October 6, 2008

• U.S. Economy Rudderless, Sinking From Direct Hits  
• China Works Methodically to Attain Superpower Status  
• $1 Quadrillion of Unregulated Debt At Core of Coming Derivatives Crisis  
• Gold, Silver Rise as Dollar Dives  
• 500 Trades Away from Armageddon  

October 13, 2008

• Paulson, Bernanke Caught Lying  
• Populists Back Ron Paul's Plan To Kill the Fed  
• Trashing Sarah Palin Comes Back to Haunt Washington  
• Palestinian Situation Seen First-Hand  
• Lawsuit Asks If Obama Is An Illegal Alien  
• Right to Healthy Food Undercut by Nanny State  
• Rep Ron Paul Discusses the Bailout and What It Means for America in Video Message  
• Ron Paul Endorses Constitution Party Candidate  
• Your Safe Deposit Box Is At Risk  

October 20, 2008

• How Can We Have Capitalism with No Capital?  
• Bankers Buy U.S. Politicians  
• McCain's Dark Side Makes Him Unfit To Lead America  
• Patriots Concerned Returning Troops Will Be Used as Federal Strike Force  
• Latest Bailout Plan a Premeditated Murder of America's Future  

October 27, 2008

• Do the Bank Bailouts Pass the Smell Test?  
• Is Barack Obama Better for America Than John McCain?  
• Third Party Candidate Explains Why You Mustn't Cast a Vote for McCain or Obama  

By

We were promised a "New Economy" of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshored manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the "New Economy," Duke University's Offshoring Research Network searched for it and located it offshore. Yes, the activities of the "New Economy" are also outsourced offshore.

Call centers, IT operations, back-office operations, and manufacturing have long been moved offshore. Now high-value-added proprietary activities such as research and development, engineering, product development, and analytical services are being sent offshore. All that's left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes.

Independent broker-dealers are disappearing: Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers. These venerable institutions were too thinly capitalized for the risks that they took. Merrill Lynch is now part of the Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers is history.

Ill-advised financial deregulation led to financial concentration and not to more efficient markets. Independent local banks, which focused on financing local businesses, and Saving and Loan Associations, which knew the local housing market, have been replaced with large institutions that package unanalyzed risks and sell them worldwide. Regulation over-reached. The pendulum swung. Deregulation became an ideology and a facilitator of greed.

Deregulating electric power gave us Enron. Deregulating the airlines destroyed famous American brand names such as Pan Am, shrank the number of companies, and caused a decline in service. When airlines were regulated, they could afford standby equipment, and cancelled flights were rare. Today, the bottom line prohibits standby equipment, and mechanical problems result in cancelled flights.

When economists calculated the benefits of deregulation, they left out the costs. There are no longer any blue chip companies, which means that investing for retirement has become a crap-shoot. People realize this; thus, the privatization of Social Security has no support.

If we look realistically at the U.S. economy, we see that what is not moved offshore is being bailed out. Last year, the Department of Energy was authorized to make $25 billion in loans to auto manufacturing firms and suppliers of automotive parts. Recently, the secretary of the treasury took $5 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home mortgages under its wing.

The Congressional Budget Office says this action by the Treasury means "that the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be directly incorporated into the federal budget." Their revenues would be treated as federal revenues, and their expenditures as federal expenditures. If the former were greater than the latter, there would be no reason for the takeover.

The open question is: what do these new liabilities do to the Treasury's own credit standing? For now, this question is submerged. The traditional practice of fleeing to the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds during periods of financial stress and uncertainty has boosted the dollar and kept interest rates low. But sooner or later the large U.S. budget deficit, worsened by recession and bailouts, and the large trade deficit, which requires constant recycling of dollars held by foreigners into U.S. financial and real assets, will result in renewed effort on the part of foreigners to lighten their dollar holdings.

When this time arrives, U.S. interest rates will have to rise in order for the government to be able to continue to rely on foreigners to recycle the dollars acquired in trade to finance the U.S. government's annual budget deficit.

The current financial problems have pushed into the background the larger problems of the U.S. budget and trade deficits. Goods and services for American markets that U.S. corporations outsource offshore return as imports, which widen the U.S. trade deficit. Moving production offshore reduces U.S. GDP and employment and increases foreign GDP and employment.

Therefore, how is the trade deficit to be closed? One way is through the dollar's loss in exchange value, which would reduce U.S. consumers' real incomes and leave them too poor to purchase the offshored goods.

How is the budget deficit to be closed when jobs are disappearing and GDP (tax base) is being offshored? Not by higher taxes. Higher taxes are problematic for a recessionary economy in which unemployment, properly measured, is already in double digits. Some people have speculated that the budget deficit will be closed by dismantling entitlement programs such as Medicare. However, considering the cost of medical insurance, this would be catastrophic.

The more likely avenue will be a raid on private pensions. Bill Clinton's appointee, Alicia Munnell, as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy, argued that private pensions should face a capital levy to make up for the fact that their accumulation was tax free. I expect that the federal government, faced with its own bankruptcy, will resurrect this argument.

In the 21st century, the U.S economy has been kept going by debt expansion, not by real income growth. Economists have hyped U.S. productivity growth, but there is no sign that increased productivity has raised family incomes, an indication that there is a problem with the productivity statistics. With consumers overloaded with debt and the value of their most important asset—housing—falling, the American consumer will not be leading a recovery.

A country that had intelligent leaders would recognize its dire straits, stop its gratuitous wars, and slash its massive military budget, which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. But a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the world ceases to finance it.

Most Americans, including the presidential candidates and the media, are unaware that the U.S. government today is unable to finance its day-to-day operations and must rely on foreigners to purchase its bonds. The government pays the interest to foreigners by selling more bonds, and when the bonds come due, the government redeems the bonds by selling new bonds. The day the foreigners do not buy is the day the American people and their government are brought to reality.

This isn't the financial position of a superpower.

Nationally syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of several books. He has been associated with the Hoover Institution, and the Institute for Political Economy and from 1981 to 1982 served as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy.

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By John Tiffany

The Chinese have created an empire with their conquest of Tibet and parts of Turkestan, and clearly have designs on other territories, starting with their claims to the possibly oil-rich South China Sea. They have been raising their war making budget (let us not be so unrealistic as to euphemistically call it a "defense" budget) by an average of 17 percent per year for several years now, buying up the latest Russian attack fighter planes, helicopter aircraft carriers and other offensive weapons used to project power and spread intimidation.

And why else is China creating a giant copy of the elite U.S. Marine Corps, if not to land troops on foreign beaches, starting, perhaps, with Taiwan's? China has never had marines in the past—a form of military that has no role in defense but is purely offensive in nature.

Meanwhile we have seen the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which is the merchant marine arm of the Chinese navy, taking over the vital-to-America Panama Canal, basically given away to this hostile power by the Carter administration in 1978. Our ability to move our Atlantic fleet and to supply our Pacific fleet has been completely compromised.

China has no conceivable legitimate interests in this part of the world, and her actions there, which include building missile silos, can only be seen as an attack on America. Remember when conservatives were concerned about Cuba as a Soviet ally, being located only 90 miles from Florida? Who can forget the Cuban Missile Crisis of yesteryear, which nearly led to World War III?

A FOOTHOLD IN NORTH AMERICA

China, with remarkably little fanfare, has established a huge transshipment center in Freeport, Bahamas, just off the Florida coast. There has been little word about this key event in the establishment press. But this vast complex contains some of the largest cranes in the world. There are hundreds if not thousands of Sealift containers—"semi" truck trailers—being stored there. What is in those containers—military hardware? The thinking man cannot help but be reminded of Diego Garcia, America's forward deployment base in the Indian Ocean.

In the military realm, the easiest thing to move is troops. Harder to move is materiel. Troops can simply march onto a ship or airplane. Forklifts, cranes and manpower are needed to move supplies. By forward deploying its materiel, a military power is logistically about half a battle ahead of the game.

Furthermore, Freeport is by no means the only position for possible Chinese forward-deployment stocks. There are reports of COSCO ships unloading in Mexico and Canada. Worse, they even have several ports inside the U.S.

A few years back you may have read of a shipment in a Sealift container that came into Long Beach, California. Surprisingly, this happened to be intercepted, and it turned out to be loaded with AK-47s and other machineguns, grenades and explosives.

We were told it was probably being smuggled in to supply "street gangs." Only a fool would believe this shipment was intended for mere hoodlums, who do not even prefer such forms of weaponry. And we may never know how many other similar shipments have come into America without being detected or intercepted. Can the Chinese army now come into our country and arm themselves after their arrival from pre-positioned arsenals?

Where are America's intelligence agencies? Are they asleep at the switch? Or betraying us, as usual? China's efforts in space are headquartered in remote Inner Mangolia. Rep. Tom Feeny (R-Fla.) is one of the few U.S. officials ever permitted to tour the area. "If you were building a facility to launch rockets, you'd do it the Chinese way," he says. The facility can launch two ICBMs at a time every 60 seconds.

HOW COMMUNISTS FIGHT

To understand what is happening today, says Paul Craig Roberts, one must understand certain tenets of modern warfare as perfected by communist military thinkers. These include:

* Infiltrate the enemy country with advance forces and spies;

* Pre-position supplies close to the anticipated battleground;

* Destroy the enemy's will to resist;

* Destroy the enemy population's morals and morale;

* Sow confusion among the enemy population;

* Cut lines of communication and/or control all information and media outlets;

* Create diversions;

* Destroy the enemy's ability to wage war;

* Reduce or destroy the enemy's military bases;

* Strike only when ready and when the enemy is at his weakest;

* Attack on many fronts.

How many of these have already been implemented by China against America?

China until the mid-1970s was a second-rate military power, whose only real strength lay in sheer numbers of human cannon fodder. (You will recall her human-wave attacks in Korea and Vietnam.) At that time, she was mainly a threat to her neighbors. But over the past few decades, she has transformed herself into a modern, well-equipped military, ready to do battle on a global scale.

INSIDIOUS EMPIRE

With at least 2,000 years of statecraft to guide her (leaving aside occasional bouts of insanity among her top leaders), China knows how to be insidious. Unlike the Russians, she has built up her modern military very quietly, seeking not to draw attention to her efforts.

The Chinese leaders have never wavered from their goal of destroying America and any real allies we still have (Israel not being included). And Americans have helped them toward that goal by buying Chinese products, often made by Chinese political prisoner slaves, Chinese peons (who are little better off than slaves), and the Chinese People's Army.

? Here are some recent events that have strengthened China's military position while weakening America's ability to resist:

The giveaway under President Jimmy Carter of the Panama Canal. China now has total control of who uses it, what ships can come and go, and who can disembark from those ships in Panama (such as Chinese males of military age, who can disappear into the hinterlands and later surface in Mexico, our southern border).

? President Bill Clinton gave China "most favored nation" trading status, opening our markets to slave-made goods, which of course destroyed many American companies and cost the United States untold thousands of jobs, an ongoing disaster. At the same time we turned our back on longtime ally Taiwan to appease the Reds.

Aside from the above military facts, China even now has a dominant financial status over the United States. The chronic imbalance of payments between the U.S. and China, with billions of dollars profit for China, has resulted in huge Chinese investments in American assets, such as buildings, factories and who knows what? If China were to suddenly dump the securities and all its holdings on the markets, the economic structure of this country would collapse.

John Tiffany is the copy editor for American Free Press. He is also the assistant editor of THE BARNES REVIEW (TBR) historical magazine. For a sample copy of TBR (editor's choice) send $3 to TBR, P.O. Box 15877, Washington, D.C. 20003.

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Despite all the blather and swearing-on-the-Bible pronunciamentos from establishment "pundits," our house-of-cards financial system is not fundamentally sound.

Expect such indices as the Dow to tumble even much lower when the Pandora's box of derivatives is fully opened.

Believe it or not, the Dow is still not far from its all-time peaks, with a lot further to fall. The depression is still in its early stages. We are looking at $1 quadrillion of unregulated debt, with much of it at risk. (And we used to think $1 trillion was a lot.)

These are literally inconceivable sums. Counting one dollar per second, it would take 32 million years to count to one quadrillion.

The stock market in this era of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank is a giant craps shoot. Much of it is quite unregulated, especially the invisible market of derivatives. The sub-prime mortgage market collapsed, which is now being followed by a giant credit crisis. Now we are looking at the possible collapse of the derivative market.

President Bush failed at every business he has been associated with. He has always had his dad to bail him out to avoid bankruptcy. But this time his dad and even Henry Paulson can't keep Bush from facing the failure of his economic policies at the helm of the U.S. economy.

America's oversized debt pyramid has just begun to wind down. The Federal Reserve has announced that it is giving an $85 billion loan to American International Group (AIG), the world's largest financial conglomerate, in exchange for a nearly 80 percent stake in the firm.

The Associated Press calls it a "government takeover," but as Ellen Brown, J.D., author of The Web of Debt, says, this is not a real nationalization like the purchase of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac stock by the U.S. Treasury. "The Federal Reserve," she points out, "has the power to print the national money supply, but it is not actually a part of the U.S. government.

It is a private banking corporation, owned by a consortium of private banks. The private banking industry just bought the world's largest insurance company." But they used taxpayer money to do it.

Proposals for reforming the banking system are not even on the radar screen of establishment politics, but the current system is collapsing at train-wreck speed. Says Brown: "We need to stop funding the culprits who brought us this debacle at our expense. We need a public banking system that makes a cost-effective credit mechanism available for homeowners, manufacturing, renewable energy, and infrastructure; and the first step to making it cost effective is to strip out the swarms of gamblers, fraudsters and profiteers now gaming the system."

Just What Are Derivatives?

Derivatives are financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables. The main types of derivatives are futures, forwards, options and swaps.

The main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party. The diverse range of potential underlying assets and pay-off alternatives leads to a wide range of derivatives contracts available to be traded in the market. Derivatives can be based on different types of assets such as commodities, equities (stocks), bonds, interest rates, exchange rates or indexes (such as a stock market index, consumer price index (CPI)—inflation derivatives—or even an index of weather conditions, or other derivatives). Their performance can determine both the amount and the timing of the pay-offs.

Stock index futures and options are known as derivative products because they derive their existence from actual market indices, but have no intrinsic characteristics of their own. In addition to that, one of the reasons some believe they lead to greater market volatility is that huge amounts of securities can be controlled by relatively small amounts of margin or option premiums. One reason derivatives are popular is because they can be transacted off balance sheets.

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to Amerrican Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
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By  

We were promised a "New Economy" of high-tech tradable services to take the place of the offshored manufacturing economy. Wondering what had become of the "New Economy," Duke University's Offshoring Research Network searched for it and located it offshore. Yes, the activities of the "New Economy" are also outsourced offshore.

Call centers, IT operations, back-office operations, and manufacturing have long been moved offshore. Now high-value-added proprietary activities such as research and development, engineering, product development, and analytical services are being sent offshore. All that's left is finance, and it is crumbling before our eyes.

Independent broker-dealers are disappearing: Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers. These venerable institutions were too thinly capitalized for the risks that they took. Merrill Lynch is now part of the Bank of America, and Lehman Brothers is history.

Ill-advised financial deregulation led to financial concentration and not to more efficient markets. Independent local banks, which focused on financing local businesses, and Saving and Loan Associations, which knew the local housing market, have been replaced with large institutions that package unanalyzed risks and sell them worldwide. Regulation over-reached. The pendulum swung. Deregulation became an ideology and a facilitator of greed.

Deregulating electric power gave us Enron. Deregulating the airlines destroyed famous American brand names such as Pan Am, shrank the number of companies, and caused a decline in service. When airlines were regulated, they could afford standby equipment, and cancelled flights were rare. Today, the bottom line prohibits standby equipment, and mechanical problems result in cancelled flights.

When economists calculated the benefits of deregulation, they left out the costs. There are no longer any blue chip companies, which means that investing for retirement has become a crapshoot. People realize this; thus, the privatization of Social Security has no support.

If we look realistically at the U.S. economy, we see that what is not moved offshore is being bailed out. Last year, the Department of Energy was authorized to make $25 billion in loans to auto manufacturing firms and suppliers of automotive parts. Recently, the secretary of the treasury took $5 trillion in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac home mortgages under its wing.

The Congressional Budget Office says this action by the Treasury means "that the operations of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should be directly incorporated into the federal budget." Their revenues would be treated as federal revenues, and their expenditures as federal expenditures. If the former were greater than the latter, there would be no reason for the takeover.

The open question is: what do these new liabilities do to the Treasury's own credit standing? For now, this question is submerged. The traditional practice of fleeing to the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasury bonds during periods of financial stress and uncertainty has boosted the dollar and kept interest rates low. But sooner or later the large U.S. budget deficit, worsened by recession and bailouts, and the large trade deficit, which requires constant recycling of dollars held by foreigners into U.S. financial and real assets, will result in renewed effort on the part of foreigners to lighten their dollar holdings.

When this time arrives, U.S. interest rates will have to rise in order for the government to be able to continue to rely on foreigners to recycle the dollars acquired in trade to finance the U.S. government's annual budget deficit.

The current financial problems have pushed into the background the larger problems of the U.S. budget and trade deficits. Goods and services for American markets that U.S. corporations outsource offshore return as imports, which widen the U.S. trade deficit. Moving production offshore reduces U.S. GDP and employment and increases foreign GDP and employment.

Therefore, how is the trade deficit to be closed? One way is through the dollar's loss in exchange value, which would reduce U.S. consumers' real incomes and leave them too poor to purchase the offshored goods.

How is the budget deficit to be closed when jobs are disappearing and GDP (tax base) is being offshored? Not by higher taxes. Higher taxes are problematic for a recessionary economy in which unemployment, properly measured, is already in double digits. Some people have speculated that the budget deficit will be closed by dismantling entitlement programs such as Medicare. However, considering the cost of medical insurance, this would be catastrophic.

The more likely avenue will be a raid on private pensions. Bill Clinton's appointee, Alicia Munnell, as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy, argued that private pensions should face a capital levy to make up for the fact that their accumulation was tax free. I expect that the federal government, faced with its own bankruptcy, will resurrect this argument.

In the 21st century, the U.S economy has been kept going by debt expansion, not by real income growth. Economists have hyped U.S. productivity growth, but there is no sign that increased productivity has raised family incomes, an indication that there is a problem with the productivity statistics. With consumers overloaded with debt and the value of their most important asset—housing—falling, the American consumer will not be leading a recovery.

A country that had intelligent leaders would recognize its dire straits, stop its gratuitous wars, and slash its massive military budget, which exceeds that of the rest of the world combined. But a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the world ceases to finance it.

Most Americans, including the presidential candidates and the media, are unaware that the U.S. government today is unable to finance its day-to-day operations and must rely on foreigners to purchase its bonds. The government pays the interest to foreigners by selling more bonds, and when the bonds come due, the government redeems the bonds by selling new bonds. The day the foreigners do not buy is the day the American people and their government are brought to reality.

This isn't the financial position of a superpower.

Nationally syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D., a former editor at The Wall Street Journal, is the author of several books. He has been associated with the Hoover Institution, and the Institute for Political Economy and from 1981 to 1982 served as assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy.

Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to Amerrican Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania
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By Christopher J. Petherick

Washington's proposed trillion-dollar bailout of Wall Street may be good news for the troubled financial behemoths, which will be saved in the short term from the consequences of their own greed. But assuming the massive rescue package can compensate for a looming global derivatives-market meltdown valued at hundreds of trillions of dollars, the unintended consequences - and there are always unintended consequences - are already being felt. In the last week of September, investors lost faith in the greenback and bet on gold and silver as a currency hedge, driving up the vale of precious metals.

The last two weeks of September saw gold, silver and other precious metals benefitting from unprecedented gains as the U.S. dollar lost its appeal. For example, gold saw its largest one-day gain ever on Sept. 17, rising nearly $150 an ounce in regular session and after-hours trading. Likewise, silver, which is always more affordable than gold, saw great gains, as did pricier platinum and palladium. And it's not over yet. Analysts expect the value of gold and silver to continue their rise as forecasts for the U.S. economy predict gloomy times to come.

In these times, it is impossible to know the true depth of the financial turmoil, as no one knows the exact value of the murky world of derivatives trading. The Bank of International settlements estimated the vlue of the derivatives markets to be over $500 trillion (that's trillion, not billion) - some50 times the entire gross domestic product of the United States. In other words, Washington may be planning to throw $1 trillion of taxpayers' money into a deep abyss.

The venerable financial publication Barron's has already chimed in with an editorial, saying the problem with the bailout plan is the amount of money Congress is proposing to appropriate to help Wall Street - it is not enough.

As a result, investors are turning to precious metals, which many believe were oversold in the month of August.

"While the U.S. Treasury's rescue package may be enough to calm some of the froth in the U.S. and global financial markets, the collapse, or near-collapse, of two major institutions and the domino effect this had on the financial sector may again draw more investor diversification toward gold as a safe-haven asset," James Moore, an analyst at TheBullionDesk.com, told Reuters.
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The financial system is blowing up. Don't listen to the experts; just look at the numbers. Last week, according to Reuters, "U.S. banks borrowed a record amount from the Federal Reserve nearly $188 billion a day on average, showing the central bank went to extremes to keep the banking system afloat amid the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression." The Fed opened the various "auction facilities" to create the appearance that insolvent banks were thriving businesses, but they are not. They're dead; their liabilities exceed their assets. Now the Fed is desperate because the hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the banks vaults have bankrupted the entire system and the Fed's balance sheet is ballooning by the day. The market for MBS will not bounce back in the foreseeable future and the banks are unable to roll-over their short term debt.

The Federal Reserve itself is in danger. So, it's on to Plan B; which is to dump all the toxic sludge on the taxpayers before they realize that the whole system is cratering. It's called the Paulson Plan, a $700 billion outrage which has already been disparaged by every economist of merit in the country.

From Reuters: "Borrowings by primary dealers via the Primary Dealer Credit Facility, and through another facility created on Sunday for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch, and their London-based subsidiaries, totaled $105.66 billion as of Wednesday, the Fed said."

See what I mean; they're all broke. The Fed's rotating loans are just a way to perpetuate the myth that the banks aren't flat-lining already. Bernanke has tied strings to the various body parts and jerks them every so often to make it look like they're alive. But the Wall Street model is broken and the bailout is pointless.

Last week, there was a digital run on the banks that most people never even heard about; a "real time" crash. An article in the New York Post by Michael Gray gave a blow by blow description of how events unfolded. Here's a clip from Gray's "Almost Armageddon":

"The market was 500 trades away from Armageddon on Thursday...Had the Treasury and Fed not quickly stepped into the fray that morning with a quick $105 billion injection of liquidity, the Dow could have collapsed to the 8,300-level - a 22 percent decline! - while the clang of the opening bell was still echoing around the cavernous exchange floor. According to traders, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, money market funds were inundated with $500 billion in sell orders prior to the opening. The total money-market capitalization was roughly $4 trillion that morning.

"The panicked selling was directly linked to the seizing up of the credit markets - including a $52 billion constriction in commercial paper - and the rumors of additional money market funds ‘breaking the buck,' or dropping below $1 net asset value.

"The Fed's dramatic $105 billion liquidity injection on Thursday (pre-market) was just enough to keep key institutional accounts from following through on the sell orders and starting a stampede of cash that could have brought large tracts of the US economy to a halt."

Commercial paper is the lubricant that keeps the financial markets functioning. When confidence vanishes, investors withdraw their money, normal business operations become impossible, and the markets collapse. End of story. So, rather than restore the public's confidence by strong leadership and behavior designed to reassure investors; President Bush decided to give a major prime-time speech stating that if Paulson's emergency bailout package was not passed immediately, the nation's economy would vaporize into the ether.

Last week, the commercial paper market, (much of which is backed by mortgage-backed securities) shrunk by $61 billion to $1.702 trillion, the lowest level since early 2006. So, Paulson's bailout will effectively underwrite CP as well as the whole alphabet soup of mortgage-backed derivatives for which there is currently no market. The US taxpayer is not only getting into the plummeting real estate market, he is also backstopping the entire financial system including defaulting car loan securities, waning student loan securities, flailing home equity loan securities and faltering credit card securities. The whole mountainous pile of horsecrap-debt is about to be stacked on the back of the maxed-out taxpayer and the ever-shriveling greenback.

How did Treasury Secretary Paulson figure out that recapitalizing the banking system would cost $700 billion? Or did he just estimate the amount of money that could be loaded on the back of the Treasury's flatbed truck when it sputters off to shower his buddies at Goldman Sachs with freshly minted greenbacks? The point is, that Paulson's calculations were not assisted by any economists at all, and they cannot be trusted. It is a purely arbitrary, "back of the envelope" type figuring. According to Bloomberg: Swiss investor Marc Faber, known for a long track record of good calls, believes the damage may come to $5 trillion:

"Marc Faber, managing director of Marc Faber Ltd. in Hong Kong, said the U.S. government's rescue package for the financial system may require as much as $5 trillion, seven times the amount Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has requested....

``The $700 billion is really nothing,'' Faber said in a television interview. ``The Treasury is just giving out this figure when the end figure may be $5 trillion.''

Most people who follow these matters would trust Faber's assessment way over Paulson's. In his latest blog entry, economist Nouriel Roubini said that "no professional economist was consulted by Congress or invited to present his/her views at the Congressional hearings on the Treasury rescue plan." Roubini added:

"The Treasury plan is a disgrace: a bailout of reckless bankers, lenders and investors that provides little direct debt relief to borrowers and financially stressed households and that will come at a very high cost to the US taxpayer. And the plan does nothing to resolve the severe stress in money markets and interbank markets that are now close to a systemic meltdown."

Roubini is right on all counts. So far, more than a 190 prominent economists have urged Congress not to pass the $700 bailout bill. There is growing consensus that the so-called "rescue package" does not address the central economic issues and has the potential to make a bad situation even worse.
The Bankers' Coup

Financial industry rep. Paulson is the ringleader in a bankers' coup the results of which will decide America's economic and political future for years to come. The coup leaders have drained tens of billions of dollars of liquidity from the already-strained banking system to trigger a freeze in interbank lending and hasten a stock market crash. This, they believe, will force Congress to pass Paulson's $770 billion bailout package without further congressional resistance. It's blackmail.

As yet, no one knows whether the coup-backers will succeed and further consolidate their political power via a massive economic shock to the system, but their plan continues to move jauntily forward while the economy follows its slide to disaster.

The bailout has galvanized grassroots movements which have flooded congressional FAXs and phone lines. Callers are overwhelmingly opposed to any bailout for banks that are buckling under their own toxic mortgage-backed assets. One analyst said that the calls to Congress are 50 per cent "No" and 50 percent "Hell, No". There is virtually no popular support for the bill.

From Bloomberg News: "Erik Brynjolfsson, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School, said his main objection ‘is the breathtaking amount of unchecked discretion it gives to the Secretary of the Treasury. It is unprecedented in a modern democracy.'

"‘I suspect that part of what we're seeing in the freezing up of lending markets is strategic behavior on the part of big financial players who stand to benefit from the bailout,' said David K. Levine, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, who studies liquidity constraints and game theory.'" (Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis)

Brynjolfsson's suspicions are well-founded. "Market Ticker's" Karl Denninger confirms that the Fed has been draining the banking system of liquidity in order to blackmail Congress into passing the new legislation. Here's Denninger:

"The Effective Fed Funds rate has been trading 50 basis points or more below the 2% target for five straight days now, and for the last two days, it has traded 75 basis points under. The IRX is demanding an immediate rate cut. The Slosh has been intentionally drained by over $125 billion in the last week and lowering the water in the swamp exposed one dead body - Washington Mutual - which was immediately raided on a no-notice basis by JP Morgan. Not even WaMu's CEO knew about the raid until it was done....The Fed claims to be an ‘independent central bank.' They are nothing of the kind; they are now acting as an arsonist. The Fed and Treasury have claimed this is a ‘liquidity crisis'; it is not. It is an insolvency crisis that The Fed, Treasury and the other regulatory organs of our government have intentionally allowed to occur."

Grassroots resistance, spearheaded by Internet bloggers (like Mish, Roubini and Denninger) are demonstrating that they can mobilize tens of thousands of "peasants with pitchforks" and be a factor in political decision making. It also helps to have elected officials, like Senator Richard Shelby, who stand firm on principle and don't faint at the first whiff of grapeshot (like his weak-kneed Democratic counterparts) Shelby has shouldered the full-weight of executive pressure which has descended on him like a Appalachian rockslide. As a result, there's still a slight chance that the bill will have to be shelved and the industry reps will have to go back to Square One.

The country's economic predicament is steadily deteriorating. Orders for manufactured durable goods were off 4.5 percent last month while inventories continued to rise. Unemployment is soaring and the housing crash continues to accelerate. Credit Suisse now expects 10.3 million foreclosures (total) in the next few years. Numbers like that are not accidental, but part of a larger scheme to use monetary policy as a way to shift wealth from one class to another while degrading the nation's overall economic well-being. More alarming, the country's primary creditors are now staging a rebellion that is likely to cut off the flow of capital to US markets sending the dollar plummeting and triggering a deflationary credit collapse. This is from Reuters:

"Chinese regulators have asked domestic banks to stop lending to U.S. financial institutions in the interbank money markets to prevent possible losses during the financial crisis, the South China Morning Post reported Thursday. The China Banking Regulatory Commission's ban on interbank lending of all currencies applied to U.S. banks, but not to lenders from other countries, the report added."

Bloomberg News reports that Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher has broken with tradition and lambasted the proposed bailout saying that it "would plunge the U.S. government deeper into a fiscal abyss."

From Bloomberg: "The plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to buy troubled assets from financial institutions would put 'one more straw on the back of the frightfully encumbered camel that is the federal government ledger,' Fisher said today in the text of a speech in New York. 'We are deeply submerged in a vast fiscal chasm.'...The seizures and convulsions we have experienced in the debt and equity markets have been the consequences of a sustained orgy of excess and reckless behavior, not a too-tight monetary policy," Fisher said to the New York University Money Marketeers Club." (Bloomberg)

Surely, the cure for hyperbolic "credit excesses and reckless behavior" cannot be "more of the same." In fact, Paulson's bailout does not even address the core issues which have been obscured by demagoguery and threats. The worthless assets must be written-down, insolvent banks must be allowed to go bust, and the crooks and criminals who engineered this financial blitz on the nation's coffers must be held to account.

The carnage from Greenspan's low interest rate, "easy money" binge is now visible everywhere. Inflated home and stock values are crashing as the gas continues to escape from the massive equity bubble. The FDIC will have to be recapitalized--perhaps, $500 billion--to account for the anticipated loss of deposits from failing banks caught in the cross-hairs of asset-deflation and steadily contracting credit. Recession is coming, but economic collapse can still be avoided if Paulson's misguided plan is abandoned and corrective action is taken to put the country on solid financial footing. Market Ticker lays out framework for a workable solution to the crisis, but they must be acted on swiftly to rebuild confidence that major systemic changes are underway:

1--Force all off-balance sheet "assets" back onto the balance sheet, and force the valuation models and identification of individual assets out of Level 3 and into 10Qs and 10Ks. Do it now. : (In other words, no more Enron-type accounting mumbo-jumbo and no more allowing the banks assign their own "values" to dodgy assets)

2--Force all OTC derivatives onto a regulated exchange similar to that used by listed options in the equity markets. This permanently defuses the derivatives time bomb. Give market participants 90 days; any that are not listed in 90 days are declared void; let the participants sue each other if they can't prove capital adequacy. (If trading derivatives contracts can damage the "regulated" system, than that trading must take place under strict government regulations)

3--Force leverage by all institutions to no more than 12:1. The SEC intentionally dropped broker/dealer leverage limits in 2004; prior to that date 12:1 was the limit. Every firm that has failed had double or more the leverage of that former 12:1 limit. Enact this with a six month time limit and require 1/6th of the excess taken down monthly. (Ed: The collapse in the "structured finance" model is mainly due to too much leverage. For example, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had $80 of debt for every $1 dollar of capital reserves when they were taken into government conservatorship.)

If there's going to be a bailout, let's get it right. Paulson's $700 billion bill does nothing to fix the deep structural problems in the financial markets; it merely pushes the day of reckoning a little further into the future while shifting the burden of payment for toxic assets onto the taxpayer.

Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

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I must not have kept up with the news for a couple of days, so I was pretty surprised when I woke up Sunday morning and discovered that the U.S. economy was in free fall and the American way of life was teetering on the brink of disaster.

I thought the American economy was strong. How could I be so wrong?

"The economic stimulus package that I signed earlier this year is having its intended effect. Many Americans who received tax rebates are spending them. Businesses are taking advantage of tax incentives to purchase new equipment this year. And there are signs that the stimulus package will continue to have a beneficial impact on the economy in the second half of the year."—GeorgeW. Bush, August 30, 2008

Okay—that was Bush, and we all know he's a cockeyed optimist (and pathological liar), so we can't really believe what he says about the economy . . . or the war . . . or the environment . . . or torture . . . or the time of day. But straight-talking maverick war hero John McCain has also said that our economy was "strong" at least 18 times this year.

Was that just political happy talk in an election year?

What did America's top economic experts have to say? FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIRMAN BEN BERNANKE SAID:

"The agencies have made clear that no bank is too big too fail, so that bank management, shareholders, and uninsured debt holders understand that they will not escape the consequences of excessive risk-taking"—11/15/05.

"The risk of moral hazard must be considered in designing government-backed programs; such programs should not bail out failed investors, as doing so would only encourage excessive risk-taking."— Committee on Financial Services, House of Representatives, 9/20/07.

"It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve— nor would it be appropriate—to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions"— speech at the Economic Club of New York, 11/15/07.

"I don't anticipate any serious problems of that sort among the large internationally active banks that make up a very substantial part of our banking system."—, 2/29/08.

"[Freddie Mac] . . . no danger of failing. [Fannie Mae] . . . adequately capitalized"—7/16/08.

U.S. TREASURY SECRETARY HENRY PAULSON SAID:

"This is far and away the strongest global economy I've seen in my business lifetime."— 6/12/07.

"I don't see subprime mortgage market troubles imposing a serious problem. I think it's going to be largely contained.—4/20/07

"We've got strong financial institutions. . . . Our markets are the envy of the world. They're resilient, they're . . . innovative, they're flexible. I think we move very quickly to address situations in this country, and, as I said, our financial institutions are strong."— 3/16/08.

"In my judgment, we are closer to the end of the market turmoil than the beginning."—5/16/08.

It's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation."—7/20/08.

"Moral hazard is something I don't take lightly. I never once considered that it was appropriate to put taxpayer money on the line in resolving Lehman Brothers."—9/15/08.

Now these same economic experts say the economy is crashing.

Bernanke called the current problems the "most severe financial crisis" in the post-World War II era. Investment banks are seeing "tremendous runs on their cash," Bernanke said. "Without action, they will fail soon."—11/19/08.

Comedy Central's Colbert Report put it a little more eloquently: "Oh my God society is collapsing and we will soon be devouring each other in the streets like dogs and a crippled one-eyed boy will be king if we don't fix this by next week."—9/23/08.

There is no need to worry, though. The same economic experts who failed to recognize the problem (or lied about it for months) now have a plan to save the day. All we have to do is hand over at least $700 billion to Treasury Secretary Paulson, along with unprecedented dictatorial powers to do whatever he wants, with no oversight and no review:

"Decisions by the treasury secretary pursuant to the authority of this act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency."—Section 8 of the administration's Wall Street bailout plan.

But this time the Bush administration made a tactical error. The so-called Democratically controlled Congress has been so gutless and easy to manipulate that the White House got careless. Instead of burying the more odious and unconstitutional parts of their bailout plan in the usual 300-page snow job, their proposal was only three pages long. This allowed some senators and representatives to take the highly unusual step of actually reading the proposal before signing off on it. More importantly, the Internet allowed Americans to read the proposal and plainly see the administration's plan to bail out the companies who caused the problem.

In response, constituents have bombarded congressional offices with calls, faxes and Internet petitions condemning the Wall Street bailout. Spontaneous protest demonstrations have taken to the streets in towns and cities across the nation and on Wall Street.

When Congress didn't immediately rubberstamp the Wall Street bailout plan, Bush went on television and threatened Americans with the economic equivalent of a "mushroom cloud."

John McCain dramatically "suspended" his presidential campaign, so he could devote his full attention to grandstanding during the economic "crisis." He also suggested canceling the scheduled presidential debate, claiming the dog ate his homework.

President Bush convened a one-hour economic summit, inviting congressional leaders and presidential candidates Obama and McCain. Once this ill-timed interruption was over, everyone went back to doing important things.

It doesn't take an economist to know that loaning money to people who cannot possibly pay it back is good business——if you have a sucker to bail you out in the end. In this case, the sucker is the same one who ends up paying for the administration's mistakes—the American taxpayer.

Americans can only hope that Congress will take the advice David Kay Johnson of the New York Times sent in a memo to the media: "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is."

MICK YOUTHER is a retired Southern Illinois Univ. professor.

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The trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout plan negotiated by the White House and Congress has reinvigorated the debate about Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act (HR 2755), which was introduced into Congress in June 2007.

In the halls of Congress, legislators have yet to bring Paul's bill to the floor. It is currently languishing in the House Committee on Financial Services.

However, there has been a great deal of discussion about this landmark legislation on the Internet and in the alternative press. Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin has even made abolishing the Fed one of the top planks in his platform.

Paul's measure, as it is now, would kill the Federal Reserve Act and would then phase out the Federal Reserve one year after the bill becomes law.

The Federal Reserve Act, passed by Congress in 1913, laid the foundation for the creation of a privately owned and controlled central bank and gave private bankers the power to control the nation's money supply.

Nearly 100 years later, the role the central bank has played in the financial scandal has been widely reported in the mainstream. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, once heralded as "the maestro," has been feeling the heat for supporting the deregulation of financial institutions and flooding markets with cheap dollars.

U.S. News & World Report had a recent commentary titled "From Enron to the Financial Crisis, With Alan Greenspan in Between" excoriating Greenspan, who as the nation's top banker, repeatedly downplayed the risks associated with derivatives even after the collapse of Enron in 2002.

On September 27, The New York Times also hit Greenspan for his failure to watch over and regulate greedy banks. To its credit, the Times also blasted Congress for dismantling important safeguards, including the Glass-Steagall Act, which kept commercial and investment banks at a safe distance.

"Now we know that an entire ‘shadow banking system' has grown up," wrote the Times, "without rules or transparency, but with the ability to topple the financial system itself."

Even the cable news shows are getting in on the game. NBC's cable news show interviewed well-known investor Jim Rogers, who made a fortune betting on commodities markets.

"How much money does the Federal Reserve have?" asked Rogers. "I know they can run their printing presses forever, but that is not good for the world. Inflation is not good for the world. A collapsing currency is not good for the world. It means worse recession in the end. . . . I would abolish the Federal Reserve."

Neo-conservative talk show host Glenn Beck has also assailed the Federal Reserve for its role in the financial crisis. On September 15, Beck had a lively debate about who exactly owns the Federal Reserve.

"The Federal Reserve has nothing to do with the government," said Beck. "It's a separate, global banking system. . . . And when everyone was meeting with our Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson, I thought to myself: ‘Who the hell is representing us, the American people?"

Ron Paul financial advisor Paul Schiff responded: "The Fed got us into this mess. It drives me crazy to see Alan Greenspan on television talking about this ‘100 year flood,' like the events that are taking place today are random and have nothing to do with his monetary policy. He blew up the bubble, and now it's burst."

Wall Street Journal editorial writer Steven Moore added: "And by the way, who elected Ben Bernanke? Who elected Alan Greenspan?"

Now is the time for Americans to fan the flames. Call your congressman and two senators and ask them to support Paul's bill, which would abolish the Fed. There can be no end to these manufactured financial crises until the government gets rid of the Fed and replaces it with honest, debt-free money.

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"Valley Trash." That's what Alaska State Senate President Ben Stevens called Mat-Su Valley residents, (including Wasilla), in 2004.White trash with an Alaskan twist. The country bumpkins down an icy dangerous road from Anchorage. It struck a chord and spawned bumper stickers on four wheelers and tee-shirts that said "Proud to be Valley Trash." Who knew then that Republican Senator Ted Steven's son would define the Democrat's national campaign when Sarah Palin jumped into the Vice Presidential race? For quick moving political operatives, Sarah became Daisy Mae and Todd, her own, Li'l Abner, a diverting sideshow to the Big Race. In the short term, Ben's slur did a good thing for Alaska. It helped break the state Republican party in two, separating those rich car dealers, doctors and bankers who live in mansions on the Hillside in South Anchorage from working class conservatives in the Mat-Su Valley. Valley Trash are people, a bit like the ones Obama described in his San Francisco fund raiser, but, in fact, different; they have taken charge of their own destinies and, (as Alaskan license plates and a former governor once proclaimed), gone North to the Future . These folks aren't bitter. They are living the Alaska Dream, a tough, independent and, sometimes, dangerous reality, cushioned with paybacks from oil field socialism that narrows the gap between economic classes, ( at least, among suburban and urban, non-indigenous Alaskans).

For a time, the Obama campaign thought it could win Alaska's electoral votes. But when Palin was nominated, party operatives snapped up Ben Stevens' Valley Trash campaign in all but name only, projecting Palin's private life and her small town conservatism onto her would-be Vice Presidency. Bloggers and journalists went to work on Alaska and Palin, defining it as out of the mainstream and Palin as a Far Right Religious Zealot. Palin was ridiculed as a country rube among rubes, a possible witch whose family might have flirted with incest. Her Alaska became Dog Patch, Wasilla, Lower Slobbovia. James Carville called her a Buchanan supporter (read, anti-Semite), twenty minutes after she was named, even as Mary Matalin, his loving wife, played the other side of the street with her publication of Obama Nation by James Corsi. As Matalin and Carville explain it, in their co-authored account of the 1992 Presidential campaign, it is not really about Palin, Alaska or even handing the state back to Exxon-Mobil: "All's Fair Love, War and Running for President." But when you are on the receiving end of this abuse, that's hard to understand because it feels so personal.

It's amazing how quickly Alaskan liberals bought into the new Palin story, dismissing the recent past as if it had never happened. If Palin had come to Juneau with an agenda crafted in her church basement, cultural lines would have been drawn and no attacks on the Big Oil hegemony would have occurred. And state Democrats, who may have looked down their noses at Valley Trash, just like Ben, were smart enough to keep their mouths shut and find common ground while old-line Republicans leaders looked over their shoulders for subpoenas flowing from their overly cozy relations with VECO, the oil service company. To the dismay of oil company executives, she formed a working coalition with Democrats who represent West Anchorage's well- paid liberals among unionized public employees and the professions. These Alaska Democrats were not conversant with the tactics of national political spin machines. Still, after 2000, they bought the Ralph Nader-as-spoiler line, hook and sinker as spun from distant Washington, despite Nader's founding of Alaska PIRG and his steadfast support of Alaska in its fight with natural resource giants. They really couldn't be blamed. Until this year, the spin and slime and sophistication of national Presidential campaigns were as elusive in Alaska as sun at noon in late January.

While the Alaska coalition, useful to Valley Trash and Democratic liberals alike, is gone, on the national playing field, the attacks against Palin could boomerang against Obama, especially as a national depression threatens to sweep away illusions of a better future.

Millions of Americans envy the Palins and aspire to their Alaskan lives as their own personal dream of security. Their piece of the corporate rock, peddled by Wall Street, sank like a stone. NYT writer, Timothy Egan, usually the smartest Alaska analyst, asked readers whether American voters could relate to an Alaska where, "Every home seems to have a freezer in the garage stuffed with moose meat and 10 pounds of alder-smoked chinook? Owning a small amount of marijuana is protected by the privacy clause of the Alaska constitution, the courts have ruled." Are you kidding, Timothy? The answer is HELL, YES! A place where you make great money on the North Slope, do some commercial fishing or gold mining like Todd Palin and have time to compete and win Iron Man cross country snow machine races? All of this and three thousand plus dollars each from Alaska, your yearly share in the oil wealth? How many folks would like to live like the Palins on Lake Lucille in the half million dollar house that Todd designed and built?

Sarah Palin is selling the Alaskan dream as a remaining fragment of the American dream, not her foreign policy or economic claptrap drawn from Republican handlers. If her husband spends time helping her at work, or if she confuses her personal internet with the one the state provided, well, she is still Citizen Palin not Professional Politician Palin, like Senators Obama, Biden or McCain with their legions of reliable staffers. Her supporters understand and want to forgive her because she has the life they want. Level-headed Obama supporters need to develop a quick antidote to their own Valley Trash strategy. It's not going to be Joe Biden, declared champion of the credit card industry and asset forfeiture for drug offenders. If people can't relate to a United States Senator and his world, dumping on Sarah won't rein them in. If James Carville thinks he can herd this crowd, the way he cowed progressives into voting for corporate candidates,instead of Ralph Nader, he has –once again- blown it for the Democrats.

Steve Conn lived in Alaska from 1972 until 2007. He is a retired professor, University of Alaska. His e mail is steveconn@hotmail.com. This article appeared on the web site of Counterpunch.

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I will be the first to admit I have a bad case of tunnel vision when it comes to the Palestinian conflict. This in itself makes it nearly impossible to choose a worthy candidate in a nation where allegiance to Israel is a prerequisite to becoming electorally viable.

I will also admit the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is probably the furthest thing from the minds of most Americans, who have more immediate worries such as mortgage payments, inadequate or non-existent medical coverage and/or loved ones deployed to some illogical war zone.

However, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is in so many ways a summary of the disasters plaguing the United States today. The staggering cost of aiding and abetting the Israeli government, to the tune of $30 billion over the next ten years, is both an economic drain and a major component of our failed foreign policy.

American taxpayers are not only forced to funnel hard-earned dollars to military and economic aid for Israel, but are also providing substantial assistance to the Fatah party, as reported last year by Christian Science Monitor.

According to CSM, "Senior US officials in Washington promised ongoing military support for secular Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid his power struggle with Islamist Hamas as part of an $84 million aid package largely aimed at improving the fighting ability of an elite corps of loyalists from his Fatah Party."

Such action is used to exacerbate and prolong civil strife, whereby the lack of security in the Palestinian territories can be utilized as a perfect excuse not to establish a Palestinian state. With no official state and no defined borders, Israel is free to grab more land at will, whittling away at the last 20% of historical Palestine .

Additionally, the same Israeli lobby that demands Congress's unflinching support of the Jewish state helped sell us the now over $650 billion Iraq War, a figure which pales in comparison to the human cost. Those who deny Israeli influence in the fiasco must remember former Secretary of State Colin Powell's statement after the fall of Baghdad : "That's one enemy of Israel gone."

Next on their hit list is Iran . According to U.S. News and World Report, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, is coming to New York next week to attend a "pro-Israel, anti-Iran rally."

At one point, I was actually leaning McCain-Palin's way; or rather leaning away from Senator Barack Obama and his expressed solidarity for the "brave citizens of Sderot." His spineless denial of former friends who were pro-Palestinian activists in Chicago didn't exactly raise his stock with me, either.

However, there is one thing Obama does have going for him: he is not of the Zionist "Christian" ilk that brought us eight years of George W. Bush. Lest we forget, McCain and Palin belong to the special evangelical breed that believes all Jews have to congregate in "Greater Israel" before Jesus Christ can return to earth. These views have been downplayed by the McCain-Palin ticket, as pointed out by conservative political activist George Ajjan on his website, www.ajjan.com.

In his analysis of Palin's Republican National Convention Ajjan states:

"If Sarah Palin is the evangelical Christian's dream candidate, you'd never guess it from this speech - she used the word God twice, exactly as many time as Barack Obama did in his keynote remarks last week."

Alaska 's governor may be more savvy than was our illustrious President about airing her beliefs. However, on August 17, 2008 at the Wasilla Bible Church attended by Palin and her family, the congregation was singing in Hebrew and blaming Palestinian reprisals against Israelis as "judgment from God" rather than the American-backed occupation.

All of which brings us back to our choice—or lack thereof—in the 2008 election: a candidate who supports Israel on the basis of warped religious beliefs versus a candidate who supports Israel on the basis of grabbing the Jewish community's votes and money. Either way, the American people lose.

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(Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 10/06/08) - Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the attorney who filed suit against Sen. Barack H. Obama challenging Obama's lack of "qualifications" to serve as president of the United States, announced today that Obama and Democratic National Committee (DNC) filed a joint motion for a protective order to stay discovery pending a decision on the motion to dismiss which was filed on Sept. 24.

While legal, Berg stated he is "outraged as this is another attempt to hide the truth from the public; it is obvious that documents do not exist to prove that Obama is qualified to be President." The case is Berg v. Obama, No. 08-cv-04083.

Their joint motion indicates a concerted effort to avoid the truth by attempting to delay the judicial process, although legal, by not resolving the issue presented: that is, whether Obama meets the qualifications to be president.

It is obvious that Obama was born in Kenya and does not meet the "qualifications" to be president of the United States pursuant to our United States Constitution. Obama cannot produce a certified copy of his "vault" (original long version) birth certificate from Hawaii because it does not exist.

Furthermore, and actually more important is Obama's certificate of citizenship that he received when he returned from Indonesia, as if it exists it would indicate that Obama was "naturalized" and also not able to be president.

The DNC has promised "we the people" an open and honest Government and has promised to uphold our United States Constitution. The DNC has failed their promise. DNC Chairperson Howard Dean should resign as he has not and is not fulfilling his responsibility of seeing that a "qualified" candidate is on the ballot as the Democratic candidate for president of the United States.

Berg stated that a response in opposition will be filed in the next day or so to the defendants motion for a protective order.

The web site obamacrimes.com now has 21.7 plus million hits. It is urging all to spread the word of the website – and forward to your local newspapers and radio and TV stations.

Berg again stressed his position regarding the urgency of this case as, "we" the people, are heading to a "Constitutional Crisis" if this case is not resolved forthwith.

Philip J. Berg, Esquire

555 Andorra Glen Court, Suite 12

Lafayette Hill, PA 19444-2531

Cell (610) 662-3005

(610) 825-3134

(800) 993-PHIL [7445]

Fax (610) 834-7659

philjberg@obamacrimes.com

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Our constitutional right to liberty is systematically being attacked by government agencies flanked by anti-competitive forces in the food industry. Nowhere, is this more obvious than on the raw milk issue. California Gov. Arnold Swartzenegger recently vetoed SB 201, a bill to preserve consumers rights to access farm fresh milk, while guaranteeing its safety.

The governor, who likely consumed raw dairy in his rise to stardom as a body builder, thwarted the freedoms of the over 40,000 raw milk devotees in his state. He ignored the will of the people in favor of the milk processors and the government regulators bent on crushing the raw dairy producers in their state—two of which are the most successful in the nation.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture, whose officials repeatedly refused to appear at hearings on the legislation, by pushed the Terminator's pen on a bill that received populist support and nearly unanimous approval by both houses of the legislature.

Similar back room politics killed the Farm Fresh Milk Act in Maryland last year, which would have reinvigorated struggling small dairy farms by recognizing their right to sell milk direct to consumers at the farm gate. Hundreds of Maryland families participated in lobbying efforts in support of the bill, and yet it was killed in committee (by a very close vote) because of the bureaucrats' dire warnings of an imminent threat to public health.

In Pennsylvania, an aggressive anti-raw milk stance has created a hostile atmosphere for over 100 family farms. Pennsylvania raw milk farms practice humane animal husbandry and consequently, offer a superior product to thousands of consumers, many of whom imbibe raw milk for its healing qualities. Bill Chirdon, the Director of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's (PDA) Bureau of Food Safety and Laboratory Services, is spearheading a pathogen witch hunt that appears to have as its aim a chilling of consumer demand for raw dairy. Through stepped up inspection schedules and a flurry of negative press releases warning of pathogens in raw milk in 2008, He has managed to damage farmer's livelihoods, thus raising the ire of consumers and farmers alike. Taking a guilty until proven innocent attitude toward one dairy farmer in a recent case, Chirdon even issued a press release pinning blame for several illnesses on the dairy, prior to the return of official test results. When the test results came back negative, he proceeded to withhold the release of the results to the media, while disseminating another press release, which claimed a pathogen was found in an opened milk container from a sick household.

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund Board member, Ted Beals, M.D. a pathologist and former laboratory chief says that the testing of an opened container, especially from a sick household, is an unacceptable test. An opened container may be cross-contaminated, and this is even more likely to happen in a home where there is illness. This release to the media of the unorthodox test results, however, totally eclipsed the PDA's subsequent announcement that the official test results for pathogens in the dairy's milk came back negative. The dairy had been exonerated, yet the public perception was left that it was risky to buy its products.

Consumer choice and the survival of family farms, particularly those who practice traditional and sustainable farming methods, are under siege by government policies informed by institutional bias against unprocessed milk. Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation and the nation's leading champion of raw dairy for its nutritional benefits, Realmilk.com, has a dire warning of her own, "The right to produce and consume raw dairy is vital to the health of the family farm and our citizens. The future of sustainable agriculture and the health of our nation depends on a new paradigm that respects the essential liberties of farmers and consumers."

Bureaucrats and Big Business with wanton disregard for our freedoms, may stir up such resistance that they end up stimulating demand for raw dairy, rather than curbing sales. Their campaign of oppression may be just what we need to bring that new paradigm about.

Kimberly Hartke is a raw dairy consumer in the state of Virginia. She suffers from a painful knee condition, chondromalacia patella (runners knee), that has been alleviated by adding raw dairy to her diet. Virginia has banned retail and farm sales of raw milk, so she invested in a cow lease program in order to have access to farm fresh milk. She is currently the publicist for the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit, which promotes raw mile from pasture-raised cows as a healthy alternative to processed milk. Visit her web site here.

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By Chuck Baldwin

Congressman Ron Paul publicly gave me his endorsement for president. In his blog at the Campaign for Liberty web site, he said, "I'm supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate."*

I could not be more delighted and honored to have Dr. Paul's endorsement. I called him and thanked him personally. Now I want to thank him publicly.

Dr. Paul was under considerable pressure from various groups that were soliciting his support. I never lobbied Dr. Paul for his endorsement. He knew I would be thrilled to have it, but I have too much respect for Paul to be so presumptuous. I understood his neutrality. He has strong ties to both the Libertarian and Constitution parties - not to mention the obvious fact that he is a 10-term Republican congressman with much support from the Republican Party in his home district.

I was happy to support Ron Paul during the Republican primaries because I believe in the same principles. I personally campaigned for him in several states and in my Internet column. And I asked (or expected) nothing in return. I have stated publicly, time and again: if Paul had won the Republican nomination, I would not be running. I would still be supporting Paul.

I am running for president because the Republican Party rejected Paul's message of constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and non-interventionism. Therefore, someone had to pick up the mantle and carry this message into the general election. The Constitution Party asked me to be their standard-bearer in order to bring this message to the American people in November. So, here I am. And now, Ron Paul's endorsement is further substantiation that the message of constitutional government will not die in 2008. The American people still have a real choice instead of the big-government, globalist, interventionist, "big box" party candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Paul's message is my message; Paul's fight is my fight. I want to return America to constitutional government. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the Sates respectively, or to the people." (Amendment X) I believe that, and will govern the Executive branch of the federal government accordingly.

END THE POLICE STATE

My sworn oath to the Tenth Amendment means I would dismantle the Patriot Act and restore law enforcement to the states and local governments, Where it rightly belongs. Yes, this includes the so-called "war on drugs" and the so-called "war on terror." No more warrantless searches and seizures. No more eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls, or collecting Americans' emails, or spying on American citizens without court order and oversight. No more stripping Americans of their constitutional rights in the name of "national security." In addition, I would use every power and authority vested to my office to preserve and protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And, yes, I will immediately restore Posse Comitatus. As president, I want to protect America from Washington, D.C., as much I want to protect it from foreign powers.

KILL THE NWO

I will also take the words of the Declaration of Independence seriously, where it states, "That these United Colonies are, and of right to be free and independent states." This means the day I am sworn in, the New World Order comes crashing down. The NAFTA superhighway is dead. The North American Union is dead. I will work to eliminate NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT and the WTO. The FTAA is DOA. I will not expend tax dollars for the support of the United Nations.

END THE ILLEGAL ALIEN INVASION

Furthermore, I will take my oath to the Constitution seriously, when it states that one of the express purposes of the federal government is to "repel invasions." This means we will secure America's borders, because the illegal immigration crisis is more than mere immigration: it is an invasion, and I will stop it. Even if I have to send the U.S. Army to the borders, we will put a stop to this invasion of illegal aliens. I will also aggressively prosecute those employers who knowingly hire illegals. My first day in office will be the last day in prison for Border Patrol Agents Fidel Ramos and Jose Compean, I will personally open the prison doors and restore to these men their freedom. I will also gove them their jobs back with pay, if they want them. My first day in office is also U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's last day on the job.

STOP INTERVENTIONISM

I also share Ron Paul's concerns for the way the two major parties have allowed the United States to become a meddlesome, interventionist, nation-building empire for the sake of satisfying the greedy machinations of International bankers and power-hungry politicians. I will not only bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also from most of the other 130 nations that currently house U.S. forces. I will end foreign aid. I will get the U.S. out of NATO. It is past time for the European states to defend themselves. It is time for us to stop sticking our nose in every other nation's business and start taking care of the United States.

The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is over when I become president. Because I will take my oath to the Constitution seriously, I would never send troops to invade and occupy a foreign country without a declaration of war by Congress. In dealing with rogue terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, I will seek letters of marque and reprisal from Congress, which would give me the authority to use whatever special and/or private forces are necessary to seek out and destroy those who desire our hurt.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

And even though I am a born-again Christian (as is Ron Paul), I would take my responsibility to protect the religious liberty of every American seriously. People have the right to worship God (or not worship God) according to the dictates of their own conscience. Whether one is Baptist, Catholic, Mormon or agnostic, People have the right to practice their faith as they see fit. I am dedicated to preserving religious liberty.

I also share Paul's commitment to the sanctity of life. I will use the bully pulpit of the White House to press Congress to pass Dr. Paul's Sanctity of Life Act, which would overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion-on-demand. On this topic, the GOP is especially hypocritical. The Republican Party controlled the entire federal government for six years and did nothing to save the life of a single unborn child.

Another area of agreement with Ron Paul is my philosophy of economics. Dr Paul has been predicting the current financial meltdown in this country for years. And when all is done, the current bailout being proposed will do more harm than good. The problem is, America's leaders have rejected sound money policies for years, and the chickens are coming home to roost.

As president, I would seek to overturn the 16th Amendment, eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, and disband the Federal Reserve. I would lead the charge to return America to sound money principles. I would seek to reduce federal spending to constitutional levels by eliminating those same federal departments that Newt Gingrich promised to eliminate in his Contract with America back in 1994 (and then failed to do). I would seek to eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, etc. Iwould demand that Congress pass a balanced budget and that we stop deficit spending.

Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama will do any of the above.

See the complete statement at: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog/?p=582.

Chuck Baldwin is the Constitution Party candidate for president. Check out Baldwin's website at www.baldwin08.com.
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When a failing bank is closed, box-holders are never told in advance to "come empty their safe deposit box." Banks are never closed with advance warning. The poor sheriff's deputy who explains to you that you'll not be allowed into your safe deposit box knows less about what has happened and what is happening than you do.

Why aren't the safe deposit box holders or bank account holders warned in advance? Many wonder what safe deposit box customers should do.

The rules governing access to safe deposit boxes like the rules governing access to "funds" in bank accounts, are written into the charter of each bank. This "charter" is the institution's license from the government to "do business." These rules can be changed at whim by unelected, faceless bureaucrats without notice, over our objection and against our will. "It's an emergency." The customer has no recourse, as he "agreed" when he opened the safe deposit box. You should have read the fine print on the contract you signed.

When you open a safe deposit box, you, in essence, give whatever property is in the box to that bank. During good times the bank allows you unfettered access to your property. The same applies to your bank account. The "funds" belong to the bank in the end, by law. You agreed to that when you signed "the signature card." The bank clerk didn't explain that to you?

The law knows no duress by consent.

Should trouble come, you'll have no recourse if access to your box containing your property is denied. Most of the bank's employees will be in line with you. "It's the law," the sheriff's deputy will solemnly intone.

If you have $2,500 in cash for emergencies" in your box, how will you get to it in a sudden crisis? Think about it. If trouble comes quickly, will you have time to get to the bank? What if it occurs at night, over a weekend , or during a holiday?

The solution: take your emergency valuables out of your box, and secure them elsewhere. Or, knowing what you know now, close the box altogether and let someone else enjoy the presumption of "safety."

If you are securing valuables for your family's use in an emergency, a safe deposit box makes no sense at all. It is surly not "safe," and who controls what is "deposited" in the box is anyone but you.

He truly lives dangerously who trusts his money to a banker, his rights to a lawyer or his health to a doctor.

This is a bottom-line issue of trust. "Who do you trust?" the people who have overseen the reduction of the purchasing power of our "dollar" from 100 to one since 1913 are the people today who oversee your access to "your" safe deposit box. Caveat emptor remains the underlying rule.
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By Rep. Ron Paul

It has been long understood that our federal government is going deeper into debt, consistently raising the debt ceiling and demonstrating no fiscal restraint. In recent years, debt ceiling increases have been placed in "must pass" legislation as a means to guarantee that Republicans as well as Democrats would vote for them when Congress was under Republican control.

We also know our nation's "negative savings rate" reflects the habits of private citizens, showing those habits to be not tremendously different than the habits of the public sector. Yet, the signs of decline are becoming ever more apparent. So apparent, in fact, that it seems unlikely that bailouts or other gimmicks will have even short term success. More inflation, and creating moral hazard by bailing out egregious offenders, is a recipe for disaster. These activities can seem to provide some short term relief, but it seems we are now at a significant crisis point, where monetary policy gimmicks don't provide the band-aids they did in the past.

Not only is our nation on the verge of bankruptcy, but so are its people and private institutions. We are now repeatedly hearing about businesses "needing to access the credit market to make payroll." This is an unmistakable sign of more dire consequences ahead for the economy. If businesses must borrow just to make payroll, this is evidence of a severe undercapitalization that cannot be sustained, even for the short run.

Couple these facts with items such as the explosion of the "pay day loan" industry and the unmasking of the false sense of economic well-being is nearly complete. These pay day loan companies use preferred access to easy credit to inject cash into the hands of the working poor. They are nearly always set up in lower-income neighborhoods. These people, who are struggling to buy food and pay rent, get addicted to the credit drug. Their standard of living is only further depressed by the interest payments on these loans that make them profitable to their providers. Thus, the recipients are left even less capable of paying for items such as food and housing in the long run, without using this credit again and again.

These people are often the very ones being paid by businesses who "borrow to make payroll." This is the dark underbelly of the fiat money, borrow and spend economy this nation has been building. As the government takes over more and more functions of the economy many see the rise of socialism as an antidote to this failure of "capitalism". However, the fact remains that our economy has been increasingly running on debt, not capital. Capitalism does not exist without capital and debt is not, has never been and will never be a form of capital. Only now are we seeing the more dire implications of an economy without capital.

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Wall Street Banksters doled out $2 billion to federal candidates and political parties since 1989 when the scam to rip off of the middle class of their savings and real property—with the fleeced taxpayers ultimately footing the bill—began to unravel.

That $2 billion "investment" enriched the contributors many times over—but the ultimate payoff was the $700 billion bailout that costs taxpayers $850 billion. The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit group that studies money and politics, reports congressmen who voted for the bailout bill took in 151 percent more in campaign contributions from the FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate) lobby than those who voted against the give-away.

In this election cycle, the 140 House Democrats who voted for the bailout bill collected 78 percent more from the FIRE lobbies than the Democrats who opposed it. Over their careers, they collected 88 percent more. The 140 Democrats who supported the bailout received, on average, $792,744 over their careers from the FIRE sector—and $188,572 during this cycle.

Republicans in the House who voted yes on the bailout got 53 percent more than House Republicans who voted against it. The 65 Republicans who backed the bill collected $1,078,533 from the finance sector in their careers and an average of $185,461 to help them get re-elected this November.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, collected nearly $800,000 this election cycle from the FIRE industries.

Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican member of the committee, who voted for the bailout, took in $822,000 from the FIRE special interests this election cycle—for a total of $3.7 million since 1989.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) received nearly $6 million in the past two years from AIG, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, etc. Eighteen of Dodd's top 20 backers are FIRE's insurance or financial companies.

The language creating slush funds for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN,) etc., was slipped into the misnamed "economic rescue" proposal by Dodd and Barney Frank.

Members of the House and Senate have received more than $180 million from PACs and individuals associated with FIRE this election cycle—and there's still weeks to go. The FIRE sector has so far contributed more than $68 million to House members in this election, and nearly $315 million since 1989 to members who voted Monday.

These politicians say they were "voting their conscience," and those bushels of dollars had nothing to do with their votes. To which populists respond, "liar"— hoping outraged voters will cast the incumbents out.

The establishment presidential candidates—who joined the "sky is falling" chorus—also benefited from FIRE's largesse; Democrat Barack Obama collected about $25 million and John McCain $22 million.

Dodd's proposal would set aside 20 percent (estimated $140 billion) from the Treasury's sale of assets to the Housing Trust Fund to benefit ACORN. ACORN is a corrupt organization that has been accused and convicted of voter fraud in at least 13 states. Their tactics have ranged from registering dead people to trading cocaine for illegal ballots in Ohio in 2004.

Dodd has been rewarded in the 2008 election cycle with $7.65 million in campaign contributions—he took in $11.7 million in all—from FIRE, the securities, insurance, real-estate and commercial-banking industries, according to his latest Federal Election Commission filing posted at opensecrets.org.

With $165,400, Sen. Dodd also tops the list of members of Congress who took campaign cash from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac since 1989. Sen. Barack Obama is a distant second at $126,000—but he's only been in the Senate three years. Sen. John Kerry is third at $111,000. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton are in the top 20.

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Do you remember the John McCain who ran against George W. Bush in 2000? You know, the straight-talking maverick even Democrats liked. What ever happened to that guy?

Was a deal struck between John McCain and the Republican establishment before the 2004 election? Did they promise McCain that if he would stop criticizing Bush and start supporting the Bush agenda, he would be the Republican party's nominee for president in 2008?

That theory began to look doubtful last summer, when McCain's presidential campaign was about broke and trailing in the polls; but when the corporate media hailed McCain's third place finish in the Iowa primaries as the greatest victory since Truman over Dewey, it became pretty clear: the fix was in.

Why else would McCain get off the "Straight-talk Express" to take a seat behind Bush on the "Brown- Nose Express"? No honorable person can support Bush and his policies without demeaning themselves and sacrificing their honor (ask Colin Powell). Did McCain succumb to what Thomas Jefferson described: "When a man has cast his longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct"?

With this in mind, I began to explore the life of McCain. I wanted to tell the story of a noble warrior who had forsaken his ideals and supported a man he detested because of his ambition to be president. But I found out much more.

McCain's mother was an oil heiress. Both his father and grandfather were admirals in the Navy, and that was John McCain's supposed destiny and his first ambition: to be an admiral.

After attending an expensive boarding school, where he earned the nicknames "Punk" and "McNasty," McCain got into the Naval Academy on the strength of family connections. He was almost expelled twice for bad conduct, but his mommy came and fixed things for him the first time, and a classmate took the fall for him the next time. McCain graduated fifth from the bottom in a class of 899 cadets.

Up to this point, McCain's history of preferential treatment and being bailed out by friends and family is reminiscent of our fearless leader, George W. Bush.

They both even became pilots, but this is where their paths diverge. Boy George jumped to the head of the line to get into the Texas Air National Guard, so he didn't have to "shoot himself in the foot" to dodge Vietnam; and John McCain opted to fly in Vietnam because he needed combat missions—if he ever wanted to make admiral.

Unfortunately, McCain had already crashed two planes and caused an international incident by flying too low and cutting some power lines in southern Spain.

This would have been enough to ground most pilots, but not McCain. "McCain pulled strings to get ahead. After a game of tennis, McCain prevailed upon the undersecretary of the Navy that he was ready for Vietnam, despite his abysmal flight record. Sure enough, McCain was soon transferred to McCain Field, an air base in Meridian, Miss., named after his grandfather, to train for a post on the carrier USS Forrestal"—Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, 10/16/08.

While on the Forrestal, McCain narrowly escaped an explosion and fire that started on the flight deck after he wet fired his engine for takeoff. (This is a "hot dog" practice whereby the engines of the plane are purposefully flooded with fuel so that when the pilot starts the plane, flames shoot from the engines and generally frighten the pilot next in line for takeoff causing quite a pyrotechnic display.—Ed.)

As brave men fought and died to save the USS Forrestal, John McCain watched on closed-circuit television, and his own words reveal his feelings: "This distressed me considerably. I feared my ambitions were among the casualties in the calamity that had claimed the Forrestal" (McCain's book, Faith of My Fathers).

McCain was transferred to the USS Oriskany and was shot down over North Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967.

The rest of the story is familiar: McCain becomes a war hero by being a prisoner of war in Vietnam for five and a half years—during which he learns the true value of family and country. He returns home and confirms the importance of family by divorcing his wife and marrying a rich, mob-connected beer-heiress. He gives up on becoming an admiral. His wife buys him a house in Arizona, so he can enter politics. (He has seven houses now.) He is soon caught with his hand in the cookie jar in the Keating-Five Savings and Loan scandal, but he learns another valuable lesson: don't get caught.

McCain gets off with a slap on the wrist, and has been a straight-talking maverick, fighting for the little guy ever since (or so he tells us).

In retrospect, it seems that McCain was an appealing candidate in the 2000 primary—only because he was running against Bush. By taking the opposite positions from Bush on practically everything, McCain made sense to many Americans—especially Democrats.

Compared to Bush, McCain sounded like straight talk. But now, McCain is running against Democrat Barack Obama. To do this, McCain has reversed himself on almost everything he said he believed when opposing Bush. This includes tax cuts for the rich, immigration reform, abortion, lobbying reform, warrantless wiretapping, indefinite detention of terrorist suspects, torture, closing the Guantanamo "non-combatant" POW camp, the new GI Bill, homosexual marriage, ethanol, the estate tax, coastal drilling, campaign finance, and whether his vice presidential pick would be based on qualifications or purely for political reasons. (For a more complete list, see www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/flipflops.)

Yet McCain continues to make statements like:

* "In all due respect to my colleagues, they're drinking the Kool-Aid that somehow I have changed positions on the issues." —AP, 8/22/08

* "Always telling the truth in a political campaign is a great test of character." —From his book

* "I say, ‘OK, what specific area have I "changed"?' Nobody can name it. . . . I am the same person and I have the same principles."—On ABC's The View, 9/12/08. (Check out John McCain's 44 Flip-Flops at www.thinkprogress.org/mccain-flip-flops/)

So, if you intend to vote for John McCain, or are still undecided, you should read "Make-Believe Maverick" in Rolling Stone, 10/16/08.

"It is the story of a man who has consistently put his own advancement above all else, a man willing to say and do anything to achieve his ultimate ambition: to become commander in chief, ascending to the one position that would finally enable him to outrank his four-star father and grandfather."

John McCain's reason for running: "I didn't decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism. In truth, I wanted to be president because it had become my ambition to be president."

Mick Youther is a retired researcher from Southern Illinois University.

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By Mark Anderson

Is the military patrolling American streets in violation of longstanding federal law and the Constitution? The Army Times newspaper reported that the Army has a battle-hardened "homeland" brigade that, having spent considerable time in Iraq, is "going domestic" as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks."

The Times added: "It is not the first time an active duty unit has been tapped to help at home. In August 2005, for example, when Hurricane Katrina unleashed hell in Mississippi and Louisiana, several active-duty units were pulled from various posts and mobilized to those areas.

Some New Orleans homeowners were disarmed and forced by soldiers to leave homes that they did not want to abandon because the floods did not submerge all areas. But the Times failed to say whether this planned deployment of battle-ready soldiers abridges the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385), a federal law whose 130th birthday is this year. Broadly speaking, it prohibits using federal soldiers for domestic law enforcement.

This 1878 stature generally prohibits federal military personnel and federalized units of the National Guard from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, "except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress," according to Wikipedia. It and the Insurrection Act of 1807 both limit the power of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The U.S. Coast Guard is, however, exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act.

The 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which, said the Times, "has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys." The paper added: "Now they're training for the same mission - with a twist - at home. Beginning Oct. 1, 2008 for 12 months, this unit will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern command...."

A quick reaction to a specific attack or actual disaster is not being mentioned here. Do, can these soldiers be legally "on call" for a whole year as part of an ongoing mission? How does this mesh with the long-established laws that draw a line between the military and domestic law enforcement? Many analysts note that the intent of those laws has been blurred by presidential directives and congressional meddling that have arisen during unusual events, or due to certain realities of modern political life, such as the perceived, and some say trumped up, threat of international terrorism.

Asked whether the Army can legally carry out what the Times describes, Doug Rokke, a retired U.S. Army major, bluntly told AFP: "They can't."

Presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party said this Army brigade "may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control. It seems that the Army's new domestic duties also include ‘traffic control' as well as subduing ‘unruly or dangerous individuals.'" He said Americans could someday have to endure the "heavy boot" of the military as they did when British troops were quartered here in Colonial times, and the post-Civil War Reconstruction where Union troops occupied and abused Southern populations, which sparked the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act.

Rokke added that given the huge stock market problems, shipments of American munitions to Israel for possible conflict with Iran and rumors of another "false flag" domestic operation (as many describe the events of 9-11-01). He feels the Army may be making advance preparations to handle major civil unrest, though it's tough to prove conclusively.

Rokke also takes exception with the foundation of what's happening

"When is anybody going to wake up and start asking the questions about 9-11?" he added, saying that the conventional 9-11 story is "pure lies" to fool American youth into joining the armed forces to "combat terrorism." In reality, the "19 Muslim terrorists" tale regarding 9-11 - even though mountains of evidence show that the conventional story is false - could conceivably be used to justify a military crackdown on America, Rokke noted.

"The lies are staggering," Rokke continued, noting that military publications sh\till refer to the 9-11 attack on the Pentagon in accordance with the original government account, without explaining that the Pentagon lawn was not at all disturbed and no airliner part were found, even though it's impossible for a huge jetliner especially its massive engines and tail section, to totally vaporize, as the government's conspiracy theory claims.

In June, a Marine landing in Indianapolis involved a number of activities, including practicing firing weapons, conduction patrols, running vehicle checkpoints, reacting to ambushes and employing nonlethal weapons, according to a statement provided to area media at the time. U.S. Marine helicopters landed at old Eastgate Consumer Mall, Brookside Park and other Indianapolis locations, involving about 2,300 Marines from the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C. who were engaged in urban warfare training.

Developing the capability to deploy rapidly is a priority for the above-noted "homeland" infantry unit (the one reported on by Army Times), according to Army Maj. Marc Cloutier, who's the planner for the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division (as quoted by Patti Bielling of Army News Service in a Sept. 30 press release).

"Military leaders who recently trained for this response say they are now thinking differently about how to move equipment, extract the injured and take care of people," following some kind of serious attack, Bielling wrote.

"Their insights came from ‘Vibrant Response,' a week-long command post exercise designed to train the commanders and staff of the nation's dedicated force for responding to chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive incidents, or CBRNE incidents," she added.

"The units completed the exercise sept. 18 at Fort Stewart, Ga., just two weeks before their force, the CBRNE (called "Smurf"), will be assigned to U.S. Northern Command to begin its mission.
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Sell-outs happen. The record proves the $700 billion bailout was a premeditated scam by a criminal conspiracy. It is just another step in the centuries old conspiracy to enslave the world. The neo-con war in Iraq is financed by perpetual trade deficits, in which Communist China buys $8 to $9 billion of T-bills month after month. The federal government is like an addict that borrows from a pay-day shylock to pay for a self-destructive habit. The Chinese - like the Japanese, Arabs, et al - use ttheir huge profits to buy up America. The Chinese hold $1.4 trillion in mortgages on American homes and businesses. Like real-life Tony Sopranos, the communist elite demand guarantees they wouldn't be left holding an empty money bag.

On Sept. 25, Chinese overseers of the China Banking Regulatory Commission ordered Chinese banks to stop inter-bank lending to U.S. financial institutions.

China holds over $1.4 trillion of U.S. debt backed by the mortgages on the homes and property of tens of millions of Americans. This makes Chinese banks one of the largest holders of land in the United States, and which the Chinese government has stated they will protect "at all costs."

Congress kowtowed to demands that China be granted immediate access to its American properties to protect its "investments," by voting for the so-called "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008."

Buried in the 450 pages, under subsection (3) "Necessary Actions: is this fine print: "Designating financial institutions as financial agents of the federal government, and such reasonable duties related to this act as financial agents of the federal government as may be required."

Under cover of this mumbo-jumbo, the Federal Reserve notified the China Development Bank, the second largest bank in Asia and the main holder of U.S. mortgage debt instruments, that they will be designated by the U.S. secretary of the treasury as one of the financial institutions empowered by this bizarre bailout to act as law enforcement officers in the United States including granting them the right to evict American citizens from homes whose mortgage debt is held by China.

To protect the United States property from this sellout of American sovereignty, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) Proposed an amendment that taxpayer's money could only be spent to buy assets from U.S. companies.

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson made it clear he would fight to get Bush to veto any bill that contained a clear provision that said only American-owned assets could be sold to the Treasury. Paulson wanted to kill a bill that he claimed was vital to save the American economy from a total meltdown - if that bill didn't guarantee hundreds of billions of dollars could be spent to bail out foreign investors. Sherman said, "They know it, they demanded it and the bill has been carefully written to make sure that can happen.... It's very clear. The Bank of Shanghai can transfer all of its toxic assets to the Bank of Shanghai of Los Angeles which can then sell them the next day to the Treasury.

The typical congressman didn't read and didn't have a clue as to why he voted for this criminal monstrosity, but Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who shepherded the stampede, knew what they were doing and began laying the groundwork long before anyone ever suspected the U.S. was being extorted into a "crisis" by a criminal bankers' strike.
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The explanation that has been given for the financial crisis does not match up with the solution that has been devised. Moreover, the windows into the crisis offered by the authorities are opaque rather than transparent.

The only clarity we have is that the crisis is resulting in financial concentration and that the bailout constitutes a massive raid by financial crooks on both taxpayers and central bank reserves in the US and Europe.
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The public monies that are being directed to private financial institutions are huge. According to news reports, Germany is devoting $540 billion to shoring up German banks, England is devoting $73 billion, and France has pledged over $400 billion. The US now has four separate bailouts underway, $800 billion for banks, $200 billion for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, $85 billion for the insurer AIG, and $25 billion for the US auto industry. These figures add to more than $2.1 trillion.

Some of these public monies are for purchasing troubled paper assets. Others are to be directly injected into the banks as public supplied capital for private financial institutions, an ironic outcome for the free market ideology that resulted in the deregulation of the US financial system. According to news reports, in England the entire $73 billion is being poured into banks as publicly supplied new capital. In Germany $135 billion is for recapitalizing troubled banks. In the US Treasury Secretary Paulson is talking about using bailout money to purchase non-voting bank shares.

How is it possible that a financial crisis of such magnitude hit with such suddenness and urgency, catching finance ministries and central banks unaware?

If the problem is what the public has been told, namely that defaulting subprime mortgages are reducing the income flows through to the holders of the mortgage-backed securities, why isn't the bailout money being used to refinance the defaulting mortgages and to pay off the foreclosed mortgages?

That would restore the value of the mortgage-backed securities, and it would not be necessary to pour huge amounts of taxpayers' money into recapitalizing banks and purchasing their bad assets.

There is not an unmanageable number of defaulting mortgages. According to the US Treasury estimate, 90-93% of the mortgages are good. How does a 7% or 10% default rate on US mortgages translate into a systemic worldwide financial crisis?

The popping of the US real estate bubble could not produce worldwide systemic financial crisis without the mark-to-market rule, short-sellers, and a great deal of hype and orchestration. Why did Secretary Paulson let Lehman Bros. fail when every other firm is bailed out? Did Lehman's failure, by unwinding its own large portfolio, push hedge funds and banks into panic selloffs that spread the crisis at home and abroad?

The US Congress held no hearings on the crisis and consulted no independent experts. Congress responded dumbly to the financial crisis, just as it did following 9/11 when the Bush regime handed it the PATRIOT Act and the Afghan invasion. To secure Congress' acquiescence to the Paulson bailout, the Bush regime used threats of meltdown and martial law to panic Congress into turning over vast amounts of money for which accountability is lacking. The hype behind the Paulson bailout is the financial version of the mushroom cloud evocation used by the Bush regime to panic Congress into accepting the US invasion of Iraq. Is yet another hidden agenda at work?

It is unclear how the bailout will play out. The monies for the US bailout will have to be borrowed abroad or printed. If foreign central banks need their dollar reserves in order to bail out their own banks that are polluted with toxic US financial instruments, the US Treasury might not have an easy time in the debt market. Moreover, the interest expense on an additional borrowed $700 billion will raise the US current account deficit and burden US taxpayers with higher interest payments. If the money has to be printed, inflation and dollar devaluation will depress living standards for most Americans.

If the US economy sinks deeper into recession, lost jobs and rising interest rates on troubled mortgages will result in more defaults and foreclosures, thus further impairing mortgage-backed securities and requiring Congress to put more burdens on hard-pressed US taxpayers in behalf of the banks.

The authorities have blamed subprime mortgages for the crisis. Why then does their solution fail to address the problem of the mortgages? Instead, the solution directs public money into an increasingly concentrated private financial sector, the management of which is not only vastly overpaid, but also has escaped accountability for the financial chicanery that, allegedly, threatens systemic financial meltdown unless bailed out by the taxpayers.

Perhaps my nose is too sensitive, but this bailout doesn't pass the smell test.

Paul Craig Roberts was assistant secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan's first term. He was associate editor of The Wall Street Journal. He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington; Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.

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You may never have even heard some of the best lines at the Democratic National Convention, so I'll fill you in here:

*"One thing you can say of George Bush: Mr. President, we will always be in your debt." —Raum Emmanuel (D-Ill.), 8/26

*"If McCain's the answer, the question must be ridiculous"
—NewYork governor David Patterson, Aug. 26, 2008

*"Republicans talk about putting ‘country first,' but tell that to Marion, Ind. They sent my job overseas. America can't afford more of the same. We need a president who puts the Barney Smiths before the Smith Barneys." —Barney Smith, a once-proud Republican who lost his job at the RCA factory in Marion after 31 years, when his job was shipped overseas, Aug. 28, 2008.

The best line not heard at the convention:

*"The Republicans are asking for another four years—in a just world, they'd get 10 to 20." —Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), left out of his prepared speech at the request of the Obama campaign. If we had more people like Kucinich in Washington, we wouldn't be wondering how to get out of Iraq. We wouldn't be there.

The climax of the convention was Barack Obama's acceptance speech. Here are some highlights:

* "Sen. McCain likes to talk about judgment, but what does it say about your judgment when you think George Bush has been right more than 90 percent of the time?

*"For over two decades, John McCain has subscribed to that old, discredited Republican philosophy—give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else. In Washington, they call this the ownership society, but what it really means is—you're on your own.

* "Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.

* "Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it.

* "I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.

* "I will cut taxes—cut taxes—for 95 percent of all working families.

* "I will set a clear goal as president: in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

* "Washington's been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he's said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Sen. McCain took office."

* * *
Now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, to finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American, to help families with paid sick days and better family leave, because nobody in America should have to choose between keeping their jobs and caring for a sick child or ailing parent, to change our bankruptcy laws, so that your pensions are protected ahead of CEO bonuses, to protect Social Security for future generations, and now is the time to keep the promise of equal pay for an equal day's work, because I want my daughters to have exactly the same opportunities as your sons.

You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result.

You have shown what history teaches us—that at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn't come from Washington. Change comes to Washington. Change happens because the American people demand it—because they rise up and insist on new ideas and new leadership, a new politics for a new time.

Obama's speech was inspirational. If you watched it, you know what I mean. If you didn't, you can find the complete speech on the Internet.

Won't it be nice to have an articulate president, admired and respected around the world, instead of an inarticulate boob, who is an embarrassment every time he goes out in public?

* * *
The morning after Obama's speech, there were rave reviews, but they were cut short by John McCain's stunning announcement that he had picked Alaska Gov. Sara Palin to be his running mate. To say that the political analysts and pundits were stunned is an understatement. If McCain's plan was to bring more media attention to his campaign, he succeeded (maybe too well).

The media is abuzz with theories on why McCain picked this little-known governor over much more likely choices, such as former governors Mitt Romney of Massachusetts and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, or even turn-coat Democrat Joe Lieberman. Here are my reasons McCain chose Gov. Palin:

* She blew away all the other vice-presidential contenders in the swimsuit competition, has extensive foreign policy experience, having actually visited three foreign countries (if you count a refueling stop in Ireland on her trip to military installations in Germany and Kuwait) and she was the only candidate shorter than McCain.

A search committee comprised of stand-up comedians and late-night talk show hosts picked her. She has years of executive experience: Six years as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska (pop. 7,000)—during which she racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt, or $3,000 per resident. She has also served 20 months as governor of Alaska, population 670,000—the same as Memphis, Tenn. or about a quarter the size of Obama's home town of Chicago.

Is it possible McCain's staff did not realize that "vetting" meant investigating everything about a candidate, so you don't end up with a candidate like Sara Palin? Has McCain had a secret crush on her since 1984, when she was chosen Miss Wasilla and then was first runner-up in the Miss Alaska Contest? Will she help McCain solidify the elusive right-wing lunatic fringe vote? Do the McCain campaign strategists believe that disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters are so incredibly stupid that they will vote for Palin—just because she is a woman, even though she is diametrically opposed to almost everything Hillary stands for?

* * *

The week after the Democratic National Convention in Denver, the Republicans held theirs in St. Paul, Minn. Even though I believe Republicans have been willing accomplices to the wreck and ruin perpetrated on the United States by the Bush administration during the past seven-plus years, I decided to hold my nose and watch as much of the Republican National Convention as I could stomach.

It was the worst five minutes of my life.

Mick Youther is a retired researcher from Southern Illinois University.

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By Victor Thorn

Considering the widespread dissatisfaction and outright anger at what's taking place in Washington these days, why would a single person vote for either the Republicans or Democrats in next month's election? Look at what these two parties have done:

An $850 billion bailout, increasing inflation, $12 billion a month for a needless war in Iraq, the Katrina clean-up debacle, an astronomical national debt, the 9-11 false-flag terror attacks, more arms sales, and billions for Israel, Patriot Act legislation, votescam elections, the housing collapse, continued outsourcing, increased unemployment, and continuing graft, greed, and deceit.

Yet in the 2004 presidential election, 99 percent of those who cast a ballot voted for either George W. Bush or John Kerry (both Skull & Bones members). That means only 1 percent of voters selected someone running from a third party. When I asked Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin about this sorry state of affairs, he quoted Albert Einstein. "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." He added, "It is insane to continue voting for establishment candidates and expecting anything to change in D.C."

Baldwin is correct. It's easy for us to complain about our representation (or lack thereof) in the nation's capital, but the fault primarily lies with each of us. Nobody holds a gun to our heads when we enter a polling booth.

We're absolutely free to pull whatever lever we so desire. Still, we keep sending Democrats and Republicans to Washington.

According to Baldwin, Americans have been conditioned to vote inside the system by our national media, education system, and churches. When asked about religious leaders, Baldwin explained, "They're no different than anyone else in that they choose the path of least resistance. Any thought outside the mainstream is so foreign to them that they don't even entertain it. Going outside the system requires a great deal of personal volition and effort. Regrettably, people are generally lazy and don't want to do the work necessary to reason out any alternatives. Freedom is hard work, and the two-party system keeps playing us against each other."

Luckily, Baldwin continued, populist champion Ron Paul—who recently endorsed him—"has planted seeds in the ground which will start growing in people's hearts and minds. After all, how much longer can we continue moving in this direction before we lose the very principles and foundation upon which this country was founded? The American people need to stand up against the fear that is being used against them, such as with the recent bailout bill. The power elite in Washington aren't going to retreat, and we can't either."

When questioned as to his expectations on November 4, Baldwin said, "I'd be thrilled to see the American people deny the two major candidates an electoral victory. In other words, neither one gets the necessary 270 votes, so the election would then have to be decided in the House. That would be a moral victory for third party candidates, and a significant paradigm shift for the future." Baldwin added:

"For months before the 2004 election, my mantra was: vote for anybody but Bush or Sen. John Kerry. The same advice applies this year. Vote for anybody but McCain or Obama. Imagine if every single person in the United States who chose to vote this fall refused to select the Republican or Democratic candidate. Not only would we be able to finally start breaking their monopoly, but the powers-that-be wouldn't be able to fall back on votescam because nobody would have voted for their two-headed candidates. In light of how close our country is to a major meltdown due to decades of corrupt rule by the Democrats and Republicans, destiny is now in our hands. Don't throw your vote away by supporting Obama or McCain. This year, make it count."

Victor Thorn is a hard-hitting researcher, journalist and the author of many books on 9-11 and the New World Order. These include 9-11 Evil: The Israeli Role in 9-11 and Phantom Flight 93 and Other Sept. 11 Mysteries Explored. He is the co-founder of the WINGTV Network.

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