Back to inspirational stuff, these videos are totally awesome!!!

Em, hope your kitties haven't chewed your speaker wires again.....

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"What You Think Is  Reality Is Illusion

La Realidad es una Ilusión (1 de 2)

 

Member of another forum used the following quote as their signature ... found it appropriate for our new lesson in PC by the thought police.

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"Political correctness defined.

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end"

R. J. Wiedemann LtCol. USMC Ret."

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Propananda-DisInfo
Source BlacklistedNews.com
-----

Newspeak: What's in a Name? Re-Branding Madness Consumes Washington

Published on 05-18-2009
Source: Fox News

"Global War on Terror is out -- "overseas contingency operation" is in.

Terrorist attack is out -- "man-caused disaster" is in.

Since the new administration took office, Washington has been consumed, on both sides of the aisle, by a kind of re-branding madness. This marathon in semantics has had a variety of tactical purposes, depending on who's got his Sharpie on the dictionary.

The Obama administration, through a string of delicate shifts in terminology, has softened -- or at least obfuscated -- the essence of the war against Islamic extremism.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, arguably the Washington equivalent to Madonna of re-branding, delivered an entire set of testimony without using the word "terrorism." She says she prefers "man-caused disasters."

And the administration as a whole phased out the term "Global War on Terror." "Overseas contingency operation" became the tag that is now used in budget documents to explain where billions of taxpayer dollars are going.

Napolitano told the German magazine Der Spiegel she's avoiding such hot-button words like "terrorism" to demonstrate the administration's desire to "move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur."

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave even less of an explanation, telling reporters in March that the name switch for the War on Terror "speaks for itself."

Republican marketing guru Pete Snyder, with New Media Strategies -- who called former President George W. Bush a "horrible" brander -- guessed that these new names serve a common purpose.

"The premise there is they want to confuse the public," he said, noting that Obama is pursuing a national security agenda not so far afield from Bush's.

Doing so under the title of "overseas contingency operation" might not draw the same backlash of Code Pinkers.

But re-branding fever has taken hold in other areas, in other departments and in the other party. Marketing wonks say this is leading to mixed results.

"What's in a name, it's hugely important," Snyder said. "Billions of dollars are spent by corporations every year to try to take a product or a concept that is complex and boil it down into something that is very succinct and burn [it] into the brains of Americans."

With public policy, Snyder said, branding is even more important, since lawmakers are selling products that are far more complicated.

Unfortunately, "politicians and policymakers tend to be absolutely horrible marketers," he said.

Bush drew criticism for the War on Terror title since it was essentially a war against an intangible force. Bush also took heat for such terms as the Clear Skies Act and Healthy Forests Initiative, both of which critics said obviously undermined their namesakes.

Similar title-tweaking is happening in Obama's White House.

The Treasury Department, for instance, tried to substitute the term "legacy assets" for "toxic assets" -- those stinky financial holdings that pollute the books of banks and that the government wants to take off their hands.

"Legacy" might connote "investment" rather than "risk." But few in the media are actually using the term on a regular basis.

Then health officials in the U.S. and the World Health Organization tried to rein in the media from using the term "swine flu" to describe the outbreak they feared would reach pandemic levels. H1N1, please, they said, as the pork lobby expressed concern that irrational fear of the pig was leading to international bans on U.S. pork products. But as one Associated Press report noted, "the virus that is scaring the world is pretty much all pig."

But there's another re-branding campaign, this one not yet official, coming out of the Republican Party, which is not trying to re-brand itself but the other guys.

Politico.com reported that the Republican National Committee plans to approve a resolution to rename its rival the "Democrat Socialist Party."

This comes after the GOP tried, to little avail, to rename the Democratic Party the Democrat Party. A few lone conservatives still use the term, but party members declined to codify the change last year and mainstream Republicans generally call the party by its real name, for now.

Snyder said this latest move inevitably comes off as petty and misguided.

"If the dog food we're making is being recalled, just changing the tagline isn't the best way to go about it," he said.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has distanced himself from the impending decision, telling NBC's "Meet the Press," that "if they do that, they do that."

But party members opened themselves up to endless Democratic ribbing with the apparent name-change.

"Given the challenges they face, seems exactly the way I would be using my time, too," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs joked on Friday.

Eric Swartz, founder of the San Francisco-based brander TaglineGuru, said the GOP needs to focus more on reinventing itself than the Democrats.

"You just can't throw a word against the wall and expect everyone to fall down and fall in love with it," he said.

There needs to be an infrastructure behind it. For this reason, branders see a more promising campaign in the nascent attempt to overhaul the so-called War on Drugs.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that new drug czar Gil Kerlikowske wants to drop "War on Drugs" from the national lexicon.

"We're not at war with people in this country," he told the paper, summing up the longstanding criticism of the term.

Swartz said a new name for the War on Drugs could be effective if paired with new policy.

He attributed the intense interest in Washington branding lately in part to President Obama's successful campaign, which he said showed Washington what good branding can do.

"He owned the word 'change.' Other people tried to encroach on that -- I guess he was there first," Swartz said. "He had the logo, he had a great motto."

So what's next?

There's still plenty of other security-related terms to toy with, and lawmakers could certainly benefit from new terminology to soften the impact of their ongoing spending binge.

Swartz took a crack at rebranding some key policy terms for the Obama administration, or anybody else, to use. His suggestions:

Detainees: Custodial informants

Terrorists: Improvised ideologues

Deficit: Long shortfall (or inverted surplus)

One trillion dollars: Nth power financing

Abortion: Reproductive choice

Earmarks: Allocators

Bailouts: Stop-gappers

Border violence: Territorial imperative

Torture: Non-verbal questioning

Taxes: Income tweaks

Have at it, Washington. "

Copyright © 2006-2009 BlackListedNews.com

http://www.blacklistednews.com/news-4261-0-21-21--.html

For those interested in preserving their rights as enumerated under the US Constitution, this is suggested reading.

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"Legal Advisor Nominee Advocates Global Gun Control

by Brian Darling 05/04/2009
Source HumanEvents.com

"Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on the nomination of Harold Koh, a former Dean of the Yale Law School, to be Legal Advisor to the State Department. One of the many concerns with Koh is his belief that international organizations should be empowered to regulate the Second Amendment right to own a firearm.

On April 2, 2002, Koh gave a speech to the Fordham University School of Law titled "A World Drowning in Guns" where he mapped out his vision of global gun control. Koh advocated an international "marking and tracing regime." He complained that "the United States is now the major supplier of small arms in the world, yet the United States and its allies do not trace their newly manufactured weapons in any consistent way." Koh advocated a U.N.-governed regime to force the U.S. "to submit information about their small arms production."

Koh supports the idea that the U.N. should be granted the power "to standardize national laws and procedures with member states of regional organizations." Koh feels that U.S. should "establish a national firearms control system and a register of manufacturers, traders, importers and exporters" of guns to comply with international obligations. This regulatory regime would allow U.N. members such as Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran to have a say in what type of gun regulations are imposed on American citizens.

Taken to their logical conclusion, Koh's ideas could lead to a national database of all firearm owners, as well as the use of international law to force the U.S. to pass laws to find out who owns guns. All who care about freedom should read his speech 

http://law.fordham.edu/publications/articles/500flspub11111.pdf   (pdf). 

Senators need to think long and hard about whether Koh's extreme views on international gun control are appropriate for America.

FDA Regulation of Tobacco

As if the federal government weren't interfering enough in your daily decisions, now officials want to greatly expand the FDA's regulatory power over tobacco. The House has passed a bill that would, among other things, allow the FDA to regulate nicotine and mandate more warnings about the health risks of tobacco. Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) is spoiling for a fight when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid schedules a vote on the bill. Let's hope others join the fight against an ever-expanding federal government.

The First Amendment Under Attack

Many conservatives are aware of the now-infamous DHS report on "rightwing extremism" -- as well they should be. This report said that the possible passage of gun control legislation, the election of the first African American president, the economic downturn and the return of military veterans could lead to domestic terrorism: "Rightwing extremism in the United States ... may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single, issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." This report serves to demonize many elements of the conservative movement by characterizing them as potential radical domestic terrorists.

Sens. David Vitter (R-La.) and Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) have introduced a resolution requesting that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano issue a formal apology to the nation's military personnel and veterans whom the report deems extremist because they are pro-life and/or hold other conservative views. It's an outrage that those who served this country honorably in Iraq and Afghanistan would be scrutinized by federal officials. Conservatives should be wary that the federal government may be monitoring conservative groups who differ with the president on policy grounds.

Energy Tax Hikes

This week, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and his top climate deputy, Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey (D-Mass.) will try to advance the innocuously named American Climate and Energy Security Act (ACES). The bill, a de-facto energy tax, would undermine America's economic recovery and punish low- and middle-income families with staggering electricity price hikes.

A handful of moderate Democrats have joined Republicans to oppose such a scheme. The key difference is that, according to Roll Call, Waxman and Markey are meeting with hesitant Democrats members to find a bill that protects their own districts. This amounts to picking winners and losers behind closed doors, giving the politically connected a chance to avoid (if only for a year or two) the massive economic harm likely to occur.

President Obama has spoken eloquently about the need for transparency. Americans should demand similar, if not greater, transparency from Reps. Markey and Waxman. If they're going to pick winners and losers, they should do so openly."

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=31711
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"IT IS GETTING VERY SERIOUS NOW

By Chuck Baldwin
May 12, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

"First, it was a Missouri Analysis and Information Center (MIAC) report; then it was a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report; now it is a New York congressman's bill. Each of these items, taken on their own, is problematic enough; taken together they portend "a clear and present danger" to the liberties of the American people. It is getting very serious now.

As readers may recall, the MIAC report profiled certain people as being potential violence-prone "militia members": including people who supported Presidential candidates Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and myself. In addition, anyone who opposed one or more of the following were also included in the list: the New World Order, the U.N., gun control, the violation of Posse Comitatus, the Federal Reserve, the Income Tax, the Ammunition Accountability Act, a possible Constitutional Convention, the North American Union, the Universal Service Program, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), abortion on demand, or illegal immigration.

The MIAC report prompted a firestorm of protest, and was eventually rescinded, with the man responsible for its distribution being dismissed from his position. The DHS report profiled many of the same people included in the MIAC report, and added returning Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans as potentially dangerous "extremists."

As I have said before, it is very likely that when all of the opinions and views of the above lists are counted, 75% or more of the American people would be included. Yet, these government reports would have law enforcement personnel to believe we are all dangerous extremists that need to be watched and guarded against. If this was not bad enough, a New York congressman has introduced a bill in the House of Representatives to deny Second Amendment rights to everyone listed above.

According to World Net Daily, May 9, 2009, "A new gun law being considered in Congress, if aligned with Department of Homeland Security memos labeling everyday Americans a potential 'threats,' could potentially deny firearms to pro-lifers, gun-rights advocates, tax protesters, animal rights activists, and a host of others--any already on the expansive DHS watch list for potential 'extremism.'

"Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has sponsored H.R. 2159, the Denying Firearms and Explosives to Dangerous Terrorists Act of 2009, which permits the attorney general to deny transfer of a firearm to any 'known or suspected dangerous terrorist.' The bill requires only that the potential firearm transferee is 'appropriately suspected' of preparing for a terrorist act and that the attorney general 'has a reasonable belief' that the gun might be used in connection with terrorism.

"Gun rights advocates, however, object to the bill's language, arguing that it enables the federal government to suspend a person's Second Amendment rights without any trial or legal proof and only upon suspicion of being 'dangerous.'"

WND quotes Gun Owners of America Executive Director Larry Pratt as saying, "By [DHS] standards, I'm one of [DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano's terrorists. This bill would enable the attorney general to put all of the people who voted against Obama on no-gun lists, because according to the DHS, they're all potential terrorists. Actually, we could rename this bill the Janet Napolitano Frenzied Fantasy Implementation Act of 2009."

Pratt was also quoted as saying, "Unbeknownst to us, some bureaucrat in the bowels of democracy can put your name on a list, and your Second Amendment rights are toast." He went on to say, "This such an anti-American bill, this is something King George III would have done."

Now that DHS has established both a list and a lexicon for "extremists," it looks to Congress to confer upon it police-state-style powers through which these individuals may be disarmed and eventually done away with. Rep. Peter King is accommodating this goal with H.R. 2159.

Let me ask a reasonable question: how long does anyone think it would be, after being profiled by DHS and denied the lawful purchase of firearms, that those same people would be subjected to gun confiscation? And how long do you think it would be before DHS began profiling more and more groups of people, thus subjecting them to gun confiscation?

This was exactly the strategy employed by Adolf Hitler. The Jews were the first people denied their civil rights--especially the right to own and possess firearms. Of course, after disarming Jews, the rest of the German citizenry was likewise disarmed. And we all know where that led.

I'm not sure how many of the American people realize that it was the attempted confiscation of the colonialists' cache of arms in Concord, Massachusetts, that started America's War for Independence. Yes, my friends, it was attempted gun confiscation that triggered (pun intended) the "shot heard 'round the world." And now it would appear that, once again, a central government is on the verge of trying to deny the American people their right to keep and bear arms.

I am told that as of 2004, 50% of the adults in the United States own one or more firearms, totaling some 270 million privately owned firearms nationwide. I would venture to say that the vast majority of these gun owners would find themselves matching the DHS profile of a potential "extremist." I wonder how many gun owners realize the way they are now being targeted by their government, and just how serious--and how close--the threat of gun confiscation has become?

If one doubts the intention of the elitists in government today to deny the American people their right to keep and bear arms, consider what former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is purported to have said just a couple of weeks ago. Kissinger attended a high-level meeting with Russian President Medvedev that also included former Secretaries of State James Baker and George Shultz; former Secretary of Defense William Perry; and former Senator Sam Nunn. Included in the discussions was Kissinger's assertion that the American people were now ready to accept a "New Global Order." He is also reported to have told Medvedev, "By September we'll have confiscated all privately owned guns so it really doesn't matter what we do, we'll still be in charge." (Even though the national news media has not reported this statement, the Internet is abuzz with Kissinger having said it. Whether Kissinger actually made that statement or not, he, and rest of his ilk, have repeatedly called for a New World Order, in which there will be no constitutional protection for the right to keep and bear arms.)

This leads to a very serious question: how many of America's gun owners would allow their government to deny them gun ownership? Further, how many would passively sit back and allow their guns to be confiscated?

As humbly and meekly as I know how to say it: as for me and my house, gun confiscation is the one act of tyranny that crosses the line; debate, discourse, discussion, and peaceful dissent cease and desist at that point. I say again, it is getting very serious now."

© 2009 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

http://www.newswithviews.com/baldwin/baldwin511.htm

Via SteveQuayle.com.  Pithy information everyone should know.  Live links for reference.

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Interesting video interview Sen. Kit Bond first article. 

Second one Pelosi doing the backstroke fast as she can.   Way too power hungry for any high position, she does not wear it well. 

Wish she'd do the honorable thing and resign.

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Video: Sen. Kit Bond on Pelosi's CIA Claim

http://thepage.time.com/video-sen-kit-bond-on-pelosis-cia-claim/

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"Hoyer wants Pelosi facts out

By Jared Allen and Mike Soraghan
Posted: 05/12/09 07:53 PM [ET]
Source The Hill

"The No. 2 Democrat in the House on Tuesday said Americans should be provided answers on what Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew about interrogations of suspected terrorists and when she knew about it.

But he also indicated that those answers might give the embattled Speaker political cover.

"I think the facts need to get out," Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters on Tuesday when asked about calls from both sides of the aisle for congressional investigations into the formulation of the so-called torture memos.

The Pelosi interrogation controversy has become a major distraction as the White House and congressional Democrats are seeking to move their top agenda items, most notably healthcare reform and climate change legislation. It is likely that Pelosi (D-Calif.) will be grilled about interrogations at her weekly press conference on Thursday.

Hoyer accused Republicans of creating a diversion by focusing on what information leading Democrats received about interrogation techniques. But he is now the highest-ranking Democrat to say that such information should be made public.

"I think the Republicans are simply trying to distract the American public with who knew what when," Hoyer said. "The issue is not what was said or what was known; the focus ought to be on what was done.

"But I think, frankly," the majority leader added, "the information about what was said and when it was said and who said it - I think that probably ought to be on the record, as well, so the American public knows that rather than what I think is somewhat of a distraction rather than a substantive debate."

Since the release of Bush administration memos authorizing interrogation practices that President Obama has deemed "torture," Republicans have deflected the heat back at Democrats.

Over the last couple of weeks, they have highlighted a steady drip of revelations that have undercut Pelosi's statement that she was told that waterboarding had been declared legal in 2002, but not used on prisoners. She has also said she had no power to stop it, and little ability to protest.

Republicans claim that Pelosi has known for years that intelligence agents were waterboarding terrorism suspects, but waited to complain until years later, when the practice was made public. The revelations have infuriated liberal activists.

Rep. Pete Hoekstra (Mich.), the top Republican on the Intelligence Committee, has pushed for hearings after engineering the release of CIA documents that say Pelosi, the panel's ranking Democrat in 2002, was briefed on interrogation techniques used on a terrorism suspect who is now known to have been waterboarded.

But former Sen. Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who received a similar briefing at the time, has also said he wasn't told that prisoners were being waterboarded.

Pelosi did join in a protest filed after the first briefing that specifically mentioned waterboarding in 2003

Democrats are stressing that Pelosi and Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who became ranking Democrat when Pelosi became minority leader, were not explicitly told of waterboarding until the 2003 briefing, when it had been used for six months, and that it continued after Harman protested.

They also note that the House passed legislation that would have banned waterboarding months after Democrats took control of the chamber in 2007.

Pelosi herself has not asked for any information about the briefings to be made public. And on Tuesday the respected political fact-checking website PolitiFact deemed Pelosi's explanations on waterboarding "false," in light of the CIA documents released last week and even in spite of CIA Director Leon Panetta's letter accompanying the documents saying agents' memories about the briefings could be faulty.

Hoyer's comments seem to indicate that Pelosi may be vindicated at the end of the day.

"To some degree she was in a position where ... she was bound by requirements of secrecy as a condition of those briefings, so it's a little bit of a conundrum there as well," he said.

And when asked if the controversy surrounding what the Speaker knew about interrogation tactics was damaging her support among House Democrats, Hoyer answered flatly: "No."

Yet Hoyer left unclear the manner in which he would like to see such information made public, and did not directly answer a question about whether Pelosi and other members of Congress should have to testify publicly, as Republicans have called for.

While calls for a "truth commission" have faded, congressional hearings are already under way on the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques.

The Senate Judiciary Administrative Oversight and the Courts subcommittee will hold a hearing Wednesday billed as the first hearing on the "torture memos" since their release.

Subcommittee Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who also is a member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Associated Press that he offered legislation in the committee to ban the harsh methods, which was later incorporated into broader legislation.

But Whitehouse said he never protested to the Bush administration because "it never crossed my mind that it would make the least bit of difference."

Attorney General Eric Holder is scheduled to appear before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday to discuss the memos. "

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/hoyer-wants-pelosi-facts-out-2009-05-12.html

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"Panetta to CIA employees: We told Pelosi the truth

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0509/Panetta_to_CIA_employees_We_told_Pelosi_the_truth.html?showall

Technology is a wonderful thing otherwise Big Brother could 'burn all the books.'

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"Flashback: Gore Calls Bush Policies "Un-American" In 2002 Speech

******  AUDIO  *******    Wasn't able to embed it.

On CNN Friday morning Former Vice President claimed he "waited two years" to criticize the Bush administration. In fact, In September of 2002 he trashed then President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the cabinet for their handling of the war against terrorism. "From the outset, the administration has operated in a manner calculated to please the portion of its base that occupies the far right," Mr. Gore said. Gore called the Bush administration's "attack on fundamental constitutional rights" beyond the "pale and un-American." The Weekly Standard has more quotes of Former Vice President Al Gore speaking out against the Bush administration prior to the two-years he claimed to wait. Transcript:

AL GORE: Vice President Cheney said after the war against terrorism began, "This war may last for the rest of our lives." I kind of think I know what he meant by that, but the apprehensions in the world that I spoke of earlier are not calmed down any by this doctrine of preemption that they are now asserting. By now the Bush Administration may now be beginning realizing that national and international cohesion are indeed strategic assets. But it is a lesson long delayed and clearly not uniformly and consistently accepted by senior members of the cabinet. From the outset, the administration has operated in a manner calculated to please the portion of its base that occupies the far right, at the expense of solidarity among all of us as Americans and solidarity between our country and our allies. On the domestic front, the administration, having delayed for many months before conceding the need to pass Joe Lieberman's bill and create an institution outside the White House to manage homeland defense, has actually been willing to see this legislation held up for the sake of an effort to coerce the Congress into stripping civil service protections from tens of thousands of federal employees. Now which is more important: passing the Homeland Security Act, or satisfying a relatively small yet powerful member of the right-wing coalition that has as its number-one priority dismantling labor unions? If that's the most important priority in that legislation, that explains why they're refusing to let the bipartisan consensus in favor of it go forward.

Far more damaging is the administration's attack on fundamental constitutional rights that we ought to have and do have as American citizens. The very idea that an American citizen can be imprisoned without recourse to judicial process or remedies, and that this can be done on the sole say-so of the president of the United States or those acting in his name, is beyond the pale and un-American and it ought to be stopped. "

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2009/05/15/flashback_gore_calls_bush_policies_un-american_in_2002_speech.html

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"Al Gore to Dick Cheney: 'I waited two years'

Al Gore said Friday that fellow former Vice President Dick Cheney has jumped back into the political fray too soon into the new administration's term.

"I waited two years after I left office to make statements that were critical," Gore said during an interview on CNN, pointing out that his critiques were focused on "policy."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22568.html

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"CNN's John Roberts Fails to Press Gore on Bush Criticism Whopper
By Matthew Balan (Bio | Archive)
May 15, 2009 - 17:14 ET

"CNN anchor John Roberts failed to catch former Vice President Al Gore make a significant exaggeration about his criticism of the Bush administration in its early years during an interview on Friday's American Morning"

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/05/15/cnns-john-roberts-fails-press-gore-bush-criticism-whopper

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Two very interesting articles about mind control.  Live links for reference.

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"Pentagon Preps Soldier Telepathy Push

"Dead People Get Stimulus Checks

Updated: Thursday, 14 May 2009, 10:30 PM EDT
Published : Thursday, 14 May 2009, 5:28 PM EDT

"MYFOXNY.COM - This week, thousands of people are getting stimulus checks in the mail. The problem is that a lot of them are dead. A Long Island woman was shocked when she checked the mail and received a letter from the U.S. Treasury -- but it wasn't for her.

WATCH DICK BRENNAN'S REPORT (VIDEO, LEFT)

Antoniette Santopadre of Valley Stream was expecting a $250 stimulus check. But when her son finally opened it, they saw that the check was made out to her father, Romolo Romonini, who died in Italy 34 years ago. He'd been a U.S. citizen when he left for Italy in 1933, but only returned to the United Stated for a seven-month visit in 1969.

The Santopadres are not alone. The Social Security Administration, which sent out 52 million checks, says that some of those checks mistakenly went to dead people because the agency had no record of their death. That amounts to between 8,000 and 10,000 checks for millions of dollars.

The feds blame a rushed schedule, because all the checks have to be cut by June. The strange this is, some of the checks were made out to people -- like Romonini -- who were never even part of the Social Security system."

http://www.myfoxny.com/dpp/your_money/consumer/090514_Dead_People_Get_Stimulus_Checks

Came in email, found it very worthy of posting.  Hope you enjoy.

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Oath Keepers Orders We Will NOT Obey Full Length Video

Men of honor

SUMMARY LIST OF ORDERS WE WILL NOT OBEY:

1. We will NOT obey orders to disarm the American people.

2. We will NOT obey orders to conduct warrantless searches of the American people

3. We will NOT obey orders to detain American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants or to subject them to military tribunal.

4. We will NOT obey orders to impose martial law or a state of emergency on a state.

5. We will NOT obey orders to invade and subjugate any state that asserts its sovereignty.

6. We will NOT obey any order to blockade American cities, thus turning them into giant concentration camps.

7. We will NOT obey any order to force American citizens into any form of detention camps under any pretext.

8. We will NOT obey orders to assist or support the use of any foreign troops on U.S. soil against the American people to keep the peace or to maintain control.

9. We will NOT obey any orders to confiscate the property of the American people, including food and other essential supplies.

10.We will NOT obey any orders which infringe on the right of the people to free speech, to peaceably assemble, and to petition their government for a redress of grievances.

(Read the full declaration here http://oath-keepers.blogspot.com/2009...

OATH KEEPERS is an association of Military, Veterans, and peace officers who will honor their oaths to defend the Constitution, will NOT just follow orders, will stand for liberty, and will save the Republic, so help us God. Our motto is:

"Not on Our Watch!"

www.oath-keepers.blogspot.com

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/614.html

Our tax dollars at work.  Someone didn't look before they jumped in .... taking us down with them. 

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"Under Restructuring, GM To Build More Cars Overseas

By Peter Whoriskey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 8, 2009

Source WashingtonPost.com

"The U.S. government is pouring billions into General Motors in hopes of reviving the domestic economy, but when the automaker completes its restructuring plan, many of the company's new jobs will be filled by workers overseas.

According to an outline the company has been sharing privately with Washington legislators, the number of cars that GM sells in the United States and builds in Mexico, China and South Korea will roughly double.

The proportion of GM cars sold domestically and manufactured in those low-wage countries will rise from 15 percent to 23 percent over the next five years, according to the figures contained in a 12-page presentation offered to lawmakers in response to their questions about overseas production.

As a result, the long-simmering argument over U.S. manufacturers expanding production overseas -- normally arising between unions and private companies -- is about to engage the Obama administration.

Essentially in control of the company, the president's autos task force faces an awkward choice: It can either require General Motors to keep more jobs at home, potentially raising labor costs at a company already beset with financial woes, or it can risk political fury by allowing the automaker to expand operations at lower-cost manufacturing locations.

"It's an almost impossible dilemma," said former labor secretary Robert B. Reich, now a professor at the University of California-Berkeley. "GM is a global company -- so for that matter is AIG and the biggest Wall Street banks. That means that bailing them out doesn't necessarily redound to the benefit of the U.S. or American workers.

"More significantly, it raises fundamental questions about the purpose of bailing out these big companies. If GM is going to do more of its production overseas, then why exactly are we saving GM?"

The administration has aroused similar complaints by shepherding a merger between Chrysler and Italian automaker Fiat. But it has extracted a promise from Fiat that it will build small cars in the United States.

The complaints about GM's operations portend a potentially larger argument, a political dispute led in part by the United Auto Workers.

"The bottom line is GM would rather pay $2 an hour -- and it's a slippery slope downward," said Alan Reuther, the UAW's legislative director. "If GM is going to be getting government assistance, they ought to be maintaining their manufacturing footprint in the U.S. rather than going off to China, Mexico and South Korea."

Labor costs in those countries are far lower. While paying a U.S. autoworker with benefits costs about $54 an hour, a South Korean worker earns about $22 an hour, a Mexican worker earns less than $10 an hour and some Chinese workers can earn as little as $3 an hour, industry sources said.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, GM chief executive Fritz Henderson met with legislators and sought to ease their concerns over the overseas operations.
He emphasized that the company, which is shuttering factories at home, is also canceling projects in Mexico, Russia and India.

He also assured legislators that none of the figures are final, and that negotiations with the union are ongoing.

"We continue to work closely with GM, UAW, and all the stakeholders to further refine and develop GM's plan," a Treasury spokesman said.

The U.S. government has loaned GM $15.4 billion. But billions more are expected to be invested, and under the current plan, it will be the majority owner of the company.

The company forecasts that between 2010 and 2014, as the recession recedes, its U.S. sales will rise from 2.4 million to 3.1 million.

Most of that growth -- about two-thirds of it -- will occur in the United States. But about one-third of that growth will come from other countries, mostly Mexico and South Korea.

Those proportions roughly reflect how GM builds the cars it sells in the United States today -- about two-thirds come from the United States and one-third from other countries.

According to the figures shared with lawmakers, the percentage of GM's U.S. sales of cars built in the United States dips from 67 percent in 2009 to 61 percent in 2012. Yet the company projects that by 2014 the percentage will rebound to 66 percent.

Under the viability plan, "the U.S. percentage stays roughly the same," Henderson said in an interview last week.

But the union and some legislators object that the company's U.S.-funded revival should not help pay for expanding foreign operations. Moreover, they believe that planned cuts in Canadian production -- down 23 percent -- will have direct effects on U.S. jobs because the U.S. and Canadian auto industries are so intertwined.
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"If you are shutting down plants in this country, U.S. tax dollars should not go for building plants in other countries," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was among those who met with Henderson.

But company officials and industry analysts have long argued that, even putting aside the issue of labor costs, it makes logistical sense to build some cars in other countries, even if they are destined for sale in the United States.

Take, for example, the Chevrolet Spark, a tiny car that GM sells in South Korea and elsewhere in Asia. In the next few years, the company plans to send some of those cars -- which are built in Changwon -- to the United States for sale.

But since only about 5 percent of the car's market will be in the United States, the manufacturing will remain in South Korea.

Analysts who study the auto companies and their global operation warn against allowing political passions to obstruct GM's efficiency.

"If we start making political decisions with the auto industry, we're going to be in tremendous trouble," said Michael Robinet, vice president of global vehicle forecasts at CSM Worldwide."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/07/AR2009050704336.html

"The Worst Case Scenario (Someone Has to Say It)

by: Big Jake May 03, 2009
Source Seeking Alpha

"Since the economy began sliding downhill in late 2007, mainstream economic and market experts have consistently erred on the sunny side.

As late as June 2008, mainstream consensus held that the U.S. was heading for a "soft landing" and would avoid recession. Several months later, the slump was acknowledged to have started in January 2008, but we were supposed to see renewed growth by mid-2009, with unemployment peaking in the eight-to-nine percent range. A quick "shovel-ready" stimulus bag was supposed to set us back on the road to prosperity.

In January, recovery projections were pushed forward to late 2009. Today, the consensus is for a mid-2010 recovery, with unemployment peaking at just over 10 percent. Clearly, the mainstream has struggled to catch up to reality for well over one year. What are the chances that they finally have it right this time?

Moreover, the mainstream continues to see what is going on as a plain-vanilla recession that will be quelled with some on-the-fly monetary and fiscal tinkering. Washington, we are told, will pull us out of this slump-as soon as the masses can be enticed back to the shopping malls. Then things will return to how they were before. But what if the experts and politicians are wrong not only on their ever-changing recovery timeline, but also on the nature-nay, the very existence-of a recovery?

America's reigning political-economic ideology has demonstrably failed. Given that its government is obviously fumbling along without a clue, its foreign and domestic credit is tapped out, and its 300 million people are discovering that their hopes for continuous material improvement will never be met, could the U.S. be headed the way of the USSR?

Instead of a recovery as the mainstream envisions it, what if America permanently bankrupts, impoverishes, and marginalizes itself? What if its cherished institutions fail across the board? For example, what happens when the police realize that their under-funded pension plans cannot support a decent retirement? Will they stay honest, or will they opt to survive by any means necessary? These are questions that the mainstream does not even begin to contemplate.

In the interests of providing you with an alternate vision-something outside the mainstream-below are ten predictions for America through the year 2012. This is not boilerplate doom-saying. Rather, I am laying out in highly specific terms what will happen over the next three-odd years. Others have thrown around the term "Depression", but I am going to tell you precisely what it means for you, your investments, and your community.

When these predictions come true, I expect to be rewarded with a seven-figure consulting gig, a book contract, or a high-level position in whatever administration succeeds the doomed Obama team-that is, if anyone succeeds it at all.

Prediction one. The twenty-five-year equities bubble pops in 2009. U.S. and foreign equities markets will stop treading water and realign with economic reality. Stock prices will cease to reflect the "greater fool" mentality and will return to being a function of dividend yields, which have long been miserable. The S&P 500 will sink below 500. In a bid to stem the panic, the government will enforce periodic "stock market holidays", and will vastly expand the scope of its short-selling prohibitions-eventually banning short-selling altogether.

Prediction two. With public pension systems and tens of millions of 401k holders virtually wiped out-and with the Baby Boomers retiring en masse-there will be tremendous pressure on the government to get into the stock market in order to bid up prices.

Therefore, sometime in 2010, the Federal Reserve will create and loan out hundreds of billions of fresh dollars to the usual well-connected suspects, instructing them to buy up stocks on the public's behalf. This scheme will have a fancy but meaningless name-something like the "Taxpayer Assurance Equities Facility". It will have no effect other than to serve as buyer of last resort for capitulating smart-money types who want to get out of stocks entirely.

Prediction three. Millions of new retirees-including white-collar people with high expectations for a Golden Retirement-will be left virtually penniless. Thousands will starve or freeze to death in their own homes. Hundreds of thousands will find themselves evicted and homeless, or will have to move in with their less-than-enthusiastic children. Already strained by the rising tide of the working-age unemployed, state and local welfare services will be overwhelmed, and by 2012 will have largely collapsed and ceased to function in many parts of the country.

Prediction four. "Quantitative easing" will fail to restart previous patterns of lending and consumption. As the government sends out additional "rebate" checks and takes ever-more drastic measures to force banks to lend, hyperinflation could take hold. However, comprehensive debt relief via a devaluation of the dollar is even more likely. This would entail the government issuing one "new" dollar for some greater number of "old" dollars-thus reducing both debts and savings simultaneously. This would make for a clean slate a la Fight Club.

As there are many more debtors than savers in the U.S., the vast majority would support devaluation. The Chinese and other foreign holders of our bonds would be screaming mad, but unable to do anything. Every country that has not found a way out of dollar-denominated reserve assets by 2012 will see its reserves eliminated.

Prediction five. The government will stop pretending that it can finance continuous multi-trillion-dollar deficits on the private market. By late 2010, the sole buyers of new U.S. Treasury and agency bonds will be the Federal Reserve and a few derelict financial institutions under government control. This may or may not lead to hyperinflation. (See prediction four).

Prediction six. As the need for financial industry paper-pushers declines and people have less money to spend on lawyers and Starbucks (SBUX), unemployment will rise until the private sector has eliminated all of its excess capacity and superfluous or socially needless jobs. The government's narrow unemployment figure (U3) will rise into the high teens by late 2010. The government's broader unemployment figure (U6) will cease to be reported when it reaches 25 percent-it will simply be too embarrassing. Ultimately, one in three work-eligible Americans will be unemployed, underemployed, or never-employed (e.g. college grads permanently unable to find suitable work).

Prediction seven. With their pension dreams squashed, and their salaries frozen or cut, police and other local government workers will turn to wholesale corruption in order to survive. America's ideal of honest, courteous, and impartial cops, teachers, and small-time local functionaries will have come to an end.

Prediction eight. Commercial overcapacity will strike with a vengeance. By 2012, thousands of enclosed malls, strip malls, unfinished residential developments, motels, truck stops, distribution centers, middle-of-nowhere resorts and casinos, and small-city airports across America will turn into dilapidated, unwanted, and dangerous ghost towns. With no economic incentive for their maintenance or repair, they will crumble into overgrown, plywood-and-sheet-rock ruins.

Prediction nine. By the end of 2010, tens of millions of households will have fallen behind on their mortgages or stopped paying altogether. Many banks will be unable to process the massive volume of foreclosure paperwork, much less actually seize and resell the homes.

Devaluation (as mentioned in prediction four) could ease the situation for those mortgage holders still afloat, but it would also eliminate any incentive for most banks to stay in the mortgage business. In any case, the housing market in many parts of the country will lock up completely-nothing bought or sold.

With virtually no loans being made, even the government will finally acknowledge that most banks are fundamentally insolvent. A general bank run will only be averted through a roughly one trillion-dollar recapitalization of the FDIC, courtesy of new money from the Federal Reserve.

Prediction ten. As an economy is never independent of the society within which it functions, the next few paragraphs will focus on social and political factors. These factors will have as much of an impact on market and consumer confidence as any developments in the financial sector.

Whether rightly or not, President Obama, having come to power at the dawn of this crisis, will be blamed for it by over 50 percent of the population. He will be a one-term president. In response to his perceived socialization of America, there will be a swarm of secessionist and extremist activity, much of it violent. Militias and armed sects will be more prominent than in the early 1990s. Stand-off dramas, violent score-settlings, and going-out-with-a-bang attacks by laid-off workers and bankrupted investors-already a national plague-will become an everyday occurrence.

For both economic and social reasons, millions of immigrants and guest workers will return to their home countries, taking their assets and skills with them. The flow of skilled immigrants will slow to a trickle. Birth rates will plummet as families struggle with uncertainty and reduced (or no) income.

Property crime will explode as citizens bitter over their own shattered dreams attempt to comfort themselves by taking what is not theirs. Mutinies and desertions will proliferate in an increasingly demoralized, over-stretched military, especially when states can no longer provide the educational and other benefits promised to their National Guard troops.

There will be widespread tax collection issues, and a huge backlash against Federal and state bureaucrats who demand three-percent annual pay raises while private sector wages remain frozen or worse. In short, the "Tea Parties" of tomorrow will likely not be so restrained.

Finally, between now and 2012, we are likely to see another earth-shaking national embarrassment on the scale of the 9/11 attacks or Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. This will demonstrate conclusively to all Americans that their government, even under a savior-figure like Obama, cannot, in fact, save them.

By 2012, there will be a general feeling that the nation is in immediate danger of blowing up or coming apart at the seams. This fear will be justified, given that the U.S. has always been held together by the promise of a continuously rising material standard of living-the famous "pursuit of happiness"-rather than any ethnic or religious ties. If that goes, so could everything else. We were lucky in the 1930s-we may not be so lucky again."

Disclosure: no positions relevant to this column. "

http://seekingalpha.com/article/134820-the-worst-case-scenario-someone-has-to-say-it

Via SteveQuayle.com, a bit of objectivity from across the pond.

______

"666: Goldman's latest bonus bears the mark of the beast

Something strange is stirring. Even the young are joining the chorus of concern that this tarnished giant is part of a financial oligarchy that holds the US in its grip, writes Stephen Foley in New York

Sunday, 3 May 2009
Source The Independent.co.uk

"Something strange is afoot when Popbitch - provider of a weekly email beloved of students, stuffed full of celebrity tittle-tattle and links to the silliest miscellany of the web - breaks off from such glorious trivia to encourage readers to support GoldmanSachs666.com ( http://www.goldmansachs666.com/ ), a deadly serious website measuring the political tentacles of the mighty investment bank.

Something strange, too, when Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, becomes a hero of the internet and the satirical comedy-show circuit on cable TV, promoting his theory that the US is in the grip of a financial oligarchy.

The credit-market catastrophe that has plunged the world into recession is everywhere stirring new ways of thinking about how banking relates to the wider world, but nowhere more so than among a generation coming into political consciousness in these searing times. Something is brewing, some argue, that could make the "regulatory-financial complex" something to rail against in the same way that the military-industrial complex was in the Cold War.

And for all the impression it is giving that it has survived the credit crisis with its pre-eminent position on Wall Street intact, this should worry Goldman Sachs. More so than any other firm, it exists at the intersection of politics and high finance, and therefore has most to lose if this nascent movement turns it into the next ExxonMobil or Wal-Mart - firms whose every move could attract protest, and whose reputation could take years to repair.

"It was listening to the news coming out of AIG that got me fired up," says Mike Morgan, founder of GoldmanSachs666.com. "While politicians were screaming about $165m paid out to AIG executives in bonuses, $180bn was walking out the door."

Goldman, incidentally, has abandoned its attempts to shut the site down.

Mr Morgan is referring to the government bailout of AIG, whose collapse would have sent shockwaves through the markets. The Federal Reserve and the then-treasury secretary, Hank Paulson, decided to funnel public funds to AIG, and its counterparties were paid in full. You don't have to scratch far into the internet to find conspiracy theories: Mr Paulson was chief executive of Goldman before going into government; he appointed Edward Liddy, formerly of Goldman, to run AIG; Goldman was AIG's biggest counterparty, receiving $12.9bn from AIG after the bailout. (It says it was hedged and would not have lost even if AIG did go under.)

Mr Morgan is not the sort of young hot head you find protesting against the G8. He is a 53-year-old registered financial adviser from Florida, but he has attracted a handful of volunteers to beef up the website and to amass information on the Goldman alumni network and its power. "Goldman dipped into taxpayer funds via AIG," he says. "Who gets paid off 100 cents on the dollar these days? Only Goldman it seems. It is all about looking at the connections. Where do all the Goldman Sachs executives go? I see them as running the world. They are like the Standard Oil of the last century, too big and too powerful, with people flocking from Goldman to government and from government to Goldman."

It is a point that is being made forcibly by a growing number of people, from the lowliest bloggers to the most respected economists. Mr Johnson's claims of oligarchy are echoed by Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, for example, and the notion is going mainstream. The New York Times devoted acres to a forensic investigation of Tim Geithner's diary from when the Treasury Secretary was running the New York Federal Reserve and appeared to have what it claimed were "unusually close ties with Wall Street executives", including those at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, thanks to his mentor, Robert Rubin, a former treasury secretary who has been a senior figure at both banks.

Goldman has swung into action to try to arrest a public-relations nightmare in the making, and its chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, knows precisely what is at stake. He has been most outspoken among Wall Street bosses in speeches and newspaper op-ed columns about Wall Street's need to change. At a speech to the Council of Institutional Investors last month, he said the disasters of the past year have been "humbling", and that pay practices on the Street look "self-serving and greedy in hindsight". He has argued that bonus practices should be changed, to reflect longer-term performance rather than one-year profits, which we all now know can be wiped away in future years. But reducing the psychological primacy of the bonus culture on Wall Street does not appear to be on his corporate agenda, and Goldman's first-quarter results revealed it was setting aside $4.7bn (£3.2bn) to pay salaries and bonuses for the quarter - 18 per cent more than in the same period a year ago, despite a 7 per cent fall in the number of staff.

"It is not about what you say, it is about what you do," says Anthony Johndrow, the managing director of the Reputation Institute, a New York consultancy. "Financial services firms cannot simply run a warm and fuzzy PR or ad campaign. The challenge is to find a way to make a statement and to address the trust that has been violated, to promise action that proves the company 'gets it'. The authentic enterprise takes responsibility for its actions and their impact."

Authenticity has become one of marketing's hottest concepts. Advertising executives insist that any message that does not reflect what a company really stands for is doomed to backfire. In the PR world, the "authentic enterprise" is one that understands how changing its image requires changing the fundamental way it does business. For Goldman, its reputation on Wall Street is that it is the smartest, best-connected and most lucrative place to be. Beyond Wall Street, is that enough to satisfy?

Mr Johndrow's Reputation Institute has just conducted research that suggests it is not - far from it. In its annual survey of the public reputation of 153 of the biggest companies in the US, released a few days ago, Goldman has plunged into the bottom six, in with oil companies and Dick Cheney's old oil-services firm, Halliburton. The survey gives a score based on public ratings of the trust and good feelings they have for each firm, and Goldman's rating fell 17 per cent. Only AIG's fell more.

Goldman Sachs's spokesman, Lucas van Praag, says: "We think our reputation is critically important, particularly in our hiring activities. The Reputation Institute survey is mainly focused on retail brands and we are not a retail firm. Although we were disappointed, we were not particularly surprised."

Mr Johndrow explains: "The world of Wall Street is a small world, and up to now it seems executives have considered that the reputations of the banks only really matter to a few people within that world. The reputation of Goldman Sachs versus, say, Credit Suisse, is the most important thing, and its regard for the general public as a stakeholder has been minimal. But now the public has a stake as taxpayers, yet the banks have not yet done anything to acknowledge what that means."

Reputation is an "intangible asset" whose diminution could have profound business consequences, he adds. Public fury can quickly be channelled through politicians into harsh new regulations and restrictions.

And it could, ultimately, hit Goldman's ability to attract the brightest graduates. As Mr Johndrow explains: "When you go back to your home town or your school, it stops being about how many expensive cigars and yachts and mansions you have. Justifying your job involves talking about its wider impact on society."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/666-goldmans-latest-bonus-bears-the-mark-of-the-beast-1677853.html

"CURL: Stimulus oversight left up to taxpayers

By Joseph Curl POLITICAL THEATER | Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Source The Washington Times

"So just who's tracking that $787 billion in taxpayer money that President Obama and the Democrat-led Congress are doling out? You are. Or you're supposed to be, anyway.

"We are, in essence, deputizing the entire American citizenry to help with the oversight of this program," said Rep. Brad Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Science and Technology's subcommittee on investigations and oversight.

So, too, said Earl Devaney, the ex-cop who's now chairman of the Recovery Act Accountability and Transparency Board, charged with tracking the torrent of cash now pouring out of federal coffers.

"I'm going to have millions of citizens to help me," he said, comparing run-of-the-mill Americans to inspectors general, the high-ranking officials charged with ferreting out waste and abuse in federal agencies.

"I'm going to have a million little IGs running around," the chairman said Tuesday after his testimony before the subcommittee.

And perhaps that's just as well, given the turnout of the panel tasked with keeping track of thousands of millions of dollars. Just three of the 10 members bothered to show up for the subcommittee's second meeting, dramatically titled "Follow the Money Part II."

"These hearings are titled 'follow the money' after the character in the movie - and the book - 'All the President's Men,' " Mr. Miller said. "The Deep Throat character, he told [reporters Carl] Bernstein and [Bob] Woodward to trace the money back to find out where the corruption began.

"We hope this will not end up as anything as sordid as that was," he joked.

Still, the North Carolina Democrat said he realized that tracking so much money will be difficult, acknowledging that "we're trying to spend $500 billion quickly."

Mr. Devaney, though, said his board - made up of 10 IGs - has a dual mission: "First, the board is responsible for establishing and maintaining a Web site." Oh, and second, it's supposed to "help minimize fraud, waste or mismanagement."

While Mr. Miller and the panel's top Republican were there, only Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper, Pennsylvania Democrat, also came along to the hearing. Absent were Democratic Reps. Steven R. Rothman of New Jersey, Lincoln Davis of Tennessee, Charlie Wilson of Ohio, Alan Grayson of Florida and Bart Gordon of Tennessee. Republican Reps. Brian P. Bilbray of California and Ralph M. Hall of Texas also skipped the session.

Still, to a sparse crowd, Mr. Miller got right to the point. "President Obama promised a level of transparency, through the Internet, Recovery.gov. ... How do you intend to provide that level of transparency, to see how - who actually got the contract to pour asphalt?"

"As I mentioned in my testimony," Mr. Devaney said, "that Web site is evolving. ... I would probably be the first to admit today the Web site doesn't give you that kind of information."

Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, the subcommittee's ranking Republican, noted that he voted against the $787 billion stimulus plan.

"Simply put, the American people need to know what they got for their money," he said. "Under the Obama budget, the national debt will double in five years and triple in 10."

Mr. Broun was most interested in Mr. Obama's claim that the recovery plan would create "or save" 4 million jobs, but noted that the number of jobs "saved" is likely unknowable and that since the president took office, 1.3 million jobs have been lost.

"How do you plan to verify the actual number of jobs created?" he asked.

"Sir, we haven't really received any information about that on the Web site," Mr. Devaney said.

The repeated lack of information, though, sets up a fantastic sequel: "Follow the Money III."

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/06/stimulus-oversight-left-up-to-taxpayers/

Just found via Steve Quayle, Q-factor.  Shaking my head on this one, when are they going to mandatorily chip and bar code us????

_____________

"Obama and ACORN GPS Marking EVERY Front Door in America?

JB Williams Wednesday, April 29,2009

Source CanadaFreePress.com

"Republican Senator Judd Gregg was Obama’s first choice for the Secretary of Commerce post, and Gregg was actually considering joining the Obama team, until he found out that control of the US Census was being stripped from the Commerce Department and placed under the direct control of White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel.

Then, the same week that Americans learned that they were “domestic terrorists”—at least according to Obama’s new DHS (Department of Homeland Security),—if they own a bible, a pocket Constitution or guns, and still believe in Life, Liberty and Freedom, - they also learned that Obama’s Census Bureau had hired thousands of new temporary employees, equipped each with a handheld GPS computer and sent them out to mark GPS coordinates for every residential front door in America.

Oddly, it was this same period that news was breaking of an international flu pandemic, suspected of being a weaponized strain of the virus never before seen, - and that Obama’s team still sees no need to close the US-Mexican border, despite the cross continental spread of a deadly illness now claiming American lives.

Now, if any one of these events happened alone, one might not get too excited. But when a string of such events happen all at once, one begins to question the string of freedom and life threatening coincidences…

I can’t resist the urge to question the authority and purpose behind such a BIG BROTHER initiative, when the official Census itself is not due to be taken until 2010…

No imagination is required to think up a whole laundry list of evil that could be done with a nationwide GPS grid of coordinate’s markers painted on every private home across the country. But I was having trouble thinking up one good reason for it, even one legitimate use that would justify what must be a very expensive undertaking.

According to one of the Census workers, who spoke with me on condition of anonymity, they must GPS mark the coordinates “within 40 ft of every front door” in America and they are supposed to complete that mission nation wide, within 90 days, by the end of July 2009.

The workers were not told why they were GPS marking every front door. But a supervisor is sent out to follow them door-to-door, to make certain that no door is left unmarked. Every door will be marked by one employee, and then checked by a follow-up supervisor.

So, I had to ask, why?

Why does the Obama administration need or want the latitude and longitude coordinates for every home in America? Why the rush to GPS paint every home in the next 90 days? Why must the marker be within 40 ft of every front door? For what possible purpose does the Fed need GPS coordinates for every home, and under what authority do they have the right? Census workers, whom I asked, had the same holy-crap look on their faces that I had by then…

ACORN signed on as a national partner with the U.S. Census Bureau in February 2009 to assist with the recruitment of the 1.4 million temporary workers needed to go door-to-door to count every person in the United States — currently believed to be more than 306 million people. But the count doesn’t take place until 2010… This is April 2009.

Obama’s interest in an ACORN controlled 2010 Census, for the purpose of redistricting to the advantage of Democrats before the 2010 mid-term elections, comes as NO shock from a regime known for their heavy handed Rules for Radicals political strategies. But what does this have to do with GPS marking every home in the country?

The 2% of Americans, who have served military duty at some point in life, are very familiar with the most common use of GPS target painting. The other 98% of Americans might want to pick up a book on the subject, such as The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare ...

Their Authority?

RightSoup.com has just about the only online report available on the matter, and they report, “Why does the government (and ACORN) need to have the GPS coordinates of your FRONT DOOR? Your house is probably on Google Maps already. But the front door? Sounds like a jackboot convenience to me. This is a developing story, and several reports of those who have already been visited by the GPS squad can be found in this forum thread.”

If you challenge Census Bureau employees about the GPS marking of your private residence, you will be handed a preprinted explanation referring you to Sec. 223, Title 13, U.S. Code, Chapter 7, Subtitle 2, which explains the penalties for refusing to provide names and statistics of occupants when asked for by a census taker. This only applies when they are taking a census, (which will not be taken until next year), and the penalty for refusing to answer questions for a census is up to a $500 fine.

However, since the actual Census is not due to be taken until 2010, nobody is asking for any information today. They are only GPS marking your front door today, and Sec. 223, Title 13, U.S. Code, Chapter 7, Subtitle 2 provides the Fed NO authority to GPS paint your front door.

Best I can tell, the Fed has NO authority whatsoever, to paint the front door of every private residence in America. Still, that is exactly what they are doing. Now, the trillion dollar question is, why?

A State of Emergency

From Wikipedia - The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 16, 1878 after the end of Reconstruction, with the intention of substantially limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits most members of the federal uniformed services from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (such as states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States.

In short, the statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units of the National Guard operating under federal authority, from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States.

As members of the military are sworn to protect and defend the Constitution and the American people against all enemies, both foreign and domestic, a federal order to do the exact opposite, and take aim at American citizens, would be a clear violation of the US Constitution and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, unless…

US Military personnel are trained to follow orders. But they are also obligated to refuse any order deemed “unlawful.” In order to make such an order appear “lawful,” the federal government would first have to declare a national “state of emergency,” such as in the case of an international pandemic, which can be demonstrated to threaten the health and well-being of American citizens.

Following a state of emergency declaration, a federal order for Martial Law would be expected, to allegedly provide law enforcement and security for citizens. This type of scenario can be followed by a presidential order to quarantine, disarm and contain American citizens in the name of national security, all of it, having the appearance of being “lawful.”

Is this what is happening?

Connecting the Dots

Alone, individual events look concerning, but not conspiratorial. What about when you place the pieces of the puzzle together and take a look at the entire picture developing?

Under this “theory,” how does the GPS marking of every private residence in the nation fit into the picture?

I wish I knew… but I don’t!

What I do know is this… Coincidences of this number and magnitude don’t happen. They certainly do not happen all at the same time, within hours or days of each other, out of the wild blue tin-foil hat heaven…

I also know that people had better start asking the right people the right questions and demanding answers fast. Begin with asking the mainstream press why there has been no public notification of the federal governments GPS marking your front door?

Then, I suggest contacting your local Census Bureau office immediately, and demanding an explanation as well as advice as to what law gives them the right to GPS paint every front door in America?

I’d also recommend sending a copy of this column to your state and federal representative, demanding that they put a stop to it or explain why it’s necessary, and what law gives them the right?

Unfortunately, we live in a moment of history when real events are much stranger than nutty conspiracy theories. The people have every right to know what is happening. But unless you demand to know, nobody’s talking!

Bill Clinton sold US nuclear technology to Red China for a mere $300,000 in campaign contributions. The event landed Chinese bagman Johnny Chung in prison, but put Hillary Clinton in the US Senate, and now at the helm of the US State Department.

Highly secured government servers are hacked daily. Soon, hackers will be able to grab a nation wide GPS grid map, marking the front door of every home in America.

How much is a GPS grid of every American household worth to the enemies of America, both foreign and domestic? I’d estimate, PRICELESS!

There is a foul odor resonating from the current regime in Washington DC and most Americans can smell it. Can most Americans gather the strength to do something about it? "

U.S. Census Bureau
The Department of Commerce
Contacting the Congress

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10688