Thursday, December 3, 2009

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize recipient sends 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan


Excerpt from Tom Hayden article at The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091214/hayden

Obama's escalation in Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves the poor, the unemployed, minorities and college students on their own. And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and possibly even his presidency.

The expediency of his decision was transparent. Satisfy the generals by sending 30,000 more troops. Satisfy the public and peace movement with a timeline for beginning withdrawals of those same troops, with no timeline for completing a withdrawal.

Adding 30,000 to 35,000 US troops will raise the US death toll by over 1,000 by 2011 on Obama's watch, in addition to the 750 who died under Bush. The numbers of US wounded are rising faster than ever, with 300 counted in the past three months. Civilian casualties are under-reported according to the UN mission in Afghanistan. The budgetary costs are growing to $75 billion annually, and could become another trillion-dollar war.

"The obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people."
- - Ron Paul

Monday, November 23, 2009

Obama's global warming hoax exposed

To the dismay of the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, (Hadley CRU), emails have surfaced purporting a collusion to falsify findings regarding the accuracy of global warming data, from hiding evidence of ancient warming periods to outright manipulation.

Obama's Cap and Trade relies solely on the public falling for the scam that the Earth's destruction is caused by the carbon dioxide, (CO2), that emits out of our motor vehicles exhaust. CO2 is a trace gas comprising only 0.038% of the atmosphere. Of course this isn't about environmentalism. It's about a global redistribution of wealth justified by a fictional crisis, enacting an endless array of new taxes, regulations and an expansion of government power. Obama and the Climate Fascists at the United Nations, have devised yet another media manufactured scare tactic to bilk the public out of any and all wealth that still remains. This is a coordinated attempt to distort climate research for political gain, designed to destroy U.S. sovereignty and facilitate global governance.

Allegedly some of the most prominent scientists suggest:

  • Conspiracy
  • collusion in exaggerating warming data
  • possibly illegal destruction of information
  • organized resistance to disclosure
  • private admissions of flaws in their public claims





Barack Obama and Al Gore are con artists, and the pseudo-scientists at CRU are exposed for what they really are – charlatans!

According to Al Gore, the high priest of global warming:

  • The carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth.

  • The polar ice caps will melt, and in turn, Pacific islands will be totally submerged and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities.

  • Global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos.

  • We must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels, as the future of our civilization is in the balance. http://theobamadeception.blogspot.com/2009/06/obamas-war-on-prosperity-continues.html

"So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam." "The battle against fossil fuels has controlled policy in this country for decades. It was the environmentalist’s prime force in blocking any drilling for oil in this country and the blocking the building of any new refineries, as well. So now the shortage they created has sent gasoline prices soaring."
- - John Coleman [Founder of the Weather Channel ]
http://www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html



Friday, October 9, 2009

Barack Obama - 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Recipient


"The Nobel Committee has awarded the 2009 Peace Prize to President Obama, the person who started a new war in Pakistan, upped the war in Afghanistan, and continues to threaten Iran with attack unless Iran does what the US government demands and relinquishes its rights as a signatory to the non-proliferation treaty." - - Paul Craig Roberts

"The Nobel committee, which apparently voted Obama as their winner sometime around Feb. 1, when he had been president for all of 10 days, claims their prize comes as a result of actual achievements. As such, Obama is being rewarded for his attitude and stance as a citizen of the world rather than the leader of a great nation - and that means actual accomplishments are of no real import." - - MacAoidh

"He's basically emasculating this country and they applauded today with this award. We're in debt. Our dollar is worthless; taxes are going up everywhere. They're about to let Obama become our universal doctor, banker, and employer. We are about to move worldwide progress back to the cave era with the crap-and-tax plan." - - Rush Limbaugh

Barack Obama, 2009, recipient, is in good company. Other noted Nobel Peace Prize winners:
Yasser Arafat [1994]
The Peace Prize has been on a downward spiral for many years, but has meant nothing since 1994, when it was awarded to Yasser Arafat to reward his lifelong pursuit of terrorism.
A newly declassified report from 1973, shows that Yasser Arafat's Black September terrorists, during a reception at the Saudi Embassy in Khartoum, were responsible for the murders of Ambassador Cleo A. Noel Jr. and his deputy George Curtis Moore, as well as a Belgian diplomat. http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/008796.php


Let's not forget these winners...
Al Gore [2007]
(the high priest of global warming)
.

Mikhail Gorbachev [1990] (former President of the Soviet Union and global government advocate)

Jimmy Carter [2002] (39th President of the United States... he never met a dictator he didn’t like)

Apparently, one can win the Nobel Peace Prize if you:

  1. constantly bash America
  2. cater to our enemies in various forms
  3. promote bloody endless wars that will bankrupt our country
  4. try to destroy U.S. currency in order to make American citizens powerless
  5. permanently weaken the economy and reduce it to governmental life support

International socialists recognize their own, I guess. Or maybe it's just the stench of Chicago corruption. The Nobel committee's anti-America agenda fits in perfectly with Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mm!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Government Censorship - Protecting You From Reality

With the track record of this administration, you can't help but conclude there is nothing the Chicago thugocracy won't try to seize control of:

banks - autos - the census - energy - the airwaves - medicine
And now the internet!
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), has spent months behind closed doors drafting a Senate bill revision, S. 773. This bill would grant the president dictatorial powers to take control of portions of the internet, by allowing him to "declare a cybersecurity emergency". Indeterminate authority to exercise this kind of power over private "non-governmental" computer networks, could turn our "free speech zone" into nothing more than a political propaganda machine.

"I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- - Thomas Jefferson

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Obama's War On Prosperity Continues: H.R. 3200 "America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009"

This government takeover of our healthcare system is unsustainable, as the recession will soon deepen even further, with the eventual collapse of the commercial real estate market. The closer you study this scam the more you will discover it's not about health or care, it's about changing the core principles of our country, ignoring the Constitution and disrespecting the work of our Founding Fathers.

Obama-care could limit important medicines and surgeries for seniors. Plus, how can Obama's government-run healthcare cover millions of additional patients without any new doctors? It can't.

Obama's media friends at ABC and NBC, refused to air a 33-second national ad by the League of American Voters, that was in opposition of the administrations healthcare plan. It's no surprise though, because earlier this year, on June 24th, ABC was the network that turned itself over completely to Obama for a day long propaganda fest about healthcare reform (excluding any groups with contrary views) and NBC is the network that sells 'all Obama, all the time' merchandise on it's site.

What can you find in H.R. 3200? This monstrosity will create 53 new Federal Bureaucracies, so there's sure to be a few things you can find to look up:

SEC. 1177. Page 354 - EXTENSION OF AUTHORITY OF SPECIAL NEEDS PLANS TO RESTRICT ENROLLMENT.
It appears the Government will restrict enrollment of special needs people.

SEC. 122. Page 29 Lines 4-16 -
ANNUAL LIMITATION COSTS
This has the look of your healthcare being rationed.

SEC. 123. Page 30 -
HEALTH BENEFITS ADVISORY COMMITTEE
A government committee that decides what treatments/benefits you get.

SEC. 1173A. Page 58 Lines 11-13
A health ID card will be issued. The first step no doubt, on the road to a National ID card. The opposite of what a free society is all about.

http://legislatorsagainstrealid.com/

SEC. 1173A. Page 59 Lines 21-24
Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfer. Dr. Obama will make sure you never miss a payment.


"Champions of socialized medicine want to tax the rich, tax businesses that already cannot afford to provide health plans to employees, and tax people who don’t want to participate in the government’s scheme by buying an approved healthcare plan. Presumably, all these taxes are to induce compliance. This is not freedom, nor will it improve healthcare.”

- - Dr. Ron Paul

Here you'll find H.R. 3200:
http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Friday, August 7, 2009

Obama looses labor thugs on tea party town hall protestors


August 07, 2009
Rick Moran

The pushback by Democrats against conservative activists who have been flooding health care town halls across the country is starting to get ugly. Organized labor has now entered the fray, promising to counter conservatives at the events. Sure enough, labor thugs savagely beat a conservative activist after a town hall meeting put on by Missouri's Russ Carnahan. Leah Thorsen of the St. Louis Post Dispatch has the story:

  • St. Louis County police say six people were arrested. Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances. Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started. Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with "Don't tread on me" printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John's Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started. "It just seems there's no freedom of speech without being attacked," he said.

And who might have beaten Gladney? Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit writes that hundreds of tea party protestors were kept out of the event but that members of the local SEIU were directed to a side door and gained immediate entrance:

  • In this video you see one Carnahan supporter allowed into the meeting at Bernard Middle School through a side door. There were 1,000 tea party taxpayers stranded outside the main door. When two SEIU members attempted to get in the same side door marked "handicapped" the crowd went nuts and blocked them at the door. Did you notice how nonchalant the SIEU members were about getting inside the door? Like they knew right where to go.Inside the gym they roped off two sections. One was for the tea party taxpayers and quickly filled up when they opened the doors at 6:00 PM.The other section was marked "reserved" and this section was saved for the union members.The rest of the crowd was locked out!

These have been the tactics of organized labor for 100 years. And given that the White House has ordered Dems to hit back "twice as hard," it doesn't take much to connect the events in St, Louis (and Tampa where more violence broke out) with what is going on at these meetings:

  • They showed video clips of the confrontational town halls that have dominated the media coverage, and told senators to do more prep work than usual for their public meetings by making sure their own supporters turn out, senators and aides said. And they screened TV ads and reviewed the various campaigns by critics of the Democratic plan."If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard," Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting.

The administration couldn't make it any clearer if they drew a map. Barack Obama is personally responsible for any violence that breaks out at these meetings. If he wasn't president and suggested that Democrats hit back "twice as hard," he would be held legally responsible for the violence that broke out in St, Louis and Tampa. But this is politics - the way the Democrats play it. It couldn't be any clearer that the goal of the labor thugs is to intimidate people from coming to these town hall meetings unless they are supporters of the president. Obama's labor brown shirts will continue these tactics unless the president himself calls them off. And given the perilous condition of his health care reform bill, there isn't much chance of that happening...

Video of incident can be seen at this link:

http://www.redstate.com/moe_lane/2009/08/07/getting-in-their-faces-st-louis/

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Obama's War On Prosperity continues: The Carbon Tax Scam


ELECTRICITY COSTS WILL SKYROCKET UNDER OBAMA'S ANTI-COAL ENERGY POLICY
Obama's next outrageous power grab, with the help of Rep. Henry Waxman [D, CA-30] and Rep. Edward Markey [D, MA-7], will greatly expand government control and increase energy costs for every family. The minimum estimated costs to the American taxpayer will be $650 billion over the next eight years.

Barack Obama, in a January 17, 2008, interview with the San Francisco Chronicle (SF Gate), - - excerpt:

  • "Let me sort of describe my overall policy. What I've said is that we would put a cap and trade system in place that is as aggressive, if not more aggressive, than anybody else's out there. I was the first to call for a 100% auction on the cap and trade system, which means that every unit of carbon or greenhouse gases was emitted would be charged to the polluter. That will create a market in which whatever technologies are out there that are being presented, whatever power plants that are being built, that they would have to meet the rigors of that market and the ratcheted down caps that are being placed, imposed every year. So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.
    When I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know, under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
This system of energy "allocations" has failed in Europe and will politicize America's energy policy, not to mention bankrupt the coal industry.
This unjust scheme of Obama's to collect more taxes, comes in the form of a congressional bill, H.R. 2454. If passed, this bill would impose a cap-and-trade system in which businesses would have to purchase allowances from the government based on the amount of carbon dioxide they emit. By invasively manipulating an already over-regulated energy industry, this legislation seeks to fix an alleged problem that has recently been discredited by 1000's of scientists including the founder of The Weather Channel, John Coleman, who said - - -
  • "It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam."
Scam is right. Carbon Dioxide makes up less than 1% of our atmospheric gases and it has also been shown that CO2 is also needed for plant growth.
This new tax on energy promises to increase taxes for American families by $1,000's, as it would require businesses to use cleaner burning motor fuels, thereby raising their costs and increasing the price of goods and services to regular consumers. And according to the Heritage Foundation, between 1.2 and 2.3 million jobs could be lost over the next ten-years due to the bill’s stifling regulations.
Coal fuels half of U.S. electricity, and it’s the low-cost half. Americans strongly support the use of coal, but it appears Obama wants to "bankrupt the coal industry" with a burdensome tax code. So he essentially wants to shut down the coal business; and he's also very much in favor of skyrocketing electricity rates.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."
- - Thomas Jefferson

Saturday, April 11, 2009

The peace candidate seeks $83.4 billion to continue Afghanistan and Iraq wars

"Barack Obama’s election promise to bring “change” to Washington and reverse the juggernaut of the Bush war machine has proven to be nothing more than a cruel hoax"... - - Paul Joseph Watson


The Washington Post reported on April 10, 2009:
  • President Obama sent Congress an $83.4 billion spending request yesterday to fund his administration's strategies in Iraq and Afghanistan through the summer, in what officials promised would be the last such off-budget proposal to pay for the wars.

Full article at:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/04/10/ST2009041000113.html

Obama's 17,000, new troop surge into Afghanistan, is expected to include 8,000 Marines from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as well as 4,000 additional Army troops from Fort Lewis, Washington. Another 5,000 troops will be deployed at a later date.

How can President Obama even think about fighting wars half way around the world while California goes bankrupt, while Americans are being turned out of their homes, while, as Business Week reports, retirees will work throughout their retirement (which assumes that there will be jobs), while careers are being destroyed and stores and factories shuttered. Americans are facing tremendous unemployment and hardship. Obama doesn't have another dollar to spend on Bush's wars.

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

- - George McGovern

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

By their deeds, you shall know them

Today the Obama/Biden tax rampage continued with a huge increase in tobacco taxes that took effect despite Obama's promise not to raise taxes of any kind on families earning under $250,000 or individuals under $200,000.

Obama said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12.

  • "I can make a firm plege. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
He repeatedly vowed,
  • "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."

Now in office, Obama, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, thus increasing the tax by 156%. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases.

Even the always trustworthy Joe Biden assured the American sheeple,

  • "No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."

The latest increase in the federal tax is by far the largest since its introduction in 1951, when it was 8 cents a pack. It's gone up six times since, each time by no more than a dime, until now.

"The government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

~Ronald Reagan

Another day, another Obama nominee in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service


ADMINISTRATION OF SHAME - THE LATEST TAX CHEAT NOMINEE

Health and Human Services nominee Kathleen Sebelius recently "corrected" three years of tax returns and paid $7,918, a paltry debt compared with Tom Daschle’s $140,000. —the latest tax troubles for an Obama administration nominee.

It appears the Governor of Kansas, is the latest Democrat who apparently doesn't like paying taxes as much as she likes doling them out.
  • The HHS FY 2009 budget request outlays $737 billion which is a net increase of $29 billion over the estimated outlays for FY 2008.
By failing to pay her taxes, Kathleen Sebelius now joins a growing list of current and failed Administration nominees who think they are above the law...
Obama's honor roll of tax-cheats, SO FAR...
  • Tom Daschle, the first HHS nominee
  • Chief performance officer nominee Nancy Killefer
  • Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner
  • US Trade Representative Ron Kirk
  • Labor Secretary Hilda Solis’s (husband)
Another brilliant nominee by the White House, the sweetest smelling house in America. Where everything comes up roses and all our worries can be washed away by printing trillions of dollars out of thin air, earmarked for wasteful spending.
"The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of government."
~Barry Goldwater

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

...Yet another Obamunist tax cheat


Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The Senate Finance Committee on Monday revealed that President Barack Obama's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, had failed to pay $10,000 in taxes over the span of three years beginning in 2005. The panel report comes after several other nominees faced controversy over tax issues.
Kirk, a former Dallas mayor, failed to report as income $37,750 in honoraria collected for 16 speaking engagements at Austin College, his alma mater, for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007. He also deducted NBA Mavericks tickets worth $17,382 as entertainment expenses in 2006, 2006 and 2007, but has substantiated only $9,900 of the expenses.
Two nominees of President Barack Obama, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, pulled themselves out of consideration in February due to tax issues. Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner had to overcome a controversy about back taxes before he was confirmed, while Labor Secretary Hilda Solis faced concerns about her husband's payment of tax liens.

“Where there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.”

— Plato

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Obama Selects Janet Reno's Anti-Gun Point Man As Next Attorney General


The re-establishment of the Clinton regime continues.
Barack Obama’s choice for attorney general - Eric Holder

This amounts to nothing more than "politics as usual" as Eric Holder was the Clinton administration’s last deputy attorney general, 1997 to 2001. Where's the change Obama has been preaching?

As deputy attorney general under Janet Reno, Holder has consistently championed stronger gun-control measures. In fact, he supported the District of Columbia's handgun ban, lobbied Congress to pass legislation that would have given the federal government the power to shut down all gun shows and went so far as to say that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right, but instead protects the right to have a firearm when serving with a militia.

To push his gun control agenda, Obama is surrounding himself with extremists, who have been striving to erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights.

After leaving the Clinton administration, Holder became a partner at the legal and lobbying firm of Covington & Burling. Holder’s most publicized case at the firm was his defense of Chiquita Brands International, Inc., whose executives were facing potential charges because of their financing of right-wing death squads in Colombia. Holder protected those executives at the expense of the corporation, his client, causing the corporation to take the fall and pay a $25 million fine, while the executives who actually committed the crime in the name of the corporation remained uncharged.

As a senior legal advisor to the Democratic Party, Holder supported the police state measures enacted under the Bush administration, playing a leading role in the talks that led to the re-authorization of the Patriot Act in 2005. The Patriot Act grants unchecked powers to government, and strips U.S. citizens of their right to due process, unreasonable search and seizure and other basic freedoms. Barack Obama voted yes to reauthorize the Patriot Act (S. 2271), in March, 2006.

And Remember those last-minute Clinton pardons? Eric Holder was there, a key figure in the clemency process, helping to bring them about. He brokered one of the most unjustifiable pardons that an American president has ever granted. Holder sparked a firestorm of controversy due to his involvement in the final corrupt act of the Clinton administration: the pardons issued on Bill Clinton's last day in office. Of these, fugitive Marc Rich, was granted a pardon in the final hours of the Clinton presidency.World-class mobster commodities trader, Marc Rich, who is No. 242 on Forbes' list of the 400 wealthiest Americans with a net worth of $1.5 billion, renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1983, and ran off to Zug, Switzerland, shortly before a grand jury indicted him on charges of racketeering, 51 counts of tax fraud, and illegal oil deals with Iran. Federal prosecutors said Rich rigged an oil pricing scheme during the 1973 energy crisis and in 1980, during the Iran Hostage crisis, he purchased six million barrels of oil from the Iranian government and sold it on the world market. Payments were made fraudulently through American banks and illegal use of American telecommunications facilities. Rich’s attorneys took the pardon straight to the White House attorneys, and gained pardon for their client, whose ex-wife, Denise, just happened to be a major donor to the Clinton library and Clinton's legal defense fund...
  • $450,000 to the Clinton library
  • $10,000 to the Clinton legal defense fund.
  • More than $1 million to the Democratic Party
  • $109,000 to Hillary Rodham Clinton's first bid for the Senate

If that wasn't enough, Eric Holder has also advocated for internet censorship. As reported by NPR's Morning Edition on May 28, 1999, he said:

"The court has really struck down every government effort to try to regulate it. We tried with regard to pornography. It is gonna be a difficult thing, but it seems to me that if we can come up with reasonable restrictions, reasonable regulations in how people interact on the Internet, that is something that the Supreme Court and the courts ought to favorably look at."

With the help of Eric Holder, Rahm Emanuel and other Clinton retreads, the Obama presidency is laying the foundations for the continuation of not only many of the criminal policies of the past eight years, but the new ones to come.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

- -Thomas Jefferson

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Obama's top nominees withdraw from candidacies due to problems with the IRS


Two top nominees, including former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle withdrew their candidacies from the Obama administration nominees.
Daschle's exit from consideration to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, resulted after a firestorm over his failure to pay $146,000 in taxes.
  • More than $100,000 in back taxes and interest for a car and driver that was provided to him for four years by Leo Hindery, a wealthy Democratic donor, longtime friend and business associate of Daschle.
  • Daschle was paid $1 million annually for his consulting services, and he had unreported consulting income of $88,333, in 2007.
  • Daschle also had reductions to charitable contributions totaling about $15,000 over the three years.

Just hours earlier, Obama's nominee for the newly created position of Chief Performance Officer, Nancy Killefer, also stepped aside because of a tax problem. Killefer failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes on household help.

Rewarding failure is just part of the Washington political culture. Just ask Barack Obama’s Treasury Secretary nominee Tim Geithner and the Senate Republicans. Recently, Geithner was confirmed as treasury secretary despite belatedly paying $34,000 in income taxes. A guy who can’t figure out his own taxes is supposed to 'fix the economy?' You don't seriously expect us to believe that?

Add the fact that Obama's first choice for commerce secretary, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, took his name out of consideration when his confirmation appeared headed toward complications because of a grand jury investigation over how state contracts were issued to political donors, and you've got to at least wonder... what kind of people has Obama been associating with?

"Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks -- no form of government can render us secure. To suppose liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men. So that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them."

-- James Madison
Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 20, 1788

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Obama appoints Emanuel as chief of staff

The enlistment of Rahm Emanuel amounts to nothing more than “politics as usual.” Where's the change Obama has been preaching?
Rahm Emanuel was a political and policy aide in Bill Clinton's White House, and helped push through the North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA).
It was on Bill Clinton's watch that NAFTA was sold to the people of the United States, Mexico and Canada as a simple treaty eliminating tariffs on goods crossing the three countries' borders. But NAFTA is much more: It is the constitution of an emerging continental economy that recognizes no one but the business corporation. It gives corporations extraordinary protections from government policies that might limit future profits, and extraordinary rights to force the privatization of virtually all civilian public services. Disputes are settled by secret tribunals of experts, many of whom are employed privately as corporate lawyers and consultants. At the same time, NAFTA excludes protections for workers.

The business-backed politicians who pushed the agreement through the three legislatures promised that NAFTA would generate prosperity. But as soon as the ink was dry, US factories began to shift production to maquiladora assembly plant factories along the border, where the Mexican government assures an obsequious labor force and minimal environmental restrictions. The US trade surplus with Mexico quickly turned into a deficit, and since then at least 300,000 jobs have been lost.
In all three countries NAFTA has worsened the distribution of income and wealth. While ordinary people paid the costs, the benefits went to the continent's "powerful elite". Canadian and US corporate investors got guaranteed access to Mexico's cheap labor.

Rahm Emanuel, served on the board of directors of the federal mortgage firm Freddie Mac, known formally as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, at a time when scandal was brewing at the troubled agency and the board failed to spot "red flags," according to government reports reviewed by ABCNews.com.

According to a complaint later filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Freddie Mac, misreported profits by billions of dollars in order to deceive investors between the years 2000 and 2002. The entire board was later accused by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) of having "failed in its duty to follow up on matters brought to its attention."Freddie Mac agreed to pay a $50 million penalty in 2007 to settle the SEC complaint and four top executives of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation were charged with negligent conduct and, like the company, agreed to settle the case without admitting or denying the allegations. The actions by Freddie Mac are cited by some economists as the beginning of the country's economic recession. The federal government this year took over Freddie Mac and a sister federal mortgage agency, Fannie Mae, pledging at least $200 billion in public funds.

Freddie Mac records have been subpoenaed by the Justice Department as part of its investigation of the suspect accounting procedures. During the years 2000, 2001 and 2002, according to the SEC, Freddie Mac substantially misrepresented its income to "present investors with the image of a company that would continue to generate predictable and growing earnings."
Rahm Emanuel was named to the Freddie Mac board by President Bill Clinton in 2000.
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
- - Thomas Jefferson