All Posts (27751)
Video Tape Exposes Union Rush to start “The Revolution”
To those of us who’ve been monitoring the Obama administration carefully, none of this is a surprise. What might be surprising, nay shocking to the rest of America is that The Revolution has already started . . . the first steps toward Lerner’s planned for destabilization are underway already. Lerner, who is a high official involved with finances for one of the country's most-powerful unions, SEIU, has a secret plan to "destabilize" the country. Which, Thank God! are no longer secret . . . .
Stephen Lerner -- is the architect of the SEIU's groundbreaking “Justice for Janitors” campaign. He led the union's banking and finance campaign and has partnered with unions and groups in Europe, South American and recently in the Middle East in campaigns to hold financial institutions accountable and destabilize governments. As director of the union's private equity project, he launched a long campaign to expose what he called “the over-leveraged feeding frenzy of private equity firms during the boom years that led to the ensuing economic disaster.”
I don't know how to have a discussion about labor and community if we don't first say what do we need to do at this time in history what is the strategy that gives us some chance of winning because I spent my life time as a union organizer doing justice for janitors, a lot of things. It seems we are at a moment where the world is going to get much, much worse or much, much better
Unions are almost dead we cannot survive doing what we do but the simple fact of the matter is community organizations (Like ACORN, Rajjpuut) are almost dead also and if you think about what we need to do it may give us some direction which is essentially what the folks that are in charge - the big banks and everything - what they want is stability
Every time there is a crisis in the world they say, well, the markets are stable. What's changed in America is the economy doing well has nothing to do with the rest of us. They figured out that they don't need us to be rich they can do very well in a global market without us so what does this have to do with community and labor organizing anymore?
We need to figure out in a much more through direct action more concrete way how we are really trying to disrupt and create uncertainty for capital for how corporations operate. The thing about a boom and bust economy is it is actually incredibly fragile.
There are actually extraordinary things we could do right now to start to destabilize the folks that are in power and start to rebuild the movement. For example, 10% of homeowners are underwater right now -- their home is worth a lot less than they’ll end up paying for it. 10% of those people are in strategic default, meaning they are refusing to pay but they are staying in their home that's totally spontaneous they figured out it takes a year to kick me out of my home because foreclosure is backed up. If you could double that number you would; you could put banks at the edge of insolvency again.
Students have a trillion dollar debt. We have an entire economy that is built on debt and banks so the question would be what would happen if we organized homeowners in mass to do a mortgage strike if we get half a million people to agree to it; it would literally cause a new finical crisis for the banks not for us we would be doing quite well. We wouldn't be paying anything. Government is being strangled by debt
The four things we could do that could really upset wall street:
1. One is if city and state and other government entities demanded to renegotiate their debt and you might say why would the banks ever do it - because city and counties could say we won’t do business with you in the future if you won’t renegotiate the debt now.
So we could leverage the power we have of government and say two things, "we won’t do business with you JP Morgan Chase anymore unless you do two things: you reduce the price of our interest and second you rewrite the mortgages for everybody in the communities. We could make them do that
2. The second thing is there is a whole question in Europe about students’ rates in debt structure. What would happen if students said, “We are not going to pay” ?? It’s a trillion dollars. Think about Republicans screaming about debt a trillion dollars in student debt
3. There is a third thing we can think about what if public employee unions instead of just being on the defensive put on the collective bargaining table when they negotiate they say we demand as a condition of negotiation that the government renegotiate - it’s crazy that you’re paying too much interest to your buddies the bankers it’s a strike issue - we will strike unless you force the banks to renegotiate.
4. Then if you add on top of that if we really thought about moving the kind of disruption in Madison, Wisconsin but moving that to Wall Street and moving that to other cities around the country.
We basically say, "you stole seventeen trillion dollars - you've impoverished us and we are going to make it impossible for you to operate. Labor can’t lead this right now so if labor can’t lead but we are a critical part of it we do have money we have millions of members who are furious. But I don't think this kind of movement can happen unless community groups and other activists take the lead. If we really believe that we are in a transformative stage of what's happening in capitalism.
Then we need to confront this in a serious way and develop real ability to put a boot in the wheel^^ then we have to think not about labor and community alliances we have to think about how together we are building something that really has the capacity to disrupt how the system operates. We need to think about a whole new way of thinking about this not as a partnership but building something new.
We have to think much more creatively. The key thing. . . What does the other side fear the most - they fear disruption. They fear uncertainty. Every article about Europe says as they rioted in Greece the markets went down. The folks that control this country care about one thing how the stock market goes what the bond market does how the bonuses goes. We have a very simple strategy:
- How do we bring down the stock market?
- How do we bring down their bonuses?
- How do we interfere with their ability to be rich?
And that means we have to politically isolate them, economically isolate them and disrupt them. It’s not all theory I’ll do a pitch.
So a bunch of us around the country think who would be a really good company to hate we decided that would be JP Morgan Chase and so we are going to roll out over the next couple of months what would hopefully be an exciting campaign about JP Morgan Chase that is really about challenge the power of Wall Street. And so what we are looking at is the first week in May can we get enough people together starting now to really have an week of action in New York I don't want to give any details because I don't know if there are any police agents in the room.
The goal would be that we will roll out of New York the first week of May. We will connect three ideas:
- that we are not broke there is plenty of money
- "they" have the money - we need to get it back
- and that they are using Bloomberg and other people in government as the vehicle to try and destroy us
And so we need to take on those folks at the same time and that we will start here we are going to look at a week of civil disobedience - direct action all over the city then roll into the JP Morgan shareholder meeting which they moved out of New York because I guess they were afraid because of Columbus.
Where we have brave and heroic battles challenging the power of the giant corporations. We hope to inspire a much bigger movement about redistributing wealth and power in the country and that labor can’t do itself that community groups can’t do themselves but maybe we can work something new and different that can be brave enough and daring and nimble enough to do that kind of thing.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/seiu-union-plan-to-destroy-jpmorgan#ixzz1HN3ZPmnt
Where Do You Stand On Libya?
Whether you are against Muammar Qadhafi and his regime or not, it must be recognized that enforcing a no fly zone over Libya is tantamount to a declaration of war. Both Admiral Mullen and Defense Secretary Gates have acknowledged that to enforce a no fly zone would require the destruction of Libyan air defense capabilities, amounting to an attack on Libya, a sovereign state that has not attacked the US and a country where the U.S. has very little if any interests.
Granted the civilian casualties are atrocious and the U.N. has voted to take all steps necessary to protect the civilian population, our Constitution provides that the Congress make declarations of war, in Article. I. Section. 8. “The Congress shall have Power to declare War, grant letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water”, although the President is “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States”, he has no such power to declare war.
It is the duty of the Congress to take the U.N. resolution under consideration, to debate the proper course of action and to weigh the U.S. options and expense. The U.S. Congress must make the decision to invade a sovereign state under a declaration of war and it is the President’s responsibility as Commander in Chief to carry out such declaration. It is the duty of the Congress to appropriate the funds and to determine the scope of the war effort if a declaration of war is to be made. Are we to just enforce a no fly zone along with other allied partners, who is in control of such an allied effort, what branches of our military will be committed, are we only to protect civilians, are we wanting a regime change, are we supporting the rebels, how much money are we authorizing the expenditure of, these and a litany of other questions are up to the Congress to debate and authorize action upon.
Keeping tight rein on Constitutionally limited powers in a case such as this should fall under the Tea Party’s aim to restore Constitutionally limited government. We must insist that the U.S. Congress stop abdicating it’s responsibility and take up the debate on an authorization and declaration of war. We must insist that the President present before the Congress and seek such authorization, as the U.S. Constitution requires. To require the Congress to debate and authorize the spending in such a war effort should come under the Tea Party’s goal to restore fiscal responsibility and cut spending. We should insist that the Congress appropriate the funds and establish limits to the spending and scope of the conflict or to direct the President to withdraw our troops.
Remember, every penny spent on this new war effort will add directly to the deficit unless the Congress will vote to redirect other funds, which is unlikely given the resistance they have exhibited toward making any substantive spending cuts.
I urge all of you to contact your Representatives and Senators and ask them to take up the debate on the declaration of war against Libya and to set the rules for the engagement and appropriate the funds to do so, if the Congress concurs, as the Constitution requires. You may reach their offices at (202)-224-3121 or Toll Free (877)-762-8762. You can also reach them at their local offices, email or fax, by going here: http://www.congress.org/congressorg/dbq/officials/
Thank You, for all that you do for Freedom!
For Liberty’s Sake,
Tom Whitmore
Check out the Lt. Col., he could be somebody IF we could get him to run for President. What says you???
Big East Tournament Teams
Prove Unworthy in NCAA Battles
It was a stupid, stupid thing to do and the results were highly predictable. “It” in this case was the lunacy of the NCAA’s selection committee on Selection Sunday putting eleven Big East teams into the NCAA 2011 Men’s Basketball Tournament and top-seeding two of those teams (one at #1 and another at #2). The Big East has done nothing to justify that kind of reverence from the selection committee; and more importantly, history predicted they would do little.
Given that the Big East’s track record in the 2010 tournament was a combined record of 8-8 futility from its eight entrants and none of them made the Final Four -- one can only regard this year's selection committee as eaters of loco weed. At present, only the Big East Champion UConn Huskies and the under-rated Marquette Golden Eagles are still in the NCAA hunt. Some mighty good teams like Colorado, Cleveland State, Missouri State, and Harvard had to stay at home because the selection committee decided that mediocre teams from the Big East were more exciting and more competitive than strong teams from other areas.
Rajjpuut suggests that the selection committee stifle its erection for the Big East and adjust their thinking in terms of fairness. For example, in a 16-team league only the top seven teams should qualify at a maximum; in a 12-team league only the top 5 qualify at max; in a ten team league a maximum of four qualifiers; and a maximum of three qualifiers from an eight-team league. The play of Butler (from the always ignored Horizon League), to name just one upset-hungry fivesome, both this year and last shows that the top teams in some of the lesser-reputed conferences deserve far more respect . . . and that goes for tough runner-ups in those conferences. Green Bay-born Rajjpuut, for one believes that Colorado would have easily handed every Big East entrant except for U. Conn its head had they been allowed into the tournament. The Big East largely sucked this year and last, the only question is “Why?”**
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Rajjpuut suggests that teams that are struggling for high positions in their conferences gain a certain edge that mediocre teams never get. Certainly teams in 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th place in an over-rated conference have little to brag about. Only two of the Big East losses have been to other Big East teams this year.
In the well-researched blog by Torm Howse concerning the legal mandate required of Obama, or any other President, to have his records exposed for the public domain, the point is made quite clear that this is a legal and Constitutional requirement. The only thing that Mr. Howse left out, however, is the simple fact that Pelosi, Reid, and the entire Congress of the United States are guilty of "misprison of felony", essentially just as guilty as the usurper for not doing the job they are Constitutionally obligated to do. Pelosi, in particular, as she devised and signed TWO different certifications, one for Hawaii, citing eligibility, and the other, ignoring it by not mentioning it. This is unprecedented, criminal, and treasonous, and completely in line with all the other un-Constitutional and illegal acts this and many other Congresses have taken over the decades. This just happens to be the MOST egregious in our history.
It is stunning, to say the least, that this will not be brought to light in any venue where it will make a difference, as in Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, or Limbaugh (although Micheal Savage does hit it pretty hard.)
The entire rest of the Lame Stream Media are predictably out-to-lunch, doing all they can to support an illegal alien who is "fundamentally transforming" the greatest nation on earth, because he's got skin color, and an idea that has been a murderous failure for all of human history, and some folks just get all ginned up about thinking that this is a really great new idea. Given his history, and that of his Kenyan communist father, whom he apparently patterns himself after (read his own words in "Dreams From My Father) this should come as no surprise, and is a clear blue-print as to who we're dealing with, and a glimpse into the future as to what we should do to defeat this ideology.
It is unfortunate, but well within the realm of the "playbook", that anyone who speaks up about this will be hyterically and loudly decried as conspiracy-theorists, nutcases, and far-right lunatics.
I say to you all---the volume of their denunciation, is a direct indicator of their guilt, and the inherent truth of the matter. So, we NEED TO BE LOUDER. Truth can NEVER be realized, when it is only spoken of in whispers.
from Multi-State Bankruptcy
If ugly truth is worse to you than lovely myth, go read someone else’s blog, I won’t myth you. Most Americans are woefully ignorant of their foundations and the great vision of the Founding Fathers. Over the years the progressive minority has attacked those foundations and the Founding Fathers incessantly and used that ignorance against us as they seek to destroy our Republic and replace it with a communist state. Progressivism, after all, is a desire to “progress” beyond the “ill-conceived and outdated” American Constitution in order to achieve progress toward a progressive-socialist (Marxist?) utopia on earth.
Barack Obama believes that American Exceptionalism doesn’t exist and never actually existed. Most Americans feel there’s something definitely wrong with the President’s approach to things, but find it difficult to point a finger at exactly what’s not right. Let me give you a clue. The word “democracy” that he and others bandy about so pointedly is meaningless.
A. Justice and Freedom count; democracy can be misused and often is and doesn't matter
C. Democracy among ignorant folks has happened often in history and the resulting mob rule has never been pretty
E. Democracy among savages amounts to nothing more than Thugocracy and often Theo-Thugocracy.
Right now there is great talk of democracy in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, Yemen and Bahrain all Islamic countries. The chances they will degenerate into theocracies like Iran are excellent. And Iran is definitely a Theo-Thugocracy. In a recent survey in Egypt a week before Dictator Mubarak was ousted, 85% of those surveyed approved of Shariah (strict Islamic code) “Justice” and Shariah Law. That is, 85% of the Egyptians think stoning people to death for not being a good Muslim; for adultery; for teaching other religions; believe that raped women must have four male witnesses to back up their case; think thieves should lose their hands; and see public lashing as fit punishment for women failing to cover themselves properly from head to foot . . . how much is democracy worth among such savage people?
Democracy is certainly over-rated. Here in America, we have a Republic and the most successful republic in history and American Exceptionalism is alive and well, but severely threatened by Mr. Obama and his cohorts. The most Republican documents in our nation are: Paine’s Common Sense; the Declaration of Independence; The Constitution of the United States; The Bill of Rights added to the U.S. Constitution; and recently two more have been added . . . The TEA Party’s “Contract from America;” and the Republican Party’s Pledge to America. Perhaps two or three American in every 1,000 have read all six of these documents: a great pity that so many are so willfully ignorant. Here are some brief excerpts to serve as background before we get to the meat of this discussion with links to the whole documents provided so that the ignorant folk you know might be educated:
“America is more than a country
“America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good.
“America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny.
“Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.
“These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans.
“In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.” From “A Pledge to America” a 2010 document of the Republican Party
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/milestones/commonsense/text.html
“SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and this he is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore, security being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably follows that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to us, with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all others.” From Common Sense by Thomas Paine
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed . . .” from the Declaration of Independence unanimously approved by the 13 colonies
http://archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” The Preamble to the United States Constitution notice the huge size of the first three words . . . .
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
“Amendment X
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” as added to the U.S. Constitution four years after the Constitution was approved. Of the 27 Amendments to the Constitution, the first ten are the vital Republican documents cementing our freedoms and limiting government known as the Bill of Rights.
http://www.contractfromamerica.com/Idea.aspx
The Contract from America
We, the undersigned, call upon those seeking to represent us in public office to sign the Contract from America and by doing so commit to support each of its agenda items, work to bring each agenda item to a vote during the first year, and pledge to advocate on behalf of individual liberty, limited government, and economic freedom.
Individual Liberty
Our moral, political, and economic liberties are inherent, not granted by our government. It is essential to the practice of these liberties that we be free from restriction over our peaceful political expression and free from excessive control over our economic choices.
Limited Government
The purpose of our government is to exercise only those limited powers that have been relinquished to it by the people, chief among these being the protection of our liberties by administering justice and ensuring our safety from threats arising inside or outside our country’s sovereign borders. When our government ventures beyond these functions and attempts to increase its power over the marketplace and the economic decisions of individuals, our liberties are diminished and the probability of corruption, internal strife, economic depression, and poverty increases.
Economic Freedom
The most powerful, proven instrument of material and social progress is the free market. The market economy, driven by the accumulated expressions of individual economic choices, is the only economic system that preserves and enhances individual liberty. Any other economic system, regardless of its intended pragmatic benefits, undermines our fundamental rights as free people.
1. Protect the Constitution
Require each bill to identify the specific provision of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to do what the bill does. (82.03%) From the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party Contract from America in which Americans voted on their top ten issues and resolutions from among 24 key proposals. In the case of this #1 “plank” 82.03% of respondents thought that it was vital and it became the #1 issue for the TEA Party.
In fairness, Rajjpuut has included some input from “the other side”: When Barack Obama wrote his first autobiography, Dreams from My Father, here are the dreams he was referring to from his father’s article in the “East Africa Journal” as taken from a liberal website:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9610.html
http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_eastafrica.html
“Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100 per cent of income . . . I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more . . .” From Barak (no ‘c’) Hussein Obama’s article “Problems with our socialism in the East Africa Journal
So, the question naturally becomes, “Besides Obama’s attacks upon American Exceptionalism and his utterly weak foreign policy, what exactly is it that Barack Obama, the progressives of both parties, the Democratic hierarchy and the union leadership are doing that threatens to destroy the American Republic? We could write whole volumes . . . .
Three main things come to mind: 1) Undermining the American Dollar and preparing its elimination as the world’s reserve currency right now thanks to Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Banks’ unrestrained money-printing, theoretically the 2011 dollar is worth about 3.2 pennies from the late 2008 dollar 2) Bankrupting the federal government with trillion dollar deficits and refusing to aim for a balanced budget and reduction of runaway federal spending and 3) Setting up multi-state bankruptcy so that the individual states (re-
read the 10th Amendment above) will be made so weak and so totally dependent upon the federal government that all power will reside in Washington, D.C. and the federal government will run the life of the country totally and completely with the states no more than weak agencies of the federal government.
One of the overlooked aspects of Obamacare is that it mandates state takeover of much of the present federal side of Medicaid and of a great share of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. These provisions would bankrupt all 50 of the states sometime between 2022 and 2026.
The main reason that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats did not pass a fiscal-2011 budget is that they had hidden $105 Billion in set-up fees (unconstitutionally hidden in Obamacare’s 2,900 pages. That is, they illegally took away all power from future congresses to control Obamacare and to save the states from financial ruin. If they’d passed a budget that $105 Billion would have stood out as stark evidence of their malfeasance. That final copy of the 2,900 page bill was given to the House to vote on just two hours before the vote. At that last minute, a cave-in by so-called anti-abortion Democrats led by Michigan’s Bart Stupak passed the bill (on receipt of a one-page promise from Barack Obama that no federally funded abortions would ever be part of Obamacare – so far over 200,000 have been paid for under Obamacare) with every Republican and 32 Democrats voting against it.
Barack Obama wants to nullify the power of the states and the power of the individual citizens guaranteed by the 10th Amendment and his and the Union leadership's assault on Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and Michigan aims to hamstring all the states with government workers unions once and for all.
Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
I'm new here, and I'm new to this posting stuff, so please bear with me.
I'm also a farmer, so I get all the latest details regarding ag. subsidies.
Let me tell you about the lastest brilliant program.
Greenhouses. In Nebraska. For growing edible vegetables only.
1) They must be 100 ft. long.
2) They should be 48 feet wide. (so far so good)
3) They must have open endwalls. (no walls on 2 sides)
4) They cannot be heated. (see #3)
5) They must be located within 200 acres from a farmyard. (where are you going to get water?)
6) Uncle Sugar pays $1.04 per sq. ft. per year. ($4992.00 per year)
7) They pay the $4,992.00 for 4 years. ($19,968.00)
8) After 4 years, you get to keep the greenhouse and use it as you wish.
9) 200 applications for this program are available.
Can someone please tell me how anyone in Nebraska, can grow veggies, in an unheated greenhouse, with no endwalls, and no available water supply?
If it's warm enough to grow anything inside this thing, it's warm enough to grow them outside, no walls!
If 200 people signed up for this program:
3 million, 993 thousand, 600 dollars ($3,993,600.00) gets ripped from your pocket.
Multiply that times our 50 states= $199,680,000.00
That's 200 million dollars.
Courtesy of the USDA and the ASC.
That my friend is a lot of veggies.
And, it's the truth.
You won't hear about this on ABC, NBC or CBS.
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.” Old saying
How to Best Protect All Future
Nuclear Reactor-Powered Generating Plants
This blog will concern two closely related aspects of the Japanese tragedy that began over a week ago . . . .
1. John Heywood’s “Book of Proverbs” published in 1546 included this now famous saying: "An yll wynde that blowth no man to good, men say" and how it relates to the American economy now
2. How to protect the nuclear power industry and, more importantly American citizens and the American economy
Let’s begin with a current anecdote that thematically ties the two stories together: did you know that in response to the “meltdown” of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s support, Russia --which holds U.N. Security Council veto power -- was the main obstacle to the world agreeing to institution of a no-fly zone over Libya? Why? Because as one of the world’s greatest oil producers, Russia enjoys all manner of chaos that regularly tends to drive the price of oil skyward. In other words the “ill-wind” in Libya was blowing the Russian economy lots of good, thankfully worldwide pressure has seen the Russians capitualte. Similarly, that same “ill wind” in Libya is causing lots of consternation here in America as oil prices rise and drive gasoline cost at the pump inexorably higher. The connectedness of the world’s economy is both a curse and a boon depending upon which way the wind blows.
America has a duty to help out our long-time ally Japan, no question. At the same time, the American auto industry and auto- parts industries and all other American manufacturers need to respond to fill the vacuum left by the severe hit on Japan’s manufacturing from the combined 8.9 magnitude earthquake and horrific tsunami. Demand for automobiles and their parts; and electronics; and other manufactured goods is not going to drop substantially, someone needs to fill that void and it might as well be us. An ongoing and surprising example is the present boom in the sales of American Geiger counters and of American nutritional sales of potassium-iodide pills to the Japanese and to our own West Coast citizens. On point #1, the ill-wind** needs to be exploited in our favor, ‘Nuff said.
Point #2 As a former navy nuclear reactor operator on an American warship, Rajjpuut is aghast at the apparent state of the peace-time American nuclear industry in general; and more on our blog topic, those in Japan run by TEPCo (the Tokyo Electric Power Company); and most pointedly at the reactor plant grouping found at the Fukushima Daiichi generating station in the northeast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. As a former trainee of the Kepner-Tregoe management advisors, Rajjpuut believes that nuclear safety while a very complicated and utterly critical requirement: is ultimately quite easy. “Yes,” complicated and critical, therefore NOT simple, but also “Yes,” easy.
Nuclear power safety issues are made easy by the utter necessity of ZERO failures. If cost, for example, can become a serious issue, then you wind up weighing-balancing cost and safety; and cost vs. safety . . . clearly cost can NEVER become part of the decision-making process. Quality at every step, in every decision ties in to virtual 100% safety planning. The key question as it always is in Kepner-Tregoe’s PPA (potential problem analysis) process is “What could go wrong?”
With that key question “What cold go wrong?” guiding us, then it immediately becomes obvious that Japan is one of the worst places in the world to build nuclear reactors. That does not mean that smart-safe reactors cannot be built there . . . it just means that SAFETY, which we knew was vital before, becomes absolutely a thousand-fold more critical. Why? Because sitting on the edge of the Pacific Rim of Fire where severe and violent earthquake and tsunami activity are relatively common activities a whole lot more can be expected to go wrong on a regular basis. TEPCo (a Japanese corporation with a scandal-ridden past throughout much of its fifty-year history in the nuclear industry) is the corporation ultimately responsible for cooling down and safeguarding the public from the threatened Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactors. However, TEPCo clearly hasn’t lives up to the challenge as its communications generally appear at odds with the international nuclear power agency’s evaluations and even to be internally contradictory. Since TEPCo has five times been cited for false safety records in just the last decade, it’s an easy call to say that even though logically COST cannot matter . . . TEPCo has badly violated that principle in the past and presumably is doing so right now also. Planning for a 7.5 magnitude earthquake in the initial stages and then not protecting reactors from potential tsunamis is a travesty.
Someone deliberately violated the safety before cost principles and now the whole island nation is at risk. Rajjpuut’s betting that in future, nations will be insisting upon nuclear plants built a minimum of five miles inland (away from tsunamis at any rate) capable of withstanding magnitude ten earthquakes. Rajjpuut will also bet that common sense will prevail and future nuclear sites will contain only one reactor within a three-mile radius. Obviously the problem at the Fukushima complex has escalated so that if one reactor becomes a new Chernobyl, than the prospects are that the immediate three other reactors and the other two reactors at the site (six in all) will also become part of a monstrously greater problem.
It’s been a long time since Rajjpuut worked in a nuclear reactor environment. However, referring back to his magnificent Kepner-Tregoe training, he believes that virtually any thinking man or woman with even a moderate exposure to the basic concepts of nuclear physics (and learning those basics are no harder than mastering many principles of the internal combustion engines (ICE) powering our cars) could plan how to safeguard virtually any nuclear reactor with very little effort. Again, the key concept is that failure is NOT an option/100% virtual safety is the goal. So what’s the idea here?
What is the worst-case scenario with Japan’s nuclear reactors right now? Something Chernobyl-like at least in the public consciousness? And why does that situation now exist?
The problem exists because power was cut by the earthquake. Power was cut by the tsunami. Power which was supposed to keep the reactor cooling system was not available. Backup systems that were supposed to replace essential cooling systems all failed 100%. And the tsunami corrupted the reactor area itself. So what is the essential problem underlying the potential nuclear disaster in Japan?
The cooling of the reactor’s fuel cell and total core has failed. If, despite the 8.9 quake and the ills brought by the tsunami . . . somehow the reactor core remained at normal operating or normal shutdown temperatures . . . no harm, no foul. So here’s Rajjpuut’s failsafe method . . . offered to the world for free:
With each reactor (and remember they should each always be located separate and independent from other reactors and away from potential tsunami damage) build two rectangular buildings capable of withstanding an earthquake of magnitude 11. Each will house a diesel-powered emergency generator -- each generator built integral with the building itself. The generator, for example might be attached to the building with four solid beams attached one to each wall. Test Generator A every Wednesday and Generator B every Sunday and examine all their connections to the reactor electrically and mechanically every other week. Even if all hell breaks loose as happened in Japan, you can lug in portable pumps etc. just knowing you’ve got lighting, fans and electric power would be a “Godsend!” Expensive? You bet? But public safety should NOT be compromised. Short of an earthquake with its very epicenter below the reactor and the two emergency generators . . . nothing except a one in a quadrillion hit by a giant meteorite will bring on the equal of today’s problems at the Fukushima site.
Ya’ll live long strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** Sidebar here: By the way, speaking of ill winds, there is a growing body of scientific knowledge that says that very small amounts of radiation from nuclear plants; x-rays; security scans; etc. is actually beneficial . . . it’s called “radiation hormesis:”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucac/20110317/cm_ucac/aglowingreportonradiation
and actually helps prevent cancer for just one of its many indicated benefits. That means it’s quite likely that the thinking that any sun at all is bad for you; and any radiation at all is bad for you is just utter nonsense. No sun, for example, means that millions of Americans are suffering from inadequate levels of Vitamin D-3 . . . .
The trouble with “medical science” is that so much of it is tied to profit for somebody or other which gets in the way of serious science. It’s all reminiscent of a time when health educator Rajjpuut was telling people back in the 1970’s that eggs were a wonderful food and that cholesterol didn’t cause heart attacks despite their so-called scientific evidence (based upon a mere 47% correlation between heart attack deaths and high cholesterol – less than a coin flip; while triglycerides in some studies show 86% correlation). Cholesterol levels used to be considered high at 280; then they were adjusted to label “high” at 250; then 200; and now some idiot doctors are saying that a 175 reading is “high.” Two comments: 1) Very low cholesterol readings can leave you vulnerable to strokes (and the idea that taking an aspirin every day can prevent heart attacks also makes one similarly more vulnerable to strokes) that waxy substance cholesterol is absolutely vital for your body’s well-being and your brain needs more of it than any other parts do and 2) if you drop the cholesterol readings low enough soon you’ll have a 100% correlation that will mean exactly nothing. When they can explain ultra-high cholesterol readings in highly fit aboriginal peoples (for one example, in Eskimos who subsist on blubber) and in Third-World peoples who never have heart attacks, then Rajjpuut will be listening.
When are people going to wake up, and get the message: Obama bws down only to thweak and MUSLUMS.
THE HELL WTH EVERYONE, ELSE!!!!
GET THE PICTURE???
That's why he's got to go.
I'm in the cleaning business, let me got to washington and do a through cleaning. I assure you, all personal belongings will be in the front lawn.
by: Trent Derr - American Exceptionalism Blog
President Reagan is probably best known for three major accomplishments: rekindling the American spirit of entrepreneurship, defeating the Soviets in the Cold War leading to the eventual collapse of the USSR, and creating the most robust peacetime economic expansion in American history. In this posting, we’ll focus on topics more applicable to Reagan’s economic accomplishments. Reagan’s economic philosophy has been referred to by many names including Reaganomics and Supply Side Economics.
Arguably Reagan was dealing with a much more complex economic environment in 1980 than we have today. Reagan was faced with high unemployment, high inflation, high interest rates, a slow-growing economy and a high government deficit as a percentage of GDP. Today we primarily have high unemployment, a slow-growing economy and a high government deficit. However over the last two years the policies implemented by the Obama administration have not significantly reduced unemployment, have dramatically increased the government debt and have started to increase both inflation and interest rates. Note that inflation and interest rates were not a problem when Obama entered office. Continue...
Can Muslims Coexist?
Don’t you worry, Steve Eichier. Astrology gives me Aquarius rising. Jeanne Avery, in The Rising Sign, under Aquarius Rising: “He may be the person to bring back information that has been lost to civilization for centuries. The person with Aquarius on the rise can be very avant-garde. He is a forerunner in setting style, discovering new methods, and showing the rest of humanity the way.”
In Cosmos and Psyche, distinguished philosopher and cultural historian Richard Tarnas points out that the alignments of the outer planets are consistent with archetypal patterns in history and biology. He points out in the book, under the Saturn-Pluto cycle, that in November 2008, the month and year Obama was elected, Saturn was square Pluto, the worst of planetary alignments, and that it was the end of an era where we’ve seen widespread indulgence, decadence, naiveté, denial and inflation.
In my astrological chart, Saturn is trine Pluto. This is the very best of alignments. In Astrologer’s Handbook, we read: “This trine gives the natives the ability to understand the laws by which subtle forces are organized, enabling them to use these laws consciously or unconsciously. . . They are able to work slowly and make fundamental and irrevocable changes in their own and others lives. Often there is a sense of destiny or a peculiar karmic mission which they must fulfill.”
I visited the island South Caicos in the Caribbean. The economy was based on fishing and drug running. It was cash and carry—no credit at all. Homes were in various stages of construction. I was made aware of how important credit is to an economy. America’s economy was built on credit.
America’s robust economy has turned into a political shell game. Money goes where money flows. Enter class warfare, opportunistic politicians, and a divided America. We’re going to the gutter.
With a divided America, with spending greatly exceeding income, with no money to spend, no problem: just print money. We made a mistake and tightened money after the stock market crash in 1929. We are not going to make that mistake again. It brought on the Great Depression.
And besides, we’ve big labor and the government entitled to pay. Together, they make the majority vote. It’s for the good of all that we are spending our way out of recession. Sure! We believe you. Big labor and the government entitled, America’s weak sisters put Obama in office. We are watching a process at the present. Congress dares not control spending. It’s members know full well what that would mean. Just look what Governor Scott Walker caused. The anger he caused is overwhelming. He and his colleagues are likely to be driven out of office.
The drive is on to pay the government favored; to hell with taxpayers. No question about it, the taxpayers are losing. Before our very eyes, America is going bankrupt. No problem. When people are hungry, they will accept anything, exactly what America’s revolutionaries are after. We’ve seen this process in play before. Never let a crisis go to waste. There is nothing in sight to stop billionaire George Soros and the revolutionaries from taking over America and doing away with every liberty we now enjoy—replacing our liberties with something on the order of Sharia law.
If you had known me in 1975, you would have advised me to be counseled. You would have thought I was sick in the head. You may still think that. Ah! But there is something out of sight, out of mind, to stop Soros and the revolutionaries, I can tell you, something bigger than all the might the corrupt powers that be can muster.
In 1975, I was being divorced and my business enterprise was on the rocks. Never let a crises go to waste. I singlehandedly took on the IRS. Everyone I knew thought I had flipped. I went to the country law library and studied how I could use my Constitution to beat Uncle Sam. I felt that voices of the past were speaking to me. I was in Tax Court, two U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U. S. Supreme Court, all to no avail. I filed in a third U.S. District Court. The Court decided to hear me. The IRS readily admitted that it had wrongfully taxed me. That’s not all. The IRS had thumbed its nose to the Tax Court order. The courts looked the other way, but God didn’t. God was with me the whole time. I didn’t need money and power.
My property was refunded with interest. Then the IRS made a fatal mistake. It went to my bank and claimed every cent in my checking account. I took the court record to The Palm Beach Post. The Post looked at the record and investigated. It found that for 11 years the IRS had been lawlessly taxing me and the courts stood behind the IRS. A front page story was printed. The IRS ate crow. But that’s not all. I've experienced miracles. I've saved lives seven lives, including my own from a watery grave. I've been picked.
When everything should have gone wrong for me—everyone thinking I was a nut case—everything started going right. All of my dreams have come true. George Soros thinks he is some kind of a god. What a laugh! Keep the faith. God never let me down.
There have been too many coincidences in my life to call them coincidence. We are more than matter. “In earth as it is in heaven,” Jesus said, “but first seek ye the kingdom of God.” I don’t need money and power. I don’t need government. I’m self-governed. I don’t need a religion. We are not animals, not here to jump through authority’s hoops. God loves and protects those who love the sacred self they came with.
The tsunami in Japan is a sample of what you are about to see. You may not be fully aware, but the Tea Party represents a worldwide groundswell on the rise. The corrupt may have a foothold, but like in a tsunami, they are tissue heading for oblivion. You can’t change heaven or earth. Only the ignorant and raving wolves think they can. Our world is about to experience a quantum leap forward. Have faith in the God that created you. As God is my witness, I promise that you will survive and prosper as never before.
Is Trickle-Up Poverty the New Prosperity?
While being assaulted on all sides with Barack Obama’s “trickle-up poverty” and other progressive government boondoggles like Obamacare on top of trillion-dollar national deficits as far as the eye can see and well beyond . . . a strange new phenomenon has emerged to further muddy the waters already obscuring our future hopes. China is now selling off American debt and ridding itself of dollars so that now the largest holder of American debt is . . . drum roll, please, Maestro! . . . the United States Federal Reserve Banking System. Yes, you read that correctly. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now in the voodoo economics business all the way up to his fuzzy skull.
Over the last three months, China has sold roughly $19 billion in treasury bonds and other U.S. debt instruments. China, in other words, has become concerned about the sheer size of the U.S. overall debt and the high probability that the Federal Reserve’s unceasing money printing for the last twenty-nine months has debased and devalued the world’s reserve currency for ‘lo these last 60+ years: the American Dollar. Looking back in history that’s exactly what happened to the British Pound Sterling which had been the World’s Reserve Currency for over two hundred years until the Brits ousted Winston Churchill with World War II still not entirely won and brought in their Labour (progressive-liberal) Party to run the show. Labour inflated their once proud currency so much that the citizens and nations of the world began dumping the Pound and fleeing for gold, silver, the gold-backed Swiss Franc and most commonly for the American Dollar.
The American Federal Reserve now standing as the largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt means that financing Obama’s third trillion-dollar federal budget deficit in succession has become something the rest of the world has begun to shy away from. China is still the largest foreign-holder of American debt, but the Chinese seem determined to remove their names from the top of that dubious list (other top foreign holders of U.S. debt instruments include: Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Korea, England, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia). It also suggests that faith and trust in the “Almighty Buck” may be reaching a low-ebb.
Unlike hard money (gold and silver) and all hard-money backed currencies such as the Swiss Franc and the Kruggerand-backed South African money . . . paper money has zero intrinsic value . . . it only exists and continues to serve so long as people trust the government issuing the paper bills (and that goes double for a nation’s paper debt instruments). Bernanke has run the printing pressings so long that on a sheer mathematical basis the dollar of today is technically worth only as much as 3.4 pennies compared to the dollar of late 2008 when the financial crisis reached its low spot and the U.S. government started stepping in. What’s going on here? Why is Bernanke printing so much money?
Bernanke is a well-known student of the Great Depression and has written numerous articles suggesting that the reason the Great Depression turned from a “little-d depression” into a “capital-G/capital-D Great Depression” is because there was never sufficient money in circulation to head off relentless deflation. That is, he believes a vicious-circle of deflation was created and that the continuous dropping of prices fed off itself and destroyed jobs which destroyed buying power which destroyed businesses which destroyed more jobs, etc., etc.
There is some truth to what Mr. Bernanke suggests . . . but it’s a lot like yanking your starting pitcher off the mound with the score going from 2-1 in the 6th to 8-1 against you in the 8th . . . once so much damage has been done . . . almost nothing will work. Perhaps the twirler should have been sent to the showers when he looked tired after 120 pitches before the start of the 7th? Or after he’d allowed a home run and walked the next two batters with no outs in the 7th? Poor decisions early in a process can make finding good decisions later . . . very, very difficult.
Rajjpuut suggests a different reading of history is more accurate. Almost precisely a full decade before the infamous 1929 stock market crash we had a depression start-up that 98% of Americans never heard about. Progressive Woodrow Wilson’s so-called “Invisible Depression” started in late 1919 and was full-blown by the time Warren G. Harding was elected in November, 1920; and much worse when Harding took office in March of 1921 (they had a four-month Lame-Duck session in those days). Production had already dropped nation-wide by 26%. Ignoring the suggestions of his Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover for immediate implementation of numerous government aid programs and other subsidies . . . Harding did only four things:
1. Cut government spending by 48%
2. Cut taxes by 49%
3. Paid down the nation’s debt by 30%
4. Slashed government regulatory interference across the board
In fifteen months the economy had rebounded mightily (just a couple months later, Harding died in office so he barely got to enjoy his success). The United States was now well into the “Roaring Twenties” the most single prosperous rebound of any economy in the recorded history of the planet. Calvin Coolidge, Harding’s vice-president continued the Harding policies faithfully, but chose “not to run” in 1928. One of the most popular men in America and a famous philanthropist and author, Herbert Hoover ran for the presidency for the Republicans and won in a landslide over Democrat Al Smith. Only three men in history have become president of the U.S. without extensive military or business executive or elected experience: Taft, Obama and Hoover.
Hoover was a famous geologist and mining engineer who married the daughter of a rich banker. He believed mightily in the “Efficiency Movement” (if you’ve read Cheaper by the Dozen, the father, Frank Gilbreth, was founder of the Efficiency Movement) and believed that the economy was riddled with waste and inefficiency which could be dramatically improved by “experts” like him once they identified the problems and solved them. Hoover became, according to the New York Times “one of the Ten Most Important Living Americans” for his charitable and humanitarian work during World War I.
Hoover administered distribution of over two and one-half million tons of food to nine million war victims and was later named head of the brand new U.S. Food administration by Woodrow Wilson when the country entered the War. A member of the Supreme Economic Council after the war, as well as head of the American Relief Administration he continued organizing shipments to millions of starving people in Central Europe. A well-known philanthropist, Hoover like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson was like them a self-described “Progressive and Reformer.”
He came to be known as “Wonder-Boy” during the Harding-Coolidge administrations for his notorious and comical lust for expanding portions of everybody else’s bailiwicks into new roles for the Commerce Department. The reporters of his day called Hoover, "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else!" Long before he had entered politics he had abandoned laissez-faire economic thinking. Outside of engineering and charitable work he was a terrible micro-manager always on the look out to fix what wasn’t broken. History shows that Hoover did one very important thing as Commerce Secretary: he codified and standardized traffic lights across the nation.
As soon as he was elected president Hoover set about planning the undoing of much of the good work created by Coolidge and Harding. He raised government spending and taxes and debt. He initiated numerous “eleemosynary” style federal activities (reminiscent of his charitable work in World War I) to protect workers and farmers and businesses from the natural vicissitudes of the free market economy. His biggest mistake was instituting a huge tariff designed to protect American farm workers from foreign competition but remove such protections from business; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was to cause great consternation in the business world. The agricultural tariff increase was the second highest in U.S. history and put a lot of people out of work. Overall, once the stock market crashed in 1929, Hoover instituted the biggest big-government policies the nation had ever seen.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who had once praised Hoover in 1919 and tried to get him to run as the Democratic presidential candidate) and his v-p running mate Garner accused Hoover of being a socialist and promised that when elected they would:
1. Cut government spending severely
2. Cut taxes dramatically
3. Pay down the nation’s debt
4. Slashed government regulatory interference across the board and eliminate many of the socialistic programs of Hoover
Since these amounted to little more than promises to do what Harding had succeeded with in 1921, people embraced FDR and he won in a landslide taking office in March 1933. History shows that the bottom of the Great Depression was reached in July, 1933, and the bottom of our own “Great Recession” was reached in March, 2009, in each case shortly after the new president took office. Ordinarily the expectation is that after the bottom is reached, prosperity begins to return within six months. In both FDR’s and Barack Obama’s cases, however, government interference made things much, much worse.
FDR, of course, did exactly the opposite of what he promised. He dramatically raised taxes and government spending and debt and deficits. He expanded all of Hoover’s social and economic programs and added 40 of his own (just one law in 2010, Obamacare, created 384 new government agencies, so FDR was a piker compared to Barack) and made big government a way of life. He also confiscated gold coinage and then instituted an overnight inflation of 69% by pegging the dollar to gold at $35 per ounce (he’d given the citizens just $20.76) impoverishing the taxpayers while enriching the government. Of course doing what Harding did and avoiding what Hoover and FDR did is just common sense . . . something seemingly beyond Obama and Bernanke . . . .
In June, 2009, when the full-folly of the Obama policies began to outline themselves in sharp contrast to common sense . . . the Chinese held $896 billion in American debt; today they hold $764 billion a 15% reduction in greenback holdings. Since an outright flooding of the market with U.S. debt notes would destroy China as well as the U.S., it seems the Chinese are now buying up gold and silver in large quantities and making an orderly retreat from the dollar – leaving our suspect currency in the hands of less astute nations and of Ben Bernanke. Since the American trade deficit with China alone reached a record $273.1 Billion in 2010, the Chinese are going to have to work awfully hard to keep lowering their dollar holdings . . . so one suspects that gold and silver will continue to rise quickly.
Bernanke’s monetary policy, known as “Quantitative Easing” a.k.a. “irresponsibly printing money,” has seen the Federal Reserve recently buy up $600 billion worth of Treasury debt. Big Ben’s plan is to hold down interest rates and thus help lower the cost of federal government borrowing (to cover the Obama deficits) and incidentally increase inflation which he believes will stimulate economic growth and create jobs. This is a very Keynesian economic philosophy. In the months prior to his death in 1946, John Maynard Keynes (as the ending of the British Pound Sterling’s 200- year reign as the world’s reserve currency approached) who had long preached against the classical economic wisdom of Adam Smith and Smith’s “invisible hand of the marketplace,” like an atheist seeking God at the last hour repented . . . .
As Britain’s economic hole under the progressive Labor Party deepened, and his own death drew near, Keynes told Henry Clay of the Bank of England of his hopes that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” would somehow save the English economy and yank Britain out of the economic swamp it found itself in: "I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the ‘invisible hand’ which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago." The inflation destroyed the Pound Sterling as the Labor Party continued with government largesse and Keynes’ deathbed conversion went to naught.
Here in America recent spikes in food prices and energy costs are a direct consequence of Bernanke’s unofficial devaluation of the dollar. The government continues under-reporting of inflation assisted by the Labor Statistics Bureau’s refusal to include fluctuations in prices of food and energy. Bernanke, however, believes that deflation is still the rule and continues to inflate the currency to avoid a second Great Depression. Since job creation by the private sector is the key, perhaps the government ought to try: cutting spending; cutting taxes; eliminating debt; and getting the government out of the way of the free market . . . oops, that’s been mentioned before . . . .
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
The representatives the Tea Party got elected, headed by a leader who is carried away by emotions, are doing business as usual. We’ve no time for blubbering leaders.
Frankly, it is downright disgusting. We’ve hard-loser Democrats and gutless Republicans. America is face to face with a self-made economic meltdown ten times worse that the tsunami in Japan. The only thing new on the scene is the Tea Party. We let our demands be known and still no change!
Paradoxically, the battle is shaping up in America to full-fledged class warfare against capitalism. Yes, and capitalist China, headed by Communists, with money to loan, has cut off this Marxist dominated nation. The money currently being printed has nothing back of it. America has killed the proverbial goose that laid golden eggs. It is no longer if the dollar is going to be replaced as the world’s monetary standard. Slimy Worm Geithner has made it when it is going to be replaced. With friends like these, who needs enemies? Who is this worm working for? Thousands of Japanese have died due to an act of nature. How many people in America are going to die? We are sitting here witnessing our liberties being taken by madmen in the backrooms of America—no different than the other madmen who have been at the helm in recent times, gassing people to death, machine gunning and bombing people for their insane causes.
Basically, it’s two ideas in play: “for the good of all,” and God-given individual rights. Under the theory of “for the good of all,” the individual counts for naught. “The very purpose of the Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” West Va. State Board of Education v. Barnette.
In the Bill of Rights, the Fifth Amendment gives the individual the right to demand due process of law. This means that you, individually, have the constitutional right to demand to be heard in a meaningful way in a meaningful place.
On the question of whether taxes are confiscatory, that issue was settled long ago, and taxes have not changed so much the same question should be heard again, says government. Government says the IRS is always right unless the taxpayer can prove the IRS wrong in court. In that case, the IRS is permitted to make the same mistake again without consequence. This is not confiscation. It is not obstruction of justice. In other words, government is always right and the taxpayer is always wrong. And where are the courts on this? In principle it is no different than courts in Nazi Germany. The United States does not give the individual a meaningful way to be heard on taxes. The courts granted the Communist Party U.S.A. the right to be heard on its taxes. The law in America is as meaningless as the law in Nazi Germany. Clearly, in America it is might makes right.
Case in point: The IRS made a “mistake,” after I challenged my tax as being unconstitutional. You don’t do that without dire consequences in America. The IRS taxed me too much. This IRS “mistake” was corrected in Tax Court. After the case was closed, the IRS made the same “mistake” again. In the U. S. District Court, the IRS admitted that said tax assessment was “wrongful.” The “mistake” was corrected and my property was refunded. The IRS then made a third “mistake.” Claiming the same tax assessment, the IRS demanded that my bank give the IRS every cent in my checking account. The District Court refused to reopen the case. My U. S. Senator, Democrat Bob Graham, refused to look into the matter, stating in a letter to me that the IRS was legally permitted to use “draconian” means of collecting tax. For a proven fact, the IRS is permitted to make unlimited mistakes. The theory of being “for the good of all” overrides IRS “mistakes.” Government entitlement overrides taxpayer rights. We’ve giving politicians the legal right to rob us for their express benefit. Politicians have the legal right to give their voting constituencies our sweat and we have no right whatsoever to our property or our incomes.
For the good of all, Hitler decreed that Jews didn’t have the right to live. For the good of all, hundreds of millions of human beings have been killed in the past century. Marxist Americans laud Chairman Mao, who felt that China could spare the millions of human beings he killed. It was for the good of all. We know what is next on the agenda. It is enough to make you cry. We should be greatly impressed by John Boehner’s tears, but who needs him? By the way, in the end I beat the IRS. They hung themselves with their own rope. Maybe we need me.
Much is being cussed and discussed about the state of education in Texas and the country in general. The Obamugabe wants to throw billions in new “investment” into the education system. One wonders what he expects to happen as a result.
Education is in its current state of disarray due to several things. Let’s look at a few.
Education is best served close to home by the citizenry:
Trying to “fix” education woes at the national level is a ludicrous but pathetic joke. Everything the federal government tries to “make better” they wind up trashing. The feds meddling has largely led to the current flap over the unions. The best thing that could happen to education is for the unions to decertify and disappear. Ok, hear me out before you hang me from the flagpole. Unions exist solely for the union thugs that run them. I have belonged to two unions over the years. All they did was take dues from me. They never made my life “better”, just more complicated. If we took teachers seriously as a vital profession and paid them accordingly, the unions would lose their appeal. Good teachers are worth far more than they are currently paid. Unions presumably exist to get them what they are really worth. The problem is, many are not worth what they got before the unions, let alone now. Which brings us to the second of the problems:
Who decided this clown was a teacher?
Many of our so-called educators are a really bad joke. They are totally incompetent to be serving as teachers. The unions make it impossible to weed out these misfits, so our children suffer the consequences. After stripping the federal government and the unions of any influence in the education of our children, we should immediately begin teacher competency testing. Boo – hiss! Ok so it is unpopular, at least among those who fall short of expectations. So be it. If we get rid of the deadwood, we can pay the good, serious educators what they are worth. I am not down on teachers. I have known and been taught by some really dedicated and brilliant people in my many years. In fact I have been fortunate to have studied under some absolutely stellar educators. A gentleman by the name of Henry Valli comes to mind. I won’t bore you with details, but this incredible educator should be recognized here. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the man responsible for my technical successes over the years. I am what I am largely due to his expertise in teaching and nurturing his students through the tortuous pathways of hard science. He made it easy and exciting. I wanted to learn; to be like him. He inspired as well as taught. My point here is we have many very good or excellent teachers in our schools; we should reward them accordingly. As for the other drones and wannabes, hit the road and find a job more suitable to your skills and motivation … like panhandling.
Educated Idiots and other intellectually challenged persons:
Many (far too many) of the folks graduating from our high schools and colleges are functionally illiterate. Many can’t read and write at an 8th grade level. Yet, these are the future leaders of the country and the movers and shakers of our commercial endeavors. What went wrong? Well, refer to the previous for a moment. There is an old saying among computer programmers: “garbage in – garbage out.” You get out of a system what you put into it. If our kids are being short-changed by the skills of their instructors, it is time to rid ourselves of the problem. This is the easier part of the solution. The more difficult part is correcting the curriculum. For decades, we have been in dumb-down mode. Instead of teaching our kids to be the best they can be and to excel, we instead teach them that mediocrity is the “norm” and they needn’t be upset if home work interferes with the latest X-Box offering. Forget learning, enjoy yourself while you can. Then, later, when they do try to gain employment, they find they have no knowledge or skills that are marketable. So they turn to welfare or mooching off of friends and family. Or they find themselves charring cow parts for a fast food restaurant. What needs to happen is for local school boards to take control of curriculum. Make the course of study fit the grade level. If a student can’t cut the tasks set before them, mentor them or set them back until they can. Teach up to expectations, not down to the lowest common denominator. Make the course of study demanding, make the student excel. To do less is criminal and unconscionable. Ask the Jaimie Escalantes of the world how it’s done.
Where are the parents?
And finally, MAKE the parents get involved. Teachers only have the students for a small part of the day; parents are responsible for the rest of the time. If the parents don’t actively support and continue the efforts the teachers make, the result is doomed to fail. Parents must take an active hand in school district management. Question the curriculum and demand that it teach the essentials needed to succeed in the coming world. Hold the district and teachers to the highest standards of education. And finally….
Where goes the republic?
Return to teaching American Government and Civics in high schools, at all grade levels. It is appalling that over half the students in high school today can’t figure out Presidential succession or who their senators and congress-people are. Many don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Few can tell you where the Constitution was written or when. Some can’t even tell us who the nation’s first President was. How can they expect to be informed voters if they don’t have a clue how the government is SUPPOSED to work? This is perhaps the most dangerous of the problems. The liberal-progressive movement can only thrive if the future voters are politically ignorant and apathetic. An informed, intelligent voter is very difficult to deceive. Many of the problems we face as a nation can be directly traced back to education of the masses over the last two or three decades. It is vital we reverse this trend. If we don’t, we are doomed as a republic and we will continue to slide into socialism or something worse.