Monday, September 17, 2012

Obama fawns all over the "Rich" ...Kisses their ass... and then demonizes them to the "Slaves of the Democratic Party"

Obama and the “Party of the Rich” Enjoy Mocking Americans on Tax Cuts... but takes as much money as he can from the uber rich who run his fund raisers. This is the strategy of Plutocrats!

by Brian Kelly on September 11, 2012 · 
Brian Kelly
It is a strange world indeed in which we find utterly rich Democrats waging a war on the rich. If it were real, it would be a suicide mission, would it not? But it is not real. It is pure chicanery in an attempt to charm the public into thinking that all Democrats are poor just like the rest of us. Yet, only two Democratic presidents in fairly recent times, Harry Truman, who by the time he died had become a millionaire, and Bill Clinton, who later hit the jackpot with book deals for himself and his wife, were not in the millionaire’s club on Inauguration day. The Clinton’s net worth today is about a quarter billion dollars. Yes, that is right, the Clintons are becoming billionaires. Even Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama were millionaires when elected.  Let me say it again. Every United States President selected from the ranks of the Democratic Party has been a millionaire. No wonder Barack Obama can joke about tax cuts. Neither he nor other prominent Democrats need them. Just how disingenuous can the Democrats be in their bogus war on the rich? Even Al Gore came from huge wealth and like Clinton; he too is headed for the billionaire’s club. The Kennedys, John Kerry and FDR fit nicely in the billionaire’s club. Moreover, almost every one of the mega-multimillionaire Democratic presidents inherited their loot or married it. They did not earn it. They were never quite regular Americans. Check out the net worth of your favorite Democrats such as mega-millionaires Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, and Diane Feinstein next chance you get. Ask yourself why the “Party of the Rich” would be waging a war on the rich, and why would they be so dead set against tax cuts, which help all Americans?
Try as they may, Democrats have to lie to suggest that Mitt Romney did not earn his own wealth. Even though it is not true, Democrats persist in trying to demonize Romney for being successful. Thankfully, most Americans see through their ruse. When the Romney family came to the US from Mexico, they were penniless. But they were smart and they believed in a great education. Mitt Romney is blessed with an innate understanding of business, and a great gift that enables him to take nothing and make something out of it. Mitt Romney and his father achieved their success by relying on innovation and thinking outside the box. The Romney’s are not conformists. The Romney’s started with zero and worked hard for every penny that they earned. Additionally, they earned their paychecks honestly and engaged in honest businesses. Like many traditional American families, the son, Mitt, not only matched the success of his father, he exceeded it.
Unlike the Democratic millionaire superstars, who all have a common biography—born with a silver spoon in their mouth and enjoying old wealth and family connections—Mitt  Romney came into the world with none of these advantages. In fact, Romney is more like the rest of us than any of the Democratic presidents. He too had to work for a living.
Most Americans, me included, have never been close to being rich. That’s OK! Many of our later generations have been blessed with far more than our first and second generation fathers and grandfathers. Despite our past success, we are all hurting today from the bad policies of an inexperienced President, presiding over the longest recession since the Great Depression. Even Obama knows that the spending and the give-away policies of millionaires Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barney Frank caused the financial meltdown. It was not Bush at all. However, Obama likes to hide the truth from Americans to help his reelection chances. Blaming Bush is much more convenient, and all of the non-thinking progressives believe whatever Obama says.
After the original meltdown, this congressional trio plus Obama brought unemployment to over 8% for 43 straight months from just 4.6% when the progressives took over the Congress in the last two years of the Bush Administration.  Though Obama, had four years to get us on the right path, the economy is still in the toilet, but the blame has never shifted from Bush to a man who could handle an issue. Our “incomplete” President instead chooses to blame everybody within eyeshot or earshot, but he never blames himself.  He goes so far as baiting Americans to wage a class war against the rich and to hate the most successful people in our country. Being a millionaire himself, Obama forgets that all Americans are striving for the success he too has achieved, yet now condemns.
Perhaps our deified President did not spend enough time in the mainland to realize that real Americans begrudge nobody their deserved success or their accumulated fortunes. To each his own! The American Dream, after all is for all Americans to achieve their own fortunes.  What good would it serve to tax our individual success at such a high rate that Americans would be discouraged from being successful?  Would we not all be fools if we did not want our taxes cut?
Yet, this President speaks to us like as if we should prefer to turn our paychecks over to faceless government bureaucrats for redistribution, rather than spend them ourselves on things we decide. In fact, Obama is so sure that we are fools that he has begun to joke about tax cuts like as if he can convince sane and prudent people that keeping their earnings for their families is a bad thing. He thinks that feeding a bloated, out of control, government gone wild is the smart thing to do. Smart Americans know the President is wrong. Giving a dime to Washington helps as much as throwing it down the sewer.
And, the notion of giving your fair share to government is ridiculous. The government already takes too much from all taxpayers. Government is not designed to be a charity. Give your fair share to charities such as the United Way, please. But, willfully donating anything to our wasteful government is foolsplay.
With a federal debt now heading for $17 trillion and projected deficits exceeding $1 trillion a year forever, over-spending is on track to destroy our nation.  Recent history tells us that the federal government cannot control costs or live within a budget. In fact, it cannot even pass a budget. So, why would anybody want to hand more of their earnings over to a bunch of wild spending and misguided bureaucrats? Nobody with any sense trusts this hapless government to spend more wisely than they can spend themselves.
It always helps to remember that nobody ever got a job from a poor person.
Without the rich, America would be nothing but a third world country. We should thank God that the rich still continue to choose to live, work, and operate businesses in America. Though too many have chosen to become ex-patriots because they are sick of being abused by leaders who do not appreciate their contributions, this is not good for America.  I entreat the rich who are preparing to leave America to give our country another chance. Obama is not like most Americans, and hopefully he will soon be gone. I thank the rich every day for the many things they do. I owe my College Education to nameless and faceless rich people who paid for my education. Thank you.
Like many my age, I asked my father if he could help me with my college tuition at King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1969 when tuition was just $950.00 per year. Can you believe that tuition? My dad said I could continue living at home without paying room and board.  That was a great start.
Rich people had given King’s College an endowment that they could use to help students pay for college. It was not government. It was private citizens who did not have to contribute a dime but chose to do so. Rich people contribute much of their wealth while they are alive and even after they pass on to charitable organizations and educational institutions. Why do we not, as a nation, thank the rich, instead of revile them for not throwing enough of their salt in the pot? Many of us have benefited from the goodness of the rich even when the rich take no credit for their giving.
Because of generous rich people, I was able to sit for a King’s Academic Scholarship test. From this fund, I received a 400.00 per year scholarship.  Since that amount was not enough to cover my tuition, King’s offered me a $500.00 National Defense Student Loan, which I paid back as soon as I could upon graduation. The loan funding again was from rich people who paid a disproportionate share of their incomes in taxes. I was still $50.00 short but I knew I was going to go to King’s one way or another. King’s then offered me a job for $1.25 per hour, the minimum wage, working as a full-time janitor in the summer and 15 hours per week part-time during the school year.  It was not a freebie. I washed floors, cleaned steps, cleaned classrooms, scraped gum from under desks and tables, etc. King’s paid 10% of my salary and the Federal Work-Study fund, subsidized by rich people’s taxes paid the other 90%. Thank you to all who contributed.
I would never have finished college without the help of rich people. Some gave their donations to King’s directly of their free will, while these and other rich people paid the rest through their taxes to the government. I like rich people for their charity to Americans to this day. Somebody in all societies is rich. The beauty of America is that through hard work and good decisions, we can all become rich, and we too can become benefactors for those less fortunate, without having government as a middle man. Reaching the top is a big part of the American Dream. Why Obama vilifies that notion is puzzlement to me.
Some rich people are not quite as generous and they choose to help the poor by taking the earnings of others to fulfill their charitable obligations. I admit that. But, the majority of the rich are very generous. They just don’t talk about it and they prefer to give directly rather than give to the government. You may know that Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden, his wife, in their combined tax return, just before Joe became the US VP gave little more than $300.00 to charity per year in total. Check out their tax return. It is literally better than nothing but not by much.  Many of my peers and many of you give many times that amount if not more. My peers are not rich but they are kind and generous. Obama does not give much more than Biden but he does give a higher percentage of his income to charity. Obama’s personal giving is reported to be about 1% of his income.
Yet, Obama, a tightwad as far as charitable ventures go, wants to take your taxes and do what he wants with them to help Obama. He pretends it is for the poor. If the President were actually a truly charitable man, he would use his own money and he would help his half-brother George. He doesn’t even take care of “poor George.”  Obama’s brother lives in a one person sized hut in the squalor of the raw sewage and garbage in the slums of Nairobi. Obama doesn’t talk much about George because George actually thinks like most Americans and does not expect anything from his brother. “He has his own family,” says George, explaining away his brother’s indifference to his plight. Too bad George Soros did not take a liking to George Obama instead of brother Barack.
Unfortunately, the older brother ignores George’s needs. Yet, the same person has the gall to joke about tax cuts that all regular Americans need. Obama does not need the tax cuts because he is funded by somebody who is rich, and from whose coattails, somehow, he too magically has become a multi-millionaire.
Not only does Obama choose not to help his younger brother, he has no respect for working people anywhere and he has full intentions to redistribute as much of their income as possible. The President is a taker and not a giver. That is why even those expecting that he would be giving “stuff” away from his “stash” upon election, have been disappointed. Who do you think gets the earnings the Obama government confiscates and redistributes? It goes to people whose votes the President can buy and who will thank and praise Obama for the favor eternally. Obama takes our money, gives it to others, and then he basks and grins and takes all the good will that he can. Hmmm!
Though this essay is mostly about Obama’s mocking the notion that all Americans need tax cuts, let’s check out how Mitt Romney fares in the charity area. To make this expose’ even more exciting, let’s compare it with the President’s propensity to be charitable with his own money.
You remember Mitt Romney don’t you? He’s the guy that Obama wants us to think is the poster boy for the nasty and greedy rich. Obama would like to get you to hate Romney and he does his best to adjust your thinking every day. He works to get you to wage your own war against the rich. Like most proselytizations of Obama, his attempts to convince us all that Romney is a real bad guy are fraught with the fodder that fact checkers dream about.  And the lies go on and on and on. If Obama’s target were himself rather than Romney, the fact checkers would be having nightmares as Obama, does not have enough charity in him to be worthy of tying Mitt Romney’s shoelaces.
Compared to the rounded up 1% in charity that Obama gives from his heart to everybody except brother George, Mitt Romney is doing quite well. If Obama actually has a stash, he keeps it for Michelle and the family whereas Mitt Romney gives a large part of his stash to charity.
For example, as all members of his church, Romney pledges a whopping 10% of his earnings to the church. That is 10 times higher as a percentage than Obama’s total giving. But, that is not enough for Mitt Romney. In 2011 as an example, he donated 19% of his income to charitable causes. That is 19 times more than Obama and hundreds of times more than Biden.
When you give to charity, as we all know, your effective tax rate goes down so the disingenuous Barack Hussein Obama calls the press’s attention to Romney’s tax rate. Obama can lower his tax rate also if he chooses to up his charitable ante.
Many of us have seen the email circulating in which even the liberal Snopes couple agrees that Romney is the real deal. The verified email highlights the non-cash charitable work of Mitt Romney. For example, early in life, for a whole year, Romney volunteered in his dad’s gubernatorial campaign. Not a cent! But, just like my dad when I went to college, George Romney helped his kid in as many ways as he could. Mitt Romney was also an unpaid intern in the Governor’s office for eight years. He was a Mormon missionary in Paris for two years and an unpaid Bishop in his church for ten years. One thing is common in his public service; he did not take a salary. I wonder if President Obama took a salary in his multiple roles as a community organizer.
When Obama rescued the Olympics, again, Obama took no salary. Whoops! Wrong guy! Of course Obama took no salary because he never did anything as spectacular as rescuing the US Olympics from failure.  Yet, Obama is pleased as punch to mock any and all of Romney’s achievements. Did Obama also rescue the Olympics?  You can bet if Obama could put the Olympics in his accomplishments column, he would be bragging about it forever. But it was Romney, quietly as the hero again, with no fanfare and no salary. When Romney was governor of Massachusetts; you guessed it, he took no salary. On top of all the good that Obama says is bad about Romney, especially those who say Romney came from wealth and it was all easy for him, consider this one little fact that Obama and the demonizing Democrats have missed. Romney donated his entire inheritance to charity.
Like it or not, Romney is a self made man worthy of being admired as a good American. We should all give the governor kudos for being a great American. Instead, for political expediency, Obama makes things up about this man, and puts him down like as if he was a nothing. For twenty-eight years, even when he was not so successful, Romney did not take a salary when doing the public’s work. Yes, Romney is a millionaire for sure because he did it the old fashioned way. He earned it. Can millionaire Obama say the same? Ask him.
All I know is what I hear Obama say, and he says an awful lot and most is negative. He sure likes to mock real achievers and for my money, little though it may be, such behavior is beneath the dignity of the office of the Presidency.
Democrats and their friends in the US media love to demonize anything that can hurt progressives, including this President. The entire media is like a kennel of lapdogs trying to please the master. They expect to always be able to dupe America and Americans. Their following is so loyal that they often succeed, except for a few independent thinking break-aways. The Progressives expect you and me to fall in line and believe their malicious blather.  Their latest theme is that tax cuts are actually bad for taxpayers. Isn’t that insane?  They want all Americans to let the government spend our money.
Consider how incongruous this notion is to good thinking. Yet, at the DNC convention, the Obama Lemmings stood and cheered as the President spewed his venom both against a man of good will, and a nation in great need of true leadership. Do they really want their taxes to go up? Since calling the President a liar is disrespectful of the office, let’s just say from what I saw, Obama is a very clever Prevaricator in Chief.
Will this new demonization of those who do not donate all to government, cause the Lemming Progressives to begin to scream in the streets: “Tax me, Tax me, Tax me… oh please Tax me.” Somebody should write a song about that!
Obama’s new joke is not just against Romney; it is against all Americans who want to keep their hard earned paychecks and starve the government; instead of feeding a bloated government and starving themselves. Obama knows what he is doing and he thinks he will get away with it. He thinks that with his wiliness and his unabated charm, he can convince all Americans that low taxes are actually unpatriotic and bad for the country. The corollary of course is that big government can spend your money better than you can. Rational people will not buy the argument but those more hopeful than rational just may.  Here is vintage Obama from the DNC Convention:
“All they’ve got to offer is the same prescriptions that they’ve had for the last 30 years:  tax cuts, tax cuts, gut some regulations — oh, and more tax cuts, he said. Tax cuts when times are good, tax cuts when times are bad, tax cuts to help you lose a few extra pounds   tax cuts to improve your love life — I — it’ll cure anything, according to them, …..  Feel a cold coming on? Take two tax cuts, roll back some regulations and call me in the morning,” Obama mocked. He mocked Romney and all Americans thinking we are all too dumb to see the truth.
Ironically, while mocking Romney and the American people, Obama also was mocking the spirit of JFK. Way back in 1963, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, a Democrat, though nothing like the liberal progressives of today, knew that rich people were the economic engine of America.  He knew that the rich needed to keep some of their earnings to expand their businesses and hire new workers.  President Obama is no JFK, and he never will be. Obama does not understand economics, but he does know how to put down honest efforts to do the right thing for America.
JFK reduced the tax rate of the wealthy from a punishing 91 percent and he reduced the corporate rate from 52%.  As Kennedy expected, after the cut in tax rates, economic growth averaged more than 5 percent a year for three years, with very low inflation. In other words, mock as Obama may, cutting taxes worked for Kennedy.  It worked for Reagan and it worked for Bush.  Which of the four is the dunderhead?  JFK was smart enough to know the solution and had no problem saying that tax cuts actually increase revenue, spark growth, create jobs and can lower the deficit. Barack Obama must have skipped school the day that lesson was on the agenda.
Ronald Reagan is another great president who well understood how a government run by a socialist / communist like Obama actually works:
“Governments view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Reagan and Kennedy had the right idea. After four years, we know that Obama has the wrong idea. America cannot afford four more years of Obama. The people should keep their money and government should take only as much as it needs to do the things that the people cannot provide for themselves—roads, bridges, national defense, etc.  Not much else is really necessary. Big government simply does not work and it requires too much of the people’s money to keep it afloat.
There are many examples of things that America does not need from its national government. One example is that the national government should not be in charge of education. Local school boards with local teachers do just fine. Having the federal government in charge of education is very costly and very ineffective. Worse than that, it leads to the indoctrination of very tender minds towards the ideological principles of the political party in charge.
“Mmm Mmm Mmmm Barack Hussein Obama!”
Brian Kelly is a business owner and former assistant professor at Marywood University; he and his wife live in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Kelly is running for Senate in his state and believes limited government brings liberty and freedom.

The EPA is an Anti-Capitalist Poverty Making Killer Machine custom designed to Destroy the US from the inside!

The EPAs arrogance and incompetence keeps America dependent on foreign oil

by Marita Noon on September 17, 2012 · 
Marita Noon
The riots, rage, and ruin that have spread throughout the Middle East over the past few days emphasize the urgency of opening up and bringing online America’s vast resources—yet, as Congressman Pete Olson (R-TX) states: “The EPA is the biggest obstacle to energy independence.”
Olson’s comment specifically addressed the Hydraulic Fracturing Study requested by Congress as a part of the FY 2010 appropriations bill, which states:
“The conferees urge the Agency to carry out a study on the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water, using a credible approach that relies on the best available science, as well as independent sources of information. The conferees expect the study to be conducted through a transparent, peer-reviewed process that will ensure the validity and accuracy of the data. The Agency shall consult with other Federal agencies as well as appropriate State and interstate regulatory agencies in carrying out the study, which should be prepared in accordance with the Agency’s quality assurance principles.”
A study “on the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water” sounds like a great idea. No one wants their drinking water filled with toxic elements, and, if the EPA followed the mandate, a work of global importance could result. American private enterprise and initiative has lead the world in developing and implementing horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques that are safe and are uniquely responsible for totally transforming the energy landscape—making previously unrecoverable resources, recoverable. Therefore, the final study from the EPA has worldwide implications for oil and natural gas supplies. It must be done right.
Instead of moving forward with a “Hydraulic Fracturing Study” as requested by Congress, the EPA has done what is characteristic of this administration; they’ve blown it out of proportion—making it something bigger, requiring additional personnel, and creating more management, at greater expense. Final results are not due until 2014—four years after Congress requested a simple study. Lisa Jackson’s EPA has expanded the study’s scope to encompass numerous peripheral elements related to oil and gas exploration and production activities; a full lifecycle analysis of everything remotely associated with unconventional recovery.
Congress requested a report based on “best available science,” not opinion, yet the EPA has included items such as “environmental justice”—which has nothing to do with science, and “discharges to publicly owned water treatment plants”—which are no longer a part of the hydraulic fracturing process.
The additional elements exponentially exacerbate the study’s potential complications.
Meanwhile, America could be undergoing a robust development of our resources. Instead, as Congressman Mike Conaway (R-TX) explained, “Industry is holding back because it is not sure what the regulatory future holds.” He called the study’s evolution beyond the scope of what was requested: “mission creep.” Until a definitive answer on “the relationship between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water” is produced, a constant cloud of legal threat hangs over possible development, and potential jobs, such as in New York’s Marcellus Shale, are deferred.
These concerns, plus many others, prompted industry to independently engage, at their own expense, Battelle Memorial Institute to conduct a collaborative, side-by-side study with the EPA. Congressman Andy Harris (R-MD), Chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, says that Battelle is “a highly respected independent science and technology organization.” (It is important to note that Battelle’s business is heavily dependent on government contracts, so accepting the responsibility of doing a collaborative study held risks for the company—coming out with a different result from that of the EPA could mean the loss of future contracts. Additionally, they do a lot of work with the EPA, so their opinions should be trusted by the EPA.) Despite the EPA’s rejection of industry’s offer, Battelle moved forward with a scientific review of the EPA’s study plan to ensure that the EPA is taking a rigorous and adequate approach, as quality cannot be built into the back end of a science-based project.
Battelle’s report is complete. On Thursday, Battelle’s team provided a briefing on Capitol Hill that was attended by more than 30 Representatives and/or staffers from the Natural Gas and Marcellus Shale Caucuses. Numerous concerns were presented. The EPA’s study plan reflects a deadly combination of arrogance and incompetence.
Arrogance
Hydraulic Fracturing is a highly technical process that has evolved since its initial use more than 60 years ago—continuously undergoing improvements. Hundreds of thousands of wells have been drilled. The expertise and experience lies within the industry, yet the EPA has specially rejected industry’s attempts to collaborate—despite the fact that the original mandate requires: “a transparent, peer-reviewed process that will ensure the validity and accuracy of the data.” In a letter to the EPA, Marty Durbin, Executive Vice President, American Petroleum Institute (API), says: “We have repeatedly offered the expertise of our members to both the agency and the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) peer review process and, unfortunately, have been disappointed by the lack of follow through and acceptance.” Battelle’s report states: “Industry collaboration is not envisioned.”
Additionally, the requirements, published in the Federal Register calling for nominations, for the SAB, are set so that they specifically exclude experts from industry. “Selection criteria” includes “absence of financial conflicts of interest.” The call for SAB nominations continues: “government officials” will “determine whether there is a statutory conflict between a person’s public responsibilities and private interests and activities, or the appearance of a lack of impartiality.” Presumably those from academia and NGO’s would be acceptable. However, as the API letter points out, the “EPA should recognize that most individuals nominating themselves for potential SAB membership have some financial stake in the business—academics seek grants, NGOs seek donations, regulators seek programmatic funding, consultants seek contracts from government, as well as industry.”
Industry representatives with direct history of working in the modern oil and gas industry have a long record of valuable, unbiased participation in many other SAB committees and panels, yet for this watershed study, they have been excluded.
Additionally, the Congressional study request calls for consultation “with other Federal agencies as well as appropriate State and interstate regulatory agencies.” To date, there is no evidence of working with Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado—or any other state with extensive hydraulic fracturing experience. Numerous studies have been done, but the EPA doesn’t appear to be incorporating their discoveries. For example, in August 2011, the Groundwater Protection Council published its own study of “state determinations regarding causes of groundwater contamination resulting from oil and gas industry E&P activities,” examining nearly 400 contamination incidents over 25 years in Ohio and Texas, and concluding that “[n]either state has documented a single occurrence of groundwater pollution during site preparation or well stimulation.”
Obviously, the arrogance of the EPA believes they know best and they don’t want input from anyone who might disagree with their preconceived bias.
Incompetence
According to Battelle’s report, the EPA has a rigorous Data Quality Assessment process established for internal studies, but is not using it when setting up this study—which can impact the data quality and scientific rigor. If strict standards are not met, the entire report can be brought into question, as was the case with the Pavillion, Wyoming, study released a year ago. The results must be defensible to achieve the study’s goals.
The sites selected for study show a bias with the potential to skew the data and therefore the study. Instead of using a representative sampling of well sites from the hundreds of thousands of wells that have been drilled, the EPA has chosen to focus on only seven sites—a statistically insignificant number. Of the seven, five have known contamination problems, but no baseline data. Therefore, there is no way to tell whether the complaints are in any way related to hydraulic fracturing or to any specific thing. There are known examples of naturally occurring drinking water contamination—as was found with the widely publicized Dimock, Pennsylvania, case. The five retrospective sites are the subject of complaints by individuals who may now be stakeholders in potentially lucrative litigation against operators. The concern is that the “it has problems, so let’s study it to see if it has problems” approach will limit the scientific validity and usefulness of case study findings. At Thursday’s briefing, the limited sampling was likened to using five traffic accidents in some parts of America to draw conclusions about how to construct and regulate traffic and road safety in all of the country to avoid future accidents.
Instead, the study should focus more heavily on prospective sites where baseline data is gathered before drilling and before the use of hydraulic fracturing. The Battelle report states: “Two prospective sites cannot deliver the range of data required for scientifically rigorous treatment of all the research questions asked.”
Focusing primarily on sites with known issues also ignores the current state of the technology. Chemicals used now are very different from what was used five years ago. Analysis from these sites will be virtually useless in making a meaningful recommendation regarding current or future hydraulic fracturing activities. Battelle’s report points out that “the site data collected from the companies are from 2006-2010, and the final report will be in 2014. The changes occurring at these sites in the intervening years will likely render the data obsolete for purposes of the study.”
All of this may seem of little relevance to the person struggling to fill up their tank at today’s high gasoline prices. However, it is of utmost importance.
All sides benefit from a study that can withstand intense scrutiny. If there are foundational problems and the overall study results prove that hydraulic fracturing is safe and doesn’t contaminate drinking water, as the industry believes they will, the environmentalists, who oppose hydraulic fracturing, will appeal it. If the reverse is proven, industry will seek an appeal. In either case, appeals will delay the much-needed robust development of American resources—not to mention the waste of time and taxpayer dollars spent on the study.
If the events that have erupted in the Middle East over the past few days show us anything, it is that the US dependence on Middle Eastern oil must come to an expeditious end. With America’s new-found oil and gas reserves, recovered through hydraulic fracturing, we now know that energy independence is possible, if, as Congressman Olson told me, “We reign in the EPA.”
The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Together they work to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom, and the American way of life. Combining energy, news, politics, and, the environment through public events, speaking engagements, and media, the organizations’ combined efforts serve as America’s voice for energy.

Obama's Executive Orders Reveal A Pattern of the Federal Government assuming dicatatorial power.

President Barack Hussein "kill list" Obama has offered over 900 Executive Orders (EO), and he is not even through his first term. 

 He is creating a wonderland of government controls covering everything imaginable, including a list of "Emergency Powers" and martial law EOs.  And while Obama is busy issuing EOs to control everything inside the US, he has been issuing EOs to force us to submit to international regulations instead of our US Constitution.
And comments by North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue and former OMB director Peter Orszag only contribute to this pattern.
Is it now time to start connecting the dots?  Obama signed EO 13603 on March 22, 2012.  Then he signed EO 13617 on June 25, 2012, declaring a national emergency.  Then he signed EO 13618 on July 6, 2012.
In EO 13603, entitled, "National Defense Resources Preparedness," Obama says (among other things) that [we must]:
be prepared, in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States, to take actions necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements;
Obama has the power, through this EO, to "nationalize" (not seize) private assets in order to protect national interests.  Further, the EO effectively states that he can:
1.   "identify" requirements for emergencies
2.   "assess" the capability of the country's industrial and technological base
3.   "be prepared" to ensure the availability of critical resources in time of national threat
4.   "improve the efficiency" of the industrial base to support national defense
5.   "foster cooperation" between commercial and defense sectors
There are pundits that suggest that by signing  EO 13603, Obama has given himself power to declare martial law and suspend elections.
The main problem with EO 13603 is that the words/phrases in quotes can be interpreted in many ways, including ways that favor Obama and Democrats.  Wait, we can have our Supreme Court decide what they mean.  But that won't work since we know four of them to be Democrat hacks, and one justice can be influenced by the MSM.
In EO 13617, entitled "Blocking Property of the Government of the Russian Federation Relating to the Disposition of Highly Enriched Uranium Extracted From Nuclear Weapons," Obama says (among other things)that"
the risk of nuclear proliferation created by the accumulation of a large volume of weapons-usable fissile material in the territory of the Russian Federation continues to constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat.
Obama, by signing this EO, actually declared a national emergency.  I guess that President Theodore Roosevelt's famous saying, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," can't apply in this case because we don't want to offend the Russians by having them honor treaties they signed (the "HEU" Agreement).  But what's more important is that Obama can now "justify" any action he wants to take by citing EO 13617 since it declares a national emergency.
Then, in EO 13618, entitled, "Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions," Obama states (among other things) that:

The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions. ...  Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience.

Obama cites "national security" in this EO.  I guess Obama sees ANY excuse for declaring a national security emergency will appear better than taking over the nation's communications assets by force
Want more examples of what Obama is doing?
  • EO 10990 allows the Government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.
  • EO 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels, and minerals.
  • EO 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision
  • EO 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.
  • EO 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.
  • EO 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate and establish new locations for populations.
  • EO 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways, and public storage facilities.
Are we beginning to see a pattern here?  We're being prepared  for a national emergency.  Then there's taking control.  I personally think that what Obama is doing goes way beyond being prepared.
North Carolina governor Beverly Perdue (Democrat), on September 28, 2011, suggested that perhaps elections should be suspended for two years by canceling, until the economy recovers, the 2012 elections. After that remark got the reception it deserved, Pardue's staff tried to pass it off as a joke.
Former White House director of the Office of Management and Budget Peter Orszag, who, on September 14, 2011, in a The New Republic article entitled "Too Much of a Good Thing: Why we need less democracy," said that we are that we are hampered by too much democracy, that the constitutional system (not really a democracy) is too slow to react, and the deliberations and negotiations are simply too cumbersome. Orszag suggests that the constitutional rules of limiting government offers impediments to autocratic, dictatorial actions, and are just too great.
That North Carolina governor Perdue would even joke (if it was a joke) about canceling an election is frightening enough, but that Orszag, a former official in Obama's administration, believes that doing away with the US Constitution is a viable solution should cause every AT reader to quake.
I'm never comfortable with laws that give the government broad reaching powers in the event of a "national emergency," especially when there is no clear, set, unchangeable definition of what actually constitutes a "national emergency."
Circumvention of the US Constitution by any means possible is the ultimate goal of Democrats and the Obama administration because the 2012 election is shaping up to be a repeat of the 2010 election.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, but these three latest EOs and previous EOs Obama signed, coupled with Perdue's and Orszag's comments, suggest that something besides coincidence is going on.
Dr. Beatty earned a Ph.D. in quantitative management and statistics from Florida State University.  He was a (very conservative) professor of quantitative management specializing in using statistics to assist/support decision making. He has been a consultant to many small businesses and is now retired.  Dr. Beatty is a veteran who served in the U.S. Army for 22 years.  He blogs at: rwno.limewebs.com.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Service sector Jobs are fast becoming what Americas do for LABOR !!


Fewer Americans are doing real work, and more are getting paid to do non-work or pseudo-work.


Actual goods-producers are now around 18 million workers in a total private labor force of 119 million, meaning a 6-to-1 goods-to-services ratio (it was 2.2-to-1 in 1970).  The number of government workers is around 22 million (and make double the average salary of their private sector counterparts). This political class is not only predatory on they producers, but they actually tax them, regulate them, and essentially harass them.

 

 

The ever-growing list of nations facing severe budget, debt, and unemployment problems headlined by Greece, Spain, and the United States has two factors common to all its members.  They are all either confirmed to be or determined to turn into socialist democracies, and they have evolved into overwhelmingly consumption-based societies, while greatly diminishing their goods-producing sector, thus eroding their job-creation ability as well as the nation's wealth and tax base.
Nearly 80% of the economic infrastructure of the United States is in the service sector.  In addition, over 71% of the Gross Domestic Product is made up of consumer spending; thus, the annual GDP growth is highly sensitive to personal wealth and after-tax income which the president is determined to reduce.
Any economy so dependent on a service sector (which notoriously pays lower wages) and consumer spending will, in due course, begin to feed upon itself in an unsustainable manner particularly as government absorbs more capital and revenue to maintain its social promises.  As the goods-producing sector, which generates the real wealth of a nation, continues to decline, the consequences are there for all Americans and Europeans to see: job-creation, per capita income, and personal wealth begin a long-term downward spiral along with the inevitable and attendant reality of many governments facing insolvency.
In the United States this trend has been accelerating for many years and has greatly affected the composition of the labor force, incomes, and growth in the economy.  While still a large producer of goods, due to its size of the population and economy, the nation has experienced a precipitous drop in its onetime world dominance.  The proof is in the ongoing dilemma of job-creation and unemployment.
As recently as 1995 the goods-producing sector of the economy accounted for nearly 20% of the jobs in the United States (36% in 1965).  In 2000 that percentage had fallen to 19%; as of June 2011 it was at 12.9%.  
In June of 2011, 18 million people were employed in the goods-producing sector; when Obama assumed office in January 2009 19.6 million were employed in this arena.  There has been a loss of 1.6 million high-paying jobs in the past 30 months alone.
Therefore by necessity there has been a noticeable shift in employment patterns into much lower-paying jobs in the private sector.  While the overall economy has lost 2.7 million jobs since January of 2009, employment in the service sector has increased by 675 thousand.  However the growth has been in the hotel and food service sector (380 thousand) and health care and social assistance (750 thousand).  Since 2000, employment in the hotel and food service sector has increased by 1.3 million, and in health care and social assistance, 6.5 million, while 7.6 million value-added jobs in the goods-producing sector have been lost.
Many economists proffer the argument that the move to an overwhelmingly service-based economy is the natural course of events in a highly industrialized and technologically advanced society.  However, this fails to take into account the factors of world economic development and the rapid advancement in technology that allow many services, which have no intrinsic uniqueness, to be performed by fewer employees and in many cases, in other countries with lower labor costs.  Further, as a nation's work force expands due to natural population growth, the competition for these lower-paying jobs in the service sector becomes more intense, further eroding the earnings potential of the individual and in many cases fomenting class envy and violence.
The United States, if it is to continue as a world economic and military force, must begin immediately to restructure its economy and education system.  The nation cannot persist in creating low-paying non-skilled jobs if it wishes to overcome its current financial problems and avoid a societal upheaval.
On its present course, the country cannot begin to generate the tax revenue necessary to reduce its debt and meet its societal obligations, even if the entitlement programs are significantly modified.  Unless the growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product and personal income remains at a consistently high level for a long period of time, there will never be enough monies available for both the government and the private sector.  The economy as presently ordered cannot maintain significant growth with the government at all levels, but particularly Washington D.C., pursuing a centrally planned economic model.
There is only one viable solution: a program to re-industrialize the nation and become energy-independent, developing into a net energy exporter.  America should have as its goal to increase the manufacturing and energy sector to 40% of the economy instead of the current 20%.  
The first step in reconstituting the manufacturing sector must be the elimination of tens of thousands pages of redundant and costly regulations at the federal, state, and local level.  The facility construction approval process must be streamlined and environmental blocking tactics greatly diminished.  Taxes on business (particularly manufacturing and energy) have to be dramatically reduced or eliminated.  Research and development should be given the highest priority using tax credits as necessary.  Tort reform, while protecting those truly injured and incorporating a modified form of "loser pays," has to be among the top items on a growth agenda.
Lastly, all areas of the United States, except those most sensitive, must be opened to oil and gas exploration, as well as other judicious raw material exploitation.  Technology has advanced to the point where environmental safeguards are a tenfold improvement over those 25 years ago; there is no need, except for radical ideology, to maintain a "boot on the neck" approach to environmental concerns.
The United States is sitting on the world's largest untapped oil reserves -- a natural resource that would not only mitigate the over $400 billion sent to other countries to buy their oil but could be the catalyst to create untold millions of jobs not only in the oil fields, but in hundreds of peripheral industries.  The untapped reserves are estimated to be up to 2.1 trillion barrels, which is equivalent to a 300-year supply, and would allow the U.S. to become the single largest exporter of oil and oil-related products in the world, thus eliminating the trade deficit and making a massive dent in the national debt.
A summary of the potential untapped oil reserves valued at $100 per barrel is as follows:

       Billions of Barrels         $  Value in Trillions
Bakken Fields  (Dakotas)                   200                      20.0
Outer Continental Shelf                     90                        9.0
ANWR   (Alaska)                     10                        1.0
Tar Sands                     75                        7.5
Oil Shale                1,750                    150.0
                               
               TOTAL        2,125  Billion Barrels              $ 187.5 Trillion
Current Total National Debt
                  14.5 Trillion
Given the opportunity, the American worker is still the most productive in the world.  He or she can compete with any other country and turn out a superior product, but only if the federal and state governments live within their bounds both financially and constitutionally and are not dominated by socialist ideologues and their crony capitalist and union leadership allies.
Regardless of how much the current governing class claims to be reducing spending and planning for the future, those promises are hollow and cannot be kept unless and until the American economy pivots and becomes a producing and exporting nation as it was on its path to being the most powerful economic and military power the world has ever known. 
The United States must return to being the foremost haven for investment capital and business activity in the world.  Unless policies are put in place that will create the next tidal wave of long-term, high economic growth, the bleak future so many fear will become a reality and none of the lies, obfuscations, and scapegoating by the cast of characters presently on stage in the ongoing theater of the absurd in Washington D.C. will change that outcome.

Democratic Ponzi scheme, The takers are overpowering the makers,

The Marxist Left: Turning America Upside Down

The Marxist Left: Turning America Upside Down

Institutions centralizing control over the economy were established in the “progressive era” that could later be employed by radicals to move the country in the direction of socialist revolution.  The two most important are torn from the pages of the Communist Manifesto: a progressive income tax and a central bank dispensing fiat currency. The former would penalize those seeking to ascend into the upper class; the latter would devalue the currency nearly a hundred times over since it was founded.

This arrangement would help finance a system of incessantly expanding government and affiliated bureaucracy, which would eventually turn the American economy upside down.

If we take a quick and dirty look at the employment picture, fewer Americans are doing real work, and more are getting paid to do non-work or pseudo-work.  This is making the Democrat Party very popular indeed.

Actual goods-producers are now around 18 million workers in a total private labor force of 119 million, meaning a 6-to-1 goods-to-services ratio (it was 2.2-to-1 in 1970).  The number of government workers is around 22 million (and make double the average salary of their private sector counterparts). This political class is not only predatory on they producers, but they actually tax them, regulate them, and essentially harass them.

Education and health services, important parts of the economy that help the other industries become more productive, but whose workers are ultimately non-producers, stands at 3.2 million. Despite being paid generously, when one considers the benefits, many teachers fail to even inculcate the basics of math, science and reading with our children.  The public schools’ track record of failure is then used to inspire taxpayers to give even more to education every year.  And under Obamacare, health services will become a coercive arm of the government.

Environmentalism has developed into a rationale to regulate all aspects of the productive economy, and most heavily, the energy production sector.  Preventing the building of nuclear power plants, oil refineries, offshore drilling platforms, pipelines, coal burning plants, and the like, all the while shrieking about “green energy” is leading to exorbitant energy prices. This, from the party that postures as a champion for “the little guy.”

Consequentially, our economy is becoming less of one where we actually make stuff and do stuff, but where we simply dream up stuff.  This is unsurprisingly causing numerous a host of negative consequences, which our left-controlled media attempt to paper over in the meantime.

So what about the left’s argument that it’s “the rich” that is actually causing all the problems with its wanton “greed”? Let’s deconstruct this argument a bit.

It has been well-documented that the richest 10% of people pay 70% of the taxes.  How much do “the rich” therefore really control the government?  Or more accurately, is it safer to say that the government controls the rich, extorts them, and arm-twists them?

What about the bailouts and stimulus? The rich did not give themselves the bailouts, politicians did.  And tellingly, the same party that voted for the bailouts and stimulus, the Democrat Party, now vehemently rails against Wall Street and the “one percent.” (Similar to the way the Democrats authorized Bush to go to war, twice, and then pretended to have no part in leading us into those “overseas contingency actions.”) This behavior is consistent with the Leninist maxim: sell the capitalists the rope they will be hung with.

And the stimulus package? The stimulus turned out to be a slush fund for pet Democrat causes that had almost no impact on the economy at large.

When the bottom 50% pay zero in federal income taxes, how much do the corporations really control the government?  Isn’t it safer to say that under our “democracy,” the government is actually controlling the corporations, seeing as we have the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world?  And should we be surprised when corporations start to flee, as we have dropped recently to eighth on the Economic Freedom Index?

Is it any surprise that in a climate increasingly hostile to business, that there are so many unemployed? So many giving up on finding work?  So many on welfare, including over 46 million on food stamps? And so much unsustainable debt, including national debt now over a year’s worth of GDP at fifteen trillion dollars and growing? Privately held consumer debt of over 2.5 trillion? Student loan debt of over a trillion? Millions of people unable to pay their mortgages….Of course people are going to be angry, and many will blame our “capitalist” system, whose institutional foundations were destroyed nearly a century ago.

What we are seeing in this country is the intentional destruction of the American dream.  The country used to be the envy of the world, drawing millions to our shores at the beginning of the twentieth century, when the government spent less than 8% of GDP on all its functions combined.  A hundred years later, the dominant Democrat Party has become a coalition of three groups: dependents (which it tries to import by the millions through illegal immigration), government and public sector workers (grossly overpaid, as mentioned earlier), and unions (which receive government contracts via failed “stimulus” programs).  In order to pay these constituents, the Democrat Party must exploit producers and penalize creators.  And why should people be surprised at the notion that the Democrat Party seeks to expand its power base by growing government, increasingly exploiting producers, and aggressively expanding dependents (such as offering awards to states to sign up food stamp recipients)?

Now, people are increasingly beginning to flee the country, as socialists are doing to America what they do everywhere else they are given free reign: turning it into a place to run from. The nation is steadily and unhaltingly moving away from the American dream towards a freeloader’s paradise.  The ultimate result, as astute observers have seen time and time again through history, and anyone can currently observe in Europe, is an economy of nearly inescapable poverty and unavoidable corruption.

If we want to return this country to its foundational roots, we need to rejuvenate what Tocqueville termed our “mores” and restore our Constitutional system of laws.  Otherwise, American exceptionalism will become a term of nostalgia, something we tell our uncomprehending children about in an age of decadence and decline.

TIME TO TURN THE TABLES

America is going insane under progressive Socialist Liberal Democarts in name only!!

OVER 100 YEARS THE PROGRESSIVES HAVE STOLEN OUR COUNTRY AND REPLACED IT WITH A FAKE SHELL ...SAME NAME !!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

OUR UPSIDE DOWN COUNTRYSpeaking of having our collective heads buried in the sand, we all need to stand up and begin righting the ship. Welcome to Upside-down Land
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• A Muslim officer crying "Allah Akbar" while shooting up an army base is considered to have committed "Workplace Violence" while an American citizen boasting a Ron Paul bumper sticker is classified as a "Domestic Terrorist".
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher “cute but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
• The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth-infested cesspools.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) while unmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• You can write a post like this just by reading the news headlines.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Your government can add anything they want to your kid's water (fluoride, chlorine, etc.) but you are not allowed to give them raw milk.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burqa is only subject to having her neck and head searched
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
• Using the "N" word is considered "hate speech" but writing and signing songs about raping women and killing cops is considered "art".
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You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
* Hardworking, law abiding citizens and people of faith, who call themselves “The Tea Party”, and who never demonstrated against anything in their entire lives because they were to busy working, providing for their families, and building and serving our great country but finally had enough to embolden them to act. Then they and applied for and paid for permits to legally and peacefully demonstatrate. They were at all times well behaved, were civil and treated everyone with civility, respected and obeyed law enforcement without question, violated no laws, caused no violence or disruption, and cleaned up after themselves. These members of “The Tea Party” were then refereed to as radicals, racists, hatemonger’s, a wide variety of expletives, and a threat to the country by the the Mainstream News Media, the former Democratic House Speaker and most other Democratic members of Congress, and the President and the Vice President of the United States while these same people lavished praise and support for other people calling themselves “Occupy Wall Street” who never applied or paid for demonstration permits, setup rape tents, interfered with commerce for weeks at a time, violated all manner of law and ordinances, disrespected and disobeyed law enforcement and who were mostly identified themselves as communists, anarchists, socialists, and unions thugs, and most of whom refused to work rather than apply for work, were among the worst of freeloaders, were filthy and stunk with filth, demanded everything for nothing from those who worked and paid their taxes, were mostly anti-American and thought nothing of public nudity, public substance abuse, public sex, defecating on police vehicles, and engaging in all manner of violence.
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Unfortunately, this list could go on and on. Our world has been turned upside-down. We are in distress. Where do we go from here?
 WE FIGHT BACK... NOW... CHANGE THE WHOLE SYSTEM TO OUR WAY !!

100 YEARS IN THE MAKING!!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Did You know that the Muslim Brotherhood & the Nazi party have a long forgotten Connection. Obama knows this. The History of anti Jew HATRED goes back a long ways!

The Muslim groups which today threaten the West with terrorism, subversion and insurgency are not only “fascist” in the broad sociological sense, but can trace their literal historical origins to Nazism and its genocidal ambitions. 

The ideology of the Islamists whose ranks today include not only al-Qaeda but also Hamas and Hezbollah, originated with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, which was founded in 1928 by Sheikh Hassan al-Banna. The Muslim Brotherhood finds not just its roots, but much of its symbolism, terminology, and political priorities deep within the heart of Nazi fascism.

For al-Banna, as for many other Muslims worldwide, the end of the caliphate, although brought about by secular Muslim Turks, was a sacrilege against Islam for which they blamed the non-Muslim West. It was to strike back against these evils that al-Banna founded the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.

Al-Banna’s antipathy towards Western modernity soon moved him to shape the Brotherhood into an organization seeking to check the secularist tendencies in Muslim society and return to traditional Islamic values. Al-Banna recruited followers from a vast cross-section of Egyptian society by addressing issues such as colonialism, public health, educational policy, natural resources management, social inequalities, Arab nationalism, and the weakness of the Islamic world. Among the perspectives he drew on to address these issues were the anti-capitalist doctrines of European Marxism and especially fascism.

As the Muslim Brotherhood expanded during the 1930s and extended its activities well beyond its original religious revivalism, al-Banna began dreaming a greater Muslim dream: the restoration of the Caliphate. He would describe, in inflammatory speeches, the horrors of hell expected for heretics, and consequently, the need for Muslims to return to their purest religious roots, and resume the great and final holy war, or jihad, against the non-Muslim world.

The first big step in the international jihad al-Banna envisioned came in the form of trans-national terrorism during the Great Arab Revolt of 1936-39, when one of the most famous of the Muslim Brotherhood’s leaders, the Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti (Supreme Muslim religious leader) of Jerusalem, incited his followers to a three-year war against the Jews in Palestine and against the British who administered the Palestine Mandate. In 1936 the Brotherhood had about 800 members, but by 1938, just two years into the Revolt, its membership had grown to almost 200,000, with fifty branches in Egypt alone. By the end of the 1930s, there were more than a half million active members registered, in more than 2,000 branches across the Arab world.

To achieve that broader dream of a global jihad, the Brotherhood developed a network of underground cells, stole weapons, trained fighters, formed secret assassination squads, founded sleeper cells of subversive supporters in the ranks of the army and police, and waited for the order to go public with terrorism, assassinations, and suicide missions. It was during this time that the Muslim Brotherhood found a soul mate in Nazi Germany.

The Reich offered great power connections to the movement, but the relationship brokered by the Brotherhood was more than a marriage of convenience. Long before the war, al-Banna had developed an Islamic religious ideology which previewed Hitler’s Nazism. Both movements sought world conquest and domination. Both were triumphalist and supremacist (in Nazism the Aryan must rule, while in al-Banna’s Islam, the Muslim religion must hold dominion). Both advocated subordination of the individual to a central power. Both were explicitly anti-nationalist in the sense that they believed in the liquidation of the nation-state in favor of a trans-national unifying community. And both rabidly hated the Jews and sought their destruction.

As the Brotherhood’s political and military alliance with Nazi Germany developed, these parallels facilitated a full-blown alliance, with all the pomp and panoply of formal state visits, de facto ambassadors, and overt as well as sub rosa joint ventures. Al-Banna’s followers easily transplanted into the Arab world a newly Nazified form of traditional Muslim Jew-hatred, with Arab translations of Mein Kampf (translated into Arabic as My Jihad) and other Nazi anti-Semitic works, including Der Sturmer hate-cartoons, adapted to portray the Jew as the demonic enemy of Allah.

When the Second World War broke out, Al-Banna worked to firm up a formal alliance with Hitler and Mussolini. But the best known Nazi sympathizer in the Muslim Brotherhood was the Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and one-time President of the Supreme Muslim Council of Palestine. The Grand Mufti was a bridge figure in terms of transplanting the Nazi genocide in Europe into the post-war Middle East and creating a fascist heritage for the Palestinian national movement.

Al-Husseini used his office as a powerful bully pulpit from which to preach anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist, and (turning on his patrons) anti-British vitriol. He was directly involved in the organization of the 1929 riots which destroyed the 3,000-year-old Jewish community of Hebron. And he was quick to see that he had a natural ally in Hitler. As early as spring 1933, he assured the German consul in Jerusalem that "the Muslims inside and outside Palestine welcome the new regime of Germany and hope for the extension of the fascist, anti-democratic governmental system to other countries."

The youth organization established by the Mufti used Nazi emblems, names and uniforms. Germany reciprocated by setting up scholarships for Arab students, hiring Arab apprentices at German firms, and inviting Arab party leaders to the Nuremberg party rallies and Arab military leaders to Wehrmacht maneuvers. Most significantly, the German Propaganda Ministry developed strong links with the Grand Mufti and with Arabic newspapers, creating a propaganda legacy that would outlast Husseini, Hitler, and all the other figures of World War II.

In September 1937, Adolf Eichmann and another SS officer carried out an exploratory mission in the Middle East lasting several weeks, and including a friendly productive visit with the Grand Mufti. It was after that visit, in fact, that the Mufti went on the Nazi payroll as a Nazi agent and propagandist. During the Great Arab Revolt of 1936-39, which al-Husseini helped organize and which Germany funded, the swastika was used as a mark of identity on Arabic leaflets and graffiti. Arab children welcomed each other with the Hitler salute, and a sea of German flags and pictures of Hitler were displayed at celebrations.

After meeting with Hitler on November 21, 1941, Husseini praised the Germans because they “know how to get rid of the Jews, and that brings us close to the Germans and sets us in their camp.” On March 1, 1944, the Mufti called out in a broadcast from Zeesen: “Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. Kill them with your teeth if need be. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor.” His own memoirs, and the testimony of German defendants at the Nuremberg trials later on, showed that he planned a death camp modeled on Auschwitz to be constructed near Nablus for the genocide of Palestine’s Jews.

It was the Mufti who urged Hitler, Himmler, and General Ribbentrop to concentrate Germany’s considerable industrial and military resources on the extermination of European Jewry. The foremost Muslim spiritual leader of his time, he helped in this effort by lobbying to prevent Jews from leaving Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, even though those governments were initially willing to let them go. As Eichmann himself recounted: “We have promised him [the Mufti] that no European Jew would enter Palestine any more.”


Adapted from "The Nazi Roots of Palestinian Nationalism and Islamic Jihad," by David Meir-Levi (2007).