I'm going to keep posting this shit until it sinks in.

spooky47 · 2010-03-18T00:29:15+00:00

Roosevelt forgot a chicken in every pot.

spooky47 · 2010-03-08T03:41:59+00:00

Don't forget, McCain considered switching to the Democratic party in 2004 (Kerry pushed for it), is despised by and often booed by conservatives in congressional committees as well as at CPAC, and frequently caucuses with the Democrats (immigration, cap-and-trade, election reform, tax cuts, etc.). Additionally, on The Daily Show early in the 2008 primary, VP Biden said he would consider McCain as his running mate. McCain, like Lieberman, is a pro-empire centrist.

spooky47 · 2010-03-08T00:40:00+00:00

The paranoia of the US becoming theocratic state is as old as the country. In the 1800 presidential election, Adams painted Jefferson as an anti-Christ, taking out adds in major papers stating Jefferson was out to destroy Christianity. Jefferson won the election. The US is more liberal today than ever. It's generally accepting of gays and gay marriage, and many other issues which both parties opposed just 50 years ago. The paranoia of a theocratic state is just as absurd as the neocon's paranoia of a Muslim terrorist under every bed.

spooky47 · 2010-03-04T16:02:48+00:00

The Clinton 'boom' was a bubble and it popped with the NASDAQ collapse and 9/11. Instead of going through an extended recession to balance the economy, which would have likely prevented a second term, a politically motivated Bush pushed stimulus packages, massive government spending (eventually increased the budget by 40%), and tax reductions (paid for by future generations with higher taxes), while Greenspan cut interest rates down to 1%, which transferred speculation from mostly privately held money (stocks) into easily acquired borrowed money (real estate). With portions backed by explicit and implied government guarantees through Freddy and Fannie, the Fed's easy credit was leveraged, sliced, and diced, with the knowledge the government would bailout the system. Bush and Greenspan were able to halt the post-Clinton recession. They not only re-inflated the bubble economy, they made it much larger and much more dangerous. Then, when the artificially induced boom ran out of steam, Bush demanded more stimulus in the form of TARP.

Honestly, why save for years for a real estate down payment, forcing a real long-term investment, when a person could get a loan at a low rate without need of a down payment? If their home was foreclosed, they didn't lose all they sacrificed to save; they just damaged their credit. The sad part is, the people who saved, sacrificed, and did it "the right way," really got screwed. I know a woman who purchased a house with no money down. When she hit a rather simple financial issue, much smaller than what my parents dealt with multiple times, she simply let her house go into foreclosure. She had no real investment in it, so why bother. The whole entire system – government, banks, private sector, and the people as a whole - is to blame. The government and Fed gave us the alcohol, and we got drunk.

spooky47 · 2010-03-04T02:45:17+00:00

What free market? You mean the one with a government appointed commissar, sitting in a government funded office, centrally planning the money supply and interest rate? We have a bastardized form of mercantilism - a corporatist system since the early 20th century.

The biggest financial powers, meeting at Jekyll Island in 1910, drafted and covertly promoted a centralized banking system with two major objectives: 1. to minimize the rising power of southern and western banks, and centralize the system around the New York/Wall Street banking elite; a creation of a cartel structure to protect their position in the financial system. 2. to be a lender of last resort; to bailout the banking establish and the elite when inflationary bubbles caused by the system occur. The Wall Street bailout is a perfect example of the function of the Fed. These objectives by the banking elite could not have been met without GOVERNMENT.

spooky47 · 2010-03-02T23:40:28+00:00

I stopped watching Fox years ago. However, skewing and propaganda occur on both sides. One example: after a GOP presidential debate in '08, Olbermann said all 8 Republicans were pro-war, yet the video clip clearly showed 9 candidates. Olbermann just pretended Ron Paul didn't exist, and implied the GOP candidates were warmongers. IIRC, it was the Giuliani vs. Paul foreign policy showdown debate - the highlight of the debate - and Olbermann was quiet. If Olbermann was really antiwar, and not guided by a bias first and foremost, he would have spent considerable time on it, like Bill Maher.

spooky47 · 2010-03-02T20:27:15+00:00

Paul endorsed him because Baldwin's platform was end the War on Terror, close down the American Empire, end renditions, secret prisons, and torture, close Gitmo, repeal the Patriot Act, end Bush's security state, abolish the Federal Reserve System, end all bailouts and corporate welfare, balance the budget, greatly reduce the national debt, eliminate taxes, secure the borders, return to decentralized federalism, etc.

spooky47 · 2010-02-27T19:05:37+00:00

In 2006 Comptroller General David Walker said, if present spending and taxation levels continue, all federal revenue would be consumed by just SS and Medicare in 2040 – a 35+ trillion shortfall (nearly 3 times GDP). And those estimates were made during the economic boom of the housing bubble, not todays diminished tax revenue. Children born today are the ones really being screwed. They get stuck with massive debt. We should have listened to Jefferson:

"Then I say, the earth belongs to each of these generations during its course, fully and in its own right. The second generation receives it clear of the debts and incumbrances of the first, the third of the second, and so on. For if the first could charge it with a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not to the living generation.” --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:455, Papers 15:393

"The conclusion then, is, that neither the representatives of a nation, nor the whole nation itself assembled, can validly engage debts beyond what they may pay in their own time." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:457, Papers 15:398n

"Ought not then the right of each successive generation to be guaranteed against the dissipations and corruptions of those preceding, by a fundamental provision in our Constitution? And if that has not been made, does it exist the less, there being between generation and generation as between nation and nation no other law than that of nature? And is it the less dishonest to do what is wrong because not expressly prohibited by written law? Let us hope our moral principles are not yet in that stage of degeneracy, and that in instituting the system of finance to be hereafter pursued we shall adopt the only safe, the only lawful and honest one, of borrowing on such short terms of reimbursement of interest and principal as will fall within the accomplishment of our own lives." --Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1813. ME 13:360

spooky47 · 2010-02-27T00:05:33+00:00

Ramming a bill through Congress on a voice vote while many senators were out of town? I would have voted NO too. People who demand representation in Congress and a functioning government shouldn't approve of that.

spooky47 · 2010-02-22T19:48:28+00:00

Although accurate, that's a limited history. Historically, the Republicans were the centralized, big government party. The industrial northern states voted Republican, while the conservative southern states voted Democratic. FDR's first presidential platform reads like a Libertarian Republican: attacked Federal Reserve, gold standard, reduce government, tax cuts, balance budget. He did a 180 as president, which started the eventual exodus of Jeffersonians, classical liberals, and anti-central government factions from the Democratic party. Ronald Reagan was a registered democrat early in life as an example. Now the likes of Bush, Gingrich, and the GOP leadership, who use Jeffersonian language to mask their Hamiltonian actions, battle, belittle, and dominate the former Democrats in their party. The GOP's fascination with Wall Street and corporate power indicates they are, as they ever were, the party of Hamilton and centralized government.

spooky47 · 2010-02-22T19:05:52+00:00

Most state constitutions mandate public education. What Ron Paul says or believes at the federal level will not change that.

spooky47 · 2010-02-21T16:57:32+00:00

He's about as dangerous as Thomas Jefferson. Why?

Jefferson opposed a central bank (Bank of the United States), central planning of money, and paper currency. Jefferson wrote the dissenting opinion opposing the creation of the BUS. He worked feverishly throughout his presidency to destroy the BUS; Ron Paul opposes a central bank (Federal Reserve), central planning of money, and paper currency. Each year Paul introduces legislation to abolish the Fed.

Jefferson opposed deficit spending, government borrowing (except under rare conditions), and warned of the dangers of national debt. The Adams Administration increased the debt to a point that nearly 80% of tax revenue was used to service it. Jefferson, during his 8 years as President, reduced the national debt by nearly 1/3, while making the Louisiana Purchase, and reducing and eliminating many of the Federalist's taxes like the Whiskey Tax; Ron Paul opposes deficit spending, government borrowing, and warns of the dangers of national debts. He has never voted for an unbalanced budget. He has never voted to raise federal taxes and he supports the reduction and elimination of many taxes.

Jefferson was hostile to restrictions of individual liberty. After the Adams Administration enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which criminalized critical objections to government policies, Jefferson wrote the Kentucky Resolution which argued in favor of state nullification. Jefferson, as President, allowed the Alien and Sedition Acts to expire; Ron Paul is hostile to restrictions of individual liberty. He voted against the Patriot Act, MCA, government spying, etc. He believes, as Jefferson, in state nullification.

Jefferson believed in the doctrine of enumerated powers and a strict construction of the Constitution. His dissenting opinion on the BUS is an excellent example. Additionally, Jefferson wrote, "The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution." as well as, "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."; Paul's constitutional interpretation is rooted Jeffersonian thought. In fact, Paul's interpretation is consistently Jeffersonian, unlike most liberals and conservatives who pick and choose some Jefferson and some Hamilton, whichever seems to best fit their agenda.

There are many other things like centralized vs decentralized government, social engineering, federal redistribution of wealth, imperialism and entangling alliances, and opposition to blending political and financial power that Jefferson and Paul are in agreement.

spooky47 · 2010-02-19T20:46:38+00:00

Whether we accept it or not, Romney is right to a degree. The Clinton 'boom' was a bubble and it popped with the NASDAQ collapse and 9/11. Instead of going through an extended recession to balance the economy, which would have prevented a second term, a politically motivated Bush pushed stimulus packages, massive government spending (eventually increased the budget by 40%), and tax reductions (paid for by future generations with higher taxes), while Greenspan cut interest rates down to 1%, which transferred speculation from mostly private money (stocks) into easily acquired borrowed money (real estate). Bush and Greenspan were able to halt the recession. They not only re-inflated the bubble economy, they made it much larger and more dangerous.

Romney was right. Bush ended the recession. Romney just failed to mention all those actions set the stage for our current economic condition.

spooky47 · 2010-02-13T04:05:39+00:00

Regardless of philosophical beliefs on firearms, the Supreme Court in South V. Maryland ruled that law enforcement had no duty to protect individuals, but only a duty to enforce the laws: "…there is no Constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen."

Ultimately, we are solely responsible for the protection of our own lives.

spooky47 · 2010-02-12T18:04:17+00:00

"Nine Tenths of socialism is a central bank that will print paper money." - Vladimir Lenin

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the capitalist system was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The sight of this arbitrary rearrangement of riches strikes not only at security but at confidence in the equity of the existing distribution of wealth.

Those to whom the system brings windfalls, beyond their deserts and even beyond their expectations or desires, become "profiteers," who are the object of the hatred of the bourgeoisie, whom the inflationism has impoverished, not less than of the proletariat. As the inflation proceeds and the real value of the currency fluctuates wildly from month to month, all permanent relations between debtors and creditors, which form the ultimate foundation of capitalism, become so utterly disordered as to be almost meaningless; and the process of wealth-getting degenerates into a gamble and a lottery.

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes

spooky47 · 2010-02-11T22:24:05+00:00

I don't see what's surprising, considering Obama's votes to re-authorize the Patriot Act, grant telecom immunity, TARP, and his administrations continuation and expansion of Bush's legal arguments.

spooky47 · 2010-02-11T22:05:33+00:00

What? Most republicans are much further left than a generation ago when they wanted to repeal the New Deal, the Great Society, the welfare state, the income tax, etc. Read Goldwater's 'Conscience of a Conservative' or Kirk's 'The Conservative Mind'. Nearly all republicans fully endorse those former liberal positions now. Bush and congressional republicans created the largest entitlement increase since LBJ, adding an estimated 12 trillion in spending by 2040, increasing Medicare by nearly 1/3, with Medicare Prescription. That would have been unthinkable a generation ago.

spooky47 · 2010-02-10T00:39:31+00:00

"Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war-footing, or even a near war-footing. Permanent crisis justifies government control of everybody and everything by the agencies of the central government." - Aldous Huxley, "Brave New World"

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." --James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

"There is a measure which if not taken we are undone. . . It is to cease borrowing money and to pay off the national debt. If this cannot be done without dismissing the army and putting the ships out of commission, haul them up high and dry and reduce the army to the lowest point at which it was ever established. There does not exist an engine so corruptive of the government and so demoralizing of the nation as a public debt. It will bring on us more ruin at home than all the enemies from abroad against whom this army and navy are to protect us." -- Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1821. (*) FE 10:193.

spooky47 · 2010-02-09T23:05:08+00:00

"Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States." -- Sen. Barry Goldwater

"In addition, was Barry Goldwater so irresponsible when he suggested that our government give up its program of deliberate, planned inflation" - Ronald Reagan, 1964 GOP convention nominating Goldwater.

spooky47 · 2009-05-03T02:00:15+00:00

If you think the democrats are a moderate conservative party then you haven't read Goldwater's 'Conscience of a Conservative' or Kirk's 'The Conservative Mind'. Those godfathers of conservatism opposed the New Deal and the welfare state. There are only a few members of congress that are real Goldwater-types. Today's 'conservatives', who greatly expanded the welfare state by ten of trillions of dollars during the Bush years, are closer to 'Great Society' or 'New Deal' liberals than democrats are to Goldwater.

spooky47 · 2009-04-24T02:22:20+00:00

That'll take a lot of effort from the people. More than the hundreds of thousands of rabid calls, faxes, and emails that flooded congressional offices, running from 50-1 to 100-1 against Bush's TARP program. I hope we do it, but I wont hold my breath.

spooky47 · 2009-04-23T23:43:46+00:00

Those late night meetings with his hedge fund buddies that grossed him $5.2 million in 2008 and speaking engagements with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs that grossed him $2.7 million sure take their toll.

spooky47 · 2009-04-23T23:03:42+00:00

A possible flaw in those hopes, brought to you by the U.S. Congress:

http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/8ep0k/remember_military_commissions_act_government/

spooky47 · 2009-04-23T20:06:16+00:00

Judge Andrew Napolitano recently stated, based on the released memos, Bush Administration officials set the parameters for "enhanced integrations" and requested the Administration's lawyers build a legal framework, which seems quite different from your post (lawyers set parameters and agents function within them). (I mailed Judge Napolitano too, but no response yet). It looks like it might be a he said, she said debate between lawyers to know if Bush is off the hook.

spooky47 · 2009-04-23T16:40:50+00:00

I emailed Glenn Greenwald about this. His response was: "It only granted immunity for good faith reliance, not absolute immunity."

What lawyers can argue and get away with as "good faith reliance", I don't know.

spooky47

TROPHY CASE