Monthly Archives: May 2011

The People Who Do Everything Right Are the Ones That Really Get Screwed by the Federal Reserve – Bob Wenzel

From EPJ:

LaTi has a story out today about homeowners stuck in Las Vegas because of the collapse of the housing market:

Charles Mills can barely afford to stay here. But he also can’t afford to move.

That’s why the 44-year-old heavy-equipment operator was preparing to leave his wife and young daughter here and go where he could find work — the Oklahoma oil fields. Mills has a mortgage to pay, even if its size pains him.

He purchased his house in 2006 for $308,500. Current value: $105,797.

“We talked about it: What can we do with the house?” Mills said. “Nobody’s going to buy it. Nobody’s going to rent it. If we walk away, my credit’s shot. We’re stuck.”
In some parts of North Las Vegas, more than 80% of homeowners have plunged “underwater,” meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their properties are worth — a stunning concentration of aborted plans and upended lives.

I have an ex-girlfriend in the same position. Last I talked to her, I think she was underwater on a house to the tune of $150,000. (Hey, don’t blame me. I warned her.) She won’t walk away from the property because just like the Las Vegas homeowners, she doesn’t want her credit ruined.

These are the people that do everything right. They don’t lie, cheat or steal. They aren’t Austrian economists, so they don’t understand the business cycle. When house prices were going up, the conservative thing, in their eyes, was to buy a house, since houses ”always go up in value.” They didn’t understand it was a Federal Reserve manipulated scam.

Continue reading…

When in New York don’t get in one of these taxis…

It’s hard to believe some taxi and livery companies would volunteer to be in this program. The lesson: vote with your dollars and choose a taxi company who is not participating.

Suit Challenges NYPD’s Taxi Stop-and-Frisk Effort

The War on Cameras

Gaddafi gold-for-oil, dollar-doom plans behind Libya ‘mission’?

The Real Pledge of Allegiance

Remember

by Roger Young

Ask ten people what Memorial Day is about and you’ll probably receive ten different responses. Mentioned are claims of “recognizing those who have served and fallen in defense or service to their country,” “identifying patriots who unselfishly answered the call,” and “acknowledging the heroes of battle.” A common theme encountered in the discussion is remembrance. But, what else should be remembered? Are there not other aspects of war that need remembering?

Remember the architects of perpetual conflict, the schemers and tacticians who design the strategy, chart the acts of aggression, and lay the blueprints for other’s destruction.

Remember the plague of nationhood that infects the innate free spirit of men, disrupts the natural order of peaceful exchange and fuels the slavish obedience to political orders; regardless their legality or morality.

Remember the irresponsible who jump at the opportunity for conflict, forgetting reason, composure, and diplomacy. Remember how they delegate to others the duty to lead the engagement.

Remember the propaganda meisters who flood the airwaves with poisonous lies to reassure a wary, skeptical public; all carefully calculated to stultify the truth of war’s consequences.

Remember the Masters of War who profit from this heinous spectacle- those who gain power and tarnished wealth. Watch them flaunt their booty paid for with the bloody currency of children not their own.

Remember those who consider it essential that defense of a state’s borders requires committing pre-emptive acts of aggression against people on the other side of the globe.

Remember the cheerleaders who urge on “their” warriors with shouts of jingoistic fervor; yet refuse or find it unnecessary to give up their comfort of state side security.

Remember those who have witnessed, first hand, the horror of battle and tasted the acrid flavor of war’s experience.

Remember those who discover an epiphany, a life changing understanding that war is not the glorious adventure of Hollywood imagery, not the youthful pastime of an entertaining video game.

Remember those of this group who then fail to warn others of this newfound knowledge, who fail to convince compatriots of the needless sacrifice and stolen innocence.

Remember those on the sidelines who do not obey their conscience to speak out against the carnage, who hold their tongues through shyness or cowardice; who stand by silent as family, friends, and neighbors are whisked off to their inevitable doom.

Remember the children who witness war and its atrocities. Remember the confusion within young minds told killing is wrong, than struggle to comprehend the exception of war.

Remember their bewilderment when told to accept the killing of strangers that have done them no harm.

Remember the irreconcilable conflict within the hearts of Christians whose testament instruct “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.” and “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also (Luke 6:27–29)” Remember their befuddlement when finding serving their state (be it the U.S.A and/or Israel) requires disregarding these principles. Remember the ideological clash when told serving their “country” preempts faithfulness to their God.

Remember the broken bodies and shattered psyches, still with us to remind us of war’s human cost. Remember the lost potential, the dashed dreams, the oceans of shed tears, the newly discovered war against desperation and hopelessness.

Yes, remember the fallen, the dead. Visit their resting places with solemn respect. Make note of their obscenely abundant and escalating numbers.

Remember that each grave has a face, a story, a soul represented by that slab of coldly etched stone or weathered cross.

Then, remember the graves throughout the world without adornment of a marker- a name, an individual, sentenced to a burial of eternal anonymity. Don’t the numbers now grow exponentially? Some were enemies, some were allies. Remember they also once walked the earth as those you honor. Remember they also aspired to a life of peaceful contentment, though driven by a different philosophy or creed as a means to obtain it.

Remember how, when living, all sides were compelled by opposing views of righteousness but now all are colleagues in death.

Do not only grieve for their loss but remember the lies and liars that killed them.

May 30, 2005

Roger Young [send him mail] is a freelance photographer in Texas and maintains a website called PixelPrairie.com.

Copyright 2005 LewRockwell.com

The Last Nail In The Republic – Ron Paul

Feds Issue Threat: No Fly Zone for Texas?

(source)

by Connor Boyack, with Brian Roberts and Michael Boldin

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice upped the ante in a high-stakes political game of chicken. Lobbying against pending legislation in the Texas legislature which would criminalize any searches conducted without probable cause, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy sent a letter to a few high-ranking members of Texas’ government warning against promoting the bill and threatening a complete closure of all flights to and from the state.

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

No doubt written with the threatening intent one reads into it, Murphy added: “We urge that you consider the ramifications of this bill before casting your vote.”

Previous to the federal government’s threat, the Texas legislature had considered the ramifications of the bill. More importantly, they were responding to a clear need to uphold the Fourth Amendment and ensure that each person enjoys the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” — a right which the U.S. Constitution mandates “shall not be violated.”

Repeated TSA violations of the Fourth Amendment

That need has demonstrated itself in great abundance in past months, as the TSA has aggressively pursued its new policy of invasive searches and seizures at the nation’s airports. The “ramifications” to which the U.S. Attorney refers are evidently an easily dismissed matter of little importance to the federal government; to those affected by these policies, the ramifications of a bill seeking to prevent further occurrences is no doubt a welcome development.

It was less than a month ago at the Dallas, TX airport where former Miss USA Susie Castillo tearfully produced a viral video describing the molestation she had just then endured at the hands of a TSA agent. “I mean, she actually… touched my vagina,” Castillo said through her tears. “They’re making me… choose to either get molested… or go through this machine that’s completely unhealthy and dangerous. I don’t want to go through it, and here I am crying.”

Castillo isn’t the only person who would be protected under this Texas legislation. All other innocent travelers would likewise be shielded. That includes the six year old girl who made the headlines last month for being groped by a TSA agent (an action which the TSA defended as being alright since it “followed the current standard operating procedures”), as well as the eight-month-old infant subjected to a pat down while cradled in the arms of her mother.

These are but a few of the myriad confrontations that occur daily where TSA agents detain, invasively search, and seize items from innocent individuals who are not suspected of any crime whatsoever. Texas’ bill would correct this horrific perversion of the law within its state, but the federal government is clearly interested in justifying and maintaining its statist status quo.

Repeated Threats from the Federal Government

Evidence of that arrogant persistence is found in letters similar to the one penned last night by the U.S. Attorney to Texas officials. Almost two years ago, a similarly threatening letter was sent to Oklahoma by the U.S. Attorney General. In it, the state is warned against pursuing a constitutional amendment to make the English language official. The threat was a termination of appropriated funds to the state.

Another letter was sent in 2009 to both Montana and Tennessee in response to those states passing a Firearms Freedom Act. Rather than an explicit threat of any sort, these letters completely dismissed any constitutional standing or legitimate concern by the states, instead (incorrectly) affirming the federal government’s supreme authority over the issue at hand.

More recently, a U.S. Attorney wrote to the Governor of Rhode Island warning against that state’s implementation of medical marijuana legislation which would constitutionally regulate the manufacture, distribution, and consumption of the plant within the state. The attorney trumpeted the federal laws relating to the “controlled substance” and assured the Governor that the Department of Justice’s full resources would be brought to bear against any state (theirs included) which attempted to oppose the federal government’s complete control.

Rob Natelson, recognized national expert on the founding and adoption of the Constitution, considers these letters to be far more ominous than mere statements. In response to the 2009 letters, he said, “I look at this and I see this letter which gets close to looking like an order from the central government down to a sovereign state legislature, and I say…WOW. This looks like something that (Roman Emperor) Septimius Severus would have sent to the local officials.” He continued, “It reminds one eerily of the kinds of communications that started to come out from the Emperor to the local cities of the Roman Empire, beginning the course of the ultimate destruction of local government.”

Despite Threats, Moving Forward

For now, it appears that the U.S. Attorney’s threat has realized its goal; the sponsor of the Texas bill has decided to concede defeat in this battle, but remains committed to fighting the war. “I will pull HB 1937 down, but I will stand for liberty in the state of Texas,” said Senator Dan Patrick, the bill’s sponsor. As such, as of right now, the bill has died.

This much is clear: the federal government should not consider this a victory. As individuals are being unjustly molested on a daily basis, it is increasingly becoming apparent that there exists a strong, emotionally-charged undercurrent of resistance against the TSA and its invasive searches and seizures.

If anything, the withdrawal of Texas’ legislation last night should be seen as the calm before the coming storm of state-based opposition to the TSA.

Texas is Not Alone

If anything can serve as a rallying cry to unite the states against an oppressive, unconstitutional action on the part of the federal government, it is the institutionalized and fear-based justification of the molestation of innocent men, women, and children. The U.S. Attorney’s stern counsel to consider the “ramifications” of the Texas bill speaks more in support of the state’s actions than against it.

Indeed, when one considers the ramifications of not opposing the federal government on this issue, it is difficult to imagine how many Susie Castillos will be felt up by the feds for no valid reason whatsoever. That unnecessary nightmare is enough to encourage a single state — in this case, Texas — to stand strong in the defense of the individual liberties of its citizens.

But Texas is not alone. Already, four other states are considering similar “travel freedom” legislation. And, sources close to the Tenth Amendment Center tell us to expect at least ten others in 2012. Taken together, it becomes evident that many other states will soon be picking up the baton, together having the courage needed to put the federal government back in its rightful place — which isn’t inside the waistline of innocent passengers.

The TSA’s resident propagandist, Blogger Bob, will have his work cut out for him in the months ahead.

Connor Boyack [send him mail] is the state chapter coordinator for the Utah Tenth Amendment Center. He is a web developer, political economist, and social media consultant changing the world one byte at a time. Read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

Brian Roberts [send him email] is communications director for the Texas Tenth Amendment Center

Michael Boldin [send him email] is the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. He was raised in Milwaukee, WI, and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. Follow him on twitter – @michaelboldin – and visit his personal blog – www.michaelboldin.com

How Many SEALs Died?

(source)

By Paul Craig Roberts

May 21, 2011 Information Clearing House  In a sensational and explosive TV report, the Pakistani News Agency has provided a live interview with an eye witness to the US attack on the alleged compound of Osama bin Laden. The eye witness, Mohammad Bashir, describes the event as it unfolded. Of the three helicopters, “there was only one that landed the men and came back to pick them up, but as he [the helicopter] was picking them up, it blew away and caught fire.” The witness says that there were no survivors, just dead bodies and pieces of bodies everywhere. “We saw the helicopter burning, we saw the dead bodies, then everything was removed and now there is nothing.”

I always wondered how a helicopter could crash, as the White House reported, without at least producing injuries. Yet, in the original White House story, the SEALs not only survived a 40-minute firefight with al Qaeda, “the most highly trained, most dangerous, most vicious killers on the planet,” without a scratch, but also survived a helicopter crash without a scratch.
The Pakistani news report is available on You Tube. The Internet site, Veterans Today, posted a translation along with a video of the interview. And, Information Clearing House made it available on May 17.
If the interview is not a hoax and the translation is correct, we now know the answer to the unasked question: Why was there no White House ceremony with President Obama pinning medals all over the heroic SEALs who tracked down and executed Public Enemy Number One?
The notion that Obama had to keep the SEALs’ identity secret in order to protect the SEALs from al Qaeda detracts from the heroic tough-guy image of the SEALs, and it strains credulity that Obama’s political handlers would not have milked the occasion for all it is worth.
Other than on the Veterans Today and ICH Internet sites, I have not seen any mention of the Pakistani news story. If the White House press corps is aware of the report, no one has asked President Obama or his press spokesperson about it. Helen Thomas was the last American reporter sufficiently brave to ask such a question, and she was exterminated by the Israel Lobby.
In America we have reached the point where anyone who tells the truth is dismissed as a “conspiracy theorist” and marginalized. Recently, a professor of nano-chemistry from the University of Copenhagen made a lecture tour of major Canadian universities explaining the research, conducted by himself and a team of physicists and engineers, that resulted in finding small particles of unreacted nano-thermite in dust samples from the wreckage of the World Trade Center towers in addition to other evidence that the professor and the research team regard as conclusive scientific proof that the towers were brought down by controlled demolition.
No American university dared to invite him, and as far as I know no mention of the explosive research report has ever appeared in the American press.
I find it astonishing that 1,500 architects and engineers, who actually know something about buildings, their construction, their strength and weaknesses, and who have repeatedly requested a real investigation of the destruction of the three WTC buildings, are regarded as conspiracy kooks by people who know nothing whatsoever about architecture or engineering or buildings. The same goes for the large number of pilots who question the flight maneuvers carried out during the attacks, and the surviving firemen and “first responders” who report both hearing and personally experiencing explosions in the towers, some of which occurred in sub-basements.
A large number of high-ranking political figures abroad don’t believe a word of the official 9/11 story. For example, the former president of Italy and dean of the Italian Senate, told Italy’s oldest newspaper, Corriere delia Sera, that the intelligence services of Europe “know well that the disastrous [9/11] attack has been planned and realized by the American CIA and the [Israeli] Mossad . . . in order to put under accusation the Arabic Countries and in order to induce the western powers to take part in [the invasions].
Even people who report that there are dissenting views, as I have done, are branded conspiracy theorists and banned from the media. This extends into the Internet in addition to newspapers and TV. Not long ago a reporter for the Internet site, The Huffington Post, discovered that Pat Buchanan and I are critics of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions. He was fascinated that there were some Reagan administration officials who dissented from the Republican Party’s war position and asked to interview me.
After he posted the interview on The Huffington Post, someone told him that I was not sound on 9/11. In a panic the reporter contacted me, demanding to know if I disbelieved the official 9/11 story. I replied that being neither architect, engineer, physicist, chemist, pilot, nor firefighter, I had little to contribute to understanding the event, but that I had reported that various experts had raised questions.
The reporter was terrified that he might somehow have given a 9/11 skeptic credibility and be fired for interviewing me about my war views for The Huffington Post. He quickly added at the beginning and, if memory serves, ending of the posted interview words to the effect that my lack of soundness on 9/11 meant that my views on the wars could be disregarded. If only he had known that I was unsure about the official 9/11 story, there would have been no interview.
One doesn’t have to be a scientist, architect, engineer, pilot or firefighter to notice astonishing anomalies in the 9/11 story. Assume that the official story is correct and that a band of terrorists outwitted not only the CIA and FBI, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies and those of our NATO allies and Israel’s notorious Mossad, along with the National Security Council, NORAD, air traffic control and airport security four times in one hour on the same morning. Accept that this group of terrorists pulled off a feat worthy of a James Bond movie and delivered a humiliating blow to the world’s only superpower.
If something like this really happened, would not the president, the Congress, and the media be demanding to know how such an improbable thing could have happened? Investigation and accountability would be the order of the day. Yet President Bush and Vice President Cheney resisted the pleas and demands for an investigation from the 9/11 families for one year, or was it two, before finally appointing  a non-expert committee of politicians to listen to whatever the government chose to tell them. One of the politicians resigned from the commission on the grounds that “the fix is in.”
Even the two chairmen and the chief legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission wrote books in which they stated that they believe that members of the military and other parts of the government lied to the commission and that the commission considered referring the matter for investigation and prosecution.
Thomas Kean, chairman of the 9/11 Commission, said: “FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue . . . We, to this day don’t know why NORAD told us what they told us . . . It was just so far from the truth.”
Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton said: “We had a very short time frame . . . we did not have enough money . . . We had a lot of people strongly opposed to what we did. We had a lot of trouble getting access to documents and to people. . . . So there were all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail.”
As far as I know, not a single member of the government or the media made an issue of why the military would lie to the commission. This is another anomaly for which we have no explanation.
The greatest puzzle is the conclusion drawn by a national audience from watching on their TV screens the collapse of the WTC towers. Most seem satisfied that the towers fell down as a result of structural damage inflicted by the airliners and from limited, low-temperature fires. Yet what the images show is not buildings falling down, but buildings blowing up. Buildings that are destroyed by fires and structural damage do not disintegrate in 10 seconds or less into fine dust with massive steel beams sliced at each floor level by high temperatures that building fires cannot attain. It has never happened, and it never will.
Conduct an experiment. Free your mind of the programmed explanation of the towers’ destruction and try to discern what your eyes are telling you as you watch the videos of the towers that are available online. Is that the way buildings fall down from damage, or is that the way buildings are brought down by explosives? Little doubt, many Americans prefer the official story to the implications that follow from concluding that the official story is untrue.
If reports are correct, the US government has gone into the business of managing the public’s perceptions of news and events. Apparently, the Pentagon has implemented Perception Management Psychological Operations. There are also reports that the State Department and other government agencies use Facebook and Twitter to stir up problems for the Syrian, Iranian, Russian, Chinese, and Venezuela governments in efforts to unseat governments not controlled by Washington. In addition, there are reports that both governments and private organizations employ “trolls” to surf the Internet and to attempt to discredit in blogs and comment sections reports and writers who are out of step with their interests. I believe I have encountered trolls myself.
In addition to managing our perceptions, much is simply never reported. On May 19, 2011, the 14-decade-old British newspaper, The Statesman, reported that the Press Trust of India has reported that the Chinese government has warned Washington “in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China,” and advised the US government “to respect Pakistan’s sovereignty.”
As trends forecaster Gerald Celente and I have warned, the warmongers in Washington are driving the world toward World War III. Once a country is captured by its military/security complex, the demand for profit drives the country deeper into war. Perhaps this news report from India is a hoax, or perhaps the never-diligent mainstream media will catch up with the news tomorrow, but so far this extraordinary warning from China has not been reported in the US media. [I had it posted on OEN.]
The mainstream media and a significant portion of the Internet are content for our perceptions to be managed by psy-ops and by non-reporting. This is why I wrote not long ago that today Americans are living in George Orwell’s 1984.

In Fifty Days, Payments Innovation Will Stop In Silicon Valley

(Source)

Most people don’t reguarly check the California Senate Committee on Banking, Finance and Insurance for the latest news about potential legislation, and so it’s no surprise that most people have never heard of California Assembly Bill 2789. That’s too bad, because California AB 2789, passed into law in September, 2010 and effective January 1, 2011 as the Money Transmission Act (see http://www.dfi.ca.gov/licensees/…), is a ticking time bomb, and the big red numbers are glowing “50″ as of midnight tonight.

What the law accomplishes sounds mundane enough: it requires money transmitters–companies that act like banks, but aren’t, such as PayPal–to get licenses. As usual, however, the devil is in the details. Previously, California corporations were only required to get money transmitter licenses for international funds transfers, and domestic transfers were unregulated. Now both kinds of transfers are regulated. Also, the price of each license is a little bit steep: half a million dollars and change.

Oh, and if you want to do business nationwide, you’ll need 43 more of those licenses from almost every state. The forms and requirements are different everywhere, most states want your fingerprints to do a criminal background check (the exact same criminal background check, it turns out), and the price varies wildly from a measly $10,000 to $1,000,000+ per state. Want the forms? Good luck finding them; some states don’t post them on-line.

Why does California’s law matter at all when the regulatory framework for money transmitters is already such a mess? Well, Silicon Valley is located in California, and if Valley startup founders risk going to jail (which, under the updated PATRIOT Act, they do; see http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscod…) for transmitting money illegally without a license, then there aren’t going to be very many new companies working on ways to handle payments that don’t involve the same old banks touting the same old plastic cards. Not to mention that there aren’t a lot of investors who like the idea of putting half a million dollars into a company’s bank account so that it can be immediately locked up and used for licenses.

In other words, the Money Transmission Act is designed to kill innovation.

The only silver lining is that the very last clause, section 1872, allows companies that had already been operating under the old law to continue doing so without repurcussion until July 1, 2011, which is when the music stops. On that date, every affected company needs a license application on file, or else the founders, employees and even investors will be committing state and federal crimes by merely continuing to operate.

Who would sponsor such a draconian law? According to legislative analysis of AB 2789 (see ftp://leginfo.public.ca.gov/pub/…), we can blame The Money Services Round Table. If The Money Services Round Table sounds like a shady political group that doesn’t want to reveal its true identity, that is because it is a shady political group that doesn’t want to reveal its true identity! Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, however, we know that its lobbyists had some very important things to tell the Federal Reserve in 2006 (see http://www.federalreserve.gov/SE…), including its member list (which may have grown since then). At the time, it included such names as:

  • Western Union
  • MoneyGram
  • Travelex
  • American Express

While it’s no surprise that these companies might want to keep out the competition, that doesn’t make anti-competitive behavior something we should accept. The big four payment card companies (Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express) have managed to raise interchange fees for years and years thanks to legislative tricks, and only now is Congress trying to solve the problem by regulating debit (but thanks to lobbyists, not credit) card interchange rates via the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, which has severe problems of its own.

You might argue that innovation in the financial industry is alive and
well, but you’d only be right if you mean that in the most cynical
terms. Case in point: Square, a payments company that is a media darling frequently cited as a leading innovator, does not disrupt the financial infrastructure in any way. In fact, Visa just invested in Square directly because it does such a good job of propagating the status quo. PayPal similarly exists to promote existing financial infrastructures, not replace them with something better.

My company, Think Computer Corporation, will be forced to shut down FaceCash (https://www.facecash.com)–the only payment system built from the ground up to replace the plastic card network–if we cannot meet California’s requirements to apply for a license by July 1. (We’re pretty confident we’ll be okay, but it’s still a considerable risk.) Another one of our competitors won’t admit it, but even after raising $20 million in venture capital funding, they just stopped operating entirely in April, 2011, likely because of the regulatory uncertainty posed by AB 2789. Today, a former American Express executive who worked on the company’s Serve mobile payment system confided that the license issue had even become an internal issue for the one of the very same companies that sponsored the legislation in the first place.

Simply put, in a capitalist society, this system is insane. It does not protect consumers. It prevents market competition. It keeps interchange prices so high that Congress can’t even hold enough hearings about the issue.

Fortunately, this is one problem that is easy to solve. Tell your representatives in Congress to override California AB 2789 with a federal money transmission framework that makes sense, and allow competition to lower prices on its own.