The "Biggest Lie" of ObamaCare

Remember when Barack Obama pledged to cut health insurance premiums for middle class families by $2,500 by the end of his first term?  He hopes you don't, because premiums have increased by more than $3,000 during his presidency.

The Price of Bleeding Heart Liberal Guilt

You're Kidding!

James Carville in a Moment of Unguarded Honesty

Fed Gets Audited and it's Not a Pretty Picture

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) wins (again) the most significant victory of his congressional career. He has taken his pet issue since the 1970s–the unwarranted power and secrecy of the Federal Reserve –- from something pretty much no one but him cared about six years ago, through a bestselling book and mass movement by 2009, the second time he’s gotten the House of Representatives to vote to widen the government’s powers to audit the Fed’s activities. 

 

Huffington Post with details about the vote , and on Paul’s Democratic ally equally upset with the Fed’s lack of transparency, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio):

 

In a rare moment of bipartisanship, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) to audit the Federal Reserve.

 

The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out.

 

Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve’s nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander’s webpage earlier this morning.

 

What was revealed in the audit was startling:

 

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. 

 

From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world’s banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest. Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious – the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

 

To place $16 trillion into perspective, remember that the GDP of the United States is only $14.12 trillion. The entire national debt of the United States government spanning its 200+ year history is “only” $14.5 trillion. The budget that is being debated so heavily in Congress and the Senate is “only” $3.5 trillion. Take all of the outrage and debate over the $1.5 trillion deficit into consideration, and swallow this Red pill: There was no debate about whether $16,000,000,000,000 would be given to failing banks and failing corporations around the world.

 

In late 2008, the TARP Bailout bill was passed and loans of $800 billion were given to failing banks and companies. That was a blatant lie considering the fact that Goldman Sachs alone received 814 billion dollars. As is turns out, the Federal Reserve donated $2.5 trillion to Citigroup, while Morgan Stanley received $2.04 trillion. The Royal Bank of Scotland and Deutsche Bank, a German bank, split about a trillion and numerous other banks received hefty chunks of the $16 trillion.

 

“This is a clear case of socialism for the rich and rugged, you’re-on-your-own individualism for everyone else.”- Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

 

When you have conservative Republican stalwarts like Jim DeMint(R-SC) and Ron Paul(R-TX) as well as self identified Democratic socialists like Bernie Sanders all fighting against the Federal Reserve, you know that it is no longer an issue of Right versus Left. When you have every single member of the Republican Party in Congress and progressive Congressmen like Dennis Kucinich sponsoring a bill to audit the Federal Reserve, you realize that the Federal Reserve is an entity onto itself, which has no oversight and no accountability.

 

Americans should be swelled with anger and outrage at the abysmal state of affairs when an unelected group of bankers can create money out of thin air and give it out to megabanks and supercorporations like Halloween candy. If the Federal Reserve and the bankers who control it believe that they can continue to devalue the savings of Americans and continue to destroy the US economy, they will have to face the realization that their trillion dollar printing presses will eventually plunder the world economy.

 

The list of institutions that received the most money from the Federal Reserve can be found on page 131 of the GAO Audit and are as follows:

 

Citigroup: $2.5 trillion ($2,500,000,000,000) 

Morgan Stanley: $2.04 trillion ($2,040,000,000,000) 

Merrill Lynch: $1.949 trillion ($1,949,000,000,000) 

Bank of America: $1.344 trillion ($1,344,000,000,000) 

Barclays PLC (United Kingdom): $868 billion ($868,000,000,000) 

Bear Sterns: $853 billion ($853,000,000,000) 

Goldman Sachs: $814 billion ($814,000,000,000) 

Royal Bank of Scotland (UK): $541 billion ($541,000,000,000) 

JP Morgan Chase: $391 billion ($391,000,000,000) 

Deutsche Bank (Germany): $354 billion ($354,000,000,000) 

UBS (Switzerland): $287 billion ($287,000,000,000) 

Credit Suisse (Switzerland): $262 billion ($262,000,000,000) 

Lehman Brothers: $183 billion ($183,000,000,000) 

Bank of Scotland (United Kingdom): $181 billion ($181,000,000,000) 

BNP Paribas (France): $175 billion ($175,000,000,000) 

And many many more including banks in Belgium of all places

 

View the 266-page GAO audit of the Federal Reserve (July 21st, 2011):

 

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke participated in a live webcast of a town hall meeting with educators on Thursday, September 30, 2010 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. EDT. During this session, Chairman Bernanke answered teachers’ questions about the Federal Reserve and the economy.

 

Please Feel Free To Share This Link: /economy/2012/09/first-audit-in-the-federal-reserves-nearly-100-year-history-were-posted-today-the-results-are-startling-2449770.HTML

 

Worth Repeating

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of theAthenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:   

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. 

From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."

America is somewhere between complacency and apathy.

How long do we have?

It's anybody's guess, but if the voters re-elect Barack Obama we will be careening toward dependence and bondage will be just around the corner.

911 AND 1979

Written by Jack Kelly

Thursday, 13 September 2012

Observances here of the 11th anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were muted, but Islamists remembered. *In Libya, Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed when a mob stormed the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.  According to CBS News, Libyan nationals hired to protect the consulate moved Ambassador Stevens to another building within the compound, then told the mob where he was.  After murdering him, the mob dragged the ambassador's body through the streets. *In Cairo, a mob attacked the U.S. embassy.  Dozens scaled the walls of the compound, took down the American flag, and raised the black flag of al Qaida.    The mobs ostensibly were protesting a video posted on YouTube:  "The trailer opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Egyptian Christians," the New York Times reported.  "Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womanizer, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug." Before the attacks, the embassy in Cairo issued this statement: "The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims... We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others." That was like telling a rape victim "you asked for it," said Sen. John Kyl, R-Ariz.   "It's disgraceful that the Obama Administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks," said GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The embassy statement wasn't cleared by Washington, administration officials said after Mr. Romney's criticism.  "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others," President Barack Obama said in his statement Wednesday on the murder of Ambassador Stevens.  He said not a word in defense of free speech, or about the attack on the embassy in Cairo. I'm sorry Muslim feelings were hurt by a video with which the U.S. government had nothing to do.  But the president has no duty to protect foreigners from hurt feelings, which are never under any circumstances a justification for murder.   He does have a duty to protect free speech, and to safeguard U.S. diplomatic personnel.  But after what in years past has been considered an act of war, the foremost response of this president was to apologize for an offense the United States did not commit. The video was merely a pretext for the assault on the consulate in Libya, according to a British think tank.  The mob in Cairo chanted: "Obama, Obama, we are all Osama."  Mr. Obama's apology tour, and his "leading from behind" in the Middle East were supposed to make the Islamists more mellow, but they've become more militant. "It's starting to feel like 1979," said Reagan biographer Steven Hayward, referring to the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Iran which, along with a weak economy, did in the presidency of Jimmy Carter.  Mr. Carter believed Ayatollah Khomeini was a moderate reformer, and helped him push the flawed, but pro-American Shah of Iran off the Peacock Throne.  President Obama's courtship of the Muslim Brotherhood, and his rapid abandonment of the flawed, but pro-American Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak is eerily similar. The president's craven response to Tuesday's attacks will encourage more violence against Americans, said the military historian Victor Davis Hanson.   "The Libyan murderers are now empowered, and, like the infamous Iranian hostage-takers, feel their government either supports them or can't stop them. The crowd in Egypt knew what it was doing when it chanted Obama's name juxtaposed to Osama's." A mob attacked our embassy in Yemen Thursday. Perceived weakness invites aggression.  In his efforts to be loved by Arabs, Mr. Obama has criticized his country and responded tepidly to assaults against it.  In the conduct of foreign policy, it's more important for a president to be feared.  But the only people in the world today who fear Barack Obama are fellow Americans.

THE NARRATIVE OF THE LEFT

Written by Dr. Joel Wade

Friday, 07 September 2012

For the left, facts don't matter, reality as we think of it doesn't matter; actual, tangible, measureable effects don't matter. What matters is The Narrative. This reflects a post-modern philosophy that holds that reality is formed by stories, and so reality can be changed according to the stories that are told. They have a story of humanity, and that story is truth for them. You are seeing this on display this week at the DNC. In that Narrative of the Left: ·         Government taking from the wealthy to give to the less wealthy is compassion; those who oppose it are therefore not compassionate. ·         Racism is ingrained in our country's psyche, and there are lots of subtle, even secret ways that it is expressed. In order to counter this, government has to take from the wealthy to give to minorities; those who oppose this are racists. ·         Wealth is a matter of luck, the "lottery of life." Those who are wealthy therefore owe it to others to share their good fortune with those less lucky; those who show any reluctance to do this are selfish and greedy. ·         Fossil fuels cause catastrophic environmental damage; they are a vice to which one can become addicted. The use of fossil fuels is a measure of gluttony and indulgence, and shows a lack of caring and concern for the Earth. Those who oppose limiting the use of fossil fuels are ignorant and selfish. ·         Women are oppressed by a patriarchy, and the primary example of this oppression today is the stated belief that abortion is equivalent to killing an unborn child.  Those who oppose abortion in any form or at any stage are engaging in a war on women. ·         Any use of America's military is by definition imperialism, which is a word that sounds really awful, and must mean something bad. America uses her military primarily to oppress weaker countries, pushing them around like a bully on a playground. This is especially bad when we support Israel, which is bad because Israel is wealthy and successful, and so must have achieved this through oppressing the surrounding Arab countries, which are not as wealthy because of Israel. Those who don't see it this way are imperialistic war mongers who want to kill and oppress people who don't look like them. ·         Government jobs are not about making money, and so they are by definition morally superior to private sector jobs, which are all about greed and selfishness. Therefore, the more those government workers are paid, the more we are supporting virtue. Those who oppose increasing government work, pay and benefits are not virtuous. ·         Freedom cannot mean the absence or limitation of government force, because that is nothing, and leaves people to their own devices. It is a primitive definition of freedom. Freedom means that government force is used to "bring out the best in every human being." This is an enlightened view of freedom, and those who do not agree are unenlightened, ignorant, and stupid. These are just some of the stories that the left is absorbed in. They form the narrative with which they make sense of the world, and they are deeply committed to this. We all have stories that we believe that hold deep meaning to us. If somebody were to come along and threaten the validity of our deeply held stories, we would not like it. If somebody were to tell me that Thomas Jefferson was an evil man, and that the Declaration of Independence was written only to further slavery, I would think they were foolish at best. I would not change my understanding of Jefferson's brilliance and extremely positive impact upon the world. This is a story that I know well, and hold dear. Those on the left are no different. They hold their stories dear, too. The trouble is, their stories do not guide them to real solutions to the problems we face today. They want to believe that the kind of massive government programs that they think worked for FDR's New Deal will work again now. They believe these stories viscerally and emotionally, and this sets them up for a severe case of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to see what you want to see, rather than what is actually there, in a way that confirms your wishes or pre-existing beliefs. We all do this to some degree. In its milder forms, it creates a comfortable sense of continuity; it can be a healthy quality in relationships, where you tend to see the best in your mate, your kids, and your friends, creating a benevolent cycle with them - they feel seen for the best within them, and as a consequence, they tend to think of themselves more in those terms and to act more from the best within them. But confirmation bias is also what allows us to live in denial, and to perpetuate harmful beliefs which can do grave harm. We are all susceptible to this. There are very likely some things that you and I believe that if we were to really face the facts would not hold up. The key is to strive to integrate what's true with your experience, over time. But this is hard, sometimes disappointing work. Not everybody is interested in doing it. I don't see many people on the left willing to engage in it. I think what we're seeing with the absurd, almost delusional opining about racial "codewords" by the likes of Chris Matthews and Lawrence O'Donnell, is a case of confirmation bias run amok. They know that their narrative is true. It has to be true; and they are willing to say or do just about anything to affirm that it is true. These are pundits, they are paid to be outrageous and controversial; but when enough people parrot such inanities, it becomes a cultural habit. The cultural habit of the left has become a study in confirmation bias. The arguments of the Obama supporters cannot stand on the facts of our economy at this point, so they imagine how bad it would have been otherwise, and they compare our present economy, with all the jobs "saved," to their fantasy of how they think it would have been without the stimulus, Obamacare, or Dodd-Frank. Bill Clinton, the master storyteller of the Democrat Party, in his DNC speech Wednesday (9/05), he wove a tale of Democrat wisdom and respect for truth, even claiming that he, unlike the Republicans, actually use math. But this is a story. The data do not match the story line, but Clinton is an exceptional weaver of tall tales; and for the crowd in the convention hall, the story is what matters. Fortunately for us, America loves a story of redemption. While there is really no hope for Obama to change and grow in office to become a more effective and successful president, there is hope for the American citizenry to learn and grow from our experience of his failed presidency. If we can do this, we can choose wisely this November, and begin to ground America's story once again in the gritty and practical reality that individual liberty is the greatest true hope for mankind, and that self-ownership and free markets is what brings prosperity and opportunity. Yes, this is my bias. Free America's remarkable history is my confirmation.

President Teleprompter

He's never looked better...

Programs Republican House Has Proposed Cutting

* Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy -- $445 million annual savings.
* Save America 's Treasures Program -- $25 million annual savings.
* International Fund for Ireland -- $17 million annual savings.
* Legal Services Corporation -- $420 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Arts -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* National Endowment for the Humanities -- $167.5 million annual savings.
* Hope VI Program -- $250 million annual savings.
* Amtrak Subsidies -- $1.565 billion annual savings.
* Eliminate duplicating education programs -- H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored byRep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
* U.S. Trade Development Agency -- $55 million annual savings.
* Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy -- $20 million annual savings.
* Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding -- $47 million annual savings.
* John C. Stennis Center Subsidy -- $430,000 annual savings.
* Community Development Fund -- $4.5 billion annual savings.
* Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid -- $24 million annual savings.
* Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half -- $7.5 billion annual savings
* Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20% -- $600 million annual savings.
* Essential Air Service -- $150 million annual savings.
* Technology Innovation Program -- $70 million annual savings.
* Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program -- $125 million annual savings.
* Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization -- $530 million annual savings.
* Beach Replenishment -- $95 million annual savings.
* New Starts Transit -- $2 billion annual savings.
* Exchange Programs for Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts -- $9 million annual savings
* Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants -- $2.5 billion annual savings.
* Title X Family Planning -- $318 million annual savings.
* Appalachian Regional Commission -- $76 million annual savings.
* Economic Development Administration -- $293 million annual savings.
* Programs under the National and Community Services Act -- $1.15 billion annual savings.
* Applied Research at Department of Energy -- $1.27 billion annual savings.
* Freedom CAR and Fuel Partnership -- $200 million annual savings.
* Energy Star Program -- $52 million annual savings.
* Economic Assistance to Egypt -- $250 million annually.
* U.S. Agency for International Development -- $1.39 billion annual savings.
* General Assistance to District of Columbia -- $210 million annual savings.
* Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority -- $150 million annual savings.
* Presidential Campaign Fund -- $775 million savings over ten years.
* No funding for federal office space acquisition -- $864 million annual savings.
* End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
* Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act -- More than $1 billion annually.
* IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget -- $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
* Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees -- $1 billion total savings.
* Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees -- $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
* Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of -- $15 billion total savings.
* Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
* Eliminate Mohair Subsidies -- $1 million annual savings.
* Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- $12.5 million annual savings
* Eliminate Market Access Program -- $200 million annual savings.
* USDA Sugar Program -- $14 million annual savings.
* Subsidy to Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- $93 million annual savings.
* Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program -- $56.2 million annual savings.
* Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs -- $900 million savings.
* Ready to Learn TV Program -- $27 million savings..
* HUD Ph.D. Program.
* Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
* TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years 

My question is, what is all this crap doing in the budget in the first place?

Can He Really Be That Narcissistic?

YES, He Can...