1973 was a watershed year in American history as it marked the end of the greatest prolonged boom in the history of capitalism and the beginning of a punitive, neoconservative era of gradual decline. In 1973, the Nixon administration started dismantling many of the social programs launched in the 1960s, while calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty. That year also gave birth to the Rockefeller drug laws and the passage of draconian sentencing laws, not to mention a little known entity called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), now 40-years old, which is essentially a corporate funded legislation factory, much more powerful than any lobby or front group.
Through membership in ALEC, global captains of industry and state legislators, overwhelmingly Republican, work together to change the law so that it benefits the corporation's bottom line. Corporations and legislators alike pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills."
“Forty years later, ALEC legislators seem to be hankering for this bygone era. In this report, the Center for Media and Democracy identifies hundreds of ALEC “model” bills introduced in 2013, yet pursuing a retrograde agenda. At the top of the heap, bills to roll back wages, worker rights, access to paid sick leave, and even renewable energy standards.
ALEC’s education agenda is geared almost entirely toward starving the public education system to fund private schools and returning us to the days when rich and poor were safely segregated. ALEC’s corporate agenda would turn back the clock to the time when consumers had no recourse when they were injured or killed by dangerous products or services."
Yesterday, congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee stated (see video below):
“We have martial law…and my colleagues know what it means…"
This is the procedure that the leadership uses to muscle through important bills.
Under “martial law,” the leadership can file legislation with tens or hundreds of pages of fine print, and move immediately to debate and votes on it before members of Congress, the media, or the public have an opportunity to understand fully what provisions have been altered or inserted into the legislation behind closed doors.
“The House leadership is using a parliamentary gambit to evade a longstanding House rule that is supposed to ensure that this kind of obfuscation does not occur. That House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) provides that a resolution (called a rule) reported by the Rules Committee cannot be considered by the House on the same legislative day that the rule is reported (except by a two-thirds vote of the House). This is supposed to ensure that Members of the House and the public have at least one day to examine and analyze what is in legislation before they have to debate and vote on it.
To maneuver around this House rule and rush the three proposals discussed above to a vote before they have been fully examined, the Rules Committee reported a rule late Thursday afternoon (H.Res. 958) that would waive the application of Rule XIII(6)(a). Instead, it would allow the Rules Committee to wait until the last minute and not to report the rules governing the consideration of these bills or to release the text of the bills themselves until immediately before debate and votes on the bills, and on the rules governing their consideration, commences.
This extraordinary procedure is known as a “martial law” rule because it suspends the normal procedures and safeguards and allows the House Leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. It enables the Leadership to seek to ram a bill or conference report through before the Members have the opportunity to fully understand what they are voting on.
Legislation that has far-reaching implications for millions of Americans deserves to be considered under a more democratic process. Waiting until the last minute to reveal what is in these bills, and then “spinning” or potentially mischaracterizing changes in the bills without Members of the House or the public having an opportunity to obtain a more objective review of what the legislation does, is unfair to Members of the House. It also is unfair to the millions of Americans whose lives could be affected by this legislation. It represents a further step in reducing the degree of transparency and democracy in how this country is governed and how decisions are made. At a time when our leaders preach the goal of promoting democracy abroad, they should not be reducing it at home.
Every time an Internet censorship bill like SOPA, CISPA, PIPA, ACTA, is shot down by public protest, another one pops up. To be sure, one day when we're all distracted by something else, an Internet censorship bill will pass. That's where Project Meshnet comes in.
Whereas the network routing system Tor uses peers to connect and send information through the infrastructure that is already in place for the Internet Project Meshnet is proposing an entirely new internet with different routing protocols. Multiple computers are connected to each other via a wireless connection spanning a large area and all information, messages, documents, music, images, etc., passes from computer to computer until it reaches its destination. If a computer or node is down than an alternative route is found. In other words, the architecture of the meshnet is owned by countless individuals instead of a handful of corporate providers, which makes the oppression of free speech practically impossible.
“Our objective is to create a versatile, decentralized network built on secure protocols for routing traffic over private mesh or public internetworks independent of a central supporting infrastructure."
Or I might add especially when the President is black. At least when 'W' did something horribly racist and criminal, as he often did, there were loud voices protesting in opposition. But when Obama does the same thing, it’s considered good leadership. President Obama received 95% of the black vote. In return, African Americans received a check that came back stamped: insufficient funds. He tells African Americans to stop whining and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps while his actions set these same people up to fail and keep them trapped by his support of legislation--specifically, in this case, by actively trying to maintain racially discriminatory prison sentences--that further empowers and emboldens the New Jim Crow Lulled to sleep by the rhetoric of color-blindness and the appearance of great racial progress, most of us are blind this new form, or should I say, formless invisible institutional racism.
Crack cocaine and powder cocaine are "pharmacologically identical," the only difference being who consumes these pharmacologically identical substances: crack cocaine, the drug of mostly poor black folk, and powder cocaine, the drug of wealthier white folk. To be sure, young African American males are the most disposable, yet at the same time, profitable--for the for-profit prison industry--demographic in this prison nation. Not only do the private prisons prosper, corporations can put these people to work for a few cents an hour, not to mention, these human-beings are excluded from poverty statistics and unemployment data thus masking the severity of issues more than they already are.
Although Black people make up only 34% of crack users, they are 85% of those convicted on crack charges. As early as 2011, 30,000 people were serving time for crack charges in federal prison, 85% of them Black.
“…persistent bias occurred with respect to the contemporary enforcement of drug laws where, in the 1990s and early 2000s, blacks constituted a minority of regular users of crack cocaine but more than 80 percent of crack defendants.” -- Harvard Professor William J. Stuntz
As legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues, "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." One such strategy is through targeting black men and women (often mothers) through the "War on Drugs," decimating communities of color.
“There are more African American adults under correctional control today, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. As of 2004, more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the year the 15th amendment was ratified explicitly prohibiting laws that deny the right to vote on the basis or race....During the Jim Crow era, poll taxes and literacy tests, circumvented the 15th amendment and operated to deny African Americans the right to vote. A black child born today has less of a chance of being raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. This is due in large part to the mass incarceration of black men....The mass incarceration of black men take them out of the dating pool at the years they would be most likely to commit to a partner, to a family. But, what's worse is that by branding them criminals and felons at early ages, often before they're even old enough to vote, they're rendered permanently unemployable in the legal job market, virtually guaranteeing that most will cycle in and out of prison, sometimes, for the rest of their lives.
[...]
Today, in many states, felon disenfranchisement laws accomplish what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not. This does not effect some small segment of the African American community. To the contrary, in many large urban areas, more than half of working age African American men now have criminal records and thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In some cities--Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago (80%), DC--the statistics are far worse." -- Michelle Anderson, highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State
The incarceration rate has quintupled over the last 30 years, from a prison population of 300,000 in the early 1970s to well over 2 million! During this same period of time that the incarceration rates increased exponentially, crime rates have fluctuated, leading most sociologists and criminologists to admit that incarceration rates and crime rates have moved independently of one another.
So for now the grant of en banc review puts Blewett relief for Sixth Circuit prisoners on hold. Why? Is the Department of Justice afraid of re-hearing thousands of old cases? If so, can't President Obama just commute all of the pre-Fair-Sentencing-Act minimums to their equivalent minimums under the new law? Or is the reason for en banc review far more nefarious?
In 2008, U.S. foreclosure filings shot up by 81% nationwide, and since the financial crisis began in September 2008, there have been almost 5 million completed foreclosures across the country, with millions more expected over the next few years. It's easy to conclude that this disaster was merely a result of incompetence but when you add up all of the facts, it becomes clear this calamity was the result of something much more Machiavellian (“Machiavellism” justifies power politics without ethical standards) at work. Moreover these Machiavellian powers are doing everything in their power to continue the biggest financial swindle in history. And if you think you're in the clear just because you haven't been foreclosed upon, think again.
By design, it's very confusing, so the following is my attempt to clarify matters for myself as well as for anyone else who might be interested.
Firstly, we were set up. Since the early to mid 1990s, in particular, Americans were strongly encouraged to buy their own home...whatever it takes, get yourself a home. Policies and programs (guarantees, tax breaks, etc.) were created to encourage home ownership, to finance the "American Dream". And it worked. The government pushed home ownership past 69% in 2004. Not to mention, the banks opened up the floodgates and made credit available to anyone, regardless of income. In fact, between 2003-2008, income wasn't even required! NINJA (No Income No Job No Asset) loans and LIAR loans-loans structured to fail--predominated.
Meanwhile, Wall Street was ready to cash in on the financial ignorance of We, the Suckers. Thanks to the creation of MERS ( Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. a subsidiary of MERSCORP, Inc.), in 1995, and the securitization instruments like SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicle) or SIV (Special Investment Vehicle) they were all set up to track the transfers electronically on Wall Street, obfuscating the chain of title, as our promissory notes, split off from the deed, were securatized-- sliced and diced and sold and resold 30 times over--without our permission. Hello robo-signing! Of course, nothing was recorded in the land records, and the counties were not paid their fees. In other words, the chain of title goes one way and the chain of custody, (the movement and location of physical evidence from the time it is obtained until the time it is presented in court) the other.
Most of us presume the chain of title on our property is clean and in order, however, you may be shocked to find out otherwise, especially if you brought your home after 1997. The financial swindlers who created the mortgage loan securitization scam made sure of it. Even if you are current--paying your mortgage on time every month--if you settled anytime over the last two decades, there is a very good chance you have a cloud on your titleto the note.
What is a clouded title? It's an apparent claim or encumbrance, such as a lien, that, if true, impairs the right of the owner to transfer his or her property free and clear of the interests of any other party. In other words, a breach in your chain of title that might jeopardize the conveyance of that title. Obviously this could very well reduce the value and marketability of your property.
How can you tell? Well, it's highly recommended you either do, or get a COTA (Chain of Title Assessment), a forensic loan audit to to determine if it was properly executed, especially to uncover any of the various misapplications of borrower's payments that generate revenue for the servicer, and/or a securitization audit which is directed at the REMIC process of sponsoring and registering the trust and its issuance of securities (Watch out for scams!). Keep in mind, the information gathered during these audits are just that, information, until it's submitted as evidence and the judge decides that the information is accurate and clearly demonstrates error or wrongdoing on the part of the other party, not to mention the judge's acceptance of the person who conducted the audit as credible.
But before you begin this arduous task, get out your deed of trust and look for a MIN # (MERS Identification Number). It should be right next to your document title. If you see this number, it's almost certain your title has been compromised, as over 70 million homes are affected. The bottom line is that the homeowner is not obliged to pay the WRONG lender!
Remember, MERS is a shell entity, a bankruptcy remote entity that is basically a computer. It has no employees, no assets, no liabilities, no income, and no expenses. It’s an electronic database managed by MERS Corp Holding, INC It is the brainchild of the Mortgage Bankers Association – Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, land title association and all the major banks, yet it.has essentially destroyed 400 years of recorded property rights in the U.S. And, as admitted in testimony, most of the original notes were destroyed after the scanning, which, according to Carpenter v. Longan - 83 U.S. 271 (1872), the uncoupling of the deed and the note renders the note null and void. Hence, without the original promissory note, any copies used as evidence in court are sure to be counterfeit. So how are the banks getting around this issue? Well, so far, the ignorance of the public, and the supposed ignorance of the attorneys and judges seems to be working out quite well for them. Nevertheless, now that people are waking up to their scheme, the banks are doing their utmost to create pro-bankster legislation and there are already plans to legalize these counterfeit notes, which they will call eNotes and eMortgages.
Let's take the state of Florida as an example. Currently, there is a backlog of 366,250 foreclosure cases just sitting there waiting to be processed, not to mention, they expect another 680,000 foreclosures within the next three years. What are they waiting for? More than likely, Florida's fast-track foreclosure bill, H.B. 87 to go through.
H.B. 87 is very likely to become law by mid-June unless Governor Rick Scott decides to exercise his veto power, which seems unlikely at this point. This is a gift to the banks and to make matters even worse, they’re using the foreclosure settlement money to run it through. If this bill becomes law, it essentially gives banks that wrongfully foreclose on your property a go pass. They get to keep the house and the homeowner can’t come back and claim they’ve been wronged.
“Significantly, the new legislation will shift the burden of proof in mortgage foreclosure cases from the plaintiff (bank), to the defendant (homeowner). Thus, if H.B. 87 is ratified, the homeowner will now have to prove that the bank lacks the legal right to foreclose at the very onset of the proceedings. This shift will significantly restrict the homeowner’s ability to defend the case as banks will now be able to seek what is being termed an “expedited foreclosure.”
A title agent addressing the subcommittee on this fast-track foreclosure bill warned them not to buy a foreclosed property because it's almost impossible to tell which titles are infected with fraud. Of course, it's not just Florida; it's nationwide. According to HUD and Fannie and Freddie, the majority of foreclosure inventory that they'll try to sell to unsuspecting people is concentrated in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, Ohio, Texas. They've even admitted to relying on companies like Fidelity National Financial which has a huge myriad of title companies to whitewash the titles to these properties. In other words, when you buy one of these properties, you're indemnifying them from suit.
Pro Bankster Legislation:
H.R. 992 - This bill exempts broad swathes of trades from new regulation and could authorize bailouts for credit default swaps
H.B. 87 - see above
Washington State Bill SHB 1435 covers up the felonious business practices by covering up reconveyance issues in allowing banks to foreclose without providing official promissary note. All they will have to present is a Declaration of Ownership. These properties are being reconveyed regularly by the large lending institutions with only a “Lost Note Affidavit” and an indemnity agreement between the parties.
“Escrow and title are not bringing the original note to the table. We need a bill that mandates producing the original note, not a copy or an affidavit, before a reconveyance can occur. A homeowner does not know if they are paying off the right bank since the loan is securitized and serviced. This bill will create more red tape for the borrower and cause fraudulent defaults and foreclosure. This is not addressing the real problem, but rather it is
covering it up.“
What about government's role?
Now, banks are only part of the equation. Without the protection of government, in particular, the justice department, this treasonous deception would've failed before it started. To be sure, from the get go, our oh-so-trustworthy politicians and the banksters marched in lockstep.
From the government encouragement of home ownership to the repeal of Glass-Steagall to deregulation to the resignation of Criminal Division Chief, Lanny Breuer after a Frontline documentary aired, exposing his role--and Eric Holder's role-- in allowing the banksters to bury their crimes to Breuer's return to Covington and Burling, one of Washington's biggest white shoe law firms to represent MERS in court, to the persecution, silencing and yes, even death of whistleblowers, such as Dr. Joseph H. Zernik, Ph.D. and now deceased notary, Tracy Lawrence, Lynn Szymoniak, Kyle Lagow, amongst many others, the banks and government ensure its progression.
It’s important to emphasize that the whistleblowers whose actions were False Claims Act cases involving fraud against the federal government have legal protection whereas if your whistleblowing case does NOT fall within the narrow confines of this law, you have NO legal protections and it is practically impossible to get media attention and/or legal representation even if you have money to pay attorneys.
“I believe that the level of corruption in Los Angeles increased, but also diversified. The collapse of the housing market is a huge court corruption scandal, where the judges and the bankers are acting as a racket.
And Los Angeles was identified already in the early 2000s in FBI reports as ‘the epicenter of the epidemic of real estate and mortgage fraud.’ In my reports I documented that at least as early as 1998 they had a routine for real estate fraud in the court in collusion with a straw purchaser.
The fraud being perpetrated on the people of the United States in recent years through the financial crisis is unprecedented in human history, and it results in dispossession of the people on a scale typically seen only in war.” -- Dr. Joseph H. Zernik, in hiding since 2010
What is a REMIC (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit)? They are a form of IRS tax shelter sold to investors as part of the mortgage-backed securities package (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduit (“REMIC”) pursuant to I.R.C. §§860A-G). The documents that killed the REMICs may actually help save your home.
“Actually, the banks patented nearly every single move they made – even the behavioral aspects of dealing with the customers, judges, politicians, etc. as if to legitimize their scheme...The patent extensively outlines the legal requirements for the magical change of the negotiable promissory note into securities instruments chopped up into pieces for distribution to numerous investors who were to become the “Certificate-holders” of securitized REMIC trusts."
Republicans and Democrats may not agree on much, but they certainly do agree on ever-increasing government intrusion and power. One of the big problem with all the so-called "security” legislation created since 9/11 is that it, unquestionably, will be used against American citizens who stand up to power. That's already happening.
Our Orwellian government already tracks and monitors everything we do, but apparently the political class is not satisfied. Hidden in the 800 pages of immigration reform " is a mandate for the creation of a national biometric database of virtually every American (take notice that the question of fining the corporations for employing illegal immigrants never comes up, because corporations thrive on cheap labor and our government is all about keeping corporations profitable as possible).
"The immigration reform measure the Senate began debating yesterday would create a national biometric database of virtually every adult in the U.S., in what privacy groups fear could be the first step to a ubiquitous national identification system.
Buried in the more than 800 pages of the bipartisan legislation (.pdf) is language mandating the creation of the innocuously-named “photo tool,” a massive federal database administered by the Department of Homeland Security and containing names, ages, Social Security numbers and photographs of everyone in the country with a driver’s license or other state-issued photo ID.
Employers would be obliged to look up every new hire in the database to verify that they match their photo.
This piece of the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act is aimed at curbing employment of undocumented immigrants. But privacy advocates fear the inevitable mission creep, ending with the proof of self being required at polling places, to rent a house, buy a gun, open a bank account, acquire credit, board a plane or even attend a sporting event or log on the internet. Think of it as a government version of Foursquare, with Big Brother cataloging every check-in.
“It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things,” said Chris Calabrese, a congressional lobbyist with the American Civil Liberties Union. “More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”
For now, the legislation allows the database to be used solely for employment purposes. But historically such limitations don’t last. The Social Security card, for example, was created to track your government retirement benefits. Now you need it to purchase health insurance.
“The Social Security number itself, it’s pretty ubiquitous in your life,” Calabrese said.
David Bier, an analyst with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, agrees with the ACLU’s fears.
“The most worrying aspect is that this creates a principle of permission basically to do certain activities and it can be used to restrict activities,” he said. “It’s like a national ID system without the card.”
For the moment, the debate in the Senate Judiciary Committee is focused on the parameters of legalization for unauthorized immigrants, a border fence and legal immigration in the future.
So, what's going on while everyone is distracted by bombs, explosions, poisoned letters, "martial law", etc?
The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), which Aaron Swartz called "the Patriot Act of the Internet", a bill that is currently moving through Congress passed the House of Representatives on April 18th. At the last moment, an alteration to protect user's social media passwords from employers was defeated in a Congress vote.
President Obama gutted the Stock Act when he signed S. 716 which basically gutted the stock act which was created to make it harder for the legislature and the executive branch to engage in insider trading.
Imagine, if you will, an Internet surveillance grid of the future that includes an Internet ID system, Internet licenses, Internet blacklists, an Internet taxation system, giant firewalls used as a blockade to information, etc. Imagine biometric gate-keeping sensors that control and watch everything you do on the Internet. Imagine being accountable and responsible to the Big Brother Internet. This might sound far out, but that's what DARPA had in mind when they created the Internet. Now, they just need the legislation in place to make it happen. What's more is that the same tech corporations that claim they believe in an open Internet and online freedom--Facebook (who overtly supports CISPA) Google, Yahoo, etc.-- will aid and abet the government when it comes time to install these restrictions. However, the powers that be, know that in order to accomplish this goal, they must gradually increase the heat on the proverbial pot of water, rather than switch it to boil right away.
Which brings us to the latest State of the Union address, where President Obama said he signed an executive order to strengthen the nation's cyber defenses by increasing information sharing and by developing standards to protect our national security, our jobs and our privacy. Sure, on the surface, that sounds good, because, of course, our national security infrastructure should be protected. But, guess what? It already is. I mean, do you really think our national security infrastructure is available online...on the same Internet, we the people, surf? Hell no! So what is this CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing Protection Act) legislation the Obama administration claims must be passed to secure our networks and prevent attacks? Well, it basically provides a framework of legal authority to, for example, give the "trustworthy" corporations, immunity from their actions. In fact, the text of this legislation states that private information may be shared "notwithstanding any other provision of law." You know, provisions of law like the the Fourth amendment.
Anyway, the very next day, after the State of the Union address, Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, along with other members of Congress resubmitted CISPA--a rehashed version that has not been released yet. Yes, the one that failed to reach the Senate during the last Capitol Hill session. The problem is that the language of this bill is so vague and so broad that once this framework is put in place, the potential to destroy our civil liberties--yes, even more than they've already been destroyed--is boundless, possibly resulting--at some time in the future-- in the aforementioned scenario.
As President Obama told us, he has already signed the executive order to lay the groundwork for the cooperation between the private and the public sectors, which like I said before, gives full immunity to the private sector, so if the private sector uses your information for whatever reason, you cannot sue them. And it's not just the government that has an interest in eliminating what's left of "freedom" on the Internet. The large corporations want to control what information is allowed to flow on the internet as well. They too don't want disgruntled consumers, dissenting opinions, whistle blowers, and fact checkers alerting the public of their nefarious activities. The bottom line is this bill is not about security, this is all about the wealthy and powerful struggling to maintain the status quo, to maintain their place of privilege and authority in a world that, given enough freedom, could severely threaten and/or undermine their sense of entitlement and position of great advantage.
"Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee which frameth mischief by a law." -- Psalm 94:20
Increasingly, corporations are gaining more and more access and influence to legislation that the public and even Congress does not have through groups like ALEC and trade agreements such as NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, that merged the United States, Canada, and Mexico creating essentially a north American continent of supposedly, "free" trade. "NAFTA contained 900 pages of one-size-fits-all rules to which each nation was required to conform all of its domestic laws - regardless of whether voters and their democratically-elected representatives had previously rejected the very same policies in Congress, state legislatures or city councils." After NAFTA was signed, two-thirds of Canadian families saw a decline in real income while two million peasant farmers were displaced from their land in Mexico, forcing many into trying to gain entrance into the United States, adding to our already growing immigration problem.
Now, there is "NAFTA on steroids," the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) (see links below), "a legally binding trade agreement for advancing transnational corporate tyranny and dismantling domestic democratic accountability" that is not only the largest “free trade agreement” ever negotiated, but also the most secretly negotiated, with "no public oversight, input, or consultations". Only two of its 26 chapters deal with trade, the rest grant unprecedented powers and privileges upon Trans-National Corporations (TNCs)while dismantling regulations and laws without any democratic oversight or input."
Take the intellectual property chapter alone, which would extend copyright provisions, if enacted into law, from a state/federal jurisdiction to a matter of international agreement, and within that framework, plans on extending endless copyright terms across the globe The U.S. already has the most extensive copyright terms in the world. This is increasingly problematic for today's remix culture, intrinsic to the health of our economy. Not only can one face statutory damages, with preset fines of up to $150,000 per infringement, the criminal section of intellectual property chapter indicates an individual could face actual jail time.if it's proven that they had direct or indirect motivation for financial gain Not to mention, copyright expansion can be used to silence speech as they often do on websites such as Youtube.
In February 2012, powerful content groups such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) met in Beverly Hills along with representatives from nine countries including the United States were secretly meeting in a luxury hotel in Beverly Hills. Public interest groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) were shut out, their hotel reservations canceled without their consent. Another public interest group's representatives were kicked out of the hotel.
For example, public interest groups have been warning that the TPP could result in millions of lost jobs. As a letter from Congress to United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk stated, the TPP “will create binding policies on future Congresses in numerous areas,” including “those related to labor, patent and copyright, land use, food, agriculture and product standards, natural resources, the environment, professional licensing, state-owned enterprises and government procurement policies, as well as financial, healthcare, energy, telecommunications and other service sector regulations.”
The next round of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement negotiations will take place from December 3-12 in Auckland, New Zealand, and it will be done with the same level of secrecy as the last 14 rounds in order to grant far-reaching new rights and privileges to the 600 corporations aligned with the TPP at the expense of the tax-paying public. This could affect the health and welfare of billions of people worldwide, so where is the mainstream media?
The following is alist of 35 of the 134 lobbying clientswho paid more than $1 million on lobbying in 2011-2012 and reported lobbying a federal agency on the Trans Pacific Partnership.
If there ever was a mindfuck--something that intentionally destabilizes, confuses or manipulates the mind of another person--this is it. Because nothing adds up, and maybe that's the point...I don't know. It involves a lawsuit (first press release supposedly April 23, 2012, but that link is no longer valid) alleged to involve the largest money laundering network in U.S. history, $43 trillion dollars taken from American taxpayers in banking schemes, a major news outlet, and murdered children. Read on and see if you can make sense of this mindfuckery.
Now, despite the mainstream reporting of the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in US history, said to involve the most powerful people in the world, it could very well be a "frivolous law suit," that will fizzle out before it even gets started because the law firm, "Spire Law Group" may not be on the up and up. Perhaps this is an intentional effort to smear legitimate grievances against banks and their predatory lending practices. Who knows? But then we have the murdered children of the senior vice president of the mainstream news source occurring within hours of the press release.
Although, I certainly can't commit to a conspiracy here, as correlation does not necessarily indicate causality--granted the correlation here is very thin-- the inconsistencies and anomalies in this story alone, abound. Such as, why did the corporate-owned media automatically assume the nanny stabbed herself from the start? Suicide by slitting ones own throat is extremely rare, less than one percent of all suicides, primarily committed by men with military experience. And as far as women are concerned, it's almost unheard of.
As for inconsistency, check out the conflicting reports from the NY Times:
"When Ms. Krim returned around 5:30 p.m., the commissioner said, she found a dark apartment. She went back down to the lobby to ask the doorman if he had seen the nanny and her children. When told that they had not left the building, she returned to the apartment. She looked around in the quiet rooms. Finally, she turned the lights on in the bathroom — and discovered her two children in the bathtub and the nanny unconscious on the floor.
"On Thursday evening around 5:30, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said, Marina Krim returned to her Upper West Side apartment with her 3-year-old daughter to discover her two other children, a 2-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl, dead of knife wounds in the bathtub and Ms. Ortega slashing herself with the same bloodied kitchen knife used on the children.
Of course, police have released very little information other than they have no idea why the nanny did this as she was reported to be a "caring nanny."
"The superintendent of the building where Ortega lives said that the nanny is “a very nice woman” and “very religious,” continuing, “To me, she has always been very, very stable.”
Then, there's this: Three hours before these murders were reported, there were NYPD reports of a HOSTAGE SITUATION at the Krim's address involving at least two adults and three children.
NYCityAlerts @NYCityAlerts
Manhattan: *Hostage* 57 West 75 St Barricaded perp stabbed holding hostage 3 adults 2 kids, ESU enroute Level 1 mobilization called.NY03
2:42 PM - 25 Oct 12 ·
NYCityAlerts @NYCityAlerts
Manhattan: *Multiple Stabbing* 57 West 75 St. NYPD advising perp stabbed 4 victims then stabbed himself, EMS requested on a rush. NY03
2:50 PM - 25 Oct 12 ·
NYCityAlerts @NYCityAlerts
Manhattan: *Multiple Stabbing* 57 West 75 St & Central Park West. EMS o/s advising 2 pediatrics in traumatic arrest. NY03
2:55 PM - 25 Oct 12 ·
Here is some more information about the lawsuit from the Wall Street: Journal (linked above):
"NEW YORK, Oct. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Spire Law Group, LLP's national home owners' lawsuit, pending in the venue where the "Banksters" control their $43 trillion racketeering scheme (New York) - known as the largest money laundering and racketeering lawsuit in United States History and identifying $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money by the "Banksters" and their U.S. racketeering partners and joint venturers - now pinpoints the identities of the key racketeering partners of the "Banksters" located in the highest offices of government and acting for their own self-interests.
In connection with the federal lawsuit now impending in the United States District Court in Brooklyn, New York (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML) - involving, among other things, a request that the District Court enjoin all mortgage foreclosures by the Banksters nationwide, unless and until the entire $43 trillion is repaid to a court-appointed receiver - Plaintiffs now establish the location of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) of laundered money in a racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals (without limitation): Attorney General Holder acting in his individual capacity, Assistant Attorney General Tony West, the brother in law of Defendant California Attorney General Kamala Harris (both acting in their individual capacities), Jon Corzine (former New Jersey Governor), Robert Rubin (former Treasury Secretary and Bankster), Timothy Geitner, Treasury Secretary (acting in his individual capacity), Vikram Pandit (recently resigned and disgraced Chairman of the Board of Citigroup), Valerie Jarrett (a Senior White House Advisor), Anita Dunn (a former "communications director" for the Obama Administration), Robert Bauer (husband of Anita Dunn and Chief Legal Counsel for the Obama Re-election Campaign), as well as the "Banksters" themselves, and their affiliates and conduits. The lawsuit alleges serial violations of the United States Patriot Act, the Policy of Embargo Against Iran and Countries Hostile to the Foreign Policy of the United States, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (commonly known as the RICO statute) and other State and Federal laws.
In the District Court lawsuit, Spire Law Group, LLP -- on behalf of home owner across the Country and New York taxpayers, as well as under other taxpayer recompense laws -- has expanded its mass tort action into federal court in Brooklyn, New York, seeking to halt all foreclosures nationwide pending the return of the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000.00) by the "Banksters" and their co-conspirators, seeking an audit of the Fed and audits of all the "bailout programs" by an independent receiver such as Neil Barofsky, former Inspector General of the TARP program who has stated that none of the TARP money and other "bailout money" advanced from the Treasury has ever been repaid despite protestations to the contrary by the Defendants as well as similar protestations by President Obama and the Obama Administration both publicly on national television and more privately to the United States Congress. Because the Obama Administration has failed to pursue any of the "Banksters" criminally, and indeed is actively borrowing monies for Mr. Obama's campaign from these same "Banksters" to finance its political aspirations, the national group of plaintiff home owners has been forced to now expand its lawsuit to include racketeering, money laundering and intentional violations of the Iranian Nations Sanctions and Embargo Act by the national banks included among the "Bankster" Defendants.
The complaint - which has now been fully served on thousands of the "Banksters and their Co-Conspirators" - makes it irrefutable that the epicenter of this laundering and racketeering enterprise has been and continues to be Wall Street and continues to involve the very "Banksters" located there who have repeatedly asked in the past to be "bailed out" and to be "bailed out" in the future.
The Havens for the money laundering schemes - and certain of the names and places of these entities - are located in such venues as Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Cypress and entities controlled by governments adverse to the interests of the United States Sanctions and Embargo Act against Iran, and are also identified in both the United Nations and the U.S. Senate's recent reports on international money laundering. Many of these entities have already been personally served with summons and process of the complaint during the last six months. It is now beyond dispute that, while the Obama Administration was publicly encouraging loan modifications for home owners by "Banksters", it was privately ratifying the formation of these shell companies in violation of the United States Patriot Act, and State and Federal law. The case further alleges that through these obscure foreign companies, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo Bank, Citibank, Citigroup, One West Bank, and numerous other federally chartered banks stole trillions of dollars of home owners' and taxpayers' money during the last decade and then laundered it through offshore companies.
This District Court Complaint - maintained by Spire Law Group, LLP -- is the only lawsuit in the world listing as Defendants the Banksters, let alone serving all of such Banksters with legal process and therefore forcing them to finally answer the charges in court. Neither the Securities and Exchange Commission, nor the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, nor the Office of the Attorney General, nor any State Attorney General has sued the Banksters and thereby legally chased them worldwide to recover-back the $43 trillion ($43,000,000,000,000.00) and other lawful damages, injunctive relief and other legal remedies.
James N. Fiedler, Managing Partner of Spire Law Group, LLP, stated: "It is hard for me to believe as a 47-year lawyer that our nation's guardians have been unwilling to stop this theft. Spire Law Group, LLP stands for the elimination of corruption and implementation of lawful strategies, and that is what we're doing here. Spire Law Group, LLP's charter is to not allow such corruption to go unanswered."
Comments were requested from the Attorney Generals' offices in NY, CA, NV, NH , OH, MA and the White House, but no comment was provided.
What is the duty of It is NOT the duty of the police to protect you. Their job is to protect THE CORPORATION and arrest code breakers.According to the US Supreme Court, a corporation is a person when it wants to buy an election - Citizens United ruling - but when it wants to torture and murder people - unanimous ruling on Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority- it's not a person; therefore, cannot be held accountable.
The United States Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a law on the books since 1991 precludes organizations, both political and corporate, from being sued for torture or murder outside of the U.S.
In a unanimous ruling on Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority (PDF), Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the careful text of the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1991, the way it is written "convinces us that Congress did not extend liability to organizations, sovereign or not."
Do you need any more proof that the United States is, indeed, a corporation? Because it most certainly is. Not only that, despite what you were taught in school about the Revolutionary War, that we won our independence from the Brits, the United States is still, and always has been subject to the British Crown.
Keep in mind, the use of "Esquire" which declares anyone who uses that title, British subjection and loyalty to the crown.
Using his money and resources, King James I sent his subjects to America with the expectation of gain from his commercial venture. In the Virginia Charter he declares his sovereignty over the land and his subjects and declared the amount of gold, silver and copper he was to receive. Moreover, the king declared the right to regulate every aspect of commerce in his new colony.
This treaty contradicts what we've been taught about the Revolutionary war. We did not win our total independence. Ben Franklin, John Jay, and John Adams - all Esquires - merely negotiated further granted privileges from the King of England. Quite a few, in fact, except one: his claim to continue receiving gold, silver and copper as gain (see Virginia Charter, 1606) for his commercial venture.
So, why is the King granting us privileges if we won the war? Why was the King dictating the terms for surrender if we won the war? To this very day, the US is still paying millions of dollars per day to the Crown. Every time you pay a tax you are transferring your labor to the king, and his heirs and successors are still receiving interest from the original American Charters.
Financial servitude
Every taxpayer has an Individual Master File (IMF). Document 6209, about 467 pages, is used to decode the computer codes on the IMF records. If you retrieve your IMF, you will find that you are being held liable for a tax payable to the Crown.
Act of 1871 "An Act To Provide A Government for the District of Columbia."
The 41st Congress, under no constitutional authority to do so, created a separate form of government for the District of Columbia, which is a ten mile square parcel of land. This Act created a new constitution for the District of Columbia, the corporation.
Here, you will find much more information on the purpose of the War of 1812, the forgotten amendment (#13),
Queen Elizabeth controls and has amended U.S. Social Security (S.I. 1997 No:1778 The Social Security. A 1040 form is for tribute (tax - A contribution which is raised by a prince or sovereign from his subjects to sustain the expenses of the state. A sum of money paid by an inferior sovereign or state to a superior potentate, to secure the friendship or protection of the latter." Blacks Law Dictionary forth ed. p. 1677) paid to Britain. (IRS Publication 6209).
Read this section from Title 26 (at this link, you will find lots more info on this subject) you will see just one situation where the king is still collecting a tax from those that receive a benefit from him, on property which is purchased with the money the king supplies, at almost the same percentage:
-CITE- 26 USC Sec. 1491
HEAD- Sec. 1491. Imposition of tax
-STATUTE-
There is hereby imposed on the transfer of property by a citizen or resident of the United States, or by a domestic corporation or partnership, or by an estate or trust which is not a foreign estate or trust, to a foreign corporation as paid-in surplus or as a contribution to capital, or to a foreign estate or trust, or to a foreign partnership, an excise tax equal to 35 percent of the excess of -
(1) the fair market value of the property so transferred, over
(2) the sum of -
(A) the adjusted basis (for determining gain) of such property in the hands of the transferor, plus
(B) the amount of the gain recognized to the transferor at the time of the transfer.
-SOURCE-
(Aug. 16, 1954, ch. 736, 68A Stat. 365; Oct. 4, 1976, Pub. L. 94-455, title X, Sec. 1015(a), 90 Stat. 1617; Nov. 6, 1978, Pub. L. 95-600, title VII, Sec. 701(u)(14)(A), 92 Stat. 2919.)
-MISC1-
AMENDMENTS
1978 - Pub. L. 95-600 substituted 'estate or trust' for 'trust' wherever appearing.
1976 - Pub. L. 94-455 substituted in provisions preceding par.
(1) 'property' for 'stocks and securities' and '35 percent' for '27 1/2 percent' and in par.
(1) 'fair market value' for 'value' and 'property' for 'stocks and securities' and in par.
(2) designated existing provisions as subpar. (A) and added subpar.
(B). EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1978 AMENDMENT
Section 701(u)(14)(C) of Pub. L. 95-600 provided that: 'The amendments made by this paragraph (amending this section and section 1492 of this title) shall apply to transfers after
October 2, 1975.'
EFFECTIVE DATE OF 1976 AMENDMENT
Section 1015(d) of Pub. L. 94-455 provided that: 'The amendments made by this section (enacting section 1057 of this title, amending this section and section 1492 of this title, and renumbering former section 1057 as 1058 of this title) shall apply to transfers of property after October 2, 1975.'
The majority of Americans do not realize how fast power is concentrated in the executive branch of the government, so they ignore, or make excuses for bills and laws passed by Congress, written in deliberately confusing language, that will limit their freedom. That is, if they're even paying attention, and thanks to our corporate controlled media, paying attention takes time...lots of time that most people do not have to witness the convoluted system of barriers to their personal movement...your rights to property, privacy and freedom. The bottom line is recent legislation has effected the average citizen far more than any so-called "terrorist" lurking in the shadows.
Here is a prime example: S. 1813: MAP-21 “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act” that passed the Senate by 74 to 22, that will more than likely sail through the House. This is a move to: “reauthorize Federal-aid highway and highway safety construction programs, and for other purposes.” This bill, proposed by Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer, includes an amendment that will stop any American citizen from leaving the country based upon a decision by the IRS. Another violation of due process.
Specifically, section 40304 - written by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - states: “Revocation or denial of passport in case of certain unpaid taxes.” This amendment would authorize the State Department to revoke, deny or limit passports for anyone the Internal Revenue Service certifies as having “a seriously delinquent tax debt in an amount in excess of $50,000.”
Well, since the IRS never makes any mistakes, this should contain the elite power brokers, right? Because, the vast number of Americans do not even earn $50,000, let alone owe $50,000 in taxes.
I wonder if the IRS has ever accused someone of owing $50k who didn't really owe it? Wonder if they would EVER do it in the future? It's a pretty easy thing for such an agency to do.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had assessed a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP) against our client for unpaid payroll taxes Our California tax attorneys filed a request for a collection due process hearing and convinced the IRS Appeals Officer that its determination that the client was liable for the TFRP was erroneous in its entirety saving our client almost 1million dollars.
While she was married our client incurred joint income tax liabilities in excess of $1,000,000. We were able to convince the Internal Revenue Service that our client was an innocent spouse pursuant to Internal Revenue Code § 6015, and the IRS wiped out her entire tax bill.
Our clients were the owners of a closely held family company. After an audit the IRS claimed that the compensation paid to them was unreasonable, and therefore disallowed $750,000 per year in deductions over a multi-year period. The case was referred to our firm by a tax attorney who had spent over two years negotiating with the IRS, without achieving a settlement. Our firm negotiated a settlement with the IRS that saved our clients $2.1 million in tax, penalty and interest.
The IRS claimed our client owed almost $2 million dollars in income taxes due to alleged errors on his tax returns. After filing a petition with the United States Tax Court we settled the case for approximately $20,000.
The IRS claimed our clients owed over $35,000 as the result of an audit. Due to technical errors made by the IRS we were able to convince the IRS to abate the full amount of the taxes and to refund amounts previously paid. [under $50K but it could have been any amount.]
The IRS determined that our client owed a tax debt of approximately $61,000 based upon a trust fund recovery penalty imposing personal liability for corporate payroll taxes. After our intervention the IRS Appeals Division conceded that a mistake had been made and that our client didn't owe any portion of the trust fund recovery penalty.
The IRS determined that our client owed a tax debt of approximately $155,000 based upon a trust fund recovery penalty imposing personal liability for corporate payroll taxes. We convinced the IRS that our client was not a responsible officer and nothing was owed.
Our client received a statutory notice of deficiency from the IRS after an audit claiming that over $230,000 was owed. After filing a petition with the United States Tax Court a settlement was negotiated for less than $4,600.
An offer in compromise submitted by our client's accountant was rejected when the IRS determined that he could afford to pay the total tax due of over $131,000. We convinced the same IRS specialist in offer in compromise to accept less than $30,000. [there are many examples of substantial amounts owed but negotiated to under $50K]
just a few examples located on the website of a Los Angeles tax lawyer randomly spotted from a Google search. there must be many, many more cases nationwide where the IRS has falsely or incorrectly claimed someone owed substantial amount of taxes of over $50K when that person/entity did not in fact owe that much or in some cases, any taxes at all. Ripe for abuse.
Oh, and let's not forget about the Capitol Controls expected in 2013, which would force Americans to keep their money from going offshore.
The US House of Representatives voted 388-to-3 in favor of H.R.347 - Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, a bill that gives the government power to bring charges against Americans engaged in political protest anywhere in the country. The right of American citizens to peacefully assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances has been abolished by outlawing protests where key government officials or other VIP's gather. In other words, this bill criminalizes dissent.
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. " - Justice William O. Douglas
What makes the passing of this bill even worse is that it follows directly on the heels of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that allows for indefinite detention of Americans, which followed the extension of the Patriot Act, allowing the government to seize records and conduct secret surveillance on Americans, even though they have no known connections or ties to terrorist groups.
As in Weimar Germany, our fundamental rights and freedoms are being repealed under the same pretext: that democracy is threatened and must be protected. But who is it that's really threatening our democracy? On top of the police state legislation, the US today has 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies working on programs related to counter-terrorism, homeland security and intelligence. A recent Washington Post investigation warned the our top secret world has become “so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it, or exactly how many agencies do the same work.”Read more...
If you haven't noticed there is a significant effort to not only severely restrict the internet, but to spy and collect our personal information while doing so. This time, it's under the guise of protecting children from Internet pornography: H.R.1981 - Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 A bill which Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) has fast-tracked.
However, this bill does not protect children from anything at all - because criminals use encryption and other devious methods to avert authorities, whereas ordinary citizens do not - rather, this bill would require Internet service providers to capture credit card data, bank statements, IP information and search history from every user and keep it on hand for 18 months. Moreover, the government would not need a warrant to look at all your data. And once all of this personal information about innocent Americans is collected, it would be available to law enforcement for any purpose.
So, once again, in this ever expanding Orwellian house of mirrors, the innocent are targeted, while the truly guilty go free.
Few people have heard of ACTA, or the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, but the provisions in the agreement are just as pernicious as anything we saw in SOPA. Worse, the agreement spans virtually all of the countries in the developed world, including all of the EU, the United States, Switzerland and Japan.
Many of these countries have already signed or ratified it, and the cogs are still turning. The treaty has been secretly negotiated behind the scenes, with unelected bureaucrats working closely with entertainment industry lobbyists to craft the provisions in the treaty. The Bush administration started the process, but the Obama administration has aggressively pursued it.
Indeed, we’ve already signed on to the treaty. All it needs now is Senate ratification. The time to stop the treaty is now, and we may need a second global internet blackout to call attention to it.
The Enemy Expatriation Act H.R. 3166; S 1698, another treasonous bill similar to the National Defense Authorization Act signed into law by President Obama on New Years' Eve is on the table.
The purpose of the bill is "to add engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality." In other words, this bill would strip U.S. citizenship from any citizen believed to have supported an undefined enemy in this ambiguous and never-ending "war on terror". With no standard of proof, no judge or jury to be convinced, no evidence required, whatsoever, you are.
You see, the left/ right paradigm merely exists to obscure reasonable debate. To contain discourse within the framework that those at the pinnacle of society designed. To keep us fighting amongst ourselves so we don't figure out who the real enemy is. As, historian, Anthony Sutton said, "Left" and "right" are artificial devices to bring about change, and the extremes of political left and political right are vital elements in a process of controlled change." Both corporate-funded parties are essentially the same.
"So when the wolf pounces on your lamb, just ignore the pitiful bleating and remind yourself that this is a democracy, where every sheep can freely express its preference for which kind of wolf it wants to be eaten by. Many sheep, perhaps understandably, prefer a wolf in sheep’s clothing, which is after all the basic idea of democracy. So far it has worked pretty well. The wolves all agree on that, and they want to spread democracy everywhere." -- Joseph Sobran.
Every Sunday, major newspapers, websites and corporations run fake job ads. Why? The goal is to prove that no qualified Americans are available, so that green cards can be secured for H1B workers ("highly-skilled" foreign workers from "high tech" to architects to nurses and Kindergarten teachers).
The claim is H-1B is a remedy for "labor shortages" and as a means of hiring "the best and the brightest" from around the world. The reality is it's all about cheap labor.
The fundamental reason for the H1B Visa program, created in 1990, is to substitute cheap, imported, supposedly "skilled" (equivalent to American high school degree) labor for more expensive American labor. The employer, who reaps a ton of tax advantages, doesn't have to pay medical benefits, overtime, social security, etc., can also force the departing US worker to train their foreign replacement. The problem is not lack of enforcement or fraud. Instead, the problem is gaping loopholes in the law.
Congress has allowed the expansion of importation under all VISA programs. 125,000 work authorized visas per month. This includes green cards, L-1, H1-b, H2-b etc and the state hands out about 320K J-1 student work visas yearly.
Body Shops:
According to Civil Defense Attorney James Otto, who poses the question: “Whether the U.S. should allow the replacement of U.S. workers with foreigners imported under the several visa programs and should Government hire foreigners in stead of U.S workers?”, there are eight main body shops which bring in foreign workers to take American jobs. One body shop, Infosys, faces a lawsuit by former employee Jack Palmer over charges that it abused US visa programs. Per the Economic Times of India "The Infosys charges illustrate the growing conflict between the desires of multinational corporations to source cheaply (even if “cheap” has been mismeasured by not not being adjusted for risk) and what actions need to take place at a country level to make sure these very same multinationals have decent market for their goods."
On December 7, 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, through the U.S. Embassy in India, announced that the State Department has authorized the U.S embassy to allow the admission of a limitless number of foreign workers into the U.S. to take jobs that millions of unemployed Americans could and would do.
The practical implications of the State Department’s conduct is that every U.S employer can now hire as many foreign workers as they desire to replace all American workers. Then, the U.S. taxpayer must pay more taxes to care for the unemployed and their children.
So even jobs that require face to face work are not safe from "outsourcing" because of "importing".
Of course, this is no more the fault of the imported foreign nationals than it is the fault of the workers employed in sweatshops overseas. The corporations treat them horrendously. While displacing American workers, the goal is to reduce the salary level to a point where they can get qualified professional American workers at the same cheap price. Just one more government policy that result in We the People suffering in order that corporate profits soar.
Immigration attorneys teach corporations how to avoid hiring qualified Americans.
The National Defense Authorization Act that President Obama signed into law last week has created quite a stir. People are angry over the content of the law, which supposedly allows the indefinite detention of American.
1. Ron Paul does not value equal rights for minorities. Ron Paul has sponsored legislation that would repeal affirmative action, keep the IRS from investigating private schools who may have used race as a factor in denying entrance, thus losing their tax exempt status, would limit the scope of Brown versus Board of Education, and would deny citizenship for those born in the US if their parents are not citizens. Here are links to these bills: H.R.3863, H.R.5909, H.J.RES.46, and H.J.RES.42.
2. Ron Paul would deny women control of their bodies and reproductive rights.Ron Paul makes it very clear that one of his aims is to repeal Roe v. Wade. He has also co sponsored 4 separate bills to “To provide that human life shall be deemed to exist from conception.” This, of course, goes against current medical and scientific information as well as our existing laws and precedents. Please see these links: H.R.2597 and H.R.392
3. Ron Paul would be disastrous for the working class. He supports abolishing the Federal minimum wage, has twice introduced legislation to repeal OSHA, or the Occupational Safety and Health Act and would deal devastating blows to Social Security including repealing the act that makes it mandatory for employees of nonprofits, to make “coverage completely optional for both present and future workers”, and would “freeze benefit levels”. He has also twice sponsored legislation seeking to repeal the Davis-Bacon Act and the Copeland Act which among other things provide that contractors for the federal government must provide the prevailing wage and prohibits corporate “kick backs.” Here are the related legislative links: H.R.2030, H.R.4604, H.R.736, and H.R.2720
4. Ron Paul’s tax plan is unfair to lower earners and would greatly benefit those with the highest incomes.He has repeatedly submitted amendments to the tax code that would get rid of the estate and gift taxes, tax all earners at 10%, disallow income tax credits to individuals who are not corporations, repeal the elderly tax credit, child care credit, earned income credit, and other common credits for working class citizens. Please see this link for more information: H.R.05484 Summary
5. Ron Paul’s policies would cause irreparable damage to our already strained environment. Among other travesties he supports off shore drilling, building more oil refineries, mining on federal lands, no taxes on the production of fuel, and would stop conservation efforts that could be a “Federal obstacle” to building and maintaining refineries. He has also sought to amend the Clean Air Act, repeal the Soil and Water Conservation Act of 1977, and to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to “restrict the jurisdiction of the United States over the discharge of dredged or fill material to discharges into waters”. To see for yourself the possible extent of the damage to the environment that would happen under a Paul administration please follow these links: H.R.2504, H.R.7079, H.R.7245, H.R.2415, H.R.393, H.R.4639, H.R.5293, and H.R.6936
6. A Ron Paul administration would continue to proliferate the negative image of the US among other nations. Ron Paul supports withdrawing the US from the UN, when that has not happened he has fought to at least have the US withdrawn from the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. He has introduced legislation to keep the US from giving any funds to the UN. He also submitted that the US funds should not be used in any UN peacekeeping mission or any UN program at all. He has sponsored a bill calling for us to “terminate all participation by the United States in the United Nations, and to remove all privileges, exemptions, and immunities of the United Nations.”Ron Paul twice supported stopping the destruction of intercontinental ballistic missile silos in the United States. He also would continue with Bush’s plan of ignoring international laws by maintaining an insistence that the International Criminal Court does not apply to the US, despite President Clinton’s signature on the original treaty. The International Criminal Court is used for, among other things, prosecution of war crimes. Please see the following links: H.R.3891, H.AMDT.191, H.AMDT.190, H.R.3769, H.R.1665, H.CON.RES.23, and H.R.1154
7. Ron Paul discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and would not provide equal rights and protections to glbt citizens. This is an issue that Paul sort of dances around. He has been praised for stating that the federal government should not regulate who a person marries. This has been construed by some to mean that he is somewhat open to the idea of same sex marriage, he is not. Paul was an original co sponsor of the Marriage Protection Act in the House in 2004. Among other things this discriminatory piece of legislation placed a prohibition on the recognition of a same sex marriage across state borders. He said in 2004 that if he was in the Texas legislature he would not allow judges to come up with “new definitions” of marriage. Paul is a very religious conservative and though he is careful with his words his record shows that he is not a supporter of same sex marriage. In 1980 he introduced a particularly bigoted bill entitled “A bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955 A direct quote from the legislation “Prohibits the expenditure of Federal funds to any organization which presents male or female homosexuality as an acceptable alternative life style or which suggest that it can be an acceptable life style.” shows that he is unequivocally opposed to lifestyles other than heterosexual.
8. Ron Paul has an unnatural obsession with guns. One of Paul’s loudest gripes is that the second amendment of the constitution is being eroded. In fact, he believes that September 11 would not have happened if that wasn’t true. He advocates for there to be no restrictions on personal ownership of semi-automatic weaponry or large capacity ammunition feeding devices, would repeal the Gun-Free School Zones Act (because we all know our schools are just missing more guns), wants guns to be allowed in our National Parks, and repeal the Gun Control Act of 1968. Now, I’m pretty damn certain that when the Constitution was written our founding fathers never intended for people to be walking around the streets with AK47′s and “large capacity ammunition feeding devices.” (That just sounds scary.) Throughout the years our Constitution has been amended and is indeed a living document needing changes to stay relevant in our society. Paul has no problem changing the Constitution when it fits his needs, such as no longer allowing those born in the US to be citizens if their parents are not. On the gun issue though he is no holds barred. I know he’s from Texas but really, common sense tells us that the amendments he is seeking to repeal have their place. In fact, the gun control act was put into place after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert Kennedy. Please view the following links: H.R.2424, H.R.1897, H.R.1096, H.R.407, H.R.1147, and http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d098:h.r.3892:.
9. Ron Paul would butcher our already sad educational system. The fact is that Ron Paul wants to privatize everything and that includes education. Where we run into problems is that it has been shown (think our current health care system) that this doesn’t work so well in practice. Ron Paul has introduced legislation that would keep the Federal Government “from planning, developing, implementing, or administering any national teacher test or method of certification and from withholding funds from States or local educational agencies that fail to adopt a specific method of teacher certification.” In a separate piece of legislation he seeks to “prohibit the payment of Federal Education assistance in States which require the licensing or certification of private schools or private school teachers.” So basically the federal government can’t regulate teaching credentials and if states opt to require them for private schools they get no aid. That sounds like a marvelous idea teachers with no certification teaching in private schools that are allowed to discriminate on the basis of race. He is certainly moving forward with these proposals!Remember his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955? Guess what? He basically advocates for segregation in schools once again. It “Forbids any court of the United States from requiring the attendance at a particular school of any student because of race, color, creed, or sex.” Without thinking about this statement it doesn’t sound bad at all. But remember, when desegregating schools that this is done by having children go to different schools, often after a court decision as in Brown Vs. Board of Education. If this were a bill that passed, schools would no longer be compelled to comply and the schools would go back to segregation based on their locations. Ron Paul is really starting to look like a pretty bigoted guy don’t you think?
10. Ron Paul is opposed to the separation of church and state. This reason is probably behind every other thing that I disagree with in regards to Paul’s positions. Ron Paul is among those who believes that there is a war on religion, he stated “Through perverse court decisions and years of cultural indoctrination, the elitist, secular Left has managed to convince many in our nation that religion must be driven from public view.” (( Koyaanisqatsi Blog: Wrong Paul Why I Do Not Want Ron Paul to be My President )) Though he talks a good talk, at times, Ron Paul can’t get away from his far right, conservative views. He would support “alternative views” to evolution taught in public schools (i.e. Intelligent Design.) We’ve already taken a look at his “bill to strengthen the American family and promote the virtues of family life.” or H.R.7955Besides hating the gays he takes a very religious stance on many other things. He is attempting to force his beliefs on the rest of America, exactly what he would do as president.
