the conservative base.

As we have nonetheless written, the former Speaker is clearly unafraid of challenging the Islamist threat, unlike the Beltway voices who fear doing so, and he articulates perhaps better than any other candidate the need for a serious national defense.

Yet his record advancing green statism (the foregoing link is full of useful information apart from a puzzling endorsement of Romney) has been appalling and, to our knowledge, Mr. Gingrich has not revisited his earlier positions on key land-use issues so important to employment today. Here is Myron Ebell (ALEC): “then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich was a Sierra Clubber before he was a Republican.”

Overall, one senses that the former Speaker’s heart belongs to celebrating new techniques and technologies more than to talking up our (by now) unique and historic freedoms.

Believing that governor Romney is any kind of conservative, however, is surely a triumph of forlorn hope over experience.

But the Beltway GOP apparently sees the sometime Massachusetts governor as that nominee most likely to help downstream by electing or re-electing Senate and House candidates to take back the Senate and to keep the House GOPmajority through Mr. Romney’s supposed appeal to “moderates.”

This morning RedState chief Erick Erickson observes –

“Gingrich and Santorum will have to fight both for the conservative vote and to make up ground against the Romney money machine. The odds are long that either can do it. Together, they cannot. One of them will have to depart the race if they want to stop Romney — assuming they do. In all of this, I get the real sense that there are wounds opening up that will not be healed by November of 2012. Mitt Romney, in deciding to run the McCain strategy from 2008, may be doing himself more damage than McCain ever did to himself. We knew what we were getting with McCain. But the Romney of 2012 is a different creature from the Romney of 2008. That has energized many to stop him and kept his support an inch deep. It’s like we’re facing Jimmy Carter and nominating Alf Landon.” ( Alf Landon link supplied; emphasis Forum’s.)

Of course, the immediate objective on November 6 is to elect a replacement for president Barack Obama.

Will the Next GOP President Act At All Like A Conservative?

But consider a case where a newly elected GOP president simply prunes the rough edges of Obamacare, doesn’t take the necessary, if controversial, steps to restore a weakened military, doesn’t use his political capital to reform entitlements, doesn’t rein in the administrative state or slash the regulatory agenda or clean out troubling Obama appointees by then well burrowed into the “career” service, and doesn’t relinquish the new White House powers asserted by president Obama — especially with regard to illegal immigration, and a new president who makes his governing theme avoiding conflict with the Other Team and especially with the Legacy Media.

Would the current GOP Congressional leadership do anything to put such a new president back on track? They may not even recognize that he has gone off track.

SOURCE: Bule Ridge Forum

In 2012, President Obama limited U.S. military capability to fighting one “regional conflict” and one “holding action.” Defense budgets for 2013-2021 were cut $487 billion – a 9% cut at a minimum. “Sequestration,” required by law with passage of the Budget Control Act in 2011, mandates $500 billion more in 2013-2021 defense cuts – an 18% cut, at a minimum.  President Obama has stated he will veto any attempt by Congress to reverse these cuts.

These reports shows how “National Average” defense budget reductions of at least 9% and 18% could affect cities, counties, states, congressional districts and categories of business owners (ethnic, women-owned, veteran-owned etc), using actual 2010 data for revenues received by local defense contractors.  The Defense Breakdown Reports are meant to be used as a benchmark for communities to gauge the actual local economic impact of the Obama administration’s proposed defense cuts on businesses and jobs.

The summaries and online reports are available at: www.forthecommondefense.org/reports.

The Center’s “Defense Breakdown Economic Impact Reports” are part of a broader 2012 initiative, the Coalition for the Common Defense, to educate and engage the American public on the importance of maintaining a strong national defense.

Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy remarked:

“The Center for Security Policy is very proud to provide as a member of the Coalition for the Common Defense a tool for American taxpayers and communities – and their elected representatives – to anticipate not only the national security impacts, but the economic ones, arising from impending reductions in U.S. defense spending.”

“In so doing, we are mindful that such spending is invested to secure the United States, its people and vital interests, and not as an employment measure.  That said, the reality is that there will be real and, as this product illustrates, in some cases draconian impacts on both jobs in and the economies of states, counties and cities across the country and on the viability of various businesses, as a result of the direct and indirect effects of such cuts.”

“It is our hope that by bringing this information to the local employers, citizens and community and business leaders who will bear the brunt of this tsunami, they will be better able to prepare for it – and, ideally, to help stave it off.”

About the Coalition for the Common Defense

The Coalition for the Common Defense is an alliance of like-minded individuals and organizations who believe that without provision for the “common defense,” as articulated by the Founders, the freedom that has allowed unprecedented opportunity and prosperity to flourish in this country would soon be imperiled. In this new age of budgetary cuts, the Coalition rejects the false choice between military strength and economic health contending that economic prosperity depends on a strong national defense. Through a series of events and strategic partnerships, the coalition is calling on elected officials, candidates for office and others who share our commitment to the common defense to uphold these principles.  We must return the United States to sensible fiscal principles without sacrificing our national security.

A full statement of principles can be located here. The Coalition of the Common Defense can be found online at www.forthecommondefense.org.

About the Center for Security Policy

The Center for Security Policy is a non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security and then ensures that such issues are the subject of both focused, principled examination and effective action by recognized policy experts, appropriate officials, opinion leaders, and the general public.

For more information visit www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org.

Yet Bell had the intellectual honesty to make this entirely true observation about the hate and defamation site that is the subject of his pieces: "But for LoonWatch.com any criticism of the Koran or of violent Jihad - even those criticisms that might have some legitimacy to them - even of radical Islam, are branded as Islamophobia and anyone who dares to raise questions about the nearly constant acts of Jihad going on increasingly around the world today is labeled a 'Loon' - thus the title of their blog, LoonWatch.com."

Since I am the subject of obsessive attention at Loonwatch, I am mentioned in the original article as well as in the followup, which Bell wrote after Islamic supremacists and their Leftist tools rounded upon him with predictable and ludicrous charges that he is a right-wing anti-Muslim bigot. I have a few disagreements with his view of me and of the jihad threat in general. He says I have some kind of religious agenda here, which anyone who reads this site will know is false. While I am a religious believer, Jihad Watch is not a religious apologetics site, but a non-sectarian site seeking to provide the context for a broad coalition of people of all perspectives -- atheists, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims of conscience -- who are threatened by Islamic jihad. He dismissively distances himself from my colleague Pamela Geller, ignoring her courageous and pioneering work in, among many other things, raising awareness about the human rights abuses in Islamic law, such as honor killing and the death penalty for apostasy. And he seems to be a bit credulous in accepting the smooth deceptions of Muslim Brotherhood-linked forces behind the building of many mega-mosques around the country, and about the stealth jihad in general.

Nonetheless, I was intrigued by Bell's capacity for independent thought, which is such a rare commodity these days, and willingness to acknowledge that there is a problem within Islam, which is even rarer, so I sent him a note, telling him: "I predict that you will not find anyone on the Left who will be willing to consider the 'correlation between some of the violent passages in the Koran and the Hadiths and many of the acts of brutality being carried out by radical Muslims in the world' [that's a quote from one of his Kos pieces]. However, I do not now and never have considered my work 'right-wing': if defending civilized values against institutionalized violence and religiously justified savagery is 'right-wing,' the Left has a great deal to answer for."

I got this email back from Eric Allen Bell, and he has kindly allowed me to publish it here:

Mr. Spencer -

Very good to hear from you. I made a short documentary called "Not Welcome" (http://www.NotWelcomeDocumentary.com) regarding the backlash against construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, TN. What inspired me to make that film was the same feeling I have now about what is going on in the greater Islamic world. It was my conscience - a sense of justice.

VIDEO LINK: http://vimeo.com/ericallenbell/notwelcome

 

NOT WELCOME (short documentary) by Eric Allen Bell from Eric Allen Bell on Vimeo.

That said, in the process I absorbed a whole lot of information from traditionally liberal sources. I have only recently come around to a hopefully more expansive point of view. When I finally read one of your books for the first time, I kept waiting for the part where you would prove yourself to be a "Loon" so that I could stop reading, but that never happened :)

I watched the documentary, "Islam: What the West Needs to Know" and wanted so badly to prove wrong what I had seen and heard - but I could not.

This was not only humbling but it has caused me to really rethink and rethink the possibility that perhaps the truth is not politically correct.

And more is still being revealed. When I made "Not Welcome" most of the arguments against Islam I heard among the people of Murfreesboro, TN were religiously motivated. People would actually say to me that "America is a Christian nation" and they believed it said this in the Bible. The leaders of the movement were Christian Zionists. It was ugly, and yet their concerns were not entirely unfounded.

So I decided to keep the focus of the film on America and look for ways to convey a message about what I perceive to be a real enemy at home. At that time I did not perceive a real threat to America in the way of "creeping Sharia" and so I left that alone.

But as I watch with great disappointment the developments that have followed the so-called "Arab Spring" I am very, very concerned. Islamism is clearly on the rise, they have weapons, they are not rational and I am concerned.

It means a lot to me to hear from you directly like this. I apologize if in fact I have mis-characterized where you are coming from. In my own defense, the anti-mosque crowd in Murfreesboro, TN were a very nasty bunch - and they love JihadWatch ;) So, perhaps I wrongly judged you by some of them, and if that is the case I am very sorry. I will continue to read your blog and continue to research.

I admire your courage and conviction in being one of the only truth tellers out there about the dangers of Islam, your willingness to use your name and put your picture on your blog, your fearlessness in posting the Mohammed cartoon.

Please feel free to contact me anytime. My sense is that this war of words with Loonwatch (who now have several Islamic websites backing them up and putting my name out on the street) has only just begun.

Peace,

Eric Allen Bell

On a related note, Loonwatch's chief figure, "Danios," has just passed up no fewer than four separate opportunities to debate me -- three hosted at universities and one on ABN -- despite his years of bravado and false claims that I was ducking him. He claimed he wanted to debate the laughable thesis that Judaism and Christianity are just as violent as Islam -- as if armed terror groups worldwide were justifying killing people by quoting the words of Moses and Jesus, killing apostates from Judaism and Christianity, boasting about the imminent conquest and subjugation of non-Jewish and non-Christian lands, etc.

But although I was agreeable and he was full of false bluster about how I was avoiding debating him, ultimately he was too afraid to step up and actually agree to a debate. And I don't really mind, for while it would have been satisfying to defeat him, I doubt anyone would have been enlightened by a couple of hours of him calling me fat, ugly, stupid, and evil, which Reza Aslan-like spittle is essentially all that he and his site can muster in response to the truths I present. They can't actually refute them.

SOURCE: Jihad Watch

More Freedom and More Security

The view that congressional experts can give us the “right” answer is always seductive but often wrong. The risks of error are even greater in a domain, like cyber, where innovations are rapid and technology ever-changing. The conceit that Congress can today set a fixed policy that will guide the nation’s cyber response for the next five to 10 years is ambitious—perhaps too much so.

Thus it is good to see at least one entrant in the field of competing cyber bills that has a more limited approach, one that advances incremental change without making the mistake of presuming to know all the answers.

H.R. 3523 starts from the premise that the private sector already does much to secure its networks and that the major gaps are in law and policy, not technology. Thus, the bill contends that private-sector actors need clearer authority, not more regulation, to detect threats and share information.

This approach rightly recognizes that there are substantial ambiguities in the law—enough to make cautious actors refrain from sharing cyber threat information within the private sector. Likewise, the Intelligence Community could assist the private sector by providing classified threat intelligence to enable self-defense of their networks (a model of sharing that has already been validated by the Defense Industrial Base [DIB] pilot project, recently transitioned from the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security).

Under the Rogers–Ruppersburger approach, ambiguities in the law would be eliminated. Private-sector entities would be given clear legal authority to defend their own networks and share cyber threat information with others in the private sector as well as with the federal government. The sharing would be purely voluntary but legal. This threat and vulnerability information shared with the government would be exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act and treated as proprietary information. In addition, the government would be prohibited from using the information in regulatory proceedings, and the private-sector actors would be protected against liability for sharing any information.

Other provisions of the bill would expand on the DIB pilot and allow the government to share classified cyber threat intelligence more readily with the private sector and suitably cleared individuals.

Public–Private Cooperation

In short, these concepts are based on a cooperative public–private sector arrangement, where government cyber threat information is leveraged to enable the private sector to be aggressive in its own cyber defense. Instead of a command-and-control model that mandates certain actions and contemplates an expanded regulatory state, greater sharing within the private sector and between the government and private-sector actors is a modest first step that would, in a bipartisan way, attempt to harness the creativity and innovation of the American private sector.

Paul Rosenzweig is a Visiting Fellow in the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation.