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The Rise and Fall of the U.S.S.A.?written by Christian Gomez

Celente further elaborated on this point in a recent video “tech-ticker” interview, available online atYahoo! Finance, saying, In a lot of ways its empire decline; they ran the Cold War race and they lost, werestill in the race

Comparing the United States demise to that of the fall of the British Empire, Celente attributed the UnitedStates current demise to becoming involved in foreign entanglements as your economy at home isdeclining rapidly. Celente then pointed to the parallels of the U.S. military’s difficulty in Afghanistan tothat of the Soviet Unions failure there in the 1980s.

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Analyzing the historical trends of how Alexander the Great, the British Empire, and the Soviet Union wereall unable to win their respected wars in Afghanistan, Celente stated: the USA ain’t pulling it off.

Celente then bluntly declared, The country is too big to run by a bunch of people in tight suits, whiteshirts and red ties.

Were seeing similarities of the United States breaking up like the USSR did, because we believe that inthe future you could see a disunited states, pointing to the secessionist movements taking hold in Texasand Vermont as early indications of the dissolution of the United States into various sovereign self-governing countries.

A debased and devalued currency that is not backed by any tangible commodity and with the countryentangled in foreign wars unrelated to the national interest, is what Celente claims is the current recipefor the collapse of the United States.

Celente then points to an inflated, counterproductive Federal Government coupled with strongsecessionist or states rights sentiments as indication of that decline.

Is Celente’s bleak outlook justified? Has the United States outgrown itself or become too big to be

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managed by a vast single central authority in Washington? Are wars in the Middle East and elsewheredemoralizing the American spirit and draining the country’s resources to the brink? Are the Tea Party andTenth Amendment/Nullification campaigns the beginning stages of a Second American Revolution or newCivil War?

Celente certainly thinks so, as his recent comments indicate. And he has been consistent in his forecast ofAmerican decline. In 2009 he even predicted a “Second American Revolution” but he isnt the only one tomake such predictions or say such things.

Texas Congressman and Presidential Candidate Ron Paul often speaks of the United States being anempire in decline, warning of the economic ramifications of sending our troops overseas to engage inforeign wars. Paul, like Celente, takes a monetary view of the United States’ economic misfortunes, bothcriticizing the Keynesian mantra of elastic fiat currency and the printing of endless money to stimulate theeconomy.

In advocating for a return to a full gold standard, in a 2008 Republican Presidential debate, Ron Paulquoted Ronald Reagan, who personally told Paul, No great nation that went off the gold standard everremained great. Based on Celente’s latest predictions it would seem that he would agree with Reagan.

What of Celentes comparison that the USA of today is as the USSR of yesterday? IS there any historicalmerit to this?

During the Cold War the Soviet Union was the preeminent revolutionary force with an interventionistforeign policy of spreading the communism, as part of its goal to bring about a one-world communistrevolution. Today the United States is seen by many abroad as the worlds preeminent revolutionary forcewith an interventionist foreign policy of spreading “democracy,” as part of its goal to bring about ademocratic New World Order, as elaborated by former President George H. W. Bush in 1991.

As for Celentes claim that the United States is on the verge of disunion like the former USSR, he again isnot a lone wolf. Igor Panarin, a Russian professor of economics and former KGB analyst, has also beenmaking the same prediction over the last decade.

Panarin, who also predicted the territorial dissolution of the USSR, now says that the same fate awaits theUnited States. This demonstrates that the American dream has shattered, Panarin told RT News, theAtlantic zone, which is the area of Washington D.C. and New York City, will join the European Union; thezone of Texas and surrounding states will be its own Texan Republic; the Californian coast will be underChinese influence; Northern and central states will be under Canadian influence; Alaska will rejoin Russia;the Hawaiian Islands will be under joint protectorate of Japan and China, Panarin predicted.

Panarin was not taken seriously until Texas Governor Rick Perry made comments hinting towardsecession and independence from the United States. On April 15, 2009 when Governor Perry toldreporters, When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave ifwe decided to do that.

Governor Perry’s comments came around the same time as the Texas State Legislature proposedsovereignty bill HCR 50, which reads in part: Resolved, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texashereby claim sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over allpowers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the

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United States.

Playing to the sentiments of Texans upset at the Federal Government and the feelings of the growing TeaParty movement, Governor Perry declared in a speech, delivered on April 9, 2009, I believe the federalgovernment has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and itsinterference with the affairs of our state.

Since then talk of disunion has become popular making its way to the forecasts of Celentes TrendsResearch Institute.

Even before the passage of ObamaCare, following President Obamas initial push for a $825 billion bailout,a whole array of States introduced bills in their respected legislatures affirming their sovereignty from theFederal Government under the Tenth Amendment. While the rise of the Tea Party and animosity towardthe Federal Government grows, the question is whether or not these sentiments will continue after theNovember elections.

If the Tea Party claims victory come Election Day and is able to deliver on some of its promises, will thatbe enough to satisfy the American electorate or is the country already beyond the turning point towarddisunion, as predicted now by Celente? Perhaps Glasnost and Perestroikamight be in order to bring aboutopenness and reform as the empire runs its second wind into the ash heap of history, as President Reaganonce described the Soviet Union in its waning days.

August 24 Primaries Yield Big Resultswritten by Raven Clabough

Yesterday’s national primaries proved several things. First, Sarah Palin’s political influence has notdiminished. Second, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain’s dramatic transformation was sufficientenough for Arizona voters to feel confident in his leadership. Above all, according to the Washington Post,the results proved that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) “continues to be the bane of many

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Republican incumbents existence” — McCain, who voted for TARP in the October 2008 but voted againstit in January 2009, being an exception.

All five of the candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin were victorious yesterday, most notably senatorialcandidate Joe Miller, who according to preliminary results defeated Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski with98 percent of the precincts reporting. According to the Washington Post, this was the “biggest upset inthe 2010 cycle to date.” Both Miller and Murkowski attributed the results to Sarah Palin’s influence. Asreported in the Post, the outcome indicates, “In Republican primaries — particularly small turnout affairs— the energy and enthusiasm that Palin can help create is invaluable.”


Palin’s endorsement was not the only obstacle with which Murkowski had to contend, however. Murkowski’s vote for TARP is believed to have permanently tarnished her reputation with Republicanvoters.

The Post states that the TARP vote hurt Murkowski “in much the same way that the vote damaged SenatorBob Bennett (R-Utah), South Carolina Rep. Gresham Barrett and a slew of other Republicans in theircampaigns this year.”

McCain’s victory yesterday was predictable, but wasn’t always. Just months ago, McCain’s victory was allbut certain and for a period of time, McCain lagged behind his contender, the more conservative J.D.Hayworth. Last night told a different story, however. By the time 11 percent of the precincts reported,McCain held a large lead, 59 percent to 29 percent, prompting the Associated Press to call McCain’svictory. He will face off against Tucson City Councilman Rodney Glassman in November, butCongressional Quarterly predicts McCain’s victory will be a landslide. “Catching McCain will be difficultfor any Democrat in Republican-leaning Arizona, which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since1988.”

In addition to McCain, a variety of notable candidates came forth victoriously in yesterday’s Arizonaprimaries. Arizona’s Republican primary showed an upset victory for Jesse Kelly who defeatedestablishment favorite Jonathon Paton for the eighth congressional district. Kelly will be contending withDemocrat Gabrielle Giffords in the Fall. Likewise, Ben Quayle, son of former Vice President Dan Quayle,won the Republican nomination for the third congressional seat after a 10 way primary. Quayle nowcompetes with Democrat Jon Hulburd to replace Representative John Shadegg, who is retiring.

There were several other distinguished victories last night worth mentioning.

In Florida, Rick Scott edged out Attorney General Bill McCollum in the Republican primary for thegubernatorial election after spending $50 million of his own money. Scott will run against Alex Sink in thefall.

Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor, Republican Brian Dubie, remains uncertain as to who he will be upagainst in November, since the Democratic primary showed all three candidates within 1,000 votes ofeach other, likely resulting in a necessary recount.

One thing is for certain: The 10 weeks leading up to November 2 should prove to be exciting.

Photo of John McCain: AP Images





State Department Submits to UN Human-rightsReview for the First Timewritten by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

On August 20, for the first time in its history, the United States submitted an official report of its recordon human rights to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This survey of ourRepublic’s human-rights situation is known as the Uniform Periodic Review (UPR).

The submission of the report is the second step in the UPR process. Next, a representative of ourgovernment will deliver a formal presentation of the report’s findings to the UN Human Rights Council inGeneva in November. The completion of the first two stages of the UPR process demonstrates thewillingness of the Obama administration to subject the laws of the United States and those of the severalsovereign states of which it is composed to the judgment of the world.


The State Department’s official announcement of the inaugural submission of the United States to thisreview proudly proclaims, “The review … has featured an unprecedented level of consultation andengagement with civil society across the country.” The roster of the “Civil Society Consultants” thatparticipated in the collection of relevant human-rights data reveals the report’s bias and the underlyingpurpose of the procedure.

Nearly a dozen conferences were held throughout the country from January to April. The attendees (andthus the chief contributors to the descriptions and suggestions forming the core of the UPR report)included many of this nation’s top-shelf globalists. Among them were Stephen Rickard and Wendy Pattenof George Soros’ Open Society Institute, a worldwide foundation devoted to spreading “democracy”;Devon Chaffee from Human Rights First, a New York-based group that for over 30 years has pressed theU.S. government to acquiesce to the UPR process; Andrea Prasow from Human Rights Watch; ImadHamad, a man who in 2003 was selected by the FBI to receive its Exceptional Public Service Award (the

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FBI caved to pressure from Israel and did not give Hamad the award) once praised a Palestinian AuthorityTV Sesame Street-style program that encourages Palestinian children to kill Jews and Christians andrecommends they serve Allah by becoming suicide bombers. In the disturbing production, a youngPalestinian boy sings, “When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber.” Another song:“How pleasant is the smell of martyrs … the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouring out of a freshbody.” Hamad, Lebanese-born Palestinian, called the program “patriotic”; Dawud Walid of the CouncilAmerican Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose Los Angeles branch leader blogged about his “admiration” forsuspect al-Qaeda associate Anwar al-Awlaki; Ron Scott, from the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality;Osama Siblani, from Arab American News; Shannon Minter, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, agroup that has published guidelines for radical sex-ed classes in elementary and secondary schools inorder to “prevent harassment on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity;”and Cynthia Soohoo from the Center for Reproductive Rights.

With buskers like these in the band, is it any question what tune they sang in their showcase performancefor the United Nations?

In the digest of the human-rights condition of the United States, these authors wrote that they wanted toprovide a “snapshot of the current human rights situation in the United States, including some of theareas where problems persist in our society.” It should come as no surprise that one of the “problemareas” pointed to in the report is the “plight” of immigrants, particularly in Arizona since the passage ofS.B. 1070, the law aimed at eliminating the flow of crime and criminals across the southern border. Giventhe bent of the contributors to the UPR report, one would assume they would gleefully welcome theoversight of the United Nations into the laws of Arizona or any other sovereign state with the audacity toprotect its borders.

President Obama ratified the coalition’s assessment of S.B. 1070’s effect on human rights. The UPR reportdeclares, “President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system” and towork “with fellow members of the Human Rights Council.” In light of the President’s commitment tocooperate with the Human Rights Council, it should be noted that the final step on the path to UPRfulfillment is the “voluntary compliance” with the recommendations of that body.

The State Department brags about the UPR report recently submitted by the United States. In fact, the29-page report expresses the hope that the United States “will serve as an example for other countries onhow to conduct a thorough, transparent, and credible UPR presentation. Undoubtedly other countries willfollow suit, but the United States was beaten to the head of the UN human rights parade by suchlegendary palladiums of human-rights as China, Iran, and North Korea, all of whom have already handedin their reviews.

From the first page of the report, the preparers make mention of our nation’s founding document, theDeclaration of Independence, and the Constitution that put flesh on that skeleton of the first principles ofliberty.

Paragraph 1 of Section 1.1 of the report reads:

The story of the United States of America is one guided by universal values shared theworld over — that all are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. In the UnitedStates, these values have grounded our institutions and motivated the determination of ourcitizens to come ever closer to realizing these ideals. Our Founders, who proclaimed their

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ambition “to form a more perfect Union,” bequeathed to us not a static condition but aperpetual aspiration and mission.

The universality of the equal creation of and endowment of inalienable rights to all men is indisputable.The notion that somehow that premise logically gives rise to the conclusion that the United States isjustified in imposing our interpretation of those beliefs at the point of a gun is ridiculous.

And, as for the “mission” bequeathed to us by our Founders, if such exists, the goal of it must be theperpetuation of the limited government chained by the enumerated powers expressed in the Constitutionas written by our Founders and not the building of an American empire with outposts in all the provincesof the world.

Later in the year, the UN Human Rights Council will conduct a final audit of the current state of thepromotion of human rights in the United States. Then, it will recommend a slate of necessary reforms tothe laws of the United States. Between now and then, Americans have the opportunity through theperiodic elections to be held in November to remove from office any legislator who favors the subjugationof our national and state sovereignty to the unelected, unaccountable, unconstitutional authority of theUnited Nations.

Photo: AP Images

Egg Recalls Bring Statists Out of Their Shellswritten by Michael Tennant

Government is the only institution whose power and budget grow when it fails. A crisis, real or perceived,is considered an “opportunity” for government to expand, as President Obama’s Chief of Staff, RahmEmanuel, reminded Americans shortly after Obama won the 2008 presidential election.

The latest crisis that provides such an opportunity is the recall of over half a billion eggs from two Iowa

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producers because some of the eggs were found to be contaminated with salmonella bacteria and havesickened people.

Prominent voices are already being raised in support of increased federal regulation of the egg industry.The Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Margaret Hamburg, has called for Congress topass pending food-safety legislation; and as might also be expected, Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Centerfor Science in the Public Interest has expressed the same opinion.


What, exactly, would the act do? According to Reason’s Ronald Bailey,

The Food Safety Enhancement Act [the House-passed version of the bill] would dramaticallyincrease the FDA’s role in regulating food production in the United States. The legislation wouldrequire some 378,000 food preparation facilities to pay an annual $500 fee to register with the FDA,to keep voluminous records about their safety systems, and be subject to FDA-approved inspectionsevery year or two.

In addition, the act authorizes the Health and Human Services Department to establish an elaboratetracing system that enables the agency to identify each person who grows, produces, manufactures,processes, packs, transports, holds, or sells food in as short a timeframe as practicable but no longer thantwo business days. Only farmers who sell directly to consumers, fishing vessels, and grain producerswould be exempt from the full traceability requirements. The new law would increase the criminal (up to10 years in prison) and civil penalties ($7.5 million) for violating the new regulations.

The new law would enable the FDA to more widely impose hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP)regulations on food producers and processors. HACCP plans attempt to ensure food safety by elaboratemonitoring and verification procedures, all copiously documented.

All of this means more government, at greater taxpayer expense (the Congressional Budget Officeestimates $2 billion a year). It addition, it creates vastly more paper pushing, and therefore higher costs,for businesses, which in turn will raise the prices of their products for consumers.

It’s not as if these egg producers haven’t been regulated before. Indeed, the owner of Wright CountyEggs, one of the companies involved in the recall, has been fined multiple times since 1994 for variousenvironmental, safety, and personnel issues. Among his companies’ violations were “exposure to harmfulbacteria and other unsanitary conditions,” writes CBS News. All these fines from both state and federalgovernments, however, failed to prevent the current salmonella outbreak. Are new regulations and fineslikely to work any better?

Even HAACP regulations, Bailey points out, have not exactly been rousing successes. Though theregulations were imposed by the FDA on the seafood industry in the mid-1990s in an effort to reduce theincidence of the pathogen Vibrio in seafood, writes Bailey, “the CDC FoodNet finds that Vibrio is the onlypathogen whose rate of infection has increased since 1998.” Would imposing them on more foodproducers have similar effects on the entire food supply? It’s too early to tell with such a small sample, butthese results are not encouraging.

Part of the reason the salmonella outbreak affected so many eggs sold over such a wide swath of thecountry is that the egg industry is highly concentrated, with “just 192 large egg companies own[ing] about

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95 percent of laying hens in the U.S., down from 2,500 companies in 1987,” according to Bailey.

There are sound economic reasons for this, says Iowa State University economics professor Daniel Otto.Writing in the New York Times, Otto explains: “Big producers have been able to cut costs by … integratingthe egg laying and the processing operations within a single enterprise. Many egg laying operations alsohave their own chick hatching operations. Workers are hired to work the barns, deal with sanitation, millthe feed, and work the production lines all under a single management.”

Otto argues that this has both good and bad effects. The bad effects have already been seen in thesalmonella outbreak, which happened more rapidly and affected many more people than a localizedoutbreak would. The good effect, he says, is that it is much easier to pinpoint “the source, if not the cause,of the outbreak” than it would have been had egg production been dispersed widely among smallproducers, when “localized disease outbreaks would not have been widely reported.” Bailey notes that thetransition from family farms and local butcher shops has coincided with a hundredfold reduction in food-borne illnesses over the past 110 years.

In addition to economies of scale, government policies have undoubtedly played into the concentration ofthe egg industry as they have in so many other industries. Additional regulations are likely only toaccelerate this concentration by increasing the costs of doing business — costs that large, establishedfirms can absorb but their smaller competitors cannot. Bailey mentions an analysis in the U.S. Departmentof Agriculture’s Review of Agricultural Economics which found that “costly HAACP regulations end upfavoring larger food producers and processors.”

Similarly, the Cato Institute’s Walter Olson writes in the Times that the 2008 Consumer Product SafetyImprovement Act, passed in response to a brief panic over lead-based paint in toys, has been a boon forbig toy manufacturers, “while hundreds of small and distinctive producers have gone out of business orabandoned harmless lines of childrens’ [sic] goods.”

Olson argues that the salmonella panic will subside and that the free market will see to it that the eggproducers, if indeed they are at fault, are punished through loss of business. Furthermore, all eggproducers will probably take additional steps to ensure the safety of their products in hopes of avoiding asimilar fate.

Bailey describes some of the steps that the private sector has already taken to improve food safety, suchas the formation of GLOBALG.A.P., which “sets voluntary standards for the certification of agriculturalproducts around the globe” and boasts Wal-Mart and McDonald’s among its members. He adds that“American and Canadian produce growers are in the process of implementing their produce traceabilityinitiative that will follow lettuce, tomatoes, and spinach from field to salad bar.”

The Times itself, while stumping for the FDA to require all hens to be vaccinated for salmonella,inadvertently makes the case for letting the market resolve the matter instead. Having documented thatsuch vaccinations have virtually eliminated the salmonella threat in England, the Times writes:

There are no laws mandating vaccination in Britain. But it is required, along with other safetymeasures, if farmers want to place an industry-sponsored red lion stamp on their eggs, which showsthey have met basic standards. The country’s major supermarkets buy only eggs with the lion seal,so vaccination is practiced by 90 percent of egg producers.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/8/24/why-eggs-became-a-salmonella-hazard/how-the-egg-industry-changed

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If “one of the most heavily taxed, tightly regulated countries in the developed world” (as the Timesdescribed Great Britain) can solve its salmonella problem without resorting to even more regulations, thensurely the somewhat less regulated United States can do the same. In fact, it is already doing so: “One-half to two-thirds of American farmers already inoculate their flocks, according to industry estimates, andthat number is likely to increase,” says the Times.

Government regulations didn’t prevent the current salmonella outbreak, and chances are slim that theywill prevent any future ones since they are always reactive in nature and slow to adjust to changingcircumstances. The market has begun its process of rectifying the present egg problem and will only behindered by government interference. While statists scramble to hatch new egg rules, hardboiled freedomfanciers should tell them to beat it.

Housing Bubble Refuses to Re-Inflatewritten by Thomas R. Eddlem

Housing sales dropped by more than 25 percent nationwide in July, according to the National Associationof Realtors, after a federal tax credit for first time home buyers expired in June.

The National Association of Realtors explained:

Existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family, townhomes,condominiums and co-ops, dropped 27.2 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.83 millionunits in July from a downwardly revised 5.26 million in June, and are 25.5 percent below the 5.14million-unit level in July 2009.

Home sales dropped despite record low interest rates that have been suppressed by the Federalgovernment. The National Association of Realtors noted that:


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According to Freddie Mac, the national average commitment rate for a 30-year, conventional, fixed-rate mortgage fell to a record low 4.56 percent in July from 4.74 percent in June; the rate was 5.22percent in July 2009. Last week, Freddie Mac reported the 30-year fixed was down to 4.42 percent.

In addition, the New York Times has explained that the federal government’s Fannie, Freddie, FHA, andGinnie Mae (which re-purchase or guarantee 86 percent of the home housing market) have once againreduced lending standards almost down to “no down payment” loans of the housing boom era of the lastdecade. “The government is allowing buyers to put only a token amount down, guarantees lenders againstdefault and regularly issues proclamations that the worst is over,” the Times reported August 25. Yet noneof this government stimulus for the still-overpriced housing market has worked.

The Times claimed that the whole nation was impacted by the July housing drop-off. “No region wasimmune in July, with sales in the Northeast dropping 30 percent, the Midwest falling by a third, the Southdown 20 percent and the West off 23 percent.” But that wasn’t exactly true. Manassas, Virginia realtorSue Jacobs told National Public Radio on August 24 that her area was seeing a real estate boom. “I wouldsay that on average, we have probably in the last 12 months seen approximately a 10 percent increase inprices.” This contrasts with an increase of less than one percent nationally. And the increase has little todo with Civil War aficionados relocating to the site of the first major engagement of the war between thestates. It’s largely because Manassas is an ex-burb of Washington, D.C., located just 25 miles southwest ofAmerica’s city of economic “stimulus.” The Washington, D.C.-area market — jobs as well as housing — hasbeen in a boom because of all the money flowing to the capital region for the past year.

A slogan for the free market used to be that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” meaning that free markets andsmall government spur an economy and increase the wealth of all. But in today’s government-manipulatedmarkets, the only boats getting lifted are those fortunate enough to be on the government payroll.

Who Cares About Our Future?written by Dennis Behreandt

http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors/item/4240-effect-of-government-takeover-of-home-mortgage-market

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Federal tax receipts for 2009 totaled $2.1 trillion. The largest items in the federal budget were SocialSecurity ($710 billion), national defense ($689 billion), Medicare ($456 billion) and Medicaid ($327billion). The primary recipients of federal spending are seniors. Some of the letters argued that it’s unfairto characterize what seniors are getting as handouts because they worked all their lives and paid intoSocial Security and Medicare.

Jagadeesh Gokhale, senior economic adviser, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland; and Laurence J.Kotlikoff, professor of Economics at Boston University, document the looming Social Security andMedicare crises in "Is War Between Generations Inevitable?". They report that "A male reaching 65 yearsof age today (in 2000, the year of their study) can expect to receive $71,000 more in government ‘transfer’benefits (of all kinds at both the federal and state levels, but mainly from Social Security and Medicare)than he will pay in taxes (of all kinds at both the federal and state levels) before he dies. A 65-year-oldfemale can expect a net gain of more than twice that amount; she can expect $163,000 more in benefitsthan she will pay in taxes."


The picture is not so rosy for people who entered the labor force in 2000. They will pay far more in taxesthan they will receive from transfer programs. Expansion of elderly handouts, such as prescription drugs,will make things worse. "For example: A 20-year-old female can expect to pay $92,000 more in taxes thanshe will receive in transfer benefits over her lifetime. The future looks more than three times as bleak forher male cohort, who can expect to pay $312,000 more in taxes than he will ever receive in benefits."

Why is Social Security a better deal for today’s seniors? Just look at what they paid in. From 1937 to 1949,the maximum annual Social Security tax was $60. It remained under $200 until 1956. After 1956, Old Age,Survivors and Disability Insurance was added and in 1966, Medicare was added. It wasn’t until 1969 thatmaximum Social Security taxes exceeded $2,000. Today, the maximum annual Social Security tax is$13,000 and the maximum annual benefit is $25,000.

As with any Ponzi scheme, the people who get on board early make out. This is pointed out by GeoffreyKollmann and Dawn Nuschler of the Congressional Research Service in their report "Social SecurityReform" (October 2002). They say, "Until recent years, Social Security recipients received more, often farmore, than the value of the Social Security taxes they paid. … For example, for workers who earnedaverage wages and retired in 1980 at age 65, it took 2.8 years to recover the value of the retirementportion of the combined employee and employer shares of their Social Security taxes plus interest. Fortheir counterparts who retired at age 65 in 2002, it will take 16.9 years. For those retiring in 2020, it willtake 20.9 years." My question is: How can anyone who draws out every penny he’s put into Social Securityin a few years say that he’s not living at the expense of another?

In my opinion, it takes a special form of callousness and disregard for the welfare of future generations ofAmericans for today’s senior citizens to fight against reform. Nobody’s talking about abolition of federalsenior programs. We must accept that serious mistakes were made and we must take compassionatecorrective action. But what the heck! As I said in my "What Handouts to Cut?" column, "Both today’spoliticians and seniors will be dead so why should they make sacrifices now to prevent an economiccalamity decades off into the future?"

Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

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Please contact your local newspaper editor if you want to see the Walter Williams column in yourhometown paper.

SEC Charges NJ With Cooking the Bookswritten by Bob Adelmann

Notable in the statement from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week that it wascharging the State of New Jersey with securities fraud was the lack of fines, punishment, or names of theguilty. The fraud began in 2001 and wasn’t uncovered until the New York Times exposed it in April of2007.

What the SEC did say was that New Jersey failed to make disclosures 79 times in the sale of $26 billionworth of municipal bonds, creating “the false impression that the Teachers’ Pension and Annuity Fund(TPAF) and the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS) were being adequately funded, [while]masking the fact that New Jersey was unable to make contributions to TPAF and PERS without raisingtaxes, cutting other services, or otherwise affecting the budget.” Robert Khuzami, Director of the SEC’sDivision of Enforcement, said:

All issuers of municipal securities, including states, are obligated to provide investors with theinformation necessary to evaluate material risks. The State of New Jersey didn’t give its municipalinvestors a fair shake, withholding and misrepresenting pertinent information about its financialsituation.

New Jersey got into trouble in 2001 when the legislators increased retirement benefits for employees andretirees in both plans but failed to provide funding for those increases. Instead, a paper account created“Benefit Enhancement Funds (BEF)” into which monies were to be placed to pay for the increases. But nofunds were ever placed into those accounts, even though the state budgets showed that amounts of either

https://thenewamerican.com/sec-charges-nj-with-cooking-the-books/





$551 million, $56 million, or nothing at all were set aside, depending upon which state documents wereconsidered. According to the Times, New Jersey said the state contributed $551 million to the BEF in2005, according to a bond offering statement. The $56 million figure appeared in an audited financialstatement for the BEF. In fact, nothing was ever placed in the BEF, and the whole paper game folded 5years later.

The SEC’s Chief of Municipal Securities and Public Pensions Unit, Elaine Greenberg, said “Issuers ofmunicipal bonds must be held accountable when they seek to borrow the public’s money using offeringdocuments [which contain] false and misleading information. New Jersey hid its financial challenges fromthe very people who are most concerned about the state’s financial health when investing in its future.”However, nowhere in the SEC press release was a single name mentioned, not even those who did theauditing of the books or those who sold the bonds.

They do have names, however. Frederick Beaver, director for the Division of Pensions and Benefits in theNew Jersey Treasury Department, when pressed by the Times for an explanation about variousquestionable practices involved in hiding the truth, pointed out that “other places had taken similar stepsoccasionally when dealing with a budget crunch.” He said, “The problem we had was doing it on a repeatbasis.” Donald DiFrancesco, acting governor of New Jersey in 2001, when the pension increases wereapproved, said he recalled “people thought it was good public policy,” which was devised to attract thebest people. He said he did not think the measure was financially unsound and “did not recall” anyonechallenging it or calling it improper.

Jon Corzine (above, former chairman of Goldman Sachs) took office in January 2006 and warned that thepension funds were in bad shape, saying publicly that “It’s impossible for us to stay on the course that weare on today, and deliver what people are asking for. The money will not be there.” Although Corzinesucceeded in persuading the legislature to increase contributions to the funds, they were not nearlyenough to restore them to financial health.

John Megariotis, the Deputy Director of New Jersey’s Division of Pensions and Benefits, claimedinnocence: “We were [only] the bean-counters…Those are not my numbers.” And then he assuredtheTimes that New Jersey would not fudge the numbers ever again.

John Bennett, majority leader of the Republican State Senate at the time of the increase, blamedDiFrancesco’s administration which had pushed for the increase, assuring him that “there would bemoney to cover it.”

Those responsible for promoting the fraud to bond investors include Citigroup, J. P. Morgan, MorganStanley, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Barclays Capital, and, of course, Corzine’s former employer,Goldman Sachs.

The SEC said its action was its first ever against a state government, and that its order “requires the Stateof New Jersey to cease and desist from committing or causing any violations and future violations … NewJersey consented to the issuance of the order without admitting or denying the findings.”

In a separate interview, Greenberg said that “Hopefully, [the SEC’s action] will send a message to otherstates or local governments.” However, it may just be too late for New Jersey. As noted here, it is going totake much more than “conjuring magic” and “pension fairies” to restore the state’s fiscal balance sheet.As CNBC put it,

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38768006

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/economy/sectors-mainmenu-46/4323-conjuring-magic-to-cover-states-debts-fiscal-reality-sets-in

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38768006





By the time Gov. Chris Christie took office this year, the pension funds had been deprived ofcontributions for so long that it had become near[ly] impossible to catch up. The state needs to comeup with billions of dollars every year, something it cannot do without raising taxes, cutting publicservices or going even deeper into debt.

Ian Mathias, writing for the Daily Reckoning, hopes that some lessons have been learned: “Now you haveall but absolute proof that State administrators are not only unable to balance their books, but they’rewilling to cook ‘em too.” Because the action came without pain, punishment or exposure, it provides littleincentive for those administrators to change their ways. In fact, only one state has ever defaulted on itsbonds: Arkansas defaulted on its obligations back at the bottom of the Great Depression, in 1934.

So, he adds, “The odds are still in your favor [if you own municipal bonds]. But reason is not. Now ethicsaren’t, either.”

Photo: Former New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine delivers his last State Of The State address on Jan. 12,2010, at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton: AP Images

Medical Care Facts and Fableswritten by Dennis Behreandt

The most basic fact is that it is cheaper to remain sick than to get medical treatment. What is cheapest ofall is to die instead of getting life-saving medications and treatment, which can be very expensive.

Despite these facts, most of us tend to take a somewhat more parochial view of the situation when it is weourselves who are sick or who face a potentially fatal illness. But what if that decision is taken out of yourhands under ObamaCare and is being made for you by a bureaucrat in Washington?

http://dailyreckoning.com/another-warning-shot-for-bond-investors/

https://thenewamerican.com/medical-care-facts-and-fables/





We won’t know what that leads to until the time comes. As Nancy Pelosi said, we will find out what is inthe bill after it has passed. But even now, after ObamaCare has been passed, not many people want toread its 2,400 pages. Even if you did, you would still not know what it would be like in practice, after morethan 150 boards and commissions issue their specific regulations.

Fortunately — in fact, very fortunately — you don’t have to slog through 2,400 pages of legalistic jargon orturn to a fortune teller to divine the future. A new book, The Truth About ObamaCare by Sally Pipes of thePacific Research Institute lays out the facts in the plainest English.

While she can’t tell you the future, she can tell you enough about government-run medical systems inother countries that it will not take a rocket scientist to figure out what is in store for us if ObamaCaredoesn’t get repealed before it takes full effect in 2014. It is not a pretty picture.

We hear a lot about how wonderful it is that the Canadians or the British or the Swedes get free medicaltreatment because the government runs the system. But we don’t hear much about the quality of thatmedical care.

We don’t hear about more than 4,000 expectant mothers who gave birth inside a hospital, but not in thematernity ward, in Britain in just one year. They had their babies in hallways, bathrooms and evenelevators.

British newspapers have for years carried stories about the neglect of patients under the National HealthService, of which this is just one. When nurses don’t get around to taking a pregnant woman to thematernity ward in time, the baby doesn’t wait.

But the American media don’t tell you about such things when they are gushing over the wonders of“universal health care” that will “bring down the cost of medical care.”

Americans get the latest drugs, sometimes years before those drugs are available in other countries wherethe government runs the medical system. Why? Because the latest drugs cost more and it is cheaper to letpeople die. Instead, the media spin is that various countries with government-run medical systems havelife expectancies that are as long as ours, or longer. That is very clever as media spin, if you don’t botherto stop and think about it.

Author Sally Pipes did bother to stop and think about it in her book, The Truth About ObamaCare. Shepoints out that medical care is just one of the factors in life expectancy.

She cites a study by Professors Ohsfeldt and Schneider at the University of Iowa, which shows that, if youleave out people who are victims of homicide or who die in automobile accidents, Americans live longerthan people in any other Western country.

Doctors do not prevent homicides or car crashes. In the things that doctors can affect, such as the survivalrates of cancer patients, the United States leads the world.

Americans get the latest pharmaceutical drugs, sometimes years before those drugs are available topeople in Britain or in other countries where the government runs the medical system. Why? Because thelatest drugs cost more and it is cheaper to let people die.





The media have often said that we have higher infant mortality rates than other countries withgovernment medical care systems. But we count every baby that dies and other countries do not. If themedia don’t tell you that, so much the better for ObamaCare.

But is life and death something to play spin games about?

Thomas Sowell graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958) and went on to receive hismaster’s in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the Universityof Chicago (1968). He is the author of 28 books including his most recent, Intellectuals and Society.Currently he is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His Web site iswww.tsowell.com.

COPYRIGHT 20010 CREATORS.COM

Please contact your local newspaper editor if you want to see the Thomas Sowell column in yourhometown paper

In Philly, Blogging Brings Big Business License Billwritten by Michael Tennant

Philadelphia: The City of Brotherly Love. The home of Independence Hall, where the Declaration ofIndependence and the U.S. Constitution were drafted. The town where blogging costs $300.

Yes, you read that correctly. According to the Philadelphia City Paper, anyone with a blog that has thepotential to generate profits — even if it doesn’t actually generate any — is required by the city ofPhiladelphia to pay $300 for a business privilege license. (Bloggers can opt for the $50 annual fee in lieuof the $300 lifetime license.)

The report explains the city’s rationale thus:

http://www.tsowell.com/

https://thenewamerican.com/in-philly-blogging-brings-big-business-license-bill/





Even though small-time bloggers aren’t exactly raking in the dough, the city requires privilegelicenses for any business engaged in any “activity for profit,” says tax attorney Michael Mandale ofCenter City law firm Mandale Kaufmann. This applies “whether or not they earned a profit duringthe preceding year,” he adds.

So even if your blog collects only a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to belucrative — and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising— the city thinks you should cut it a check. According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Departmentof Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads — regardless of how much orlittle money is actually generated — qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelancewriters.

The upshot is that some bloggers who made the mistake of reporting their meager earnings to the citywere informed that they must pay for a business privilege license, plus the wage tax, business privilegetax (on top of the business privilege license), and net profits tax. For example, Marilyn Bess, who operatesa blog called MS Philly Organic and occasionally posts on ehow.com, has made a whopping $50 fromthese ventures over the last few years yet is now being forced to pony up six times that for the privilege ofdoing business in Philadelphia.

Sean Barry, who runs a music-oriented blog called Circle of Fits, earned a whole $11 from it over the lasttwo years and also got a business privilege license notice from the city. Barry, however, epitomizes theproblem rather than the solution, telling the City Paper, “I don’t think blogs should be taxed unless theyare making an immense profit.”

But who is to decide what constitutes an “immense profit”? At what level of income does it becomeacceptable for the government to force someone to fork over his own money for the privilege of workingwithin its jurisdiction?

Is this really likely to help the city anyway? Won’t it be more apt to cause bloggers either to stopaccepting any profits — meaning they will have less to spend in the city — or to move to a locale that doesnot penalize them for being productive?

Although, as the City Paper points out, a measure will soon be proposed in the city council to exempt thefirst $100,000 of profit from the business privilege tax, it does nothing about the $300 license fee, nordoes it get to the root of the problem: the idea that individuals’ money belongs to the government first andthat individuals ought to be grateful for whatever small amount their benevolent overseers allow them tokeep.

These license fees and taxes should be repealed, not reformed. Repealing them would encourage bloggersand other businessmen to operate in the city, which in turn would go a long way toward restoring thatunalienable right declared in Philadelphia 234 years ago: the pursuit of happiness.





In Defiance of the Constitution, 49,000 Troops StillDeployed in Iraqwritten by Joe Wolverton, II, J.D.

Many of the nearly 50,000 combat troops waking up in the same Iraqi bivouacs would be surprised tolearn that the “final combat brigade” has left Iraq and that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended.

As the cameras rolled, so did the tracks of the heavy mechanized vehicles carrying the troops of theArmy’s 4th Stryker Brigade. Entering Kuwait, the soldiers would populate tent cities, awaiting their re-deployment home to their stateside headquarters in Fort Lewis, Washington.

As the 4th Brigade boards military transport aircraft for the flight to Germany and then home, many oftheir comrades are moving into the barracks they quickly abandoned in their zeal to leave behind the less-than-friendly confines of their desert camp.

The Army’s 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, a unit in the 25th Infantry Division based in SchofieldBarracks in Hawaii, will assume the 4th’s duties, albeit under the less martial designation of “Advise andAssist Brigade.” All the military units remaining in Iraq will undergo similar rebranding.

The "Stryker" in Stryker comes from the principal vehicle used by such units. The Stryker is an 8-wheeledarmored vehicle used widely by the U.S. Army. As originally designed, it would take only 96 hours fromthe time the unit received orders to deploy to the time boots were on the ground in theater.

According to information on the unit’s website, each Stryker Brigade Combat Team consists of threeInfantry Battalions, one Reconnaissance (Cavalry) Squadron, one Fires (Artillery) Battalion, one BrigadeSupport Battalion, one Brigade Headquarters and Headquarters Company, one Network SupportCompany, one Military Intelligence Company, one Engineer Company, and one Anti-Tank Company.

The men and women of the 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team are a small part of the 49,000 servicepersonnel still occupying Iraq. There are various heavy and light infantry brigades, as well as two combataviation brigades. All of these units form the core of the Advise and Assist Brigades. The regular army

https://thenewamerican.com/in-defiance-of-the-constitution-49000-troops-still-deployed-in-iraq/

https://thenewamerican.com/in-defiance-of-the-constitution-49000-troops-still-deployed-in-iraq/





troops are joined in their mission to advise and assist by two National Guard infantry brigades.

As quoted by the Army Times, Army spokesman Lt. Col. Craig Ratcliff claims that the National Guard unitsare in Iraq “for security.”

The Advise and Assist Brigades are chosen from one of the Army’s three standard brigade combat teams:infantry, Stryker, and heavy. These are the Army’s new basic deployable units. A brigade combat teamconsists of one combat arms branch maneuver brigade, and its attached support and fire units. Brigadesare typically commanded by a colonel, though a few are under the command of a general officer. ABrigade Combat Team (BCT) deploys rapidly, supports itself, and ideally does not rely on support from thedivision headquarters.

Kate Brannen, staff writer for the Army Times, cites the army’s security force assistance manual asevidence of the force’s intent to “retain their inherent capability to conduct offensive and defensiveoperations.” The more things change, the more things stay the same. The change in name, therefore,indicates nothing more than the predetermined rebranding of our military force in Iraq without anycorresponding alteration in the scope of their mission.

In order to facilitate the fluid shift between the offensive and defensive aspects of their mission, the Armyhas created a specialized training program for the brigades deployed in Iraq. The report in the ArmyTimes mentions lessons in city management, civil affairs, and border patrol. Perhaps when our army isfinished patrolling the borders of Iraq, they can use that training in doing the same thing at home, asauthorized by the Constitution and required by the terrifying situation along our southern border.

While the names of our combat units in Iraq may have been softened, the determination of the adversaryto kill the American occupying forces has not. On August 15, Specialist Jamal M. Rhett, 24, of Palmyra,New Jersey, was killed in Ba Qubah, Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his vehicle withgrenades. He was a medic assigned to the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, of the 2nd BrigadeCombat Team. "He was my knight in shining armor," Michelle Watson said of her only child, a 2003graduate of Burlington County Institute of Technology’s Westampton campus. "He was always there forme in a time of need. When I was sick, he would cook for me."

Unfortunately for Mrs. Watson and her family, there was no safety in advising and assisting. SpecialistRhett is dead and many of his fellow soldiers are sure to follow. As a matter of fact, on Sunday, August 22,the first American solider was killed since the official end of combat operations in Iraq. The Pentagon hasnot revealed either the identity of the fallen soldier or the circumstances surrounding his death.

On September 1 Operation Iraqi Freedom ends and Operation New Dawn begins.

A truly new day in America will dawn on the day our elected officials refuse to fund the largestgovernment program ever — the protracted, undeclared foreign “wars” that continue to sap our nation’seconomic might and demand the lives of so many young Americans.

It is essential to recognize that the Constitution grants no power of preemptive war or of advising andassisting other nations in the securing of their streets and borders. Sovereign nations by definition mustassume the responsibility for providing those crucial services to their citizens. It is not only that ournational government deploys troops into the combat zones of the world; rather, it is that these theatres ofmilitary operations are created by the presence of our troops landing in the role of occupiers. We have the

http://www.armytimes.com/news/2010/08/dn-brigades-stay-under-different-name-081910/





right and obligation to defend our own borders, but we are without justification for imposing oursensibilities of good government (or permitting the imposition of a native minority’s notion of such) on thenations of the world.

U.S. Army General Ray Odierno, the senior commander in Iraq, told CNN’s Candy Crowley that while thePentagon did not anticipate the need for a wholesale return to a fully combat role in Iraq, that optionwould not be removed from the table.

He did assure reporters that it would require a “complete failure” of Iraqi forces to make a change ofmission necessary.”

“[The Iraqi forces] have been doing so well for so long now that we really believe we’re beyond thatpoint,” Odierno added.

While experience teaches us that General Odierno’s optimistic prediction for the future stability of Iraq isunfounded, it is yet to be hoped that we are not beyond the point of reclaiming our government from the

imperialists and statists that have robbed the treasury of our country to finance the perpetual presence ofthe imperial forces of the United States in all the provinces of the world.

Photo: In this photo taken on Aug. 21, 2010, U.S. Army soldiers from 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment— supposedly the last American combat brigade to serve in Iraq — salute during the casing ceremony at

Camp Virginia, Kuwait: AP Images

UN Decries “Huge Scam” of Carbon Offsetswritten by James Heiser

The track record of the United Nations’ efforts pressuring for carbon credit “cap and trade” schemes has

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/state.of.the.union/

https://thenewamerican.com/un-decries-huge-scam-of-carbon-offsets/





been very clear the past few years. Efforts by the UN secretary general to pressure the U.S. Senate toadopt “cap and trade”?legislation in the weeks leading up to the failed conference in Copenhagen lastDecember provides but one example of an ongoing strategy.

However, when a United Nations environmental oversight board publicly decries a purported“scam”associated with carbon credits, such an action is bound to attract interest.

According to an Associated Press story by John Heilprin posted at ABCNews.com:

An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases hasagreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S.environmentalists are calling a huge scam.

At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.’s Clean DevelopmentMechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-calledcarbon offset credits until the environmentalists’ claims can be further investigated.

The "CDM" credits have been widely used in the carbon trading markets of the European Union,Japan and other nations that signed onto the 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring mandatory cuts ingreenhouse gases.

Rather than cut their own carbon emissions, industrialized nations can buy the credits which thenpay developing countries to cut their greenhouse gases instead.

The carbon offset credit has been, in essence, a concession to the reality that the standard of livingenjoyed by the modern Western world requires a level of industrialization that will inevitably producecarbon dioxide and other emissions that environmentalists maintain are causing global warming. Leavingaside for the moment the substantial challenges that confront the entire theory of anthropogenic climatechange, the carbon offset credit appears to be based on the notion of a systematized effort to retardindustrial development in the underdeveloped world for the benefit of the industrialized world. Theintention of last year’s Copenhagen Conference was, in essence, to create a system for redistributingwealth from the industrialized world to those nations ostensibly suffering the effects of global warming.

What has drawn the ire of the CDM executive board is the allegation that several Chinese chemical plantshave figured out how to work the system and profit off CDM funds. Again, according to the report byHeilprin,

The money from the CDM-authorized fund goes to pay the carbon offset credits claimed by morethan 20 chemical makers mostly in China and India, but also in nations such as South Korea,Argentina and Mexico.The chemical makers are paid as much as $100,000 or more for every ton they destroy of a potentgreenhouse gas, HFC-23. The price for destroying it is based on its being 11,700 times morepowerful as a climate-warming gas than carbon dioxide.

Clearly, given such potential revenue to be generated from the destruction of “greenhouse gases,”there isa demonstrable financial benefit to having plenty of HFC-23 on hand to destroy. This is the heart of theCDM executive board’s accusation against the Chinese plants: In the pursuit of profit the plants wereallegedly “working the system.”Again, according to ABCNews.com:

http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11450467

http://jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5765-counting-the-costs-in-copenhagen

http://jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5765-counting-the-costs-in-copenhagen





But that gas is a byproduct of an ozone-friendly refrigerant, HCFC-22, which those chemical makersalso are paid to produce under the U.N.’s ozone treaty. Environmentalists say there is so muchmoney in getting rid of HFC-23 that the chemical makers are overproducing HCFC-22 to have moreof the byproduct to destroy.

"The evidence is overwhelming that manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy itand earn carbon credits," said Mark Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a researchand advocacy group. "This is the biggest environmental scandal in history and makes an absolutemockery of international efforts to combat climate change.

In summary, then, according to the UN, the plants were allegedly profiting by being paid to produce an“environmentally friendly”refrigerant and paid to destroy a “greenhouse gas”byproduct — in both cases,with the UN intimately involved in making both sides of the equation quite profitable. Given the argumentimplicit in Roberts’ words, the scandal is not that they were working both sides of the process — beingpaid, in essence, for the product and to destroy the byproduct — but that they realized it was profitableand allegedly increased the profitability of the system.

When government gets in the business of subsidizing industry and manipulating markets, it is only naturalto expect that those who seek to profit from industry will learn how to make the most of such governmentmanipulation.

Murder Out of Control in Venezuelawritten by Kelly Taylor-Holt

Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives than murderers in Venezuela, reported MariaEugenia Diaz from Caracas for the New York Times on August 22. Yet experts struggle to explain thereasons. “There have been 43,792 homicides in Venezuela since 2007, according to the VenezuelanViolence Observatory, a group that compiles figures based on police files, compared with about 28,000deaths from drug-related violence in Mexico since that country’s assault on cartels began in late 2006.”

https://thenewamerican.com/murder-out-of-control-in-venezuela/





Diaz continued, “Some joke that they might be safer if they lived in Baghdad.”

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott made the same remark about the Texas/Mexico border. But what arethe numbers? Iraq has about the same population as Venezuela — according to Iraq Body Count, therewere 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, compared with 16,000 in Venezuela.

Venezuela’s murder rate quadrupled since President Hugo Chavez took power 11 years ago — about118,541 since 1999, according to the Violence Observatory. The Times continued, “The government hasstopped publicly releasing its own detailed homicide statistics, but has not disputed the group’s numbers,and news reports citing unreleased government figures suggest human rights groups may actually beundercounting murders.” Scholars describe the decade’s climb in homicides as unprecedented inVenezuelan history; the number of homicides last year was more than three times higher than whenChávez was elected.

Caracas is almost unrivaled among the Americas’ largest cities for its murder rate, currently around 200per 100,000 inhabitants, according to Roberto Briceño-León, sociologist at the Central University ofVenezuela who directs the Violence Observatory. The Times compared that with recent measures of 22.7per 100,000 people in Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, and 14 per 100,000 in São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city.As Chávez’s government points out, Venezuela’s crime problem didn’t emerge overnight, and concernover murders preceded his rise to power.

Venezuelans with means have hidden behind walls and hired security experts to advise them, but rich andpoor alike are resigned to living with a murder rate the opposition says remains low on the list of thegovernment’s priorities.

Then on August 13, El Nacional, an independent opposition newspaper, published a gory front-pagephotograph showing bodies of homicide victims strewn around Caracas’ largest morgue. The photorekindled public debate over violent crime — many Venezuelans saw it as a sober reminder of theirvulnerability and a chance to effect change, but the government took a different stand, ordering the paperto stop publishing images of violence.

“Forget the hundreds of children who die from stray bullets, or the kids who go through the horror ofseeing their parents or older siblings killed before their eyes,” said Teodoro Petkoff, editor of anothernewspaper, mocking the court’s decision in a front-page editorial. “Their problem is the photograph.” Thedebate over the morgue photo is intensifying, becoming a broader discussion over the government’sefforts to clamp down on the news outlets it does not control.

The government’s reaction shocked the nation, saying the photograph was meant to undermine it, notinform the public. Authorities are also threatening inquiry into a video by a Venezuelan reggae singershowing an innocent child struck down by a stray bullet. In spite of government protests, the video hasspread rapidly across the Internet since its release this month. Many worry the government is shootingthe messenger and ignoring the message.

Reasons for the surge in murders are complex and varied, experts say. While many Latin Americaneconomies are growing Venezuela’s is shrinking. The gap between rich and poor widens, despite spendingon anti-poverty programs, fueling resentment. And the nation is awash in millions of illegal firearms.Police salaries remain low, in a country with the highest inflation rate in the hemisphere, more than 30percent, and some officers have turned to supplementing their incomes with crime.

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/analysis/numbers/2009/

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62A44A20100311

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN18125440

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN18125440





But some crime specialists say another factor has to be considered: Chavez’s government itself. Thejudicial system is increasingly politicized, losing independent judges and aligning itself with thePresident’s political movement. Many experienced state employees have had to leave public service, oreven the country.

Henrique Capriles, governor of Miranda, a state encompassing parts of Caracas, told reporters last weekChavez worsened the problem by cutting funds for state and city governments led by political opponents,then removing thousands of guns from their police forces after losing regional elections.

But, Chavez’s government says it’s trying to address the problem. It recently created a security force, theBolivarian National Police, and an Experimental Security University where police recruits get trainingfrom Cuban and Nicaraguan advisers, these allies having historically maintained murder rates among thelowest in Latin America.

The national police’s overriding priority, said Víctor Díaz, senior official on the force and an administratorat the new university, is “unrestricted respect for human rights.” “I’m not saying we’ll be weak, but theidea is to use dialogue and dissuasion as methods of verbal control when approaching problems.”

Can he be serious?

Senior government officials even say the deployment of national police, numbering fewer than 2,500, hassucceeded in reducing homicides in at least one violent area of Caracas where they began patrolling thisyear.

But human rights groups suggest the new policing efforts are far too timid. Incosec, a research groupfocusing on security issues, counted 5,962 homicides in just 10 of Venezuela’s 23 states in the first half of2010.

More than 90 percent of murders go unsolved, with no arrests, Briceño-León said. But cases againstChavez’s critics — including judges, dissident generals and media executives — are increasingly common.

Hector Olivares, 47, waited outside the morgue earlier this month to recover the body of his son, Hector,21. His son, attending a party on the outskirts of Caracas when a gunman opened fire, was the second sonlost in a senseless murder. Hector said he didn’t blame Chávez for the killings, but pleaded with thepresident to make combating crime a higher priority.

“We elected him to crack down on the problems we face,” he said. “But there’s no control of criminals onthe street, no control of anything.”

Photo: A student lies down on a street beside of fake chalk outlines during a protest against violent crimein Caracas, Venezuela: AP Images

http://www.semana.com/noticias-america-latina/venezuela-quedan-impunes-91-homicidios/135813.aspx





Judge Blocks Federal Funding of Embryonic StemCell Researchwritten by Michael Tennant

Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminaryinjunction on August 23 blocking further implementation of President Barack Obama’s 2009 executiveorder that permitted federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, according to a New York Timesreport.

Such research involves the creation of a human embryo in the laboratory, followed by the removal of thestem cells after a few days, whereupon the embryo is killed. Many pro-life groups oppose such research onthe grounds that it takes the life of an unborn human being.

President George W. Bush, in typical fashion, tried to have it both ways when it came to federal funding ofembryonic stem cell research, issuing an executive order in 2001 permitting federal funds to be spent onsuch research as long as the embryos being used had been destroyed prior to his issuing the order. Afterthat he twice vetoed bills that would have funded such research on newly destroyed embryos. Obama, continuing Bush’s attempt to straddle the fence, ordered that federal funds could be spent onresearch involving embryonic stem cells but not on the process of extracting the stem cells and destroyingthe embryos — a distinction without a difference, as Lamberth saw it. He wrote: “If one step or ‘piece ofresearch’ of an [embryonic stem cell] research project results in the destruction of an embryo, the entireproject is precluded from receiving federal funding.”

This, he said, was in keeping with “the clear language of the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, a law passedannually by Congress that bans federal financing for any ‘research in which a human embryo or embryosare destroyed, discarded or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death,’” wrote the Times, whichadded:

The Obama administration said that its rules abided by the Dickey-Wicker Amendment because thefederal money would be used only once the embryonic stem cells were created but would not

https://thenewamerican.com/judge-blocks-federal-funding-of-embryonic-stem-cell-research/

https://thenewamerican.com/judge-blocks-federal-funding-of-embryonic-stem-cell-research/





finance the process by which embryos were destroyed. The judge disagreed, writing that embryonicstem cell research “necessarily depends upon the destruction of a human embryo.”

Lamberth is, of course, correct. Federal funding of stem cell research presumes the existence of suchstem cells and, in fact, serves as an incentive to create them. The Obama (and, to some extent, Bush)position — that the feds can fund the research but not the process that leads up to it — is akin to payingsomeone to bring you parts from stolen cars. You’re not paying for the theft per se, but you’re certainlyencouraging it.

The Times notes that the outcome of Lamberth’s ruling is somewhat unclear, with researchers notknowing whether “it meant that work financed under the new rules had to stop immediately” or that “itmeant that the [National Institutes of Health] had to use Bush administration rules for future grants.”

The Justice Department is reviewing the decision to decide whether or not to appeal it.

Dr. Leonard I. Zon, director of the stem cell program at Children’s Hospital Boston, told the Times, “TheObama administration’s permission to use federal funds is critical for embryonic stem cell research tomove forward and has set a great standard for the United States.”

This assumes that scientific research could not be conducted in the absence of federal funding, which,sadly, may be the case in present-day America because universities and other institutions where suchresearch takes place have become so thoroughly dependent on their taxpayer-funded grants.

Moreover, it assumes what Obama, Bush, and practically everyone else in Washington and the newsmedia assumes, namely that the federal government ought to be funding scientific research in the firstplace. In vain will one scour the Constitution to find any authorization for such funding. Executive order,Dickey-Wicker Amendment, or no, the very document that called the federal government into existenceprohibits the funding of embryonic stem cell research or any other kind of scientific research.

Thus, while Lamberth’s ruling is based on a fair reading of the law and is at least a small victory foropponents of federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, some of whom filed the lawsuit thatresulted in the injunction, it leaves open the possibility that Congress could change the law and, in sodoing, legalize such funding. Unfortunately, such constitutional and moral effrontery is all too common inWashington. Leviathan, as always, bears watching.

Photo: Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court in Washington: AP Images

Gun-control Laws Challenged After Supreme CourtRulingwritten by Bob Adelmann

https://thenewamerican.com/gun-control-laws-challenged-after-supreme-court-ruling/

https://thenewamerican.com/gun-control-laws-challenged-after-supreme-court-ruling/





On June 28, the day the Supreme Court ruled in McDonald v. Chicago that individuals have the right tokeep and bear arms, Bob Unruh wrote that the decision “has opened the door for a long list of legalchallenges to city, county and other rules and regulations that may now infringe on the 2nd Amendment.”

Although both the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violenceapplauded the ruling by the Supreme Court, they differed in how that long list of legal challenges will playout in the courts.

Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the NRA, said that his group has “a lot of work ahead” inattempting to overturn regulations that now infringe on citizens’ Second Amendment rights, while PaulHelmke of the Brady Campaign predicted that the NRA is “going to lose most of those lawsuits.” JohnVelleco, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA), said that McDonald “flips the burdenonto the government and legislatures to show why they need to restrict what the court has [just] said is anindividual right.” He added, “This is a tremendous victory for the 2nd Amendment [because it] opens thedoor of the courtroom for us to look at laws in many other jurisdictions where there are highly restrictivegun laws.”

One of those jurisdictions is Chicago which, just four days after the Supreme Court ruling, enacted a“tough new gun-control regime.”That regime flaunted the McDonald decision, but according to AttorneyStephen Holbrook who worked on the McDonald case, “If the courts take the Second Amendmentseriously, the chances are good” that Chicago’s new ordinance will also be struck down.

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) is suing the state of Maryland for requiring their residents todemonstrate that they face a specific “apprehended danger” in order for the state to issue or renew ahandgun permit. Raymond Woollard was issued a carry permit after a man broke into his home in 2002,and his permit was renewed three years later when the felon was released from prison and moved into anearby neighborhood. But state officials now denied renewing his permit because Woollard failed to“demonstrate cause” for the permit to be renewed. The lawsuit says, "Individuals cannot be required todemonstrate that carrying a handgun is necessary as a reasonable precaution against ‘apprehendeddanger’ as a prerequisite for exercising their Second Amendment rights."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_v._Chicago

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/5962-chicagos-new-gun-control-regime-challenged-in-court

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=185653





Executive vice president of SAF, Alan Gottlieb explained, “Laws that empower bureaucrats to deny theexercise of a fundamental civil right because they cannot show good cause to exercise that right can’tpossibly stand up under constitutional scrutiny. We are supporting Mr. Woollard in this action becauseconstitutional rights trump bureaucratic whims.”

A similar requirement by Westchester County, New York, that citizens must have a “good cause” torequest a handgun permit, is also being challenged by SAF. The plaintiffs in that case, Alan Kachalsky andChristina Nikolov, were denied permits because, in Kachalsky’s case, he could not “demonstrate a needfor self-protection distinguishable from that of the general public,” and Nikolov because she couldn’t showthat there was “any type of threat to her own safety.” Gottlieb said these “American citizens … should nothave to demonstrate good cause in order to exercise a constitutionally protected civil right. Our civilrights, including the right to keep and bear arms, should not be subject to the whims of a localgovernment or its employees, just because they don’t think someone needs a carry permit…. Our lawsuitis a reminder to state and local bureaucrats that we have a Bill of Rights in this country, not a Bill ofNeeds.”

North Carolina has a law being challenged in court that forbids citizens from carrying firearms orammunition whenever officials declare a “state of emergency.” This may occur when “public safetyauthorities are unable to … afford adequate protection for lives or property,” such as during the recentEast Coast record snowfall. A commenter on the website of Winston-Salem’s WXII-TV wrote: “This has tobe the most ridiculous event of the century! This is the ultimate denial of liberties for the most asininereason — bad weather!”

The most important lawsuit, however, may just be one in California that was first brought over sevenyears ago, Nordyke v. King. Following a shooting at the Alameda County Fair, the county passed anordinance prohibiting the carrying of firearms on county property. It was contested by Russell Nordykewho operated a gun show on county property. The Second Amendment Foundation recently weighed in onthe case with an “amicus curiae” brief that argued that Second Amendment issues in the case must bedecided on a “strict scrutiny” basis and that the ordinance in question could not withstand that level ofstandard of review.

“Strict Scrutiny” is the highest, most stringent standard of judicial review used by courts in the UnitedStates and arises when a “fundamental” constitutional right is infringed, “particularly those listed in theBill of Rights.”

The brief was written by Alan Gura who argued in both the Heller v. DC case and the McDonald v.Chicago case, and is working with the Second Amendment Foundation in several other court challenges.Said Gottlieb, “[Nordyke] is a very important case because it could establish the highest standard ofscrutiny to which [all] gun laws around the country would be subjected.” He added, "While gunprohibitionists were upset by the 2007 Heller ruling and demoralized by our victory this year in theMcDonald case, they are terrified of a strict scrutiny standard that could be established by the Nordykecase.

As WorldNetDaily explained, "The ‘strict scrutiny’ standard is what is applied to disputes involvingconstitutional rights, and applying it in this case would strengthen virtually all arguments against locallimits and restrictions except the ones that meet the very highest standards of need."


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordyke_v._King

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_scrutiny






Back on June 28, Gottlieb said, “This morning’s high-court ruling clearly shows that the right of theindividual citizen to have a gun is constitutionally protected in every corner of the Unites States. We arealready preparing to challenge other highly restrictive anti-gun laws across the country. Our objective isto win back our firearms freedoms one lawsuit at a time.” The Nordyke case could be one of the mostimportant of all.

Pentagon Denounces Taliban Claims About PFCBergdahlwritten by Mary McHugh

According to one of his captors and Afghan intelligence officials, missing U.S. Army Private BoweBergdahl of Hailey, Idaho, has become a Muslim and is training Taliban fighters in bomb-making andambush skills.

However, the Fox News website quotes U.S. Military spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian as denouncing thisreport about the prisoner of war, saying, “The Taliban spokesmen are notorious for their puffery, and forexploiting captives through propaganda. We condemn his kidnapping and demand SPC Bergdahl’simmediate release by his captors. The perpetrators responsible for SPC Bergdahl’s abduction will bebrought to justice if anything happens to him.”

The Idaho State Journal reported that “… veterans and active duty personnel, as well as Bergdahl’sparents in Hailey, won’t speak on the record because they’re afraid their words could jeopardizeBergdahl’s safety. But privately, many of them believe anything Bergdahl says or does while in captivityshould be viewed as coerced.” Other military groups agree, calling the news “cruel propaganda.”


https://thenewamerican.com/pentagon-denounces-taliban-claims-about-pfc-bergdahl/

https://thenewamerican.com/pentagon-denounces-taliban-claims-about-pfc-bergdahl/

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/23/pentagon-condemns-taliban-claiming-captured-soldier-joined-cause/

http://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/local/article_60d71dc4-ae65-11df-b6d8-001cc4c03286.html





Private Bergdahl, 24, was based in eastern Afghanistan as part of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regimentand is believed the only U.S. serviceman in captivity. He left his observation post in Paktika’s Yahya Kheldistrict on June 20, 2009 accompanied by an Afghan soldier. They were observed entering a village nearthe bazaar at Sharan. When informed of this, eight Taliban gunmen in a nearby field ambushed them. TheAfghan with Bergdahl attempted to fire his gun but was himself shot and instantly killed. Though Bergdahlsignaled surrender by raising his hands, one of the Taliban members hit him with the butt of his rifleacross the face and forced him to the ground. He was dragged into a compound where he was kicked inthe chest, had his weapon taken, and was then ordered to remove his uniform and bulletproof vest. It wasfeared that he might have been “bugged” in such a way as to reveal their location via technology. TheirTaliban commander in the Mota Khan district was radioed and informed of what had taken place.

Haji Nadeem, who claims to be Taliban deputy district commander in Paktika, informed the U.K.’s SundayTimes/Daily Mailthat next, “My commander told them not to kill the American. He told them to feed him,hide him and he said take everything that he has on his body and throw it away. Don’t even leave him witha small nail because it could be used to show your location.”

Private Bergdahl was given traditional Afghan clothing to wear and his belongings and clothing weredisposed of. When he missed roll call the next morning, predator drones and dog teams began looking forhim. Confirmation that he was a prisoner eventually came when radio chatter was intercepted.

According to Nadeem, “Some of my comrades think he’s pretending to be a Muslim to save himself so theywouldn’t behead him.” He claims Bergdahl is now “very relaxed in our company” and has taken the nameAbdullah. Three videos of the missing private have been released, including one at Christmastime. In Aprila disturbing, seven-minute video (below) of the POW followed. In this he speaks haltingly, has a beardand also is shown doing push-ups to demonstrate the state of his health.

It is the thought of author and film maker Robert Young Pelton, when interviewed on Fox News’ Studio Bwith Shepard Smith on Monday, August 23, that the Taliban is hoping to exchange Bergdahl with the U.S.for a large sum and/or high profile prisoners. Pelton has been involved in search attempts to locate themissing private, now believed in Pakistan, and doubts the truth of Taliban and Afghan officials’ assertionsthat Bergdahl has converted to Islam and is helping to train his captors.

Photo: Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl of Ketchum, Idaho is shown in this video frame grab taken from a Talibanpropaganda video released on July 18, 2009: AP Images

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1305184/Bowe-Bergdahl-Taliban-claim-captured-U-S-solider-teaching-fighters-bomb-making-skills.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1305184/Bowe-Bergdahl-Taliban-claim-captured-U-S-solider-teaching-fighters-bomb-making-skills.html



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