Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead - Part Four

Now that everyone thinks I’ve lost my mind after yesterday’s rant, let’s get right down to business and begin to tie the threads together that will prove my point. Today we will examine the members of Congress that I believe are suspect.

There are some, like Senator Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Ted Kennedy, the Senator from Massachusetts until his death in 2009, that while extremely liberal, are/were not socialists. They are/were simply idiots. They were both born into wealth and typical of those that never had to earn money, saw the world as a game to be played. The government, corporations and even the people of this nation are simply pieces on a game board similar to the cosmic chess games that the Greek Gods were purported to have played with ancient man. The good Senators played these games partially for their amusement and partially to see if the exercises in theory they conducted during their Harvard educations held any water. Yes, they both attended Harvard …what a coincidence!

So who are the real socialists? A common thread that binds them together is the Congressional Progressive Caucus and that is a great place to start. Remember, Socialists found out a long time ago that the words like Socialism and Communism scared the living daylights out of Americans so they had to find a more temperate name for their ideology; that name was Progressivism. As Shakespeare said, “A rose by any other name smells as sweet”. As progressives, socialists could advance their agenda without the negativity that “socialism” inspired in the American people. Progressive sounded good; it sounded like progress and America loves progress. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is supported by a number of groups such as the ACLU, The Institute for Policy Studies and even some radical groups like MoveOn.org which is in turn, supported by the likes of infamous anti-Americans like George Soros.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus is an organization of Members of Congress founded in 1991 by newly-elected House Representative Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont), who is a self-described socialist. As of April 2007, the Congressional Progressive Caucus included Sanders (who became a U.S. Senator in 2006), Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and 69 members of the House of Representatives, all of them leftist Democrats and almost all in districts heavily gerrymandered to guarantee the re-election of any Democratic Party incumbent, no matter how extreme.

On November 11, 1999, the Congressional Progressive Caucus drafted its Position Paper on economic inequality. It reads, in part, as follows: "Economic inequality is the result of two and a half decades of government policies and rules governing the economy being tilted in favor of large asset owners at the expense of wage earners. Tax policy, trade policy, monetary policy, government regulations and other rules have reflected this pro-investor bias. We propose the introduction or reintroduction of a package of legislative initiatives that will close America's economic divide and address both income and wealth disparities. … The concentration of wealth is a problem because it distorts our democracy, destabilizes the economy and erodes our social and cultural fabric."In order "to bring new life to the progressive voice in U.S. politics," the Congressional Progressive Caucus has worked closely with Progressive Challenge, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies. Progressive Challenge is a coalition through which the activities and talking points of leftist groups are synchronized and harmonized with one another, producing coordinated, mutually-reinforcing propaganda from some 200 seemingly-unconnected groups.

In 2005 the Congressional Progressive Caucus crafted its "Progressive Promise" document, which advocates socialized medicine; radical environmentalism; the redistribution of wealth; higher taxes; the elimination of numerous provisions of the Patriot Act; dramatic reductions in the government's intelligence-gathering capabilities; debt relief for poor countries; and the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. These measures, says the Congressional Progressive Caucus, would help "re-build U.S. alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations."

Now here is the important part, until 1999 the Congressional Progressive Caucus worked in open partnership with Democratic Socialists of America. After the press reported on this link, the connections suddenly vanished from both organizations' websites.

Internet information supporting additional links have vanished as soon as they become public knowledge. For example Van Jones, President Obama’s former Green Jobs Czar, had made some damning admissions that after being jailed in conjunction with the Rodney King riots that his ideology shifted and he had realized he was in fact, a communist. This admission disappeared from web sources as soon as people began mailing the links to each other. The links between Carol Browner, President Obama’s current Climate Czar, and Socialist International have been expunged too. Big Brother is indeed watching but fortunately some of the right people found those links first and have made hard copies of the information.

So who belongs to the Congressional Progressive Caucus? It is an enormous list of 83 members of Congress, most of which will not surprise you, most of which rank between 90% and 100% on the socialist scorecard based on their voting records alone. They are:

House of Representatives:
Ed Pastor, Raúl Grijalva, Lynn Woolsey, George Miller, Barbara Lee, Pete Stark, Michael Honda, Sam Farr, Henry Waxman, Xavier Becerra, Judy Chu, Diane Watson, Lucille Roybal-Allard, Maxine Waters, Laura Richardson, Linda Sanchez, Bob Filner, Jared Polis, Rosa DeLauro, Corrine Brown, Alan Grayson, Robert Wexler, Alcee Hastings, Hank Johnson, John Lewis. Neil Abercrombie, Mazie Hirono, Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson, Jr, Luis Gutierrez, Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky, Phil Hare, André Carson, Dave Loebsack, Chellie Pingree, Donna Edwards, Elijah Cummings, John Olver, Jim McGovern, Barney Frank, John Tierney, Ed Markey, Mike Capuano, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, John Conyers, Keith Ellison, Bennie Thompson, William Lacy Clay, Jr., Emanuel Cleaver, Donald Payne, Frank Pallone (NJ-06) Ben R. Luján, Jerry Nadler, Yvette Clarke, Nydia Velazquez, Carolyn Maloney, Charles Rangel, Jose Serrano, John Hall, Maurice Hinchey, Louise Slaughter, Eric Massa, Mel Watt, Marcy Kaptur, Dennis Kucinich, Marcia Fudge, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Bob Brady, Chaka Fattah, Steve Cohen, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Jim Moran, Peter Welch, Jim McDermott, Tammy Baldwin, Gwen Moore, Donna M. Christensen, Eleanor Holmes Norton,

Senate:
Bernie Sanders

Soviet defectors have already established the links between the KGB and subversive infiltration of American labor movements, universities and socialist organizations within the United States; the previous work of Senator Joe McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee had established socialist and communist influences in film, press, government and the higher education establishments within our nation and now the internet has provided us with a link between the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Democratic Socialists of America, the principal affiliate of Socialists International in this country.

Democratic Socialists of America describes itself as "the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International," the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States. "We are socialists," reads the organization's boilerplate, "because we reject an international economic order sustained by private profit, alienated labor, race and gender discrimination, environmental destruction, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo." "To achieve a more just society," adds DSA, "many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed. ... Democracy and socialism go hand in hand. All over the world, wherever the idea of democracy has taken root, the vision of socialism has taken root as well—everywhere but in the United States."

Hmmm? wasn't it Barack Obama that said five days before the 2008 election that "we are five days away from fundimentally trasforming the United States"?

Wouldn’t you know it, two of the most noted members of the DSA are Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, former sociologists from Colombia University and authors of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. This is a strategy designed to wrought economic ruin on the United States in an attempt to collapse the government so that Socialism could finally claim America. In another quirky coincidence, Wade Rathke, the founder of ACORN and SEIU was a student of Cloward and Piven. In 1966, Rathke worked as an organizer for The National Welfare Rights Organization which was one of the groups formed to test out the Cloward-Piven Strategy. Through the work of this and other groups during the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, Cloward and Piven claimed responsibility for the financial collapse of New York City in the mid ‘70s boasting this was clear proof of their strategy’s success.

Monday we will delve into some of the people that are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the educational backgrounds, their voting records and more importantly, their rank on the Socialist scorecard.

Paul

Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead- Part Three

The clock is slowly ticking towards December 21, 2012; a date that for some has dark connotations associated with it. New Age believers say the eight-thousand year old Mayan calendar ends on that date and is supposed to bring a calamitous end to civilization. Followers of Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce and The Bible Code all say each of these saw a link between tragedy and the year 2012. Is it a cosmic alignment? Is it the hand of God? Or is it something a lot closer to earth and far more sinister?

We are on the cusp of passing several major spending bills in the United States Congress; bills that will outspend the ability of countless future generations of Americans to recover from their irresponsibility. Is it sheer coincidence that the major provisions in both the proposed healthcare and Climate bill (cap and trade) do not take effect until 2013? Will 2012 be the last year that America exists in the form that we know today?

There is an alignment all right but it is not planetary nor is it cosmic. It is an alignment of an overwhelmingly liberal Congress, a Supreme Court that has a recent history of liberal decisions and a President that has proposed not just a liberal, but an overtly socialist agenda that the other two branches of government are more than happy to support. This alignment took years to bring together and it has at its roots, the Soviet funded demoralization of the United States that began in the 1930’s and continues to this day. No, I am not some silly conspiracy theorist that sees ghosts in every shadow. I do see the testimony of Soviet defectors and the links that that they have made between Soviet money and the socialist indoctrination of the centers of American higher education; the same centers of higher education that our most liberal and progressive congressmen attended in their youth.

Yuri Alexandrovic Bezmenov defected from the Soviet Union and his post at Pravda in 1970, fleeing to Canada. As an author and lecturer, he toured the United States in the 1980’s speaking freely about the KGB’s primary mission of subversion and demoralization of which, much was directed at the United States. He stated that only 15% of the KGB’s budget was for actual espionage while 85% was used to plant the seeds of socialism and foster dissent in the homelands of their enemies. Now that the United States has well over 10,000 college professors that are self-avowed socialists it appears that their money was well spent. You see, the Soviet Union understood the benefit of securing the hearts and souls of the youth of a nation. After all, they did it right in the Soviet Union not long after the Marxist revolution. Schools that molded the political will of the students along with absolute control of the press, radio and eventually television made very loyal, nearly robotic little communists. Many of those that disappeared in the Stalinist purges had been turned in by their own friends and families.

To make a long story short…Senator Joe McCarthy as well as the House Un-American Activities Committee were right. They tried to warn America about subversive influences in the Unites States but they didn’t have their ducks in a row. You see, it wasn’t against the law to be a communist or a socialist and once their investigations strayed beyond people working in sensitive areas of national security, they had overreached their authority and were set upon and silenced. No doubt, with funding from the same Soviet sources.
The infiltration of socialists into American society began with the labor movement but that became redundant with the passage of fair labor legislation. Still, it was a toe in the door of the American political system. They got a front row seat into the American psyche and they knew their next logical step was the media. Does anyone remember the films that were made during the transition from silent to sound? There were a good number that were centered on class warfare. The boastful and wealthy corporate moguls eating and drinking with abandon; pitted in moral combat against the downtrodden and desperate poor.

News papers became evermore combative with politicians and businessmen that dared to challenge the “progressive” (and don’t forget that progressive is just a less abrasive word for socialist) programs of FDR. There were plenty of feeding grounds for the clandestine Soviet social engineers during the great depression because those that still had, had plenty and those that didn’t have, had nothing at all. That only served to reinforce the message that Americans had seen on film before the bottom fell out of the economy. We probably would have slipped quietly into the communist abyss then, if it were not for World War Two. Almost overnight, the divisions between Americans dissolved. The film and press media were strictly monitored for the good of the war effort. The unemployed were now under arms and the nation had to turn to its women to meet the production needs of the war. After the war, nearly every manufacturing base on the planet had been destroyed except for those safely in the United States. America was back to work and because of the labor laws secured during the turn of the century, there were few complaints.

After the McCarthy years, the Un-American Activities Committee stuck to pursuing cases of espionage in sensitive defense areas and over the course of the next ten years, the socialist infiltrators poked their ugly little heads out of hiding. This time it was films and news about racial injustice and cruel warfare that topped the agenda. After all, they still needed an enemy to rally against. This helped to create the counter culture of the 1960’s with the Vietnam War as a focal point of the inhumanity of the United States and the evils of the industrial military complex. To some the allure of being without responsibility was too much and some “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” of useful society. The rest disrupted respect for any authority with catch phrases like “Don’t trust anyone over thirty” and of course there was the famous euphemisms of “pigs” for the police and “baby-killers” for the military. There were already socialist professors in the Universities and like any virus, the disease spread to the students; especially those that dabbled with the drugs of the day and already had their heads stuffed with so much mush that the transformation from American to Socialist was very easy indeed.

These students rebelled and rioted, thinking they were fighting for a just cause. Their minds so poisoned that no amount of logic could persuade them to look at facts or figures and think for themselves. Why not? Because they were already trained to ignore authority; authority was over thirty and you couldn’t trust anything they say. Well those students eventually became professors themselves, and filmmakers, and journalists oh yes, and politicians.

Back in the ‘60s there were tons of socialist organizations that the students could embrace; all lovingly funded in secret by agents of the Soviet Union. There was the Students for a Democratic Society, the Young Socialist Alliance, the Revolutionary Youth Movement, etc, etc. Some of the members of the Revolutionary Youth Movement eventually became the Weather Underground. You remember them…the domestic terror group that tried to blow up the Pentagon? It just so happens that the co-founders of that group are still around. One is the Bill Ayers that helped launch Barack Obama’s bid for the Presidency from his living room. The other is Jeff Jones, Chairman of the New York Chapter of The Apollo Alliance, the same Apollo Alliance that help craft the $800 billion dollar Stimulus bill.

Oh we have tons of those crazy old radicals around; in fact, you can find quite a few of them in the White House, now having been appointed by Barack Obama as Czars….oh excuse me….Special Advisors, the Obama administration really hates the word Czars. Even though Obama has circumvented the confirmation process by appointing Communists, Marxists, Socialists and Radicals to special advisor positions and even though they appear to be operating in secret and refuse to answer the questions of Congress; that is not the real problem.

The real problem is that through our own ignorance and complacency, we have allowed Congress itself to be overrun with radicals, Communists, Marxists and Socialists. Only a select few have shown the courage to actually call themselves socialists like Bernie Sanders, the rest hide under the pseudonyms of progressives and liberal Democrats. Today, there are over 80 members of Congress that belong to the Congressional Progressive Caucus and their membership roll is a who’s who of the Congressmen that insist we must pass not only a public option in healthcare, but a full blown government run universal healthcare system. They also want cap and trade; the one piece of legislation that is guaranteed to eliminate nearly every remaining manufacturing industry in this nation. They are also the same people that have chosen fish over farmers in California, owls over loggers in Washington and with the Obama administration poised to add another 250 names to the endangered species list, you can bet more water will be turned off and more private lands will be placed under public control.

But why? Why would Congressmen destroy our nation? Power. You see, they still believe that when the United States has collapsed the only thing left for us will be socialism and they will be the only logical choices to remain in power since they understand it so very well. The only hope we have is to stall this legislation until the mid-term elections and then vote in a road-block so that we are assured that our voices are heard.

If I sound like I am ranting tune in tomorrow and I will lay out some interesting details

Paul

Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead - Part Two

The press is on to pass healthcare and the Congressional leadership is more than comfortable to take the entire process behind closed doors and use every little bit of skullduggery and shady legislative loopholes at their disposal. While there is no doubt that President Obama has his own secret agenda, he is only a small part of the problem. Congress has been selling out the United States for years. Some have been doing their dirty work simply to remain in power for as long as possible while others have a more sinister reason for their curious voting record.

91 year-old Robert Byrd from West Virginia has been in the United States Senate for a full 50 years and is not only the oldest current member of congress but the longest serving as well. Ted Kennedy wasn’t far behind having served 46 years in the Senate before he died of brain cancer at the age of 77 earlier this year. 80 year old John Conyers Jr. of Michigan has been a member of the House of Representatives for the past 44 years. 79 year-old Charles Rangel of New York has been in the House of Representatives for 38 years.

I could go on and on but it would just get monotonous. So why would a brilliant attorney turn down a lucrative career in private practice for a congressman’s pay which today, is roughly $175,000 per year for the rank and file? There must be other benefits to the job; benefits that would make these men and women fight tooth and nail to remain in office for decades. There are far too many members of Congress that have served for decades; many of which share other curious ties. Out of just the four gentlemen I mentioned above, two should never have been allowed to serve in Congress and the other two should have been thrown out on their ears.

In 1951, Ted Kennedy was thrown out of Harvard in his freshman year for cheating. He was allowed to re-apply in 1953 and eventually completed his education there. In 1969 he was involved in a mysterious accident after leaving a party held by the “boiler-room girls”, a group of women working on his brother Robert’s campaign. Mr. Kennedy denied alcohol was involved but curiously, did not report the accident to the police until the following morning. The police found the submerged car that still contained the lifeless body Mary Jo Kopechne, a woman who had left the party with Senator Kennedy. The inquest was held in secret at the request of Kennedy’s lawyers and while he was never held responsible for the death of Ms. Kopechne, he did receive a two month suspended sentence for leaving the scene of an accident.

Senator Robert Byrd was a member of the infamous Ku Klux Klan, dropping from its membership rolls just in time to pursue a career in politics. He spent a good portion of his career fighting doggedly against civil rights and equal voting rights legislation. In 1968, he finally voted for the Civil Rights Act citing a change in heart brought on by his participation in a Baptist church however, many feel that the political winds had shifted against open racism and his “epiphany” had more to do with a desire to remain electable than the discovery of any form of morality.

John Conyers Jr. was sited for ethics violations after several former aides accused him of using publically paid Congressional staff members to work on his campaign, forced them to baby-sit and chauffer his children. Mr. Conyers accepted responsibility for “possibly” violating house rules and acknowledged what he called a “lack of clarity” in his communications with his staff regarding their official duties. While he regularly voted against legislation that would force the Federal government to restrain spending and balance the budget, he did proudly author a bill that would have, if passed, provide the religion of Islam with special protection against acts of violence and intolerance. In what appears to be a marriage made in heaven, his 44 year-old wife Monica has recently plead guilty to charges of conspiring to commit bribery while she was a member of the Detroit City Council.

Charles Rangel has his own problems. Recent investigations show that he rents four apartments in the Lenox Terrace complex in Harlem at below-market rates. The newspaper reported that Rangel paid $3,894 monthly for all four apartments in 2007, but that the going rate for similar apartments offered by the landlord in that building would be as high as $8,125 monthly. Three adjacent apartments on the 16th floor were combined to make up his 2,500-square-foot home; a fourth unit on the 10th floor is used as a campaign office, even though that violates city and state regulations that require rent-stabilized apartments to be used as a primary residence.

A Congressional ethics expert cited by The Times indicated that the difference in rent between what Rangel was paying and market rates on the second, third and fourth apartments he rented, an estimated $30,000 per year, could be construed as a gift as the savings is granted at the discretion of the landlord and is not offered to the public at large; if this should be treated as a gift, it would exceed the $100 limit established by the House of Representatives. Rangel was also accused of failing to report income from the rental of a villa he owns in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, a three-bedroom, three-bath unit that has been rented out for as much as $1,100 per night in the busiest tourist season, from mid-December to mid-April.

Additional accounting discrepancies were disclosed on September 15, 2008, including omission in Rangel's financial reports of details regarding the sale of a home he once owned on Colorado Avenue in Washington, DC, discrepancies in the value listed for a property he owns in Sunny Isles, Florida (varying from $50,000 to $100,000 all the way up to $500,000), and inconsistencies in investment fund reporting. Curiously, Mr. Rangel is the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, the Congressional committee that is responsible for writing the tax laws that the rest of us “non-congressmen” are expected to abide by or else!

The worst part is that these examples are not the exception. To date there are:
29 members of Congress accused of spousal abuse
7 members of Congress arrested for fraud
19 members of Congress accused of writing bad checks
117 members of Congress either directly or indirectly bankrupted 2 businesses
3 members of Congress have served time for assault
71 members of Congress cannot obtain a credit card due to bad credit
14 members of Congress have been arrested on drug-related charges
8 members of Congress have been arrested for shoplifting
21 members of Congress are currently defendants in lawsuits and
84 members of Congress have been arrested for drunk driving.

Perhaps it is the perceived immunity that their power offers them from prosecution that holds their interest. I’m not saying that none of them have ever been convicted or served time for their crimes. Not even I am that cynical, but they certainly haven’t felt the full weight of the law that the regular citizens of this nation do. The kit gloves treatment they receive is definitely a perk but not the reason that keeps them firmly ensconced in the Capitol building. For many, it is strictly the power that draws them and one can tell by the arrogance with which they treated their constituents during the recent town hall meetings that they now believe that they are aristocrats, a ruling class exerting their dominance over the lowly peasants; in other words, the American people.

That is the good news. There is a darker side to Congress; a side that is dangerously close to seeing the ambitions they have kept secret for decades finally take root. Now the political winds are blowing in their favor; especially since the nation has unwittingly elected a President that appears to be a willing co-conspirator.

Join me tomorrow for a glimpse at the dark side.

Paul

Damn the Republic, Full Speed Ahead

The following information is an article written by Brain Darling as it appeared in Human Events Newsletter (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=33740). It is a clear indication that the President, the Democratic leadership and progressive Democrats have absolutely no regard for the Republic and intend to pass damaging and unpopular legislation in the face of clear opposition by the American public.

Since one of the founding principals of this nation was that there would be no taxation without representation one must ask what the legality of a strategy is that would allow a handful of legislators to ram massive spending bills through congress by any means necessary just to fulfill their own warped view of how wonderful America would look like if we had just a little more socialism. Unfortunately, Socialism is like pregnancy in that there is no such thing as being a “little Socialist”. The article below explains this strategy.

Congress’s Secret Plan to Pass Obamacare
Brian Darling, Human Events

President Obama and liberals in Congress seem intent on passing comprehensive health care reform, even though polls suggest it is unpopular with the American people. And despite the potential political risks to moderate Democrats, the President and left-wing leadership in Congress are determined to pass the measure using a rare parliamentary procedure.

The Senate plans to attach Obamacare to a House-passed non-healthcare bill. Ironically, nobody knows what that legislation looks like, because it has not yet been written. Yet many members plan to rubber-stamp Obamacare without reading or understanding the bill.

The Senate Finance Committee worked furiously last week to mark up a “conceptual framework” of health care reform. The committee actually rejected an amendment by Sen. Jim Bunning (R.-Ky.) to mandate that the bill text and a final cost analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) be publicly available at least 72 hours before the Finance Committee votes on final passage.

The following four-step scenario describes one way liberals plan to work the rules in their favor to get Obamacare through the Senate:

Step 1: The Senate Finance Committee must first approve the marked-up version of Sen. Max Baucus’ (D.-Mont.) conceptual framework. Then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) can say that two Senate Committees have passed a health care bill, which will allow him to take extraordinary steps to get the bill on the Senate floor.

During the mark-up last week, members had difficulty offering amendments and trying to make constructive changed because they lacked actual legislative text and Baucus made unilateral last minute changes. For example, the AP reported that “under pressure from fellow Democrats, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee decided to commit an additional $50 billion over a decade toward making insurance more affordable for working-class families.”

Step 2: Sen. Reid will take the final product of the Senate Finance Committee and merge it with the product of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, which passed on a party-line vote in July.

Usually, a bill is voted out of committee, and then the Senate takes up the final product of the committee so that all 100 senators can have a hand in the process. With some help from the Obama administration, Reid will decide what aspects of the HELP and Finance Committee bills to keep.

Step 3: Now, Obamacare will be ready to hitch a ride on an unrelated bill from the House. Sen. Reid will move to proceed to H.R. 1586, a bill to impose a tax on bonuses received by certain TARP recipients. This bill was passed by the House in the wake of the AIG bonus controversy and is currently sitting on the Senate Legislative Calendar.

The move to proceed needs 60 votes to start debate. After the motion is approved, Sen. Reid will offer Obamacare as a complete substitute to the unrelated House-passed bill. This means that the entire healthcare reform effort will be included as an amendment to a TARP bill that has been collecting dust in the Senate for months.

Step 4: For this strategy to work, the proponents would need to hold together the liberal caucus of 58 Democrats (including Paul Kirk who was named last Thursday to replace Sen. Kennedy), and the two Independent senators (Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont). These members will have to all hold hands and vote against any filibuster. Once the Senate takes up the bill, only a simple majority of members will be needed for passage. It’s possible one of the endangered moderate Democrats, such as Sen. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), could vote to stop a filibuster then vote against Obamacare so as not to offend angry constituents.

Once the Senate passes a bill and sends it to the House, all the House would have to do is pass the bill without changes and President Obama will be presented with his health care reform measure. If this plan does not work, the Senate and House leadership may go back to considering using reconciliation to pass the legislation.

Adopting this secret plan will not strike most Americans as a transparent, bipartisan, effective way to change how millions of Americans get their health care.

The Story of Stuff

The Story of Stuff is a film based on a story by Annie Leonard. Annie Leonard is a critic of excessive consumerism and is most known for this animated film about the life-cycle of material goods.

The film is little more than an anti-capitalist tome designed to convince its viewers that America not only consumes more than its fair share of the planets resources, but we are happily destroying entire third world nations, eco-systems and even people to feed our insatiable appetite for “stuff”. The film makes these assumptions using an almost child-like pursuit of half truths to make its case and is just another new wave, radical environmentalist view of the evils of the American lifestyle. In previous posts I have discussed that the reason why the environmental movement has become so anti-American and so anti-Capitalist is because the environmental movement has been infiltrated and is in fact, the new home of Marxist and Globalist front groups.

The film starts with the assertion that we spend too much on defense, so much so that even though she chose to use the figure of a person to represent the government, she was tempted to use a tank instead. It then goes on to explain that although we only have 5% of the world’s population, we consume 30% of the planets resources. In fact, according Ms. Leonard, we have consumed all of our own resources so we are now “trashing” foreign lands and exploiting foreign peoples to take their resources. She was nice enough to explain that it’s not really our fault because those evil American businesses make us watch all those advertisements that force us to go out and buy and buy and buy and it’s that rampant consumerism that drives the search for even more resources.

The film continues to explain that the cycle that keeps products on our store shelves blindly pollutes the planet, drives people out of their ancestral lands directly into abusive jobs in deadly cities and the pollution that is created to access the resources is just the tip of the iceberg as the manufacturing process wantonly dumps more pollutants into the environment and then those rotten thoughtless American consumers use these products and just dispose of them without a care in the world as to where the trash goes in the end.

The “Story of Stuff” is making its rounds through the education system in the United States in yet another attempt to indoctrinate our youth into liberal and progressive beliefs; beliefs that they are concerned are not being pursued by these poor children’s parents. Of course not all schools have been drawn into this, at least not yet. It is something that is still limited to the areas that are liberal strongholds such as the northeast, California, Oregon, Washington, Chicago, etc. However, now that the President has made some fairly radical appointments in the Federal education agencies, we may see materials like this being “approved” for use or worse, mandated as a requirement of receiving Federal education funds. As long as that is a possibility then it is fair to ask “Who is Annie Leonard, what is her background and who funded this movie?”
.
Annie Leonard was born 1964 in Seattle, Washington. She went to college in New York at the liberal arts citadel, Barnard College. Leonard has an undergraduate degree from Barnard College and a graduate degree from Cornell University in city and regional planning. She and a friend created GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives). She created the hour-long Story of Stuff originally as a talk and was asked many times to make a movie. Finally she made and also stars in, the 20 minute film The Story of Stuff, a web-based documentary about the life-cycle of goods and services.

Leonard is coordinator of GAIA and serves on the boards of International Forum for Globalization and the Environmental Health Fund. She previously held positions with Health Care Without Harm, Essential Information and Greenpeace International, and is currently coordinator of the Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption. In 1992 she testified before the US Congress on the topic of international waste trafficking.

Isn’t it interesting that someone who claims to be a mere environmentalist is involved so deeply in this many political movements, some of which are dedicated to the globalization of world governance? If you recall, Carol Browner, President Obama’s “Climate Czar” and another so-called environmentalist, was found to have ties with “Socialist International”. Ms. Browner was one of 14 members on their “Commission for a Sustainable World Society”. This group was also anti-American and anti-Capitalist and their principal mandate was to support reforms that would bring about “world governance”; in other words, a single all-powerful one world government. Gee….what a coincidence!

The production of the “Story of Stuff” was made possible with grant money from the Tides Center. The Tides Center is a non-profit organization in the United States which provides grants for progressive groups. Tides Center is classified a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization by the IRS. The Tides organization is based in San Francisco and is administratively linked to, but separate from the Tides Foundation. Tides Center and Tides Foundation are part of a family of organizations linked by a commitment to social change, innovation, and responsible stewardship of resources.

Tides Center’s roots lie in the Tides Foundation, founded by Drummond Pike in 1976. In 1977, the Tides Foundation began working with initiative campaigns, an arrangement that was formalized into the Projects Program in 1979. In 1996, this program became Tides Center, an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Since 1996, Tides Center has provided fiscal sponsorship to over 800 projects with combined revenues of over $700 million, and has worked with well over 1000 projects since the first days as the Projects Program.

Drummond Pike, a former 1960’s Vietnam War protestor and activist, is the CEO of Tides where he used ideas he created to fund programs and projects well outside the mainstream of thought in the United States through the use of donor advised funds. Donor advised funds allowed for the transfer of third party donations so that people that could be politically harmed by a connection with a radical group could use the Tides Foundation to act as a buffer between the donor and the eventual recipient. How expedient.

Most people have never heard of the Tides Foundation but you have certainly heard of some of their “donors”. George Soros, David Fenton and Wade Rathke are just a few. Yes, that is the same Wade Rathke that was the founder of ACORN, another squeaky clean example of progressive social conciseness and a devout follower of the Cloward-Pivens Strategy. Similarly, some of the recipients of Tides grants may ring a bell. The Apollo Alliance (one of the crafters of the current stimulus bill), The Campaign to Defend the Constitution (an on-line group created to expand the separation of Church and State to counter what they perceived was the growing power of the religious right) and Traction (a social network for 20-something and 30-something leftists to promote progressive ideals).

The Apollo Alliance may be the most recognizable among the names of grant recipients. If you recall, Van Jones was a member of the Apollo Alliance and the chairman of their New York office is Jeff Jones, one of the co-founders of the Weather Underground and I’m sure you remember them.

People may wonder what the big deal is about schools using “The Story of Stuff”. After all, if couldn’t hurt to promote taking care of the environment. If that was all this was about, I might agree but that is not the whole story of “The Story of Stuff.” It is an assault on Capitalism and America by people whose ultimate goal is eliminating the only the only roadblock left to a global socialist “new world order”. Before the new can take root, the old must be eliminated and their plan is to cripple our economy through the use of devastating environmental restrictions forced on our industries and our people.

Have you noticed that the only nations where sufficient pressure has been brought to bear to pass these insane “greenhouse gas” reduction acts has been in democratic industrial nations? If you take the time to connect the dots; to research the people that are behind these movements and the stated goals of the organizations they belong to, we can only arrive at one conclusion. This is not a loose movement of un-washed tree huggers; it is an orchestrated and well coordinated attack by groups that are seeking to fundamentally change the face of global politics.
Paul

Hollywood and Roman Polanski

In a bizarre twist of fate, the left of the left in Hollywood have taken a stance that defies everything they have ever said about feminism, the evils of rape and the unjust system that allows wealth to determine pursuit of justice. That was then and this is now. Their rage is always reserved for conservatives that dare to speak against the omnipotent wisdom of liberalism and this is about the defense of a “gifted” filmmaker and friend of the socially adept. Of course, I mean Roman Polanski.

Roman Polanski had been arrested in 1977 for drugging, raping and sodomizing a 13 year old girl. Her testimony in the case against Polanski, who was 44 at the time, indicated that she had met with Polanski for a photo shoot for the French edition of Vogue. Although she was uncomfortable about his behavior during the first photo shoot because he had suggested that she changed outfits in front of him, she reluctantly agreed to a second photo shoot to complete the series. When she resisted his attempts to get her to lie on a bed for photographs he plied her with champagne and Quaaludes, a tranquilizing drug. While the drugs rendered her incapable if fighting off his advances she never the less, remained aware during the entire depraved episode and to spite her repeated pleas to stop, he performed oral sex on her and then engaged in intercourse and sodomy with her against her will.

Polanski was initially charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14, and furnishing a controlled substance (methaqualone) to a minor. These charges were dismissed under the terms of his plea bargain, and he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

Under the terms of the plea agreement, according to the documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, the court ordered Polanski to report to a state prison for a 90-day psychiatric evaluation, but granted a stay of ninety days to allow him to complete his current project. Under the terms set by the court, he was permitted to travel abroad. Polanski returned to California and reported to Chino State Prison for the evaluation period, and was released after 42 days. All parties expected Polanski to get only probation at the subsequent sentencing hearing, but after an alleged conversation with LA Deputy District Attorney David Wells, the judge "suggested to Polanski’s attorneys that he would send the director to prison and order him deported". In response to the threat of imprisonment, Polanski fled the United States.

Polanski fled initially to London on February 1, 1978, where he maintained residency. A day later he traveled on to France, where he held citizenship, avoiding the risk of extradition to the U.S. by Britain. Consistent with its extradition treaty with the United States, France can refuse to extradite its own citizens, and an extradition request later filed by U.S. officials was denied.

On September 26, 2009, Polanski was arrested by Swiss police in relation to his outstanding 1978 U.S. arrest warrant. Polanski was seized at Zürich Airport while trying to enter Switzerland to attend the Zurich Film Festival where he was to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award. U.S. investigators had learned of his planned trip several days earlier, which had given them enough time to negotiate with Swiss authorities and lay the groundwork for an arrest. The United States had been seeking his arrest and extradition worldwide since 2005. While there had been a U.S. arrest warrant for him since 1978 and he had been on the Interpol "red notice" wanted list for several years, an international arrest warrant was issued in 2005. The United States must make a formal extradition request within 40 days to have Polanski extradited and stand trial.

The Swiss Justice Ministry said Polanski was put "in provisional detention." According to a ministry spokesman, the arrest warrant and extradition to the United States could be subject to judicial review by the Swiss Federal Criminal Court and then the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. Polanski announced that he intends to appeal extradition and has hired lawyer Lorenz Erni to represent him.

One would think that the apprehension of a fugitive that has avoided justice for over thirty years in the rape of a minor would be cause to celebrate, and most of the reasonable people on this planet are doing just that. However, the inner ugliness of the Caen and Hollywood elite have once again proven how disconnected from reality they really are. 100, mostly European, filmmakers signed a petition calling for the immediate release of Roman Polanski. Martin Scorsese and David Lynch have also added their names after the fact. In the ultimate irony, filmmaker and degenerate Woody Allen also endorsed the petition, probably using his step-daughter/sex partner’s Hannah Montana musical pen to affix his signature.

In a comment that has many reeling, the insipid and vacuous Whoopi Goldberg ignored the facts in this case and said in defense of Mr. Polanski that, “I don’t believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, ‘You know what, this [judge] is going to give me a hundred years in jail. I’m not staying’.” Ms. Goldberg’s statement is not only irresponsible but an endorsement of any rape that does not include a weapon, a beating or a death. To say that this was not “rape-rape” is to imply that the act of rape itself is not a violent crime. If anyone in power actually listened to this empty-headed buffoon, it could have set back the prosecution of rape by at least fifty years but fortunately, she is taken as seriously as every other jack-ass activist of stage and screen, which is to say, not at all. Through her comments Ms. Goldberg has displayed her witless logic and she is no longer worthy of our time, attention or money. Anyone that would place a microphone in front of Ms. Goldberg ever again should be regarded equally as insane as she is.

Where is the generally accepted notion that “No means No!”? Let’s not forget that when Mr. Polanski was mixing up a Quaalude cocktail for his young victim that the rest of the world was arguing for the rights of rape victims. They had fought hard to reinforce that “No actually means No” at a time when the defense for many rapes was: if the spoken word wasn’t accompanied by a fight to the death that perhaps “No” only meant “Maybe” and “Maybe” could be construed as some weird form of consent. Advocates for the victims of rape fought hard against the tactics used by scummy defense lawyers to discredit and disgrace rape victims as the accepted method used in the defense of their equally scummy clients. That fight eventually changed the legal system, finally bringing justice to those that were previously afraid to admit they were raped because of what they would have to face in the courts.

This shouldn’t surprise those of us that know what liberals are; especially Hollywood liberals. These are the same people that rushed to the aid of Bill Clinton when he was accused of not only abusing young female interns; but the power of the Presidency, the trust of the American public and the carpet in the Oval office. They are quick to point out their disgust when Republican Congressman Ken Calvert was discovered to have been arrested for engaging the services of a prostitute in 1993. I do not support Ken Calvert’s actions but I would like to point out that paying for sex is not even in the same league with drugging a minor for sex, yet Hollywood sees no contradiction in condemning Calvert while they defend Polanski.

They are an elite club so disgusted by their own wealth and notoriety that they must sooth their slimy souls with curious causes and disconnected advocacies of equally worthless social awareness programs. In boorish, Michael Moorish style, they churn out one so-called public service ad after another, endorsing rights for illegal immigrants, the needs for Marxist government programs or to shut down another American industry for the protection of some obscure species of an endangered swamp gnat. Hollywood has forgotten that their primary function is to entertain and for that job, there is obviously no requirement for a minimum level of intelligence. In fact, I would say that intelligence within the entertainment industry is discouraged.

After the attacks on 9/11, actor Ron Silver broke ranks with the Hollywood elite. Outraged over the slaughter of innocent Americans, Mr. Silver did a 180 and along with most of America, supported the military actions of the Bush administration that would bring retribution to those that were responsible and to destroy their ability to launch further attacks. For the crime of thinking for himself and not following the Jane Fonda mandate of supporting America’s enemies, Ron Silver never worked in movies again.

There is nothing entertaining about the political agenda of the Hollywood left. There is nothing funny or endearing about professing love and support for a convicted rapist. From what I see, the only species that is actually endangered in this country is the elusive sub-species of entertainers that still have a scrap of decency and common sense.

Paul

The National Anthem of the United States

The Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key - 1814

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:'
Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Our National Anthem was penned nearly two-hundred years ago during the War of 1812. The lyrics were taken from a poem written by Francis Scott Key titled “The Defense of Fort McHenry” and later applied to music borrowed from “The Anacreontic Song”, the official song of the Anacreontic Society, an 18th-century club of amateur musicians.

The “Defense of Fort McHenry", written by the 35-year-old amateur poet Francis Scott Key to describe what he witnessed during the bombardment of Fort McHenry by Royal Navy ships in Chesapeake Bay during the Battle of Baltimore. Set to music and renamed the “Star Spangled Banner”, the song was recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889, by the President in 1916. It was adopted as our national anthem by congressional resolution on March 3, 1931 which was signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.

The National Anthem is the only song that can be sung at the opening of every sporting event, at civic gatherings, at public celebrations and no one except for the terminally jaded or politically inept is ever tired of hearing it. Most Americans stand silently and gaze at the flag in reverence while it is played. Some may mouth the words wishing that they had the vocal range required to sing this song, but they do so humbly and with pride in their nation.

Two world wars, a dozen conflicts and several very challenging periods in American history may have tested the United States but these challenges have never diminished the effect our National Anthem has had on the American public. Today is different. Today is a day that frighteningly enough, passed with barely a word having been said. Today was the day that the majesty of the National Anthem was dimmed and the winds that carry the Star Spangled Banner fell quiet.

If you looked across the skyline of Manhattan today, you couldn’t help but notice the strange colors of the Empire State Building. This monument to the capitalist doctrines that forged our nation’s wealth has been a dominant feature of the New York skyline since it opened in 1931. Incredibly, this 102 story monolith was built in only 404 days at a cost of $40,000,000. When it opened, it was the tallest building in the world, and after the destruction of the World Trade Center towers in September of 2001, became the tallest building in New York for the second time since its construction.

Since 1964, floodlights were installed in the Empire State Building that illuminated the upper third of the building in colors to match the holiday or event. Red, white and blue for the Fourth of July, red and green for Christmas, green for Saint Patrick’s day, on and on. Whenever there was an event that was important to the nation or to the City of New York, the lighting of the Empire State Building reflected the sentiment in the appropriate colors. Sometimes the absence of light made a more effective statement. When Actress Fay Wray died in 2004, the lights of the Empire State building were extinguished for 15 minutes to remember the actress that brought fame to this magnificent building through her 1933 film, “King Kong”.

Today the Empire State Building is illuminated in red and yellow; colors chosen to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist nation of China. I never took the time to actually research the colors of the Communist Chinese flag but I would assume that the red is representative of the blood of the millions that were killed to make way for the new leaders of yet another totalitarian regime and the yellow (gold), would symbolize the brass shell casings expelled from the automatic weapons that were used to cleanse China of those that would stand in vain for their freedom.

My God! What have we become? Have we finally reached the point where our conscience is so vacant and the lines that define our morality have become so blurred that we can celebrate the deliberate massacre of free people in the name of socialism? Where does that place us in our own struggle to defend our rights from the socialists, oh excuse me, Progressive Democrats that are now plotting against us on Capitol Hill?

These things cannot stand. Not for one day, not for one hour. If we can illuminate the Empire State Building, the symbol of our nation’s economic might, in colors meant to honor a ruthless and bloody communist nation, then what is next? Shall we fly the flag of Iran in the lobby? Or perhaps a Swastika to honor all the good Nazi’s….you know, the ones that were only soldiers and didn’t actually work in a concentration camp. This is beyond ridiculous and if we are sheep enough to allow this then maybe the fight is over and our freedoms aren’t really deserved after all.

Paul