TWO YEARS TO GO....BUT WHO IS COUNTING

Me, that's who. We are sadly coming up on the third year of this "fundamental change" of America and frankly, one day of it was one day too many. Longest presidential term of my life, if I do say so myself. Will it ever be over? Will we ever be rid of this guy? Will the country survive, or be recognizable, at all? Most of us are sick of the Bamster. How far away from being American can this president be? Face it, he has hit every sector in the country with the most unholy desecration he can muster up out of congress and his czars. Most of us are throwing up our breakfasts over the morning newspapers each day. Most of us are dazed and bumfuzzled waiting for the next tyrannical rule to drop. Most of us are going to need lots of health care from being sick to death, worrying over the loss of liberties and livelihoods. Most of us are longing for auld lang syne, just to be rid of the monster Bamster under the bed. Most of us want this nightmare to be over and to wake up January 1, 2011 to find ourselves back on terra firma with the Bamster gone. Really gone....outta here, out of our country, out of our lives. Make the nightmare go away.

No, I don't like him personally...and I don't like anything he has wrought upon our fair country. Polls that say people like him personally have got to be kidding.....it's a joke, right?? Who likes a tyrant? An arrogant tyrant, at that. Who likes being told your energy prices will "naturally skyrocket?" For your own good?? Not. Who likes micro-identification chips on trash bins at private homes, paid for with borrowed stimulus money, ultimately taxing your children for snooping on you? Who likes the Federal government dictating what is in the meals served to your local school children? Who likes paying more in taxes to pay for tax breaks on your neighbor's hot water heater? Who likes "death panels," and czars and president's wives telling you what to eat? Who likes having their grandmother groped in the airport? Who likes the Federal government taking over car companies? Who likes Cloward and Piven? Who likes a liar as president? Who likes having a president who represents favored racial groups and socialist constituencies, but cares not for the solvency of our economic system? Who likes this guy? Not I. Pretenses and spin are more important than truth when it comes to polls, I guess.

All of this time later, the Bamster is still keeping his documents from birth through pre-presidency secret. People on the left and the right are still asking questions regarding his birth certificate. Prior presidents and candidates have released all of their personal information to substantiate their credentials. Not "the one." Not the Bamster. Evidently, even the leg-tingled Chris Matthews would like to see that long form birth certificate. Article link below with a list of all of the other documents that Obama has refused to release:

Read more: Chris Matthews: Obama Should Release Birth Certificate

Alas, our nightmare continues through 2011 and beyond into 2012. Every single day since the 2008 election brings another assault on our liberties. We forge onward not knowing who Obama is and suffering through the collapse he is orchestrating. Talking heads and bloggers, like me, keep speaking and writing our hearts out with warnings and action notices to those who listen and read. Yet, the Bamster just keeps slicing away. Death by a thousand cuts from within.....not any different than from without, "both foreign and domestic."

Sometimes I just have to breathe it out of me..... venting carbon dioxide, you know.....exhale. Profoundly. Deeply. Maybe if we all exhale in the direction of DC .....just a thought. At the stroke of midnight, instead of kissing your beloved and toasting to our collective and pathetic socialistic future, let's all face east in the exact direction of the Capitol and the White House and exhale as much carbon dioxide as we can. No doubt the EPA will come knocking on our doors to take us away to some carbon stripping machine. We're bad for the planet, you know.

Happy New Year? Not yet.

THE VALUE OF NOTHING - THE HIGH PRICE OF SUBSIDIES

"Cows by the Lake"
24X36
Oil on Canvas
©Cheryl A. Pass

The tea partiers have made loud noises of late about "earmarks," those cute, but expensive, add-ons that buy votes for members of Congress. Earmarks are sort of like trinkets for constituencies. Throw an earmark into a defense bill for greenways in Tuscaloosa, Al here, and another one for an art museum in anytown, USA, placed ever so cleverly into an appropriations bill. It's business as usual in DC, but earmarks are just part of the story. The tea partiers are missing, or not addressing, the elephant in the room. The bigger culprit is subsidies, which are just bigger earmarks, that adorn the campaign coffers of the politicians. And I wonder why tea partiers are not just as fuming mad over those.

Subsidies are usually in the form of tax breaks and price fixing, or started out that way. Now subsidies are tax breaks and price fixing and directing government money into industries to prop them up. The tax system we have is so cumbersome, the government so bloated and out of control, that it creates an opportunity for congress to bestow favors on lobbyists and voting blocs looking for goodies. Fix the tax system and/or stop the subsidies and earmarks? Which comes first? The chicken or the egg? Can you fix the tax system before you stop the subsidies? Or does fixing the subsidy problem automatically fix the tax system??

Arguments for and against subsidies makes strange bedfellows. Pick your friends. The left argues against oil subsidies, but loves those subsidies for solar panels and windmills. The right argues against subsidized housing, but loves tax breaks for home mortgages. The left wants foreign aid subsidies and the right wants to subsidize big business. Excuse me? How does this work really??

Milk subsidies? Appliance rebates? Cotton subsidies, corn subsidies, Alpaca subsidies, beef subsidies, energy subsidies, on and on. We live in a sea of twisted pricing and costs manipulated by government that no one, even with the brains of Einstein and Milton Friedman, could wrap their minds around. The only thing the consumer is left with is playing a search and find game with the available goods. It's kind of like "Where's Waldo", where you know something is there, but you are not sure how to find it. The 'something' is a reasonable price for a commodity, 'reasonable' being the operative word there. How to find it means hours of eye straining research and shopping until you drop. Today, a reasonable price is completely relative to how much government intervention went into the production of the item in question. Whatever price you pay is either propped up or undermined by government regulations and interference. And whatever price you are paying has little or nothing to do with supply and demand. If the prices are lower due to government subsidies, you turn around and pay more in taxes to make up the difference, i.e. you buy a gallon of milk at X price, then turn around and pay Y to the government for the privilege of buying the milk at the cheaper price. Is the milk really any cheaper using that subsidized method?? I guess it is cheaper for you if you are in the no-tax brackets. Those of us paying taxes are covering the difference. Yes, you get the cheaper price at the store, but the real price can be found missing from your paycheck, or on April 15th. If the item is not subsidized, you might be able to find a 'real' price, meaning production cost plus mark-up for the seller. The trick is trying to find anything that is not being subsidized or manipulated in some way. And non-subsidized items are harder to find than trying to find something for sale in America that was not made in China. And how cheap is product X, Y, or Z, if you then turn around and pay boatloads more in taxes to support the unemployed in America??

The point is that market forces are no where to be found. Supply today is created by synthetic rules that have little to do with actual resources, resources being manipulated by so many government agencies your head would spin trying to count them all. Demand is often manufactured by the unholy marriage between corporations and government and their twisted relationship with the media. Retail price factors are now encumbered with regulations by bureaucrats all added into the final price. Those who handle production, availability, warehousing, transportation, and storefronts are either in bed with government, or regulated so heavily by government, that what you are seeing in stores to buy at a certain price is almost pure fiction.

Over the holiday I watched a film called Food, Inc. It is a small, but worthy, exposé of the meat industry and the corn industry in the U.S. While it did not focus as such on subsidized farm operations, it discussed the manipulation of farmers by big agra (Monsanto, Tyson, Cargill, etc. ) which, led me to do some research on Monsanto again...which also led me down the rabbit hole into that recently passed disaster called the Food Safety Modernization Act. Homeland Security is now in charge of our food safety??? Yeah, those same cutesy folks who dreamed up groping methods at airports. But I digress.

Like most Americans I think of our country as magnanimous and charitable through giving foreign aid to so many underdeveloped nations across the globe. Recently however, after hours of eye straining reading, I am more and more aware of the damage our supposed charity is doing to those foreign countries receiving U.S. aid. You see, subsidies are not just hurting our own citizens, but subsidies are ruining the life sustaining independence of other countries' citizens as well as our own. And we are doing it through propping up mega global corporations through our subsidies. Why? Greed, I assume. Campaign corruption, I assume. Malfeasance in government power, exactly. I do wonder how politicians sleep at night. Maybe they don't, being blood thirsty vampires pretending to be saints.

hat tip to: MarketWatch.com

For a more global viewpoint on the damage our subsidies are doing off shore, take a look at this article regarding Haiti: How the U.S. is putting Haitians out of business and out of food

Excerpts here: "The U.S. government and agricultural corporations, which have been undermining Haitian peasant agriculture for three decades, today threaten higher levels of unemployment for farmers and an aggravated food crisis among the hemisphere’s hungriest population."

"It didn’t used to be this way. In the early 1980s, Haiti was largely self-sufficient in food consumption and was even an exporter nation. The destruction of agriculture and food security came through policy choices. In 1986 and again in 1995, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave loans to Haiti with the condition that the government reduce tariffs on goods imported into the country. While previous tariffs on some staple foods had been as high as 150%, by 1995 the Haitian government, under pressure primarily from the IMF and U.S. government, cut import tariffs on food basics to as low as 3%.[4]

Unable to compete with imported goods and thus unable to survive, Haitian farmers have flocked into the overcrowded capital in search of a living."

" Rice is among the five most heavily subsidized crops in the U.S., with rice growers receiving $12.5 billion in subsidies between 1995 and 2009.[5] Thesubsidized production and the industrial scale, on top of the lowering of import tariffs in Haiti, combined to become a money maker: beginning in the early 1980s, rice grown in such places as Arkansas and California and shipped by boat to Haiti could be sold cheaper than rice grown in a neighboring field in the Artibonite Valley."

So while our local churches are sending missionaries down to Haiti to try to help the poverty crisis and post earthquake disaster there, our government is busy putting the Haitians on the permanently poor list with no hope of recovery. Why, you might be asking? Money for Monsanto and the American owned rice producers. Money in the pockets of Senator Richard Burr, for one, who took money from Monsanto to co-sponsor the Food Modernization Act. Now, no longer satisfied with manipulating the American marketplace for the past 80 years, our leaders and the mega corporations they represent, are taking down other countries as fast as you can say Corn Pops.

And you wonder why people in other parts of the world aren't too fond of America. Our leaders know the value of nothing, but they sure do love subsidizing their own bank accounts. We're busy listening to Joe Biden give mind-numbing rhetorical speeches about how we are supporting Democracy in other countries, when, in fact, we are very busy undermining those countries' abilities to survive, being manipulated and undermined by the global conglomerates and the WTO, WHO, IMF, U.N., U.S. etc. Who is kidding who? What democracy? What sovereignty?

Our Republic is in great peril. What I just described is one huge part of the problems we face. Tea Partiers need to get after this issue and start vetting candidates that will stop the insane subsidizing of commodities and begin to get the world back to a state of reality.

Hat Tip to Food, Inc. Movie Site

And, oh by the way, to the person who once told me that her charity is her taxes to our wise and wonderful government....I'd like to say, "maybe you ought to give that some more thought."

MALAPROPS FOR CHRISTMAS

The Christmas holidays are upon us.  And because of this time of year, so full of hugs and well wishes, it's a bit more difficult to focus on the misdeeds and inappropriate acts of our government.  I would rather just focus on decorating our tree and saying nice things in the Christmas cards to our friends.  I would rather plan a party and listen to Christmas carols.  It would be nice to ignore Congress right now.  In fact, it would be nice to be able to ignore government and politicians at all levels today.  But they won't let us ignore them.  It's hard to ignore those persons who are deliberately sticking their middle fingers up at us, their thumbs on their noses, and their asses bare in our faces.  Trust me, I'd much rather be dreaming up Christmas dinner and anticipating my family's Christmas celebrations.

For my Christmas present to my readers, I thought I'd write a Christmas letter with examples of the presents that the left has already stuffed into our stockings, put on our Christmas trees, and is planning to force down our throats.  (We'd be better off with coal.  At least you can burn it for heating and energy.)  I give you Malaprops for Christmas!  For the purpose of understanding left-speak, I first give you the definition of "malapropism." 

mal·a·prop·ism  /ˈmæləprɒpˌɪzəm/ Show Spelled[mal-uh-prop-iz-uhm] 

–noun

1.an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

2.an instance of this, as in “Lead the way and we'll precede.”

Dear Friends,

It's been a very interesting year.  It has been snowing twisted language from our politicians all year, language that has been used to bring wonderment and awe upon the American landscape.

Nancy Pelosi promised "Ethics and Transparency" in the House.  By ethics and transparency she meant: Rangel gets a slap on the wrist and we don't "know what is in the bill until we pass it."  "Transparency" means only until they throw Julian Assange in the fireplace with the wrapping papers and finish buying off all that remains of the press.  Bells will be ringing!

Bring on the "Net Neutrality" regulations.  Hmmmm...where "neutrality" means you cannot use your blog to relate criticism of the government without competing pop up windows from leftist writers who want their views to override yours.   What this means is "neutralize the enemies' message"...enemies being you and me.  Think about it....."neutralizing" someone is not usually a friendly phrase.  Eggnog, anyone??

Next, lets contemplate Barack Obama's idea of American "Energy Independence."  This is where he shuts down all of our drilling and exploration of oil so we can pay through the nose for foreign oil, and keep subsidizing ethanol, windmills, and solar panels, all too expensive for middle class and poor people to keep up simple lifestyles.  "Independence" for and from whom???  Certainly not for you and me.  More lights on the tree this year?? Just wait 'til he decorates your house with Smart Meters!!  Now that should cut down on those joyful Christmas lights.

While we are on that subject, let's look at the "Green" energy policies which cause all appliances to be unaffordable unless subsidized with tax rebates, and cause housing construction prices to go through the roof.  Yep, green means you pay more.  The use of the word "green" is very interesting.....as in green dollar bills.  "Green" is what "they" get, while trying to convince you that you are a slug on the planet who doesn't deserve to keep what you earn and must pay "them" for their ability to create scarcities of resources. "Green" is what they get when you pay boatloads for a box of Corn Flakes while they subsidize corn based ethanol.  See?  Green means money.  And you thought it meant that pretty "greenery" you use to dress up your mantles for the holidays.  Silly you.   

Next up is "Social Justice."  This means that laws will be in favor of certain classes of people who thrive on making people think they are victims.  Racial justice, gay justice, minority justice....all meaning "justice" which can be had only in favor of particular groups.  It isn't 'justice" at all, but reparations being paid by people who did nothing to the supposedly offended class of so-called victims.  You owe something to someone because someone else in some other century did something bad to someone who died two or three hundred years ago.  Or, you didn't happen to hire a gay person or a brown person for whatever reason, but you should pay for that.  Or, more brown persons are in prison for crimes they committed, but they should not be punished because fewer white people are in prison.  Get it??  Justice?  I don't think so, but Webster's dictionary is being "transformed" for purposes of political favortism. Think of it as a Christmas Cookie Swap, where the left gets what someone else made, but didn't bring any cookies to swap.  Nice deal, eh??

"Health Insurance for pre-existing conditions!"  Now there is a star for your Christmas Malaprops tree.  Insurance is a risk based endeavor you purchase.   Or was.  Now, thanks to Obama, "insurance" is a mandate and an entitlement.  In Malapropsland, insurance means, "pay for this or I'll shoot you."  Actually, they'll garnish your wages and wreck your credit rating or seize your house, or take whatever else suits their greed.  Definitely a shining star at the top of your Christmas tree...placed there by a mostly Muslim guy who says he is a Christian, but bows to the Saudi Princes.  

Snow?  Did you say it is snowing??  Snowing in Malapropsland??  Indeed it is!!   I'd better go see if I can find some more "green" to pay for all these new ornaments on our tree this year.  

In closing, I hope you all manage to find lot of "green" (as in money),  and boxes of Corn Flakes, and reasonable insurance, and individual justice, and the free flow of information, and most of all, blessed independence from the Kings and Queens of Malapropsland.  

Merry Christmas to all.... and to all a free pocket Constitution!!! GET ONE HERE!
Best wishes and love,

Cheryl

GREENBACKS FOR GREENWAYS

There are only a few days left in 2010, which is making me reflect on all of the ridiculous and insane schemes the leftists have inflicted upon America this year. I cannot begin to recount them all, so this could become an exercise in head banging due to my frustrations with the irrational people who have the keys to our government. For the sake of my head and the wall next to me, I will just focus in on one of the subjects that exemplifies waste of taxpayer money and at the same time assaults private property rights by using tax money for frivolous, non-essential programs.

Somehow, sometime ago our brilliant "Green" generation of bureaucrats and environmentalists decided we should "transform" our Federal Highway Administration into sidewalk, bike trails and greenway programs instead of roads and highways. From Heritage.org "Created in 1956 to finance and build the interstate highway system, the federal highway program achieved that goal in the early 1980s and since then has had its goals repeatedly modified in successive reauthorizations that have diverted money from general-purpose roads to a variety of other objectives that benefit influential constituencies." Keep in mind that for many decades we have established hiking trails through national parks and created parks around hiking trails, such as the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail. Not only that, but every city in America has parks, sidewalks, and neighborhoods in which to walk all you want. Those existing trails, which were carved out of formerly private property, are already paid for in continuum with our Federal and state taxes. Not enough for the "Green" folks who think cars are a scourge on the earth, politicians have been lobbied by environmentalists and recreation groups who want more and more trails taken out of private hands and off limits to motorized vehicles.

Welcome to the nation's Greenways projects; that take your money away from real roads, are being used to discourage car traffic, and at the same time take property out of the hands of private ownership. The funding for these greenways has been attached to every conceivable bill, under every conceivable title, using every conceivable excuse imaginable. City and county leaders, thinking this is the latest, most popular fad amongst the public, have applied for grants and government funding by the boatload to create greenways. First, the local leaders want Federal and state money to come back to their communities. And secondly, the Feds and the state are saying they have no money, UNLESS you want a greenway. If you want a greenway, voilá, you get money!! (don't even look at that National Debt clock on my sidebar that is ever closer to the 14 Trillion greenbacks in debt.)

How much money are we talking about? Billions of greenbacks for greenways!

In case you don't get the scheme at hand, here below is from Ray LaHood, the current Secretary of Transportation:
"March 15: "This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized," said US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood to a League of American Bicyclists conference. "We are integrating the needs of bicyclists in federally-funded road projects." Sec. LaHood also announced key recommendations for state DOTs and communities:

* Treat walking and bicycling as equals with other transportation modes.
* Ensure convenient access for people of all ages and abilities.
* Go beyond minimum design standards.
* Collect data on walking and biking trips.
* Set a mode share target for walking and bicycling.
* Protect sidewalks and shared-use paths the same way roadways are protected (for example, snow removal)
* Improve nonmotorized facilities during maintenance projects.

In January, Secretary LaHood said, "People want the opportunity to leave their cars behind."

Really? Who are these people he speaks of? As I write this it is 22 degrees outside and the thought of leaving my car behind while I cycle or walk to the grocery is not too tempting. For three months in the summer, the daytime hours are pretty hot here, so the same goes for that time of year. Time is a factor. How much time do you have to walk or ride a bicycle to the store? Strength is an issue. How many bags of groceries can you trudge back to your house? Age is a factor. How many 60 year olds do you know who carry their groceries or various purchases on a bicycle or back-pack for miles from store to home? How many 50 year olds, for that matter. How many 30 year old mothers can carry their children and groceries back and forth on a bicycle, from school to store to home?

So mostly these greenways are for recreation? We don't have enough recreation in America? That's all well and good for the cyclists, who want bike lanes on every by-way in the country. I wonder if that is worth the billions of dollars being spent. And I wonder that while the Chinese are busy buying cars, if we are going backwards by encouraging our citizens to do all their activities by bicycle? Let's borrow money from the Chinese so they can buy cars and we can buy bicycles! What a great idea! (Let the head banging commence.) I still contend that if you want to walk somewhere, you can do it without billions of tax dollars taking private property away and using up road money. There is an 8 to 15 foot buffer belonging to the government around every road on which you can walk, sidewalk or not.

Locally we have a snafu with FHWA money over a greenway project that, according to our local newspaper, was not documented properly. In other words, our local bureaucrats didn't fill out the FHWA (Federal Highway Administration) paperwork properly and now may have to return $172,00.00 to the Feds. Does anyone else see the irony in that? One government agency is telling another government agency that the reams of paperwork to justify the existence of the greenway grant was not fulfilled properly? My, oh my. If that isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is.

So while you are watching Congress and the President haggle over the tax bill, which is now laden with nearly another trillion greenbacks in debt on your back and mine, by all means, go lobby your local government leaders to apply for another greenway grant. We really need those greenways....or not.

By the way, just in case you think all of these greenways are essential to save the earth from global warming, you need to read This Article at American Thinker

Excerpt here:

"... According to scientists' models of Earth's orbit and orientation toward the Sun indicate that our world should be just beginning to enter a new period of cooling -- perhaps the next ice age...

The premises of all of our government tax programs regarding energy, transportation, housing, and food, based on "Global Warming" need to be sent into the scrap bin and FAST! ....along with the idiots who are trying to scam the public with this idiocy. I'm for driving more gas guzzling cars all over the damn place if it keeps us from freezing to death. What do you say out there?


Sources:
American Trails .org
Jonathan DuHamel on the Global Warming Fraud

ASSANGE: HERO OR VILLAIN?? Part III

We live in a world now where nothing is as it seems.  That's tragic for me since I am a straight up realist and, as Rush has been saying lately, I live in Literalville.  You and I are faced with warp speed information coming from so many different directions while we try to digest it and make it work for our own reality.  In fact, much of it is reporting of events we take in and immediately try to process whether these events are going to affect us immediately or will resolve somehow before the fall out from them hits us in the face.  The amazing thing today is that these events are rarely what they seem on the surface.  The sad thing is that if you have not spent a lot of time researching the causes and effects of these events and know something about history, you don't know how to process the information.  Picture an entire nation of people who have either tuned out entirely or are left with their heads spinning, not knowing truth from fiction.

Jullian Assange and Wikileaks is one of those news events.   On the one hand, it looks like some evil cyber hacker has undermined our national security.  Then it looks like the leaked information is actually in our favor.  Then it looks like our officials have been lying.  And it looks like we have been doing business behind the scenes with muslim countries and their potentates.  Then it looks like Assange has leaked really important information which debunks Global Warming and also proves that Hussein had WMD's in Iraq.  Then we hear Assange has committed some unbelievable rape in Sweden, that when recounted by authorities doesn't sound like rape at all.  Then we hear that one of the victims of the so-called rape is possibly a CIA agent trying to take down Assange.  Now we hear Assange's lawyer is also a lawyer who has worked for George Soros.  Apparently, the connection between Wikileaks and Soros' operations is fact. 

So now what?  His leaks are actual documents from government sources, so the leaks are not lies.  The questions mount up.  What is the motive behind Assange?  He has been forthcoming in saying he wants to expose corrupt governments.  What is Soros' motive?  We know he thrives on taking down governments and economic systems.  It sounds like a marriage made in heaven or hell, take your pick!  At this point, one thing seems clear.  If Assange has attached himself to Soros, he has been used for Soros' nefarious schemes and, now that Assange is in the hands of international authorities, he will be the fall guy and go down on the altar of Soros' Open Society Institute, which will never be touched by the scandal. 

Why do they need a cyber fall guy??   You need someone to create a crisis in every arena if you are taking down the most successful country in the world and setting up a One World Government.  You need a financial crisis, á la 2008.  You need an energy and environmental crisis, á la the BP oil spill.  You need an education crisis, á la the tuition riots in the U.K.  You need a terror crisis, á la the Christmas bomber, 911, etc.  You need to break the financial footing of the country you want to take down, á la funding every extraneous and unnecessary program to increase debts.  You need a medical emergency so you trump one up, á la the pretense that millions of people in the United States have no access to adequate medical care.  (never mind that is a lie)  You need an information crisis, á la Wikileaks, so you can turn around and regulate information.  You sure as heck don't want people to know the truth. 

(Have you heard the facts on the FCC takeover of the internet, so cutely titled "Net Neutrality?")

So finally I have decided Julian Assange is both a blessing and a curse, a hero and a villain, but in the end he is the perfect foil for the media / internet takeover.  Control the messages the public hears.  Propaganda.  Keeping the public stupid and at the same time create distrust of government is the only way to get the job done.  Soros has helped create an information crisis to give the FCC the perfect excuse for Net Neutrality. 

Friends, information sharing is the only thing keeping us from complete darkness. This is why some people have pointed to Assange as a hero of sorts.  It is also why governments want to shut him up while they shut down the free flow of information over the airwaves and the internet.  The One Worlder's know how to create a lose-lose situation, so, when they succeed at that, they take the reins and the rest of us are at their mercy.  It's quite cunning.   

In the meantime, we can only watch and speculate.  We have no influence over these circumstances at the moment.   Hang on for the ride.....

Some links below:
Questions on Assange
" How come Assange’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, works for a foundation run by hedge fund manager George Soros, who has profited from the engineered financial crisis. Soros also has significant interests in the media, including the Huffington Post and his network reaches into The Guardian."




Texas Rep. Ron Paul doesn’t think the government should charge WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with treason, arguing that the Australian who facilitated the unprecedented document

dump should be considered part of the free press.
“In a free society, we are supposed to know the truth,” Paul wrote on Twitter Friday. “In a society where truth becomes treason, we are in big trouble.”


Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/12/03/texas-rep-ron-paul-don%e2%80%99t-prosecute-wikileaks-julian-assange/#ixzz17f8pbQvY

Random news releases on Assange from Euro-Meditaranien.dk

CLOWNS TO THE LEFT OF ME, JOKERS TO THE RIGHT OF ME, CALLING FOR ASSANGE'S HEAD

 I am on the right side of politics if you call a Constitutionalist a right winger.  But for the use of metaphor, I referred to this song line where Jokers on the Right of me are the Republicans yelling "off with his head" about Julian Assange. I don't even need to go into the Clowns on the Left of me.  We know who they are and we know they need to get the shepherd's hook off the stage.  It's the Jokers to the Right of me I wish to yank off the stage along with the Clowns.

Just in from Newsmax

McConnell: "Wikileaks Chief a High Tech Terrorist"

So, Senator McConnell think Julian Assange is a "terrorist."  He could be a "provocateur."  He might be a high tech "muckraker."  If he were working for the American government he would be called a protected informant. He might be a lot of things, but a "terrorist?"  

Come on, McConnell.  You can do better than that.  According to the article, McConnell says that the online release of secret diplomat exchanges has done " enormous damage" to the country and its relationship with its allies.  Nah, it must be revealing the truth that does the damage.

Then comes Newt Gingrich on the Fox Sunday show.  Same thing.  Newt says Assange is using "information warfare" as a terror tool.  He says it is Assange putting our soldier's lives at stake.  Hmmm.....couldn't be the insanity of bribing and lying to diplomats that would be the problem?  Nah, it's telling the truth to the world that is the problem. 

Calling Assange a terrorist is an excuse to shut down the truth, one more voice after another adding to the call for his head.  This is an excuse to sic every hit man in the world after the guy.  And it tells me only this; that people who make dirty arrangements with dirty enemies and don't want the public to know about it, would like to kill the messenger.  This is appalling.  These 'holier than thou' politicians want to wire tap American citizens, want to tell us which light bulb we can use, how many gallons of water we can have, tell our doctors who gets what care, and want to put Smart Meters on our houses, but when someone sheds light on the "crap" that they are doing with our money in our names and with our soldiers lives, they don't like it very much...do they?

Call me naíve.  Call me crazy.  But I think Assange has done exactly what Glenn Beck has done with exposing the leftist revolutionaries and George Soros.  Assange has caught the exact words of the international players and exposed them to the public.  Soros would like to kill Beck and has tried to bribe him off the stage.  Same same with our elitist politicians....they want Assange off the stage. They want him dead or gagged or in prison or any number of punishments.

And, by the way, this Wikileaks dump of information is not on par with decoding the enemy's messages in WWII.  It is an exposé of just how corrupt our government officials are and how ineffectual their methods are.  Turn up a rock and see what lurks underneath.  Assange turned up the rock.  And we don't like what we see.  Is that a reason to kill the guy?

Do we want knowledge or do we want to sit idle in the dark hoping for the government to save us?  Are we a participant in our own lives, or are we bystanders? If we can't trust or don't approve of our government, our elected representatives, our appointed officials, then should we know it or just blind ourselves to the truth?  Frankly,  you know and I know that for quite some time now things have been 'rotten in Denmark' and smelling to high heaven.  Assange may have terrible motives. We don't know. Or he may be a media watchdog, doing the job that our media has refused to do.  Did we praise Woodward and Bernstein?  Or did we call for their heads?  I suppose Nixon would have liked their heads on a platter, too. Hmmm.....you might think about that for a minute.

Pray for his life.  I am.

Jokers on the Right of me.

I leave you with Shakespeare:

From Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene I

"The jury, passing on the prisoner's life,

May in the sworn twelve have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try."

 

ASSANGE: HERO OR VILLAIN?? Part II

Below is some more food for thought on the Assange release from Wikileaks.  The reason I am posting this is because there is more to this leaking than meets the eyes.  And there is much more to the responses to the leaking than the surface spin.  What I am saying is that it is not just the leaking that is important to us, but the reactions from various targets of the leaks that we need to be watching.  The power dance is going on in front of us, but the mainstream media is either ignoring it or trying to paint Obama as an innocent bystander.  (He played that card really well during the financial crisis of 2008 when I believe he knew exactly who was behind the crash and why.....Soros directing, if you ask me.)

My take on the article below is that someone is trying to get Hillary off the stage.  To what end?  To keep Obama in place as the dupe of the global Socialists?  This is why these leaks are good for us.  Not just for the leaks, but for watching who reacts to what in which way.  Smarter political reporters than I will analyze this better than I.  

However, I don't agree with Krauthammer, HERE who I used to like but have come to the conclusion that he is on the side of globalism.  He admonishes our response to the leaks by saying "we are at war" and this is "sabatage," and therefore, we should be after Assange's head on a platter for exposing how we are conducting this so called war.  He wants the guy impaled and fast.  Well, last I heard, we are at war with an ideology, not a nation state, i.e. the "War on Terror."  Our soldiers are out there in fields where you can't tell the enemy from the friend and our government refuses to declare war on the actual perpetrators of terror.  In WWII did we declare war on National Socialism?  No.  We declared war on Germany.  So al qaeda has no nation state.....however, we know they are radical Muslim Islamics.  The leaks tell us how our government is trying to conduct this war with diplomacy tactics and cajoling middle eastern players into acting on our behalf.  Does this diplomacy effort put our soldiers at risk, or does this exposure of diplomacy reveal the actions of the players out in the open to each other?  Or both?  I would say both, which complicates the situation even more, but also makes me want to grab our soldiers and bring everyone of them home.  But for Krauthammer to blame the messenger, Assange, is misplaced anger.  His anger should be directed at our leadership that is conducting a "war" that has no clearly defined enemy and no good military plan.   

The very premise that we can manipulate governments on the side of Islam with diplomacy is ridiculous to me.  Nice idea if you can do it, but it turns into a shake-down with no results as far as I can tell.  This is asymetrical war, not conventional war, which is why we are going about this in unconventional ways not proven in history to work.  It is ambiguous and not clearly defined.  And if you read my blog much, you know that is not how I like things.  I want clear definitions that are based on truth.  If I would make a decision to put a soldier's life on the line, I want to know his life would not be wasted by pasting some bandaid (or bribe) on a situation, buying off the Taliban, or trying to kill an ideology.  This is why Iraq, though it might have not been well thought out or conducted perfectly, made more sense to me than this stupid action going on in Afghanistan which is spreading into Pakistan and Yemen.  

Sure, I'd like to rid the world of the insanity of this radical Islam nonsense.  Obviously our government doesn't have a clue how to do that, and Obama is a Muslim sympathizer who refuses to lead on the war.  He has mostly left that up to Hillary, but now finding she has power to run against him, he is not unhappy that Wikileaks is going after her.  Watch the reactions as well as the actions.  

That being said, turning Hillary into a target of the leaks makes one ask, who wants her out of it and why?  The low ranked Manning, who downloaded all of this information, is hardly likely to be the brains behind any of this, but a dupe with an ax to grind who just did what someone wanted him to do.  Well, as the article suggests below, Obama would like the Clintons off the stage.  She is a threat to his second term and he knows it.  His backers know it.  The power dance is on stage in front of us.  Watch  for the slam dance and the high kicks!  Hardly the romantic waltz, it is going to be interesting.

Big Journalism Article on Wikileaks and Useful Idiots

Excerpt:


"The media had info from Manning way back in June that WikiLeaks was targeting Hillary Clinton via a massive foreign policy leak.  So why single out Hillary for the media attack now?  To whom does Hillary pose a threat?  Is it a coincidence that we are 13 months away from the 2012 Iowa Caucus and that this WikiLeaks dump – and the well-timed call for Hillary’s resignation – occurs just four weeks after the incumbent President suffered a major political defeat?

And, why only call for Hillary’s resignation?  She doesn’t make the foreign policy that Assange/Chavez condemns, she merely implements the policy set by the President.  Why then are some in the media floating Hillary as the fall guy now?"

Adding this: Tom Roberson's take on Wikileaks

Excerpt: "We see a lot of double dealing by world leaders and some embarrassing opinions, but we also see an administration whose foreign policy can at best be described as chaotic, and at worst is downright hostile to American interests around the world. These Keystone Kops are no longer able to hide their flaws behind the failsafe veil of classified information. Many of the suspicions we've had about the Obama administration's foreign policy have now been confirmed by this egregious document dump." 

This is good to know, whether you like it or not. And this is why I believe the American people are better off with this information.

WHO'S IN CHARGE OF YOUR ELECTRICITY USE?

First the facts:

Business Week Article on Smart Meters 

Excerpt: 

"Despite the roadblocks, companies continue to invest heavily in meters. On Sept. 2, Cisco announced plans to buy Arch Rock, a San Francisco company that makes wireless technology to transmit data from smart meters to utilities. Says Charles Carmel, Cisco's vice-president for corporate development: "The smart grid will be a multibillion-dollar opportunity for players like Cisco and others for a number of years to come."

Matter Network on Smart Meters  

 Excerpt:

"Other utilities powering customers in states such as California, Colorado or Miami are also moving forward, such as Colorado Springs Utilities’ Automated Meter Reading (AMR) project. The project has been going for four years— aiming at over 530,000 installed smart meters (for electric, natural gas and water by 2010)— and has partnered with General Electric to install an Outage Management System (OMS) there."

"In the south, rapidly approaching targeted smart meter deployment is Austin Energy in Texas—a state that has its own power grid, avoiding federal processes. The utility expects to complete smart meter deployment this year."

"Even international companies are gaining footholds in the American smart electrical grid. In an effort headed by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization, 20-30 million of Japanese government funds will be going towards initial grid development in a yet unknown New Mexico town."

"GE is not only working in Colorado Springs and in Miami-- but will also in the United Kingdom, who are working towards total residential smart meter implementation by 2020. GE’s smart meters are being employed by the government-led Energy Demand Research Project, a study that is working to determine consumer responses to improved energy consumption information. Korea announced last week new smart grid plans and Amsterdam’s Smart City Program has begun to install energy-saving technology from IBM and Cisco."

BizJournal article from 2009 on Pilot Program in NC

Excerpt:

"The North Carolina Utilities Commission approved the program Monday.
The program’s goal is to reduce residential energy consumption by refining and controlling the use of power. It also will help Duke determine how to integrate small solar generators and energy-storage technologies to reduce peak demand and improve reliability.
Customers can fine-tune their energy use themselves or allow Duke to do so according to options the customers set."

It always starts out as benign, doesn't it?  "We're here from the government and we're here to help you."  Oh sure.  And I just fell off a turnip truck.

I'm so grateful, as I write this, that so far the "Smart Grid" meter has not been forced upon our house.  I set my own temperatures.  We buy what energy we need, nothing more and nothing less.  I can turn on my clothes washer when we need to wash the clothes.  Same with the dishwasher.  We take baths when we need them. We use lights when we need them, not when we don't.  Etc.

This is not going to last.  Energy is a commodity that was once a matter of supply and demand. Enterprising private utility companies used to operate outside of government.  People could buy from Utility X, Y, or Z and government was not in the picture except to secure rights of way for utility carriers.  Sometime ago, cities got into the utility business.  Now the States are doing their best to take over the energy business.  The food chain, where the big fish eat the little fish, is alive and well in the government energy business.  And don't be fooled that the Feds will let that be.  We will have nationalized energy services at some point.  

In America we have had energy to purchase for our needs.  That is going to change.  Someone else is going to decide how much or how little energy we are allowed to have for what purposes.  That someone or someones are coming from the Federal government.  Just as the government has involved itself in agriculture with subsidies to manipulate the prices and uses of crops, the government is going into the energy business in a big way.  It's all for your own good you know.  Their excuse?  Saving the planet from your horrible warm house and pot of coffee. 

So, who gave the keys to your electric meter on your house to the government?  You didn't.  I didn't.  But bureaucrats who say they know better than you and I have stolen those keys and now they will decide on your energy usage habits.  Our State and Federal legislatures are pouring our own tax dollars into "Smart Grid" programs, through the Stimulus Bill or other appropriations.  Your utility company is being regulated by States and Federal governments to control your use of energy.  At first they tell you it is to save you money, and/or it is to protect the energy supply, and/or "let us do it for you."

(as an aside, someone I know personally has said to me that "they must know better than we do because that's their job."  OMG....I can't even pretend to address such ignorance.  I wonder how anyone with the brain of an ant could think that at this point.  She also always asks, "Well, what is in it for them?"  She says, "They don't have any reason to do this, but for our own good."  Can you say "Lobbyist money," I ask her?  She rolls her eyes, not buying my explanation. ) 

I go back and forth on the idea of purchasing a generator for our house.  I think I need to stop going back and forth and just do it.  One thing that stops me is the possibility of the lack of gasoline to run the thing in case that supply runs dry and/or the price of gasoline due to our "dear leader."  In years past we never had power outages.  Unless there was some really terrible storm, our power never went out.  Now we get them on occasions that aren't even storm related.  No idea why, just blips and brown outs. 

Rain barrels are on my list of things we should possibly buy.  Funny, but I wonder if everyone had rain barrels, how low would the creeks get from lack of run off water to fill them up. We could be charged extra for the gallons we catch off of our roofs because we are greedily keeping the run-off for ourselves and not sharing it with the ground and the creeks.  Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.  That is how environmental Socialists think. 

I think about what it would be like to go off the grid altogether, but I'm no longer 30 years old and the prospects of living like my great-grandparents lived sends me into depths of despair at my age.  They lived off the land.  It was not easy, those were hard lives.   I remember my grandmother's hand wringer washing machine with the crank on the side of the wringer apparatus.  When I was a kid, there were still those washboards around that you used to scrub your knuckles bare in attempts to wash the clothes.  My great-grandmother's hands were gnarled and arthritic from all of her hard labor.  There were good aspects of their lives.  They farmed and had really great food.  They canned the vegetables and fruits and had cold cellars in which to keep the canned goods.  My grandmother's house was full of warmth and generosity.  I have some lovely quilts she and my great-grandmother made and I cherish them.  They were made from leftovers of shirts and dresses, so when I look at the fabrics I can treasure the picture in my mind of them wearing those clothes.  It's funny how a child notices hands, especially the caring hands of grandmothers.  But they were old long before we are old.  Hard labor takes its toll on people. 

Has anyone out there even read Karl Marx?  (that is except for the Progressive Socialists in our government?) We are not ruled by idiots.  We are ruled by very sly, clever, elitist, control freaks who will rake in billions from Smart Grid technologies.  They already are.  And here we are, just waiting to be economically raped.  Get out the wash boards, the wringers, and the canning jars.  (Will treadle sewing machines make a comeback?)  And God bless our grandparents, wherever they are.

Oh, and by the way, the Obama administration just reinstated the ban on oil drilling and exploration yesterday for at least another six months.  Isn't that just ducky? You can send him thank you notes when you buy that foreign oil at the gas station and pay $6.00 a gallon.

( THIS ARTICLE IS ALSO PUBLISHED HERE

ASSANGE: HERO OR VILLAIN??

 I was reading David Brooks' op-ed on Julian Assange today Here and while reading his article, I thought about Sue Myrick.  That's odd, you might be thinking.  But it isn't odd.  Why Sue Myrick?  There is a correlation.

Way back when, as George Bush was rolling out the Patriot Act, people were up in arms about the insulting idea that wire tapping of U.S. citizens would take place by the U.S. Government.  "UNCONSTITUTIONAL" was the outcry!  How dare he?  Well, he dared.  And Sue Myrick, our Republican House Representative, came out with this apologetic for the wire-tapping, "If you're not doing anything wrong, what's your problem?"  Yes, indeedy.  That is exactly what she said.

How does that relate to Julian Assange?  The tables are turned.  It is the government(s) being exposed now.   Soon, possibly, banks.  Michele Malkin often states that "Sunlight is the best disinfectant." I would like to say back to Sue Myrick and Hillary Clinton and others who are exposed in the Wikileaks flood of documents, "If you're not doing anything wrong, what's your problem?"

Brooks seems to think that Assange is a wannabe journalist.  I don't see him that way exactly.  I do see him as an anarchist probably, with no allegiance to nation or belief in systems.  And Brooks points that out, too.  I think I see him as a muckraker.  And muckrakers have a place in this world.  Does he have his fingers on the pulse of our current unrest and disbelief as we watch corrupt government leaders who are manipulating our lives?  If he lives, will he turn his leaks toward China or Russia, or maybe their information security is more leak-proof than ours?

I am not a fan of Assange's release on our military.  I draw the line at defense of our nation.  That being said, over the last few years I am seeing our military being used for all kinds of missions that I question as necessary or helpful to our security.  In spite of that, I don't think our soldiers are to be used as fodder for Assange's mission...if we can guess what that is.  And we can only guess.

But when it comes to the executive powers, the State Department, and even the banks, I agree with Michele Malkin.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant and Assange is throwing light in dark rooms of secrecy.  The world powers go on and on about the glowing attributes of democracy, yet at the same time, keep the people ignorant of what they are actually doing.  Democracy to them is only as good as the spin, not truth and reality.  Then comedians on TV do 'man on the street' interviews and everyone guffaws and laments at how stupid the people are.  The underlying sad premise of that is this: it bolsters the power brokers confidence to believe they can do anything they want while people are just flabbergasted and stupid.  Well, if you keep people stupid, then you can do whatever you want with them and to them.  Right?

So is Assange providing sunlight?  Is he a hero or a villain?  Interpol is after him.  His life won't end well, I suspect.  He messed with some really dangerous, powerful, global power brokers. By design, I might add.  If you try to go to Wikileaks.org it is blocked.  No access.

Twitter has the following this morning: Canadian Harper advisor calls for the assassination of Julian Assange http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqtIafdoH_g

And this: Chinese government issues censorship order for WikiLeaks http://is.gd/hZlNO help us fight: http://is.gd/hZlW4

For every action there is a reaction, so people who use the internet will pay a heavy price for Assange's revelations.  Likely the FCC will move forward with control of the internet.  I believe they will use Assange / Wikileaks as an excuse for more control.  Our government will monitor every word and every discussion and every post.  (not at all sure that isn't already the case)  Obama and his Czars don't believe in freedom of speech except their own. 

Cyber-security is the next thing on the agenda....so we'll all be safe, you know.  

Meanwhile, Julian Assange has added a gift to our discussions.  I suggest he is a hero of sorts, at least to those who want sunlight on the dark crevices in secret rooms where there are powerful people manipulating our world.  He certainly does not deserve assassination.  But you don't go up against Hillary Clinton without that possibility arising.  

What do you think?

 

Another take below:

"Given the animosity from all areas of the United States government, the global community, Interpol, and commentators and politicians on both political aisles, the central Wikileaks question– whose side is Julian Assange on?– remains unsolved. His work has amounted to the most concrete evidence of WMDs in Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era than anyone else has mustered up, and reinforced the belief on the right that global warming is a farce. The latest leak is particularly damning to Iran, showing international support for American intervention there and ties to the increasingly belligerent North Korean regime. Yet many right-wing American pundits– though not all– are calling for everything from his arrest to his execution. Sarah Palin even wrote a tweet against Wikileaks, taking the gloves off and ruthlessly comparing the website to, uh, Gawker. His only unambiguous ally seems to be the nation of Ecuador, which has offered him citizenship “no questions asked,” and even that may be compromised if the nation’s arm is sufficiently twisted by the international community."

(On that one, I completely disagree with Sarah Palin)

Another thoughtful article on Assange Here