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Interesting, also says lots for 'green' shoots only visible in newly created bureaucracies.
"Costco to accept food stamps nationwide
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9BK94I01&show_article=1
"Coming in December: World government
Posted: October 24, 2009
1:00 am Eastern
By Henry Lamb
World Net Daily© 2009
"It is impossible to overstate the importance of the climate-change treaty now being negotiated for adoption at the Copenhagen, Denmark, U.N. meeting in December. The Kyoto Protocol was bad enough. It required the United States to reduce its carbon emissions 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. When fully implemented, the Kyoto target was supposed to reduce global carbon emissions by 5.2 percent. Thanks to George W. Bush, the U.S. did not participate in the Kyoto accord.
According to the World Bank, global emissions have risen by 19 percent since 1990. U.S. emissions have risen 20 percent since 1990. India's and China's emissions have risen by 88 percent and 73 percent respectively. Neither of these countries was bound by the Kyoto Protocol.
The new treaty now under negotiation seeks to impose an emissions reduction requirement on developed countries of as much as 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2017, and by as much as 95 percent by 2050. (Read paragraph 31 on page 16 of the 181-page negotiating text). These numbers are completely ridiculous; compliance would require a return to the Stone Age.
The ongoing negotiations include whether developing nations will be required to reduce emissions, and if so, by how much. China, a so-called developing nation, has now surpassed the United States as the world's No. 1 carbon emitter.
Regardless of the final numbers the negotiators decide upon, it will make no difference to the climate. It will, however, make an enormous difference to people, especially the people who live in the United States and the other developed nations.
This treaty will create an international bureaucracy with the authority to regulate energy use. This entity would, in fact, be a political institution with the power to govern. In other words, the treaty will create a world government to administer global governance.
Lord Christopher Monckton created a tidal wave across the Internet with excerpts from his Oct. 14 presentation to the Minnesota Free Market Institute. He, too, has read the negotiating text and says without hesitation that this treaty will create a world government. He goes further, much further, to explain that while this treaty will have no impact on global climate, it will have a great impact on the global economy.
The purpose of the treaty is, and has been since the very beginning of negotiations in the early 1990s, to transfer the wealth from developed nations to the developing nations – under the supervision of the United Nations. Treaty negotiations justify this action because developed nations have spewed more carbon into the atmosphere than the developing nations. Therefore, according to U.N. reasoning, it is the developed nations that caused the global warming, so the developing nations are entitled to compensation.
Go figure. Or better yet, go wade through the negotiating text, but only if you have a strong stomach. It will make a non-Marxist throw-up.
Monckton rightfully says that President Obama will sign the treaty. It will take more than his signature to make the treaty binding, however. It will take the affirmative vote of two-thirds of the Senate to ratify whatever comes out of Copenhagen.
That is, unless the politicians resort to procedural hanky-panky. The Convention on Desertification was ratified by a show of hands – no recorded vote – on Oct. 18, 2000, when the Senate chamber was mostly empty. To avoid the two-thirds vote requirement, the World Trade Organization was presented as a trade agreement instead of a treaty. A trade agreement requires only a majority in both houses of Congress. This hurdle is much lower than two-thirds of the Senate. Or, Congress could simply impose the treaty requirements as domestic law. The Waxman-Markey bill (H.R. 2454) which passed the House by only two votes, is a major step toward this option.
The treaty negotiators in Copenhagen will also have to decide how to enforce whatever emissions reductions they eventually decide are appropriate. In the past, negotiators considered using the International Criminal Court. The World Trade Organization has also been considered; the WTO has the authority to levy sanctions for various forms of misconduct. But now, a new possible enforcement mechanism is in the wind: a new international monetary-policy mechanism that has been under development for the better part of a year. Obama gave his blessing to the G-20 recently, and this group is working toward controlling the global economy, much like the Federal Reserve controls the domestic economy.
Negotiators have talked openly about requiring developed nations to contribute 2 percent of their GDP to the new U.N. climate-change mechanism. To put this in perspective, total U.S. defense spending reached 3.9 percent of GDP in 2005. Imagine paying what amounts to a U.N. tax roughly equal to half our total defense budget for redistribution to developing nations. This would satisfy what the U.N. calls the "carbon debt" owed by developed nations to the rest of the world.
The only way to insure that this treaty will not by imposed upon every American is to change the majority in Congress to people who pledge to reject all forms of international control. There are only 53 weeks before voters will choose America's future. It's time to get started."
"The American Self Immolation, Truly a Sight to See
19.10.2009 Source: Pravda.Ru
Stanislav Mishin
"As my readers know, I am a fan of economics and of history, as well as politics, a combination that forms some very interesting cycles to research, discuss and argue on. None is so interesting than the death of great nations, for here there is always the self destruction that comes before the final breakups and invasions. As they say: Rome did not fall to the barbarians, all they did was kick in the rotting gates.
It can be safely said, that the last time a great nation destroyed itself through its own hubris and economic folly was the early Soviet Union (though in the end the late Soviet Union still died by the economic hand). Now we get the opportunity to watch the Americans do the exact same thing to themselves. The most amazing thing of course, is that they are just repeating the failed mistakes of the past. One would expect their fellow travelers in suicide, the British, to have spoken up by now, but unfortunately for the British, their education system is now even more of a joke than that of the Americans.
While taking a small breather from mouthing the never ending propaganda of recovery, never mind that every real indicator is pointing to death and destruction, the American Marxists have noticed that the French and Germans are out of recession and that Russia and Italy are heading out at a good clip themselves. Of course these facts have been wrapped up into their mind boggling non stop chant of "recovery" and hope-change-zombification. What is ignored, of course, is that we and the other three great nations all cut our taxes, cut our spending, made life easy for small business...in other words: the exact opposite of the Anglo-Sphere.
That brings us to Cap and Trade. Never in the history of humanity has a more idiotic plan been put forward and sold with bigger lies. Energy is the key stone to any and every economy, be it man power, animal power, wood or coal or nuclear. How else does one power industry that makes human life better (unless of course its making the bombs that end that human life, but that's a different topic). Never in history, with the exception of the Japanese self imposed isolation in the 1600s, did a government actively force its people away from economic activity and industry.
Even the Soviets never created such idiocy. The great famine of the late 1920s was caused by quite the opposite, as the Soviets collectivized farms to force peasants off of their land and into the big new factories. Of course this had disastrous results. So one must ask, are the powers that be in Washington and London degenerates or satanically evil? Where is the opposition? Where are the Republicans in America and Tories in England?
The unfortunate truth here is: the Republicans and Tories are the Mensheviks to the Democrat and Labour Bolsheviks. In other words, they are the slightly less radical fellow travellers who are to stupid to realize that once their usefulness is done, they will go the very camps they will help send the true opposition to. A more deserving lot was rarely born. Of course half of the useful idiots in the Bolshevik groupings will go to those very same camps.
One express idiocy of Cap and Trade in America will be the approximately additional $.19 per liter of gasoline, which is a rather very large increase in taxation, however indirectly. Of course this will not only hit the American working serfs in the pocket at fuel up, but will hit them in everything they buy and do, as America has almost no real rail to even partially off set the cost of transporting goods.
But how will this work itself out? Very simple and the chain of events has been worked out often enough.
First, the serfs will start to scream at the cost of fueling up and the cost of all their goods. The government, ever anxious not to take responsibility, will single out the petroleum factories and oil companies for gauging the people. They will make demands for them to cut prices, which of course means working for a loss. When plants start to close down or move overseas, they will be called racketeers and saboteurs. Their facilities will be nationalized so that the government can show them how to do things properly. Shortages will follow as will show trials and that's as long as the USD holds up and foreign nations are still willing to sell oil and gasoline for other than gold, silver and other hard resources.
When food goes up, and it surely will, as the diesel the farmer uses goes up as well as his fertilizers, the government will scream that the farmers are hording, thus undermining the efforts of the enlightened. There will be confiscations of all feed crops while the farmers will get production quotas to meet or have their land nationalized again. Do not believe me? Look at the people running your governments and ask yourself: would they rather take some one's land or admit that they screwed up and ruined everything? After a point, only the corporate farms will remain, food by oligarch, just a like the factory farms. There will be plenty of dissidents to work them.
This will of course spread from industry to industry and within a rather short order, you will be living the new fractional dream, that is a fraction of what you have now. But on the bright side, for once, your children, working for government/oligarch run joint ventures, will be able to compete adequately with the Chinese, to feed the demands of Europe and Latin America. But that will take at least a generation or two first along with a cultural revolution or two."
Stanislav Mishin
The article has been reprinted with the kind permission from the author and originally appears on his blog, Mat Rodina
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/19-10-2009/109977-self_immolation-0
"U.S. official resigns over Afghan war
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting
By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
"When Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service early this year, he was exactly the kind of smart civil-military hybrid the administration was looking for to help expand its development efforts in Afghanistan.
A former Marine Corps captain with combat experience in Iraq, Hoh had also served in uniform at the Pentagon, and as a civilian in Iraq and at the State Department. By July, he was the senior U.S. civilian in Zabul province, a Taliban hotbed.
But last month, in a move that has sent ripples all the way to the White House, Hoh, 36, became the first U.S. official known to resign in protest over the Afghan war, which he had come to believe simply fueled the insurgency.
"I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States' presence in Afghanistan," he wrote Sept. 10 in a four-page letter to the department's head of personnel. "I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end."
The reaction to Hoh's letter was immediate. Senior U.S. officials, concerned that they would lose an outstanding officer and perhaps gain a prominent critic, appealed to him to stay.
U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry brought him to Kabul and offered him a job on his senior embassy staff. Hoh declined. From there, he was flown home for a face-to-face meeting with Richard C. Holbrooke, the administration's special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We took his letter very seriously, because he was a good officer," Holbrooke said in an interview. "We all thought that given how serious his letter was, how much commitment there was, and his prior track record, we should pay close attention to him."
While he did not share Hoh's view that the war "wasn't worth the fight," Holbrooke said, "I agreed with much of his analysis." He asked Hoh to join his team in Washington, saying that "if he really wanted to affect policy and help reduce the cost of the war on lives and treasure," why not be "inside the building, rather than outside, where you can get a lot of attention but you won't have the same political impact?"
Hoh accepted the argument and the job, but changed his mind a week later. "I recognize the career implications, but it wasn't the right thing to do," he said in an interview Friday, two days after his resignation became final.
"I'm not some peacenik, pot-smoking hippie who wants everyone to be in love," Hoh said. Although he said his time in Zabul was the "second-best job I've ever had," his dominant experience is from the Marines, where many of his closest friends still serve.
"There are plenty of dudes who need to be killed," he said of al-Qaeda and the Taliban. "I was never more happy than when our Iraq team whacked a bunch of guys."
But many Afghans, he wrote in his resignation letter, are fighting the United States largely because its troops are there -- a growing military presence in villages and valleys where outsiders, including other Afghans, are not welcome and where the corrupt, U.S.-backed national government is rejected. While the Taliban is a malign presence, and Pakistan-based al-Qaeda needs to be confronted, he said, the United States is asking its troops to die in Afghanistan for what is essentially a far-off civil war. .........."
Continued on pages 2 & 3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/26/AR2009102603394.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009102603447
Maybe the fat lady hasn't sung after all.
There is some religious reference in the latter part of the video so if you're offended by that .... then don't watch it.
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U.S. Sovereignty is NOT over! Constitution Supercedes Treaties...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bIHRmEzixs
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State Rights
"Treaties Do Not Supersede the Constitution
"The following qualifies as one of the greatest lies the globalists continue to push upon the American people. That lie is: "Treaties supersede the U.S. Constitution".
The Second follow-up lie is this one: "A treaty, once passed, cannot be set aside".
HERE ARE THE CLEAR IRREFUTABLE FACTS: The U.S. Supreme Court has made it very clear that
1) Treaties do not override the U.S. Constitution.2) Treaties cannot amend the Constitution. And last,
3) A treaty can be nullified by a statute passed by the U.S. Congress (or by a sovereign State or States if Congress refuses to do so), when the State deems a treaty the performance of a treaty is self-destructive. The law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation in others. When you've read this thoroughly, hopefully, you will never again sit quietly by when someone -- anyone -- claims that treaties supercede the Constitution. Help to dispell this myth.
"This [Supreme] Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty." - Reid v. Covert, October 1956, 354 U.S. 1, at pg 17.
This case involved the question: Does the NATO Status of Forces Agreement (treaty) supersede the U.S. Constitution? Keep reading.
The Reid Court (U.S. Supreme Court) held in their Opinion that,
"... No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or any other branch of government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution. Article VI, the Supremacy clause of the Constitution declares, "This Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all the Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land...’"There is nothing in this language which intimates that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution nor is there anything in the debates which accompanied the drafting and ratification which even suggest such a result...
"It would be manifestly contrary to the objectives of those who created the Constitution, as well as those who were responsible for the Bill of Rights – let alone alien to our entire constitutional history and tradition – to construe Article VI as permitting the United States to exercise power UNDER an international agreement, without observing constitutional prohibitions. (See: Elliot’s Debates 1836 ed. – pgs 500-519).
"In effect, such construction would permit amendment of that document in a manner not sanctioned by Article V. The prohibitions of the Constitution were designed to apply to all branches of the National Government and they cannot be nullified by the Executive or by the Executive and Senate combined."
Did you understand what the Supreme Court said here? No Executive Order, Presidential Directive, Executive Agreement, no NAFTA, GATT/WTO agreement/treaty, passed by ANYONE, can supersede the Constitution. FACT. No question!
At this point the Court paused to quote from another of their Opinions; Geofroy v. Riggs, 133 U.S. 258 at pg. 267 where the Court held at that time that,
"The treaty power as expressed in the Constitution, is in terms unlimited except by those restraints which are found in that instrument against the action of the government or of its departments and those arising from the nature of the government itself and of that of the States. It would not be contended that it extends so far as to authorize what the Constitution forbids, or a change in the character of the government, or a change in the character of the States, or a cession of any portion of the territory of the latter without its consent."
Assessing the GATT/WTO parasitic organism in light of this part of the Opinion, we see that it cannot attach itself to its host (our Republic or States) in the fashion the traitors in our government wish, without our acquiescing to it.
The Reid Court continues with its Opinion:
"This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an Act of Congress, which MUST comply with the Constitution, is on full parity with a treaty, the statute to the extent of conflict, renders the treaty null. It would be completely anomalous to say that a treaty need not comply with the Constitution when such an agreement can be overridden by a statute that must conform to that instrument."
The U.S. Supreme court could not have made it more clear : TREATIES DO NOT OVERRIDE THE CONSTITUTION, AND CANNOT, IN ANY FASHION, AMEND IT !!! CASE CLOSED.
Now we must let our elected "representatives" in Washington and the State legislatures know that we no longer believe the BIG LIE... we know that we are not bound by unconstitutional Treaties, Executive Orders, Presidential Directives, and other such treasonous acts.
[Note: the above information was taken from Aid & Abet Police Newsletter, with limited revision. P.O. Box 8712, Phoenix, Arizona. Acknowledgment given to Claire Kelly, for her good assistance and in depth treaty research. The use of this information is not to be construed as endorsement of Aid & Abet Police Newsletter. Claire Kelly is a trusted and knowledgeable friend. - CDR]
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Here's what Thomas Jefferson said on the right to renounce treaties:
"Compacts then, between a nation and a nation, are obligatory on them as by the same moral law which obliges individuals to observe their compacts. There are circumstances, however, which sometimes excuse the non-performance of contracts between man and man; so are there also between nation and nation. When performance, for instance, becomes impossible, non-performance is not immoral; so if performance becomes self-destructive to the party, the law of self-preservation overrules the law of obligation in others".
pg 317 - "The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson," A. Koch & Wm. Peden, Random House 1944, renewed 1972. Jefferson also said in a letter to Wilson C. Nicholas on Sept. 7, 1803, Ibid. pg 573
"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction [interpretation]. I say the same as to the opinion of those who consider the grant of the treaty making power as boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution." ______________________________________________________________Further evidence:
Excerpt from a letter from U.S. Senator, Arlen Specter, (R. Penn.) to constituent, November 3, 1994.
"Dear Mr. Neely:"Thank you for contacting my office regarding the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. ... I have signed on as a cosponsor of Senator Bradley’s resolution [SR 70, which urges the president to seek the advice and consent of the Senate for ratification] because I believe that the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child is an appropriate step in the direction of promoting the well-being of children throughout the world. [he goes on to mention concerns that the treaty would subjugate familial and parental responsibility to an international entity, which he denies]
"... Secondly, the Convention would not override the U.S. Constitution; rather, as in the case of any treaty, any provision that conflicts with our Constitution would be void in our country... "
[CDR Note: It is our belief that Arlen Specter would not have been as truthful regarding Constitutional Supremacy over treaties if he had a clue that this letter to a constituent would have found its way into the hands or eyes of the public.]
_________________________________________________
Logical deduction:
No law or treaty supersedes the Supreme Law of the Land. 'Supreme'... meaning 'highest or greatest'. What is higher than highest or greater than greatest, other than our Creator? The Constitution acknowledges our God-given, unalienable rights, and secures those rights in that acknowledgement.
The Constitution gives the US Senate authority to ratify treaties with other nations. Americans have been propagandized into believing that those treaties become the supreme law of the land superseding the Constitution. Let's examine this deception closely and dispel the myth once and for all. Article VI of the Constitution states:
Clause 2 - "This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution [of any state] or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding."Clause 3 - "The senators and representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several state legislatures, and all executives and judicial officers, both of the United States and the several states, shall be bound by oath of affirmation to support this Constitution ."
Laws made in pursuance of this Constitution are laws which are made within the strict and limited confines of the Constitution itself. No federal, state, or international law, rule or bureaucratic regulation and no state constitution can supersede B or be repugnant to B this Constitution.
Treaties made under the authority of the United States... the United States (federal government) was authorized by and on behalf of the people and in pursuance of this Constitution to enter into certain treaties with other governments. The United States (federal government) obtains its authority solely from the Constitution. It would be ludicrous to think that it has the power to circumvent (via treaties) that which grants it its authority.
In Clause 3, it is made clear that every elected official, both federal and state, is bound by oath to support this Constitution. Who can rightly, and genuinely claim to be given the power to destroy that which they are elected and sworn to uphold?
The powers granted by the Constitution cannot sanely be construed to provide the authority to usurp, pre-empt or eradicate it.
The U.S. Supreme Court as cited above correctly ruled that the supremacy of the Constitution overrides treaties. It should be noted that if any Court, be it a State, Federal or the U.S. Supreme Court, should ever rule otherwise, the decision would be repugnant to the Constitution and the ruling would be null and void. The answer to this question is self-evident.
The Constitution authorizes the United States to enter into treaties with other nations B the word Anation@ although not explicit, is certainly implied. The United Nations is an Organization - a Global Corporate Bureaucracy. The 'experts' in international law, commerce, banking, environment, etc.; and a cadre of alleged conservative / Christian-conservative leaders -- lawyer, Dame of Malta, Phyllis Schlafly being a prime example -- have been spewing forth propaganda to instill and further the myth of 'treaty-supremacy' for decades. Their 'expertise' is an illusion created apparently with hopes to instill a sense of inferiority in the 'common man' (their term) so we will all defer to their superior intelligence. Let's not go there.
Here's a perfect example of 'expert' propaganda on the supremacy question: On April 11, 1952, Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (cfr), speaking before the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky said...
"Treaties make international law and also they make domestic law. Under our Constitution, treaties become the supreme law of the land.... Treaty law can override the Constitution. Treaties, for example, ...can cut across the rights given the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights."
Mr. Dulles is confused about the People's rights. To repeat an earlier statement of fact: the Constitution doesn't 'give' us rights. The Constitution acknowledges and secures our inherent, Creator-endowed rights. What Creator gives, no man can take away.
The Dulles brothers worked (lied) long and hard to firmly establish the treaty-supremacy myth. And they realized it would have to be done by deceit -- propaganda. Admittedly by propaganda.
"There is no indication that American public opinion, for example, would approve the establishment of a super state, or permit American membership in it. In other words, time - a long time - will be needed before world government is politically feasible... This time element might seemingly be shortened so far as American opinion is concerned by an active propaganda campaign in this country..."
Allen W. Dulles (cfr) from a UN booklet, Headline Series #59 (New York: The Foreign Policy Association., Sept.-Oct., 1946) pg 46.
The question of "nationhood" in reference to the United Nations seems to have been addressed by the errant Congress. A quick fix apparently took place in the U.S. Senate on March 19, 1970. According to the Anaheim (Cal) Bulletin, 4-20-1970, the Senate ratified a resolution recognizing the United Nations Organization as a sovereign nation. That would be tantamount to recognizing General Motors as a sovereign nation. Are we beginning to get the picture?
Case Closed "
Came in email, another good one. 
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Butch the Rooster
John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets" and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to fertilize the eggs.
The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells. The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all!
John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the Boone County Fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges.
The result... The judges not only awarded Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and s@rew!ng them when they weren't paying attention?
Correspondent Jeff Ray sent in this story Milking the Poor: One Family's Fall Into Homelessness (The Atlantic) http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/christina_davidson/2009/10/milking_the_poor.php#
which is representative of the trend in local government to criminalize poverty for its own enrichment.
Here's the deal. Local government has grown fat in a decade of gargantuan capital gains and real rising real estate taxes. Employees pulling down over $100,000 each are legion, as are public retirees pulling down over $100,000 a year in pension payments. Local government has added 15% more employees even as population grew by a meager 3%. (The numbers may vary in your area but the percentages won't.)
Now the seven fat years are over and local government is not liking the seven lean years. Now that housing has plummeted, so have the tax rolls; capital gains have dried up and even sales tax revenues are crashing. Despite the usual bleatings of hope, the chances of tax revenues recovering are slightly lower than the proverbial snowball's chance of remaining frozen in Heck.
Foreclosures: 'Worst three months of all time' Despite signs of broader economic recovery, number of foreclosure filings hit a record high in the third quarter - a sign the plague is still spreading.
Meanwhile, a perfect storm is gutting public pension funds. More Pain for State's Taxpayers, Cities: CALPERS losses $50B. In order for the State amd local governments of California to meet their future pension obligations (paid by CALPERS, the massive public pension fund), they need to kick in hundreds of millions of dollars more in coming years, even as their revenues are falling.
The conclusion that the medical and pension benefits which were promised in the fat years are no longer payable is anathema to public unions and managerial staff alike, and so the machinery of local government has geared up to stripmine the citizens like a giant trawler stripmines the sea: parking tickets have been jacked up to $60 or more, traffic violations are in the hundreds of dollars, speed traps abound, and as noted in the top story, fees for "crimes" like driving without auto insurance now cost more than the insurance itself.
And gosh forbid if you don't pay on time--the penalties double the original fine and then go up from there.
Is there anything more pernicious, malicious and immoral that this criminalization of poverty to engorge the coffers of local government? If John Q. Citizen defaults on his credit card, he might have to endure harrassing phone calls from bill collectors. But worst case, he can unplug his phone or cancel that number and get another phone number. Fortunately, the bank cannot have him imprisoned (yet).
But local government isn't quite as kind and gentle as the bankers. Mess with their revenues (i.e. don't pay the hefty fines they levy) and they'll haul your carcass into court and then into jail (can't make bail? Too bad. You're a full-blown criminal now.)
Exactly what is the difference between racking up $1,000 in fines off an innocuous violation and being imprisoned for lack of payment and a 19th century-era Debtors prison?
Isn't this part of the reason why the Parisian mobs tore down the Bastille?
Does this make any sense at all, arresting people who can't pay their nonsensically stupendous fines and penalties just so government employees don't have to take a cut in pay and benefits? When did a ticket go from $50 to $300 and up? And why? Does anyone think the cost leaped up "for the public good"?
Is getting nailed for a ticket you can't pay really a deterrent to being too poor to keep your auto insurance current?
Let's follow this all the way to the end. Now that John Q. Citizen is in jail because he was nabbed driving without insurance and a big fat fine is outstanding, aren't the taxpayers throwing away $50,000 to $100,000 a year to process his tortured journey through the Kafkaesque court and jail system with those other "dangerous criminals"?
Hey, the war-on-drugs/prison/gulag pays very well, thank you, and filling cells with Mr. Citizen is just grist for the mill.
Now when Mr. Citizen is released (darn it, we can't get blood from a turnip!), his car has been impounded and he owes the towing yard $1,000 which he doesn't have. So he no longer has a car to get to work, or even drive to an interview.
OK, so maybe he was irresponsible in not setting aside enough money for the car insurance. Is that now a criminal offense? Is this the best use of police officers, judges, jails and the "justice" system? Is anyone being deterred by the ruthless criminalization of poverty? Please make the case for that, local politicos and bureaucrats.
Great work, local government. You've not only stolen the citizen's last few dollars, you've also deprived him of his employment opportunities and livelihood.
Here's a thought: you need more tax revenue? Then make the case to the citizens at the ballot box to pay more. Prove you're not squandering the tax money you're already getting by the boatload. Show us how you're going to spend our money as carefully as we do.
If you really want to stripmine somebody's cash assets, why not start with your local Wal-Mart? I can guarantee you they won't leave town when you enact a new ordinance taxing all retail establishments of 50,000 square feet or more.
Or impose a tax on all homes worth more than triple the median price in your zip code. You want to nail somebody with higher taxes? Then go after the top 5% who still have assets. Don't trawl the streets for the folks who can least afford your rapacious imposition of authority.
Bankers aren't the only rapacious greedheads in this nation. Look no farther than city hall, the county building and the State capitol. Just hope it isn't you who runs low on cash and gets nailed with that $395 ticket which soon morphs into $695 and an arrest warrant.
You can't blame local government avarice on Washington or the bankers. All this greed is homegrown, local and entirely unnecessary. As it stands now, 10% or maybe even 20% of the citizenry will soon have outstanding arrest warrants for what amounts to local government Debtors Prison.
Come November 2010, we can only pray that the citizenry "takes care of business" at the ballot box, and all the incumbent politicos who approved this evil criminalization of poverty get tossed out en masse, regardless of party affiliation.
Permanent link: Criminalizing Poverty For Profit: Local Government's New Debtors Prisons
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct09/criminalizing-poverty10-09.html
Came in email, a good one! 
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HARLEY BIKER
A Harley biker is riding by the zoo in Washington DC when he sees a little girl leaning into the lion's cage. Suddenly, the lion grabs her by the cuff of her jacket and tries to pull her inside to slaughter her, under the eyes of her screaming parents.
The biker jumps off his Harley, runs to the cage and hits the lion square on the nose with a powerful punch. Whimpering from the pain the lion jumps back letting go of the girl, and the biker brings her to her terrified parents, who thank him endlessly.
A reporter has watched the whole event. The reporter addressing the Harley rider says, 'Sir, this was the most gallant and brave thing I've seen a man do in my whole life.' The Harley rider replies, 'Why, it was nothing, really, the lion was behind bars. I just saw this little kid in danger and acted as I felt right..'
The reporter says, 'Well, I'll make sure this won't go unnoticed. I'm a journalist you know, and tomorrow's paper will have this story on the front page... So, what do you do for a living and what political affiliation do you have?'
The biker replies, 'I'm a U.S. Marine and a Republican.' The journalist leaves. The following morning the biker buys the paper to see if it indeed brings news of his actions and reads, on the front page.
U.S. MARINE ASSAULTS AFRICAN IMMIGRANT AND STEALS HIS LUNCH
That pretty much sums up the media's approach to the news these days!!!!!!!! !
Hat tip to Karl Denninger, MarketTicker.org for this. http://market-ticker.org/archives/1513-A-Birdie-On-Possible-Foreclosure-Frauds.html
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Suggested reading if you have a mortgage. Florida cited but similar public records apply in all states.
Foreclosure Fraud - Guide to Looking up Public Record
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20916919/Foreclosure-Fraud-Guide-to-Looking-up-Public-Records-for-Fraud
"The MERShole Yawns Wide
Karl DenningerSource MarketTicker.org
“The foreclosure sales (in question are) invalid because they failed to meet the requirements of (Massachusetts law),” Land Court Judge Keith Long wrote yesterday in reaffirming a decision he originally reached in March.
At issue is "lost" (or improperly endorsed) paperwork when mortgages are sold from party to party, as typically happens many times during a securitization process.
I have often argued that a lot of "lost" paperwork is in fact intentionally destroyed, as this is one of the few ways to cover up blatant fraud in the origination of mortgages - brokers putting the same application through with a half-dozen ever-higher "claimed" incomes, for example, until they get an approval. The original paperwork that is executed by the borrower, if it bears hand-written numbers that don't match the signature, could be a strong indicator of fraud committed by those brokers (and willingly ignored by securitizers.)
Judge Long wrote:
“The issues in this case are not merely . . . a matter of dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Instead, they lie at the heart of the protections given to homeowners and borrowers,”
Yep.
Banks have long run roughshod over the law. Indeed, their so-called "profits" virtually demand it in this world of lies, deceit and outright fraud. In several states, including Florida, judges have been nothing more than handmaidens of these "enterprises", despite black-letter law in this state (and most others) that demand an unbroken chain of original, wet signatures in the assignment of interest.
If you can't produce the documents, by statute, you have no standing to foreclose.
Period.
As specifically stated:
"The statute's commands are clear, the plaintiffs' own securitization documents show that they knew of those requirements, and if they failed to follow them, the responsibility for the consequences is theirs.
The willful destruction, non-retention, or improper (or no) recording of these documents makes all such affected securitizations fraudulent, as they were sold off to investors as being "asset backed" when in fact they were not, as being "asset backed" requires compliance with state law in the perfection of the security interest. No security interest, no asset backing, and the offering prospectus is representing that which is known to be factually incorrect.
Most importantly all of the actors involved, including the securitizing banks, MERS and similar institutions, were aware at the outset that they did not comport with the laws of these states, and this knowing failure is given formal judicial recognition in this decision. The offering documents as cited in the decision make clear that for each such tendered mortgage into the pool either a validly-recorded interest or transfer in recordable form was required, and such was warranted to have taken place. It clearly, from the record, did not.
This elevates these omissions from "ministerial errors" to something far more serious, in that if you sell something to someone knowing you are not complying with the black letter of the law of the state in which you operate in every line of business - save one - you'd find yourself on the wrong end of a criminal complaint from the State Attorney General.
We need 50 Andrew Cuomos to bring criminal and civil charges, and we need them now. This is a legitimate State Law issue in that The States have an affirmative duty to enforce the laws that protect their citizens, and in this regard the law is black-letter.
Can we find a (state) cop somewhere?
Oh, and for extra credit, does anyone care to take a wager on how much of the so-called "Secured" MBS that The Fed has been monetizing also has no valid assignment and thus has NO collateral, and in the event of a default, is WORTHLESS?
PS: Want to help yourself and others in your state? Raise hell with your State AG, starting with faxing this Ticker to him or her..... The PDF of the decision showing that the securitizers were in knowing breach of their own covenants and requirements is found here.
http://market-ticker.org/archives/1512-The-MERShole-Yawns-Wide.html
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Link to Pdf
"Mass. Land Court ruling on foreclosure sales
Full text of the ruling by Justice Keith C. Long, which affirmed his own March decision that invalidated foreclosure proceedings involving two Springfield homes because the lenders did not hold clear titles to the properties at the time of sale.
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2009/10/15/ibanezruling/
Sensible.
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"Feds to issue new medical marijuana policy
By DEVLIN BARRETT
Source My Way News
"WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal drug agents won't pursue pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers in states that allow medical marijuana, under new legal guidelines to be issued Monday by the Obama administration.
Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state law......"
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091019/D9BE5D2G0.html
Sidebar comment: On October 14th 2009, Lord Christopher Monckton, a noted climatechange expert, gave a presentation at Bethel College in St. Paul, MN inwhich he issued a dire warning regarding the United Nations ClimateChange Treaty which is scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December2009.
Hmmmm, looks like rationing of sorts has begun before it hits the ground. One sentence sums it up ...... "and it would give government officials the power to raise it to 50 percent.
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That's a message more Americans could hear if the health care reform bills passed by the Senate Finance and Health committees become law.
By more than doubling the maximum rewards and penalties that companies can apply to employees who flunk medical evaluations, the bills could put workers under intense financial pressure to lose weight, stop smoking or even lower their cholesterol.
The initiative, largely eclipsed in the health care debate, builds on a trend that is already in play among some corporations and that more workers will see in the packages they bring home during this month's open enrollment. Some employers offer lower premiums to people who complete personal health assessments; others offer only limited benefit packages to smokers.
The current legislative effort takes the trend a step further. It is backed by major employer groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. It is opposed by labor unions and groups devoted to combating serious illnesses, such as the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, and the American Diabetes Association.
A colossal loophole?
President Obama and members of Congress have declared that they are trying to create a system in which no one can be denied coverage or charged higher premiums based on their health status. The health insurance lobby has said it shares that goal. However, so-called wellness incentives could introduce a colossal loophole. In effect, they would permit insurers and employers to make coverage less affordable for people exhibiting risk factors for problems like diabetes, heart disease and stroke.
"Everybody said that we're going to be ending discrimination based on preexisting conditions. But this is in effect discrimination again based on preexisting conditions," said Ann Kempski of the Service Employees International Union.
The legislation would make exceptions for people who have medical reasons for not meeting targets.
Supporters say economic incentives can prompt workers to make healthier choices, thereby reducing medical expenses. The aim is to "focus on wellness and prevention rather than just disease and treatment," said Business Roundtable president John J. Castellani.
BeniComp Group, an Indiana company that manages incentives for employers, says on its Web site that the programs can save employers money in a variety of ways. Medical screenings will catch problems early. Employers will shift costs to others. Some employees will "choose other health care options."
Douglas J. Short, BeniComp's chief executive, said the incentives he uses focus on outcomes, not conditions.
"I can't give you an incentive based on being a diabetic or not being a diabetic, but whether you're managing your blood glucose level — I can give you an incentive based on that," Short said.
National epidemic of obesity
The incentives could attack a national epidemic of obesity. They also cut to a philosophical core of the health care debate. Should health insurance be like auto insurance, in which good drivers earn discounts and reckless ones pay a price, thereby encouraging better habits? Or should it be a safety net in which the young and healthy support the old and sick with the understanding that youth and good health are transitory?
Under current regulation, incentives based on health factors can be no larger than 20 percent of the premium paid by employer and employee combined. The legislation passed by the Health and Finance committees would increase the limit to 30 percent, and it would give government officials the power to raise it to 50 percent.
A single employee whose annual premiums cost him and his employer the national average of $4,824 could have as much as $2,412 on the line. At least under the Health Committee bill, the stakes could be higher for people with family coverage. Families with premiums of $13,375 — the combined average for employer-sponsored coverage, according to a recent survey — could have $6,687.50 at risk.
An amendment passed unanimously by the Health Committee would allow insurers to use the same rewards and penalties in the market for individual insurance, though legislative language subsequently drafted by the committee's Democratic staff does not reflect that vote, Sen. Mike Enzi (Wyo.), for the committee's ranking Republican, has said. The bill drafted by the Senate Finance Committee would set up a trial program allowing insurers in 10 states to use wellness-based incentives for individuals.
America's Health Insurance Plans, an industry lobby, has argued that insurers should be allowed to consider participation in wellness programs when setting individual premiums.
Wellness incentives voluntary
Employers and other advocates of expanded wellness incentives say taking steps to get healthier would be voluntary. Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican and lead sponsor of the Finance Committee's wellness provision, said his proposal "would guarantee that the incentive is strong enough for Americans to want to participate."
Wellness incentives have been spreading rapidly in the corporate world. Unlike the legislative proposals, which address incentives based on results, the corporate programs typically compensate employees based on effort alone — for example, enrolling in smoking cessation programs even if they fail to kick the habit, or undergoing detailed medical assessments regardless of the findings. But there are exceptions: The Safeway supermarket company allows certain employees to reduce their premiums by meeting standards for body mass and other measures. Safeway chief executive Steve Burd has framed it as an issue of personal responsibility."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33336289/ns/politics-washington_post/
"The people vs Wall Street
Bear Stearns bankers on trial in first criminal case of the credit crunch
By Stephen Foley in New York Source TheIndependent.co.uk
"Thursday, 15 October 2009Amidst the economic wreckage, after 7 million job losses and approaching 2 million home foreclosures in the US alone, with businesses and consumers around the world still struggling to get finance after the long credit crunch, Wall Street is finally on trial. A little piece of Wall Street, at least.
In the first major case against bankers at the heart of the financial meltdown, a jury of 12 mainly working-class New Yorkers will decide the fate of the two Bear Stearns managers whose hedge funds imploded in 2007, signalling the start of the crisis. Ralph Cioffi, 53, and Matt Tannin, 48, pocketed millions of dollars in pay during the boom years, but the events of 2007 left their investors nursing losses of $1.6bn (£1bn) and ruined forever the reputation of Bear Stearns, one of the oldest investment banks on Wall Street.
Dressed as if for a funeral, the pair sat impassively in the brightly lit courtroom in downtown Brooklyn yesterday as assistant US attorney Patrick Sinclair recounted what he said was a litany of lies that they told to investors. The two men were desperate to stop investors deserting their funds when the sub-prime mortgage market began to plunge, Mr Sinclair said. Mr Cioffi alone was paid $32m in the two years before the funds collapsed.
They "violated a special relationship of trust" between fund managers and investors, he added. "They lied to investors to save their multimillion dollar bonuses. In the US, that is a crime, a serious crime. It's called securities fraud." The prosecution plans to lean heavily on private emails written by the men which suggest they knew much earlier that the sub-prime market was – in a word used by Mr Tannin – "toast". Yet the men glossed over the situation and deceived investors in two ways, it is alleged.
First, Mr Tannin said he was putting more of his own money into the funds, when in fact he did not invest a single cent of the $1m that was available in his bank account. Mr Cioffi, meanwhile, secretly withdrew $2m of his money. Second, Mr Cioffi denied any major investor was planning to pull out, when he had already received a major redemption request. More than a dozen friends and family crammed in to the few public benches, and more spilled into an overflow room as the trial got under way. While the prosecution aimed to distil the case for jurors into a handful of straightforward lies, it was clear yesterday that the defence will portray the events of 2007 as much more nuanced – and highly complicated. In an idiosyncratic opening statement, Mr Cioffi's lawyer, Dane Butswinkas, launched into an educational session on high finance. At one point, he used waste-paper baskets in an attempt to explain how hedge funds worked.
The prosecution is unfairly "cherry-picking from thousands and thousands of emails", Mr Butswinkas complained. "It is easier to call the right play on Monday morning after the game on Sunday, and it is always easier to pick the right investment strategy after the fact. Hindsight is 20-20."
Mr Cioffi was described by Mr Butswinkas as a man who reached a high level on Wall Street through talent and hard work. He came to New York in the late Seventies "with $200 in a slightly worn-out pouch" and "with hopes of being a banker". Mr Tannin's defence team will give their opening arguments this morning.
The trial promises to be a bitter fight between prosecutors, who accuse the pair of lying and manipulating evidence, and defence lawyers, who say the men are being made scapegoats for a financial crisis that was not of their making. The outcome could also be a harbinger of things to come, as the US Justice Department considers bringing cases against even bigger fish on Wall Street.
"This is not a revenge opportunity," the 75-year-old judge, Frederic Block, had told prospective jurors. Neither Mr Cioffi nor Mr Tannin is charged with "causing" the credit crisis. They are charged with behaving dishonestly when the crisis began to break. The pair were traders in mortgage securities, curators of two hedge funds that invested in debt which is now known to have been toxic but which had seemed to promise great riches. They worked at the long end of the chain that stretched from overheated housing markets in the south and west of the US, where millions of buyers were tempted into taking on mortgages they could not afford. Those mortgages were sliced and diced by Wall Street and turned into securities which could be bought and sold as if they were shares. Credit rating agencies had certified the Bear Stearns funds' mortgage derivative portfolio as super-safe; the defendants' superiors at Bear Stearns and the funds' outside investors believed they were taking little risk. The question is when the two managers realised this was far from true.
Messrs Cioffi and Tannin face 20 years in jail if they are found guilty of the securities fraud. Mr Cioffi is additionally charged with insider dealing."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/the-people-vs-wall-street-1802807.html