2024 Presidential Election_The Question About Eating Cats, Dogs, and Eagles in Springfield, OH: From the residents themselves

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Obama's Undeclared War on America

The Cloward-Piven Strategy
Republican US House Speaker John Boehner, and US Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking minority member Richard Lugar, are both obsessed with bringing President Obama to account under the War Powers Act for his intervention in Libya.

Libya is typical of Obama's foreign policy: timid, tardy, aloof, and counterproductive. Accordingly, the outcome from Obama's Libyan humanitarian adventure has been predictable, needlessly adding over $1 billion to the US federal deficit while emboldening a stalemate benefitting Gaddafi, who continues to inflict civilian casualties with impunity.

Whatever Obama's disposition of the War Powers Act concerning Libya, it is still trivial stuff compared with Obama's undeclared War on America. Boehner and Lugar need to stand down from the snipe hunt over Libya and pay attention to Obama's destruction here at home.

Obama's undeclared War on America has been as intense, unrelenting, costly, and devastating as any undeclared war since Korea. Obama's carpet-bombing through taxes, regulations, energy policies, and pledging to do more of the same has paralyzed and bankrupted the nation, plunging it into a despondency not seen since eight decades ago.

Apart from James Buchanan, no president has been so ill-prepared and willfully ignorant as Obama when presented with an unprecedented national crisis. We are now mired in the 21st century Great Gloom, our nation's 2nd Great Depression, having identical features with the first one: millions of Americans are out of work with few prospects for any; millions more Americans have lost their homes with even more facing foreclosure and owing more on their mortgages than the homes are worth; the private sector is calcified; high taxes and regulations frustrate capital formation and job creation.

Obama's inability or unwillingness to read history, compounded by his stubborn big government ideology, has led him to adopt or advocate for the single most devastating tactic that doomed Herbert Hoover when the Great Depression began and plagued FDR as the wretchedness of the 1930s persisted for nearly another decade: higher taxes.

The Great Depression's illiquidity closed thousands of banks, wiped out savings, and obliterated home and farm ownership. High tariffs choked international trade, idling more businesses and spoiling more stockpiles of foodstuffs.

Today's analog -- regulatory fever -- has strangled job creation, demolished the real estate markets, and crushed any hope to restore self-confidence by heaping nearly $2 trillion of unrelieved costs on American business.

Except for taxes and tariffs -- as David M. Kennedy argues in his Freedom From Fear-The American People in Depression and War 1929-1945, at least President Herbert Hoover didn't deliberately make the Depression worse. Hoover was physically exhausted and mentally drained in tirelessly applying any remedy that would ease the suffering and stop the economic bleeding.

Says Kennedy ( p. 94) "He kept up a punishing regimen of rising at six and working without interruption until nearly midnight. His clothes were disheveled, his hair rumpled, his eyes bloodshot, complexion ashen.

"By the fall of 1932 he had lost all stomach for political campaigning...seemed to campaign more for vindication of the historical record than for the affection in the hearts of voters.

"Just four years earlier he had won one of the most lopsided victories in the history of presidential elections...The Great Engineer, so recently the most revered American, was the most loathed and scorned figure in the country."

Contrast that scene with Obama on another golf outing, wolfing down chilidogs and cheeseburgers, and launching his 2012 re-election campaign eighteen months in advance.

Hoover gets a bum rap for allowing a recession to turn into the Great Depression. He tried everything at his disposal that contemporaneous economists and banker/financiers thought would work. But as Kennedy further observes, through the lens of economist Herbert Stein, the federal government at the time was too small to be leveraged; state and local governments had collective budgets five times larger than the federal government and some states had statutory restrictions on incurring more indebtedness. According to Kennedy, even Pennsylvania by its own constitution could not borrow more than $1 million.

The federal budget in 1929 was only 3% of GDP. Obama's 2012 budget would approach 25% of GDP. Obama sees no limit to bloated bureaucracies, the size of government tenfold larger and growing even more immense than Hoover could ever have imagined, and the debt to go with it flirting with sovereign default.

In the beginning Hoover, not gregarious by nature, engaged every politician and business leader who he thought could be enlisted for advice or action. Only after exhausting all possibilities, while the nation's fortunes plummeted further, did Hoover become isolated and withdrawn. Kennedy relates a dark joke circulating at the lowest point of Hoover's presidency: "the president asked for a nickel to make a telephone call to a friend, an aide flipped him a dime and said 'call them both'."

Hoover was a man of broad and deep intellect, a voracious student of economics and finance. Kennedy (p 94) recounts a quote from Theodore Joslin, a secretary to Hoover:


His was a mathematical brain...Let banking officials for example come into his office and he would rattle off the number of banks in the country, list their liabilities and assets, describe the trend of fiscal affairs, and go into the liquidity or lack of it, of individual institutions, all from memory.

What a contrast to Obama's teleprompter presidency, uttering shopworn political clichés with it, occasionally unable to string together anything coherent without it.

Prior to becoming president, Hoover was regarded as the most experienced organization titan, ironically owing to his single-handed leadership in the acclaimed Belgian food relief program upon the outset of WWI. As Kennedy notes, at the end of the War, Hoover was President Wilson's personal advisor, "as much as any one man could he got the credit for reorganizing the war-shattered European economy."

Yes, Hoover is tagged with failure. Yet he was serious, purposeful, and above all, even willing to abandon his own ideology in search for a cure. Hoover's acquiescence to the formation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation capped a sequence of measures harnessing the potential power of government intervention when it was clear private means were insufficient. In fact, as Kennedy continues, noted Columbia University economist Rexford Tugwell, FDR's behind-the-scenes architect for much of the New Deal, "later conceded that practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started[.]"

Obama shares but two likenesses with Hoover. The first one in public utterances prone to underestimating the severity of the crisis.

Remarked Hoover in his famous understatement in May 1930, "I am convinced we have passed the worst and with continued effort we shall rapidly recover...the depression is over[.]" Last week we heard from Obama that "the economy is taking a while to mend...and faces bumps on the road to recovery."

Hoover's comments were accidents of timing, Obama's deliberate obfuscations.

And second, not unlike Hoover's (and later FDR's) addiction to tax hikes, Obama has overseen piles of costs heaped on everyday Americans from deliberately high energy prices to environmental regulatory roadblocks on energy production to $1 trillion in taxes and mandates under ObamaCare.

Who can objectively deny Obama has made the extant condition worse? Whether he has purposefully made things worse is up for some debate; after all he has no expertise in anything from which to conjure a sinister plan. Yet economic destruction derived from ignorance, folly, and neglect is still destruction. At least Hoover, by contrast, was a self-made economist who understood capital formation and liquidity, monetary and fiscal theory, and international trade, debt, and currency flows.

Arguably, international isolationism contributed to and prolonged the Great Depression. Obama's own personal isolationism, evidenced by his contempt for regular Americans and standoffish relations with foreign leaders, handmaiden to the scorn and hostility he shows towards Republicans, is a continual roadblock in finding solutions.

Even Obama's own erstwhile cheerleader for doomed Obamanomics, Austan Goolsbee, chief economic advisor to the president, has found either the task overwhelming or the companionship insufferable -- take your pick -- after only 10 months on the job.

Temperamentally Obama is a drone unleashing as much destruction on the American psyche as his drones have done to destroy military targets in Afghanistan. Devoid of honest analytics, Obama continues to issue phony reports from the domestic battlefront. Even the Washington Post, fiercely loyal to Obama's personality and politics, has had enough of his lies about the success from the auto industry bailouts.

If Obama's game is to perfect an undeclared War on America, he is succeeding. It remains to be seen whether the Republicans can summon enough nerve to reprise Gen McAuliffe's famous retort to the German demand for surrender at Bastogne in December of 1944, "Nuts."

Only Congress can now do what the voters sent them to do -- disarm and defund Obama's undeclared War on America. And for 2012, who shall be the Republicans' Gen Patton, coming to America's rescue?(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: US Is Nearing Even Worse Financial Crisis

The Cloward-Piven Strategy

The U.S. is approaching a financial crisis worse than 2008, Jim Rogers, chief executive, Rogers Holdings, warned CNBC Wednesday.

"The debts that are in this country are skyrocketing," he said. "In the last three years the government has spent staggering amounts of money and the Federal Reserve is taking on staggering amounts of debt.

"When the problems arise next time…what are they going to do? They can’t quadruple the debt again. They cannot print that much more money. It’s gonna be worse the next time around."

The well-known investor believes the government won't shut down in August if agreement isn't reached on raising the debt ceiling, but he did say "draconian cuts" are needed in taxes and spending, especially military spending.

"We’ve got troops in 150 countries around the world. They’re not doing us any good, they’re making enemies. They’re costing us a fortune," he said.

Rogers said he is "not long anything in the U.S." and short on American tech stocks. He owns Chinese stocks as well as commodities and would love the world price of silver and gold to come down so he could "pick up the phone and buy more."

He said he owns Chinese stocks, currencies and commodities, adding the Chinese yuan will be a safer currency than the dollar.

"The U.S. is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world," he said. "The debts are going through the roof. Would you keep lending money to somebody who's spending money and not doing anything about it? No you wouldn't."

The pound sterling lost 90% of its value when it was no longer the world's reserve currency, he said, and the dollar will, too. In keeping with his philosophy he said he owns the U.S. dollar and is waiting for a rally. "If it doesn't happen I'll have to sell and take my losses."

He called Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke a "disaster" who has "never been right about anything" since he's been in Washington. "I hope he doesn't come back with QE3 but that's all he knows. The only thing he knows is to print money."

He predicted that after the Fed ends its quantitative easing program, known as QE2, this month, it may come back under another name.

"They're gonna bring it back because [Bernanke will] be terrified and Washington will be terrified," he said. "There's an election coming in November 2012. Washington's gonna print more money."(source)

FRANCES FOX PIVEN And The "Orchestrated Crisis" Strategy

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Born in Alberta, Canada in 1932, Frances Fox Piven earned a Ph.D. in social science from the University of Chicago in l962. Today she is a professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where she has taught since 1982. She was formerly a professor at Columbia University.

Piven and her late husband, Columbia social-work professor Richard Cloward, are best known for having outlined, in 1966, the so-called Cloward-Piven Strategy – a tactic which seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading government bureaucracies with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into "a profound financial and political crisis" that would unleash "powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level."

In 1966 Piven was a panel member at a Socialist Scholars Conference in New York. There, she and her husband presented a paper proposing that the poor should engage in "irregular and disruptive tactics" designed to overburden city and state governments with demands for welfare money – the ultimate objective being to force those governments to turn to the federal government for assistance. Such “disruption of the system,” said Piven, would result in a situation where:

“Welfare rolls will begin to go up; welfare payments will begin to go up – the impact will be very, very sharp. The mounting welfare budget will increase taxes, force cities to turn to the federal government. We have to help people to make claims; for this they will organize and act."

Beginning in 1967, Piven served as an advisor to the newly formed National Welfare Rights Organization.

In their 1977 book, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail, Piven and Cloward reemphasized that because the poor and unemployed were politically powerless in America, they would be well advised to withhold “quiescence in civil life: they can riot.” The authors stated, approvingly, that in the 1930s, violent disruptions such as “mob looting” and “rent riots” – fomented by leftist and Communist-party organizers – had enabled the first great expansion of the welfare state to take place. Likewise, Cloward and Piven credited the urban riots of the 1960s for helping to further grow the welfare state by forcing changes in traditional procedures for investigating and verifying applicants’ eligibility for welfare benefits.

In 1979-80, Piven served as a “lecturer on U. S. political activities” with the Institute for Policy Studies.

In October 1983 Piven was a New York delegate to a conference of the newly formed Democratic Socialists of America. In subsequent years, she served on DSA's Feminist Commission. To this day, she remains an honorary DSA chair.

In 1983 Piven and Cloward co-founded Human SERVE, an organization that sought to register voters at social-service agencies and Departments of Motor Vehicles. Piven's hope was that federal and state governments would eventually try to rein in the efforts of politicized welfare workers who were registering new voters, and that this, in turn, would cause welfare recipients to rise up in a massive protest movement -- rendering society “disrupted and transformed.”

That same year, Piven delivered the opening remarks at the Socialist Scholars Conference (SSC) in New York City, an event that was likely attended by a young Barack Obama. The conference commemorated the 100-year anniversary of Karl Marx’s death. Piven described Marx as the man whose ideas had enabled “common people” around the globe to become “historical actors.” She urged her listeners to “stand within the intellectual and political tradition Marx bequeathed,” treating it not as a “dead inheritance” but rather as a “living tradition—the creation of thinking, active people.” In subsequent years, Piven would appear at numerous additional SSCs.

In the fall of 1994, a publication of the pro-socialist New Party (NP) listed Piven among the more than 100 activists “who are building the NP.” Other notable names on the list were John Cavanagh, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Randall Forsberg, Maude Hurd, Manning Marable, Zach Polett, Wade Rathke, Mark Ritchie, Gloria Steinem, Cornel West, Quentin Young, and Howard Zinn.

In 1996, Piven was one of the 130 individuals who played key roles in founding the Campaign for America's Future. Among the other notables were Mary Frances Berry, Julian Bond, Heather Booth, Robert Borosage, John Cavanagh, Richard Cloward, Peter Dreier, Barbara Ehrenreich, Betty Friedan, Todd Gitlin, Tom Hayden, Denis Hayes, Roger Hickey, Patricia Ireland, Jesse Jackson, Joseph Lowery, Robert Reich, Mark Ritchie, Arlie Schardt, Susan Shaer, Andrew Stern, John Sweeney, and Richard Trumka.

On September 20, 2001, Piven was a guest speaker at a New York City gathering to honor the work of her husband, Richard Cloward, who had died a month earlier. Other speakers included Barbara Ehrenreich, Howard Zinn, June Jordan, Gus Newport, Tim Sampson, Joel Rogers, Miles Rappaport, and Cornel West.

In January 2002, Piven endorsed the founding of War Times, a national anti-Iraq War newspaper established by a group of San Francisco leftists affiliated with such organizations as STORM, the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Among the more prominent founders of the publication was Van Jones. Along with Piven, key individual and organizational endorsers of War Times included Phyllis Bennis, Paul Buhle, Noam Chomsky, Kathleen Cleaver, Winona LaDuke, Tim Wise, Howard Zinn, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Students for Justice in Palestine.

In August 2004, Piven endorsed a New York City demonstration at the site of the Republican National Convention in New York, protesting President George W. Bush's “endless war and repression.” The rally was organized by Not In Our Name, a project of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Fellow endorsers of the event included Ed Asner, Medea Benjamin, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover, Tom Hayden, C. Clark Kissinger, Barbara Lubin, Michael Parenti, Rev. George Regas, Leonard Weinglass, Howard Zinn, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Code Pink, the Freedom Socialist Party, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and the
 Women's International League for Peace & Freedom.

During 2006-07, Piven served as president of the American Sociological Association.

On December 22, 2010, Piven published an article in The Nation titled "Mobilizing the Jobless," where, after noting that some 15 million Americans were unemployed, she asked: “So where are the angry crowds, the demonstrations, sit-ins and unruly mobs?” Admonishing the Left not to wait patiently for “the end of the American empire and even the end of neoliberal capitalism,” she called for active measures to bring about “big new [government] initiatives in infrastructure and green energy.” Such measures, she explained, should take the form of “mass protests” that could pressure President Obama “hard from his base.” Piven urged that the disruptions begin on the local and state levels, where governments that were “strapped for funds” would look, by necessity, for “federal action” to help them. Wrote Piven:

“An effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece in response to the austerity measures forced on the Greek government by the European Union, or like the student protests that recently spread with lightning speed across England in response to the prospect of greatly increased school fees.”

Before the unemployed or any other disadvantaged group “can mobilize for collective action,” added Piven, “they have to develop a proud and angry identity and a set of claims that go with that identity. They have to go from being hurt and ashamed to being angry and indignant …. [A] kind of psychological transformation has to take place; the out-of-work have to stop blaming themselves for their hard times and turn their anger on the bosses, the bureaucrats or the politicians who are in fact responsible.”

As of January 2011, Piven was a sponsor of New Politics, a self-described “independent socialist forum.” Other sponsors included Stanley Aronowitz, Derrick Bell, Paul Buhle, Noam Chomsky, Michael Eric Dyson, Barbara Ehrenreich, Jesse Lemisch, and Cornel West. The late Howard Zinn had previously been a sponsor.

In addition to Poor People's Movements, Piven has authored such books as: Regulating the Poor (1972, co-authored with Richard Cloward); Why Americans Don't Vote (1988); The War at Home (2004); Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America (2008), and Keeping Down the Black Vote (2009). (source)

Why Obama Surrendered the Missile Shield

Cloward-Piven

Documents from the State Department published by WikiLeaks show that the Obama administration surrendered the missile shield previously planned by the Bush administration to Europe because of Russian demands, not because of any supposed intel reports.


The original missile defense scheme was devised by the Bush administration, which persuaded Poland and the Czech Republic to authorize missile defense systems (ten unarmed interceptors and a radar) to be deployed on their soil. In April 2008, Bush outmaneuvered Vladimir Putin by obtaining an endorsement of this scheme from all NATO allies before the Russian leader reached Bucharest for the NATO-Russia summit.


Russia has always opposed this scheme, putatively because the scheme would undermine Russia's nuclear deterrent (which it wouldn't -- ten unarmed interceptors can't undermine an arsenal of hundreds of ICBMs and SLBMs as well as 113 strategic bombers). Really, Russia is in the middle of selling a nuclear reactor and tons of nuclear fuel to Iran, and the Kremlin doesn't want the West to be able to defend itself against the incipient Iranian nuclear threat. Russia is also eager to claw Central Europe back into its sphere of influence.


Bush wisely chose not to succumb to Moscow, but he was replaced in 2009 by Barack Obama.


The leaked documents indicate that Obama's first eight months as president boiled over with Russian threats not to cooperate with the U.S. on any issue whatsoever (be it Iran, North Korea, space exploration, START negotiations, or anything else) barring cancelation of U.S. missile defense plans. During meetings with American officials, the Russians would repeatedly interrupt American diplomats who tried to discuss anything but missile defense.


The Kremlin's message was this: you must capitulate on missile defense (and strategic arms), or else we won't even discuss (let alone cooperate on) other issues. Eager to appease Russia, the Obama Administration naïvely surrendered missile defense plans on September 17, 2009.


Administration officials, including Obama and Bob Gates, are now falsely claiming that their surrender had nothing to do with Russia and was instead dictated by claimed new intel. Supposedly, Iran's priority is now the development of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles rather than IRBMs and ICBMs (against which the Bush missile shield was designed to be effective).


But the leaked documents, reproduced by the NYT, show that the Iranians still prioritize the development and acquisition of long-range ballistic missiles.


The documents say that before Obama made his decision, Iran acquired BM25 (Rodong) IRBMs from North Korea. These can reach Western Europe and Moscow. Other publicly available intel reports say that Iran aims by 2015 to acquire ICBMs meant to reach the U.S. Iran also has R-27 Zyb SLBMs bought from North Korea (with a range of 3,000 kilometers; Rodong missiles were derived from them) and is reportedly now developing Shahab-4 IRBMs and Koussar missiles that could fly as far as 5,000 kilometers. And Iran possesses missiles that can deliver satellites into the Earth's orbit -- missiles that can reach Europe just as easily. Iran's Fajr-3 and Sajjil missiles can fly as far as 2,500 kilometers. So the Iranian long-range-missile threat is growing, not declining.


Moreover, thanks to geography, long-range ballistic missiles are the only ones which could ever reach Western Europe. Iran is too far away from Western Europe for its SRBMs and MRBMs to reach the Old Continent, let alone the U.S. Its Shahab-3 MRBMs can fly no farther than 2,000 km, meaning it can reach only Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, etc.).


Whoever wants to protect Europe and the U.S. should first and foremost provide defenses against long-range ballistic missiles.


Obama's putative replacement for the Bush missile defense plan (which, for the record, was based on a proven technology designed against a real threat) is a fantasy scheme partially based on technology that doesn't even exist. Obama plans to first deploy Burke- and Ticonderoga-class BMD-capable warships to Europe. The problem is that the Navy has only 24 BMD-capable combatants. The deployment would strain the BMD ship fleet (which must also defend Gulf states and eastern Asian countries) and would be more expensive than the deployment of ten interceptors and a radar on land.


The second and third phases, Obama says, would be to deploy a ground version of the SM-3 interceptor missile (which doesn't exist) in Romania and later Poland, plus "enhanced sensors" that will be inferior to the radar Bush planned to deploy.


In the fourth phase, Obama says, SM-3s will be upgraded to become able to intercept long-range missiles, and such interceptors might be deployed to Europe. Of course, that would be contingent on the Congress and whatever government succeeds the Obama administration (assuming he will even be reelected in 2012) providing the necessary funding. Moreover, it would emerge five years after Iran is projected to acquire ICBMs. This means that even if such an interceptor was ever developed, produced, and deployed in Europe by 2020, the U.S.* and Europe would totally lack any defense against Iranian LRBMs for five years! And even if Iran does not acquire ICBMs by 2015, it will still have much time to construct them before any defensive systems go up in Europe.


The Heritage Foundation and the nonpartisan CBO say that the deployment of ten interceptors in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic would be only half as expensive as the deployment of Aegis-type warships to Europe. And these Bush-planned defensive systems would protect Europe much better against Iranian missiles than the systems Obama has offered.


Nor has Obama's concession to Russia been reciprocated. Russia has not stopped backing Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, and Syria. It has not allowed any serious sanctions to be approved by the UNSC. Putin hasn't even toned down his comments about the U.S.


In short, Obama has succumbed to Moscow for nothing. Now he is advertising a pseudo-missile-defense scheme which is decisively inferior to the Bush plan. It is time for the Congress and GOP presidential candidates to review this issue.


*Even the U.S. is unprotected against Iranian missiles. The interceptors stationed in California and Alaska can protect only against missiles flying over the Pacific Ocean, e.g. from North Korea or China. They cannot protect the U.S. against missiles from over the Atlantic Ocean.(source)

Why America Needs Nuclear Arms

Cloward-Piven

For the last half-century, doves in both major political parties have pursued disarmament without reciprocity. America survived this disarmament in spite of the existence of strategic adversaries like China and the former Soviet Union, but only because America still posed a credible threat to these nations.


America finessed its large arsenal of warheads into the ultimate strategic weapon. After all, no nation knew exactly how many deliverable warheads America possessed, and every nation was sure that given proper provocation, America would consider a nuclear strike. This "calculated ambiguity," as it was termed by defense insiders, enabled America to take the world into an age of unprecedented stability. President Obama, admittedly uncomfortable with the idea of America as a superpower, would like to end this tradition, taking the nuclear option off the table by means of drastic reduction of nuclear weapons stockpiles below the practical point. The question is, why? The answer is bigger than Obama or any one man.


Those governing from the shadows desire that America be no better, no more powerful, and no more influential than any other country. For America to need the world, for interdependence and the designs of global government to come to fruition, American might must be dismantled. This ideology necessitates not only military rebalancing, but significant economic leveling.


New START would accomplish the goal of American decline, rendering America no more than a whining paper tiger.


Reductions make no sense. There are currently three thousand targets the U.S. must be ready to destroy. The list grew by 20 percent in the aftermath of START II. With new threats posed by rogue states and terrorist organizations, the potential for nuclear confrontation has increased exponentially. The U.S. should stop talking reductions and start talking modernization.


At present, deliverable U.S. warheads number slightly more than 5,000 -- sufficient to fulfill strategic obligations. But New START would reduce deliverable warheads to slightly more than 1,000, requiring the U.S. to step down from its position as global peacekeeper. The U.S. cannot be a superpower when its arsenal is insufficient to defend its territory and the territory of its allies from nuclear attack.


There is no better illustration of this backwards military methodology than the provisions addressing non-offensive U.S. missile defense technology. New START contains requirements that the U.S. cease attempts to defend its territory from intercontinental attack, a domain where the U.S. has been quite successful, because defensive technologies eliminate the effectiveness of the Russian arsenal. Translation: Russia wants the U.S. to abandon missile defense so that its missiles can kill Americans without difficulty.


America should not agree to this insane demand.


Rather than "mutually assured destruction," why not share in a mutually assured peace? American missile defense technology already has an 80-percent success rate, potentially rendering nuclear weapons obsolete.


Russia's absurd proposal demonstrates Russian weakness, yet Obama is capitulating to Russian demands as if Russia were in the driver's seat. But Russia is attempting a transparent bluff with New START, and sometimes calling a bluff requires a willingness to walk out. At Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan's unwillingness to compromise SDI was later acknowledged by Russian officials as the turning point in the Cold War that eventually led to Soviet collapse.[i] Why reverse course now?


It is within this paradigm that Americans should seek to understand the utility of nuclear weapons and their proper place in the strategic schema. Many Americans want to believe in the existence of universal values embodied in a universal phobia of nuclear weapons. But American values are not universal.


The Communist Chinese, for example, do not value human life in the same way Americans mourn one soldier fallen. If America ever ceased to be useful as a source of trade and investment, and instead became a burden -- the source of endless debt, perhaps -- then China would have no qualms about eliminating the American irritant.


No true American could support a policy that leaves America utterly defenseless against would-be aggressors. That President Obama would seek to reduce U.S. nuclear stockpiles at a time of such demonstrated hostility is an indication of his real loyalties.


Russia, tainted by nearly a century of Communist godlessness, will have no logical reason to allow America to continue ordering the world along American lines without corresponding American nuclear stare-down capability. Why should nations that loathe America tolerate us if we are not strong? Good will? The Judeo-Christian ethic?


No, Ronald Reagan understood: the only real peace is peace through strength. In a world of constant conflict and tumult, the only real security comes from the ability to demolish potential adversaries -- an ability which must be known by all.


Although its general nuclear posture is in disarray, Russia is ahead of the United States in nuclear modernization. Russia builds more deadly weapons. China perfects its strategic advantage, building fleets of U.S.-inspired nuclear submarines fitted with functioning SLBMs. America may even have witnessed the test-firing of such a missile recently, as Obama twiddled his thumbs and decided on a "muted response."


What does America do? America meekly resigns itself to even smaller arsenals and even fewer strategic options. America reverses modernization efforts like the MX-Peacekeeper missile, forcing its citizenry to depend on the aging and, for many years, untested Minuteman-III. Obama has openly proposed that the U.S. "de-MIRV" its missiles, despite the fact that multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles stand as America's main asset in targeting multiple locales simultaneously. Surrendering this capability would leave Russia as the sole nation with MIRVs. Russia could target multiple American cities, and America would be limited to a slap on the wrist in response.


In this single proposition is evidence of Obama's delusional mindset. Like many radical leftists in the eighties, Obama is of the mind that America can survive without a nuclear triad, that America can unilaterally disarm and nothing will come of it. Like the old Queen song "Hammer to Fall," the sentence "just surrender and it won't hurt at all" seems to be the core of Obama's nuclear philosophy.


But the world does not operate on postmodern American fantasies. The world operates on fear. The world operates on strength.


Will America remain strong?(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Cripple The US First-Response Capability

Cloward-Piven

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday approved a new nuclear arms-reduction treaty with Russia, the broadest such pact between the former Cold War foes in nearly two decades.

The Senate ratified the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, by a vote of 71 to 26, easily clearing the threshold of two-thirds of senators present as required by the Constitution for treaty ratification.

The final vote came after Senate Democrats accepted two amendments designed to placate Republicans who had qualms about the treaty. The amendments, which passed on voice votes with bipartisan support, emphasized the administration's commitment to a limited missile-defense program and to continued funding to modernize the aging U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

The amendments were to the resolution of ratification accompanying the treaty, a nonbinding statement that codifies the Senate's understanding of the pact but does not directly affect its language. Republican efforts to alter the treaty language were defeated, with supporters of the pact arguing that such changes would have forced new negotiations with Moscow and effectively killed the treaty.

Thirteen Republicans joined all of the Senate's Democrats in voting for ratification, helping to exceed the 67 votes required. Three senators - all Republicans - were not present.

In a floor speech shortly before the ratification vote, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), the Foreign Relations Committee chairman who shepherded the treaty through the Senate, implored senators to put politics aside and take a broad view. "This is one of those rare times in the United States Senate . . . when we have it in our power to safeguard or endanger human life on this planet," he said. "More than any other, this issue should transcend politics. . . . More than at almost any other time, the people of the world are watching us because they rely on our leadership."

Kerry also chided Republicans who had argued against taking up New START ratification so close to Christmas, thus delaying their departures for the holidays. "The question is not whether we get out of here for a holiday; the question is whether we move the world a little more out of the dark shadow of nuclear nightmare," he said.

Kerry said after the vote: "The winners are not defined by party or ideology. The winners are the American people, who are safer with fewer Russian missiles aimed at them." He said the treaty's impact "will echo around the world," showing that the United States remains determined to work with Russia and other countries to reduce the global threat from nuclear weapons.

"With this treaty, we send a message to Iran and North Korea that the international community remains united to restrain the nuclear ambitions of countries that operate outside the law," Kerry said.

New START cleared a key hurdle in the Senate on Tuesday, advancing to a final vote with a margin that appeared to guarantee ratification and a major foreign-policy victory for President Obama. Senators voted 67 to 28 to invoke "cloture" to limit further debate and move to the ratification vote, with 11 Republicans joining all 56 Democrats present in the chamber.

The stakes were high: Defeat of the pact would have severely damaged Obama's global standing, hampering his ability to negotiate other treaties, and would have dealt a major setback to the president's "reset" of relations with Russia.

"It's one of those things in life where failing to get it would be more important than actually what you get with it," said George Perkovich, a scholar on nuclear nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Perkovich noted that Washington's NATO allies had strongly supported the pact. "We would really lose credibility" if it failed, he said Tuesday.

The treaty, if also ratified by Russia as expected, would replace the pact that was credited with ensuring stability between the countries that maintain 95 percent of the world's nuclear weapons. Since the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty I ended last year, the atomic giants have had no inspections of their strategic nuclear arsenals, a gap that worries the U.S. military.

The pact does not represent a dramatic step forward in disarmament, but it will reduce deployed, long-range nuclear warheads by up to 30 percent on each side. Republicans voiced concern that the treaty could be interpreted to limit development of a U.S. missile shield and had worked to extract additional commitments from the administration to fund the modernization of the aging U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Although the treaty easily reached the two-thirds threshold for Senate ratification, the vote marked the tightest margin to date for a nuclear arms-control pact with Russia. The top two Republican leaders in the Senate opposed passage of New START, demonstrating the difficulty for Obama to move further on his sweeping goal of a world without nuclear weapons. His embrace of that idea helped him win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Kerry had predicted Tuesday that the treaty would pick up at least three more votes on ratification, noting that three supporters were absent Tuesday - Democrats Evan Bayh (Ind.) and Ron Wyden (Ore.) and Republican Judd Gregg (N.H.).

Wyden, who is recovering from prostate cancer surgery, showed up Wednesday and voted for ratification, as did Bayh and Gregg.

In a reference to the partisan wrangling that has erupted over the treaty, Kerry told reporters Tuesday: "I would say to you that in today's Washington, in today's Senate, 70 votes is yesterday's 95," the sort of support enjoyed by earlier arms-control efforts.

In a week of debate on New START, Republican critics expressed concern about several substantive issues. One was missile defense: Although the pact does not legally bar the U.S. government from proceeding with its plans for a missile shield, Republicans worried that a few brief mentions of missile defense in the pact could provide Russia with a political pretext to pressure Washington. The administration said it will not be constrained.

Some senators also said they were not happy with the verification procedures in the treaty.

But in the background was a power struggle: Republicans tried to push the vote into next year, when they will have six more senators and could extract more concessions from Obama.

In the weeks leading to the vote, Obama had committed to spend an extra $14 billion to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons complex over the next decade, the result of tough negotiations with Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the second-ranking Republican in the Senate. Kyl voted Tuesday against ending debate and voted no again Wednesday on ratification.

"From a Republican point of view, it's not about aborting START. It's about getting the best deal possible, and I just don't understand why we can't wait five more weeks," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.).

But the White House clearly feared it could face continual delays if the treaty returned to committee.

Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to the Senate for Tuesday's vote, huddling outside the chamber with Democratic leaders to strategize and talking to other senators.

They, and Obama, had conducted an intensive lobbying effort in recent weeks after the treaty's passage became imperiled.

The 11 Republican senators who voted in favor of moving ahead with the treaty Tuesday were Richard G. Lugar (Ind.), Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), Robert F. Bennett (Utah), Scott Brown (Mass.), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Susan Collins (Maine), Bob Corker (Tenn.), Johnny Isakson (Ga.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) and George V. Voinovich (Ohio).

All also voted in favor of ratification Wednesday, as did Gregg. In addition, Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.) voted for the treaty, pushing the total yes votes to 71.

Three Republican senators were not present for Wednesday's vote: Sens. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), Sam Brownback (Kan.) and Jim Bunning (Ky.). All were believed to oppose the treaty.

New START sets a cap of 1,550 deployed, long-range nuclear warheads for each side. It trims the number of deployed nuclear-capable submarines, long-range missiles and heavy bombers to 700, with an additional 100 in reserve.

Pentagon officials said failure to ratify the pact would force the military to plan for worst-case scenarios, devoting more money and satellite coverage to Russia at a time when resources are stretched because of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama has portrayed the pact as enhancing U.S. leadership globally in pressing countries not to acquire the bomb. In particular, U.S. diplomats say, it will show that Washington is complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the global pact that bars countries from developing nuclear weapons. In exchange, the original nuclear powers promised to gradually disarm.

Obama has made it a priority to strengthen the pact, which has been under strain.(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Sink The US In Debt Further Than Ever To Ensure Collapse

Despite record deficits in Obama's first 2 years in office, analysis shows his spending proposals continue deficit spending throughout the rest of his presidency.

Cloward-Piven

Government liabilities rose $2 trillion in FY 2010: Treasury

The U.S. government fell deeper into the red in fiscal 2010 with net liabilities swelling more than $2 trillion as commitments on government debt and federal benefits rose, a U.S. Treasury report showed on Tuesday.

The Financial Report of the United States, which applies corporate-style accrual accounting methods to Washington, showed the government's liabilities exceeded assets by $13.473 trillion. That compared with a $11.456 trillion gap a year earlier.

Unlike the normal measurement of government intake of receipts against cash outlays, accrual accounting measures costs such as interest on the debt and federal benefits payable when they are incurred, not when funds are actually disbursed.

The report was instituted under former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, the first Treasury secretary in the George W. Bush administration, to illustrate the mounting liabilities of government entitlement programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The government's net operating cost, or deficit, in the report grew to $2.080 trillion for the year ended September 30 from $1.253 trillion the prior year as spending and liabilities increased for social programs. Actual and anticipated revenues were roughly unchanged.

The cash budget deficit narrowed in fiscal 2010 to $1.294 trillion from $1.417 trillion in 2009. But the $858 billion tax cut extension package enacted last week is expected to keep the deficit well above the $1 trillion mark for another year.

BUDGET CUT DEBATE

The latest Treasury report should fuel debate in Congress over spending cuts next year as a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives takes office.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a compromise bill to fund the government until March 4, 2011. After that, Republicans will have the chance to push through dramatic budget cuts.

"Today, we must balance our efforts to accelerate economic recovery and job growth in the near term with continued efforts to address the challenges posed by the long-term deficit outlook," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a letter accompanying the report. "The administration's top priority remains restoring good jobs to American workers and accelerating the pace of economic recovery."

Among key differences between the operating deficit and the cash deficit were sharp increases in costs accrued for veterans' compensation, government and military employee benefits and anticipated losses at mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The biggest increase in net liabilities in fiscal 2010 stemmed from a $1.477 trillion increase in federal debt repayment and interest obligations, largely to finance programs to stabilize the economy and pull it out of recession.

The federal balance sheet liabilities do not include long-term projections for social programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, but these showed a positive improvement.

The report said the present value of future net expenditures for those now eligible to participate in these programs over the next 75 years declined to $43.058 trillion from $52.145 trillion a year ago -- a change attributed to the enactment of health-care reform legislation aimed at boosting coverage and limiting long-term cost growth.

The overall projection, including for those under 15 years of age and not yet born, is much rosier, with the 75-year projected cost falling to $30.857 trillion from last year's projection of $43.878 trillion.

The report noted, however, that there was "uncertainty about whether the projected reductions in health care cost growth will be fully achieved." (source)

Barry As President: TODAY-"Pledges Economic Focus During Next 2 Years"

Cloward-Piven

President Barack Obama says the economy will be his "singular focus" over the next two years.

He says the nation is past the "crisis point" in the economy, and that he'll now be working to bring down the jobless rate and equip the nation to compete with the rest of the world.

Obama told reporters at a Wednesday news conference that the government needs to be a "good partner" with the private sector, in getting rid of regulations that stand in the way of innovation. But he says the government also needs to make sure consumers, workers and the environment are protected.

Obama says the American people will hold both parties accountable for the impact of their policies on the economy.(source)

Barry As President: ONE YEAR AGO-"Obama To Focus Hard On Economy After Democratic Loss"

President Obama already was planning to put a heavy focus on jobs and the economy in next week's State of the Union address, but his top aides are signaling that pivot is going to be even sharper in the wake of the Democrats' stunning election defeat in Massachusetts.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs noted the president has been dealing with the financial crisis long before Tuesday's Senate race, but he acknowledged the administration could have done a better job of conveying that message to the public and will now redouble its efforts. (source)

Barry As President: TWO YEARS AGO-"Putting renewed Focus On Jobs"

Even before Barack Obama took the oath of office, his economic advisers projected that without hundreds of billions of dollars in government spending, the U.S. economy could lose another 3 million to 4 million jobs on top of the 3.1 million lost in 2008.
It turns out they were optimistic. Even with the $787 billion stimulus package that Obama signed in February, more than 4 million jobs have been lost in 2009, the worst year for job losses since World War II. The jobless rate that advisers projected would peak at 8% has topped 10%.

So in the midst of major decisions on Afghanistan, health care and climate change, the president today turns his attention back to a problem he tried to solve already — and one that's sure to dominate next year's elections, when his Democratic majorities in Congress will be at stake.

Obama convenes a summit here on jobs, then flies Friday to Allentown, Pa., for the first in what will be periodic listening tours on the economy. The goal is to develop new spending and tax proposals to help many of the nation's nearly 16 million unemployed people find work in 2010.

"Though the job losses we were experiencing earlier this year have slowed dramatically, we're still not creating enough new jobs each month to make up for the ones we're losing," Obama said last week. "For families and communities across the country, this recession will not end until we completely turn that tide."

The new focus on jobs comes as the first stimulus plan's impact remains unclear. The Obama administration says more than 640,000 jobs have been saved or created by employers who received funds. The Congressional Budget Office this week put the figure at 600,000 to 1.6 million after considering other factors, such as the impact on consumer demand from tax cuts, unemployment insurance extensions and spending by the newly employed. It said unemployment would have been up to 0.9 percentage points higher without the stimulus.


NOV. UNEMPLOYMENT DROP: Unexpected dip brings rate down to 10%
UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIMS DROP: In latest week
JOBS FORECAST: Updates for 50 states, 384 metro areas
ECONOMY: Fed finds recovery gaining momentum

The White House says more than 3.5 million jobs will be saved or created through 2010 as a result of the stimulus. Republicans such as House GOP leader John Boehner dispute the figures.

Also in dispute: whether new spending or tax cuts should add to the record $1.4 trillion budget deficit and $12 trillion debt. Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi favor more spending now. Obama has voiced caution about the deficit.

"The American people recognize that we have two twin challenges," White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer says. "They're concerned about deficits, and they're concerned about jobs."

The immediate concern is economic. About 5 million people have been out of work six months or longer, government data show. Unemployment worsened or stayed the same in most metro areas in October, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

"We need something done right away," says Philadelphia Unemployment Project director John Dodds. "That doesn't always get through to the Ph.D.s and CEOs who will probably be in the front row at the summit."

A secondary concern is political. When James Carville coined the phrase "It's the economy, stupid" to define the 1992 presidential election won by Bill Clinton, times weren't as tough as they are now. A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last week showed 55% of Americans don't like how Obama is handling the jobs issue, tied with Afghanistan for his poorest showing. Only 35% say things will improve during the next year.

"You can say whatever you want, but if it's 10.2% unemployment, people have an unwavering opinion of that," says Chris Chocola, president of the Club for Growth, which backs Republican candidates. "That's what I think we're seeing at tea parties and town hall meetings."

'Doing nothing not an option'

It wasn't supposed to happen.

The nearly $800 billion in spending and tax cuts approved last February would reverse the economic tailspin, Obama and his Democratic allies said. The jobless rate would lag behind, as it always does — but not this much.

"It's getting increasingly unusual that we're not seeing a hiring kick set in," says Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. Employers are holding back due to a lack of credit, of confidence in the economy and of certainty about government actions, he says.

To create more jobs, 18% of those surveyed in the USA TODAY/Gallup Poll last month said, steps should be taken to stop employers from sending jobs overseas. Other top choices: cutting taxes, helping small businesses and creating infrastructure jobs.

Among the ideas under consideration, according to National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers and others:

• Extending unemployment insurance benefits beyond this year. Earlier extensions already have made some people eligible for a record 99 weeks. Giving money to jobless Americans spurs consumer spending, which saves or creates jobs.

• Sending more aid to cash-strapped state and local governments. States are writing their 2010-11 budgets, and federal aid included in February's stimulus package runs out in 2010. Without another bailout, they might be forced to cut spending or raise taxes, hindering the recovery.

• Creating tax incentives, such as for small businesses or manufacturers. During last year's campaign, Obama proposed a tax credit for each new job created.

• Financing more infrastructure and energy efficiency projects. Obama favors an "infrastructure bank" with public and private money, which he promoted in last year's campaign and this year's budget.

"The premise of our policy is that while there is a public sector responsibility for employment, long-term economic recovery depends on private sector growth," Summers says.

Labor leaders such as AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka want the government to create jobs. "Doing nothing is not an option," Trumka says. "If we don't put people back to work, the deficit will get higher."

Republicans are promoting their own agenda: slashing payroll taxes, limiting regulations and reducing the deficit through spending cuts. House Minority Whip Eric Cantor outlined that agenda in a speech Wednesday; Boehner meets with conservative economists today.

'Still in the hope stage'

When Billy Joel wrote his 1982 anthem about Allentown's steel factories closing down, times weren't nearly as bad nationally as they are today. About 2.1 million jobs were lost that year, according to government data — about half the number lost in the first 10 months of this year.

When Obama comes to the Lehigh Valley on Friday, he'll be entering a region of 600,000 people fraught with economic fear — and hope. State figures show unemployment is about 9.5%, slightly below the national average, but the rate has risen in 18 of 22 months since the recession started. Mack Trucks moved its world headquarters to Greensboro, N.C., this year.

The region also is the scene of economic innovation, ranging from regional health care networks to bank and insurance call centers. The Lehigh Valley Health Network is moving about 1,000 employees into the former Mack Trucks headquarters.

"It represents that classic Northeast city that's trying to make the transition," says Tony Iannelli, president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. How is it doing? "We're still in the hope stage," he says.

Joe Alfonso lost his information technology job at Merrill Lynch in January when Bank of America took it over. He applied for about 50 jobs but got no offers. Now he's taking classes at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem to upgrade his skills.

"I'm beginning to think this is a good time to even change careers," Alfonso says.

That's becoming more typical, says Maryann Haytmanek, whose job helping displaced homemakers return to the workforce has evolved to include people who have been laid off. More men are going into nursing these days, she says. More women are becoming solar panel installers.

"I'm not seeing a lot of people get jobs at this point," she says. "For every job, there's six people. Five people aren't getting a job."

'Congress is worried'

Advocates for the unemployed hope today's summit of corporate CEOs, small-business owners, labor leaders and others is a start toward reversing that trend. Some, such as Philadelphia's Dodds, planned to bus jobless people to Washington to walk picket lines outside.

The White House's decision to hold a summit and put the president on the road reflects the need to build public support for whatever plan Democrats push.

"Congress is worried. They're the ones who are up for election next November," says Dean Baker of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Lawmakers in Democratic strongholds may be particularly worried. Jobless rates are highest in states Obama won last year, including Michigan at 15.1%, Nevada, Rhode Island and California.

Democrats hold an 81-vote edge in the House and a 10-vote edge in the Senate. Since World War II, the party of a first-term president has lost an average of 16 House seats in midterm elections, says Charles Cook of the non-partisan Cook Political Report. In the Senate, Cook rates six Democratic seats and four Republican seats as tossups.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and top domestic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain in last year's presidential race, says Obama's tax, trade, health care and environmental policies are holding companies back from hiring workers.

Holding a summit "is what they know how to do," Holtz-Eakin says. "But there's no follow-through."

Still, polls show voters favor Democrats over Republicans on the economy — by a 50% to 39% margin in a Gallup Poll in early September. That, Pfeiffer says, will determine who does best in next November's elections. (source)

Obama Supports DNA Sampling Upon Arrest

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Ever get arrested, but not convicted? If not, don't act so smug. It happens a lot in our judicial system, which I still believe to be the best in the world. Sure there are corrupt judges, politicians, jury members, cops, etc, here and there in our justice system, but the beauty of it is that we can elect those who control these things. In time, the corrupt actors get exposed more effectively than in ANY other country of 300 million people as diverse as America.

That being said, it is worth noting the continued exposure of the useful idiots on the Left who are acting squirmish and anxious at the path their messiah has been on of late.

Guantaunomo Bay still exists.

The Patriot Act had its sunset laws extended.

He let the Navy kill those Somali teenagers.

He fired Van Jones for his political views.

Now this.

You can feel the breath being sucked out of their weak hearts. Loudmouth, jubilant, self-righteous one year, then this the next:

Josh Gerstein over at Politico sent Threat Level his piece underscoring once again President Barack Obama is not the civil-liberties knight in shining armor many were expecting.

Gerstein posts a televised interview of Obama and John Walsh of America’s Most Wanted. The nation’s chief executive extols the virtues of mandatory DNA testing of Americans upon arrest, even absent charges or a conviction. Obama said, “It’s the right thing to do” to “tighten the grip around folks” who commit crime.

When it comes to civil liberties, the Obama administration has come under fire for often mirroring his predecessor’s practices surrounding state secrets, the Patriot Act and domestic spying. There’s also Gitmo, Jay Bybee and John Yoo.

Now there’s DNA sampling. Obama told Walsh he supported the federal government, as well as the 18 states that have varying laws requiring compulsory DNA sampling of individuals upon an arrest for crimes ranging from misdemeanors to felonies. The data is lodged in state and federal databases, and has fostered as many as 200 arrests nationwide, Walsh said.

The American Civil Liberties Union claims DNA sampling is different from mandatory, upon-arrest fingerprinting that has been standard practice in the United States for decades.

A fingerprint, the group says, reveals nothing more than a person’s identity. But much can be learned from a DNA sample, which codes a person’s family ties, some health risks, and, according to some, can predict a propensity for violence.

The ACLU is suing California to block its voter-approved measure requiring saliva sampling of people picked up on felony charges. Authorities in the Golden State are allowed to conduct so-called “familial searching” — when a genetic sample does not directly match another, authorities start investigating people with closely matched DNA in hopes of finding leads to the perpetrator.

Do you wonder whether DNA sampling is legal?

The courts have already upheld DNA sampling of convicted felons, based on the theory that the convicted have fewer privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that when conducting intrusions of the body during an investigation, the police need so-called “exigent circumstances” or a warrant. That alcohol evaporates in the blood stream is the exigent circumstance to draw blood from a suspected drunk driver without a warrant. (source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: The Lie He Tells To Take Away Our Guns (90% of Mexican guns came from the US)

Cloward-Piven Strategy

The lie he tells:




The truth:

EXCLUSIVE: You've heard this shocking "fact" before -- on TV and radio, in newspapers, on the Internet and from the highest politicians in the land: 90 percent of the weapons used to commit crimes in Mexico come from the United States.

-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it to reporters on a flight to Mexico City.

-- CBS newsman Bob Schieffer referred to it while interviewing President Obama.

-- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said at a Senate hearing: "It is unacceptable to have 90 percent of the guns that are picked up in Mexico and used to shoot judges, police officers and mayors ... come from the United States."

-- William Hoover, assistant director for field operations at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in the House of Representatives that "there is more than enough evidence to indicate that over 90 percent of the firearms that have either been recovered in, or interdicted in transport to Mexico, originated from various sources within the United States."

There's just one problem with the 90 percent "statistic" and it's a big one:

It's just not true.

In fact, it's not even close. The fact is, only 17 percent of guns found at Mexican crime scenes have been traced to the U.S.

What's true, an ATF spokeswoman told FOXNews.com, in a clarification of the statistic used by her own agency's assistant director, "is that over 90 percent of the traced firearms originate from the U.S."

But a large percentage of the guns recovered in Mexico do not get sent back to the U.S. for tracing, because it is obvious from their markings that they do not come from the U.S.

"Not every weapon seized in Mexico has a serial number on it that would make it traceable, and the U.S. effort to trace weapons really only extends to weapons that have been in the U.S. market," Matt Allen, special agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told FOX News.

Video:Click here to watch more.

A Look at the Numbers

In 2007-2008, according to ATF Special Agent William Newell, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF for tracing. Close to 6,000 were successfully traced -- and of those, 90 percent -- 5,114 to be exact, according to testimony in Congress by William Hoover -- were found to have come from the U.S.

But in those same two years, according to the Mexican government, 29,000 guns were recovered at crime scenes.

In other words, 68 percent of the guns that were recovered were never submitted for tracing. And when you weed out the roughly 6,000 guns that could not be traced from the remaining 32 percent, it means 83 percent of the guns found at crime scenes in Mexico could not be traced to the U.S.

So, if not from the U.S., where do they come from? There are a variety of sources:

-- The Black Market. Mexico is a virtual arms bazaar, with fragmentation grenades from South Korea, AK-47s from China, and shoulder-fired rocket launchers from Spain, Israel and former Soviet bloc manufacturers.

-- Russian crime organizations. Interpol says Russian Mafia groups such as Poldolskaya and Moscow-based Solntsevskaya are actively trafficking drugs and arms in Mexico.

- South America. During the late 1990s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) established a clandestine arms smuggling and drug trafficking partnership with the Tijuana cartel, according to the Federal Research Division report from the Library of Congress.

-- Asia. According to a 2006 Amnesty International Report, China has provided arms to countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Chinese assault weapons and Korean explosives have been recovered in Mexico.

-- The Mexican Army. More than 150,000 soldiers deserted in the last six years, according to Mexican Congressman Robert Badillo. Many took their weapons with them, including the standard issue M-16 assault rifle made in Belgium.

-- Guatemala. U.S. intelligence agencies say traffickers move immigrants, stolen cars, guns and drugs, including most of America's cocaine, along the porous Mexican-Guatemalan border. On March 27, La Hora, a Guatemalan newspaper, reported that police seized 500 grenades and a load of AK-47s on the border. Police say the cache was transported by a Mexican drug cartel operating out of Ixcan, a border town.

'These Don't Come From El Paso'

Ed Head, a firearms instructor in Arizona who spent 24 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, recently displayed an array of weapons considered "assault rifles" that are similar to those recovered in Mexico, but are unavailable for sale in the U.S.

"These kinds of guns -- the auto versions of these guns -- they are not coming from El Paso," he said. "They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don't get these guns from the U.S."

Some guns, he said, "are legitimately shipped to the government of Mexico, by Colt, for example, in the United States. They are approved by the U.S. government for use by the Mexican military service. The guns end up in Mexico that way -- the fully auto versions -- they are not smuggled in across the river."

Many of the fully automatic weapons that have been seized in Mexico cannot be found in the U.S., but they are not uncommon in the Third World.

The Mexican government said it has seized 2,239 grenades in the last two years -- but those grenades and the rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) are unavailable in U.S. gun shops. The ones used in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey in October and a TV station in January were made in South Korea. Almost 70 similar grenades were seized in February in the bottom of a truck entering Mexico from Guatemala.

"Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semi-automatic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California," according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Boatloads of Weapons

So why would the Mexican drug cartels, which last year grossed between $17 billion and $38 billion, bother buying single-shot rifles, and force thousands of unknown "straw" buyers in the U.S. through a government background check, when they can buy boatloads of fully automatic M-16s and assault rifles from China, Israel or South Africa?

Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government, says the drug cartels are using the Guatemalan border to move black market weapons. Some are left over from the Central American wars the United States helped fight; others, like the grenades and launchers, are South Korean, Israeli and Spanish. Some were legally supplied to the Mexican government; others were sold by corrupt military officers or officials.

The exaggeration of United States "responsibility" for the lawlessness in Mexico extends even beyond the "90-percent" falsehood -- and some Second Amendment activists believe it's designed to promote more restrictive gun-control laws in the U.S.

In a remarkable claim, Auturo Sarukhan, the Mexican ambassador to the U.S., said Mexico seizes 2,000 guns a day from the United States -- 730,000 a year. That's a far cry from the official statistic from the Mexican attorney general's office, which says Mexico seized 29,000 weapons in all of 2007 and 2008.

Chris Cox, spokesman for the National Rifle Association, blames the media and anti-gun politicians in the U.S. for misrepresenting where Mexican weapons come from.

"Reporter after politician after news anchor just disregards the truth on this," Cox said. "The numbers are intentionally used to weaken the Second Amendment."

"The predominant source of guns in Mexico is Central and South America. You also have Russian, Chinese and Israeli guns. It's estimated that over 100,000 soldiers deserted the army to work for the drug cartels, and that ignores all the police. How many of them took their weapons with them?"

But Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center, called the "90 percent" issue a red herring and said that it should not detract from the effort to stop gun trafficking into Mexico.

"Let's do what we can with what we know," he said. "We know that one hell of a lot of firearms come from the United States because our gun market is wide open." (source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Keep The Banks From Returning The TARP Money, Thus Maintaining A Need For Government Takeover

Stuart Varney, business analyst.

Cloward-Piven Strategy

The communists haven't been in power for even 90 days, and we're seeing Stalin-esque maneuvers already. Cripple the banks, fire the CEO's, create a panic. It's all happening right before our eyes.

This manchurian candidate has passed three times the stimulus spending that his predecessor did. Yet Barry hides behind President Bush's mild 700 billion TARP package from last fall when you hit him between the eyes with the figures.

"Mr President, you have now increased the US debt to 9.7 trillion dollars by designing and signing these stimulus bills."

"But I inherited a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit from my predecessor's TARP package." he returns.

Does that make sense? Let's see: If you inherited credit card debt equaling 20,000 dollars when you got married to your wife, what sane person says it's only right to use those credit cards to rack up 160,000 dollars in more debt? Do the lenders accept that reasoning when they keep calling your house for lack of paymnent?

"Hey, VISA, my wife put that original 20,000 dollars on there. I HAD to increase it eight-fold, so far. By the way: there's more to come."

When you press the genius Harvard grad even further, he smugly says that we will be paying down that monstrous debt [every child being born right now in America is automatically saddled with 20,000 dollars in debt, before Barry pushes even more "stimulus" bills through congress] in a short amount of time because his OMB (office of management and budget) declares that America's GDP growth for the next four years will be at 4.7%.

Do you know what our GDP growth has been, on average, for the last 10 years--while the economy was at its best? 3%.

But now, the brilliant communist Barry claims that our economy will start growing at 4.7% by next year. After he breaks the legs of business, big and small, by regulations and taxation, this ACORN nut--who's NEVER worked a real job in his life--tries to tell working people like us that people will open up new business and bring back the tens of millions of jobs that have been lost in the past two years.

It would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. Stuart Varney is another person who feels the tragedy coming:

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money. Some $340 million in TARP cash flowed back this week from four small banks in Louisiana, New York, Indiana and California. This isn't much when we routinely talk in trillions, but clearly that money has not been wasted or otherwise sunk down Wall Street's black hole. So why no cheering as the cash comes back?

My answer: The government wants to control the banks, just as it now controls GM and Chrysler, and will surely control the health industry in the not-too-distant future. Keeping them TARP-stuffed is the key to control. And for this intensely political president, mere influence is not enough. The White House wants to tell 'em what to do. Control. Direct. Command.

It is not for nothing that rage has been turned on those wicked financiers. The banks are at the core of the administration's thrust: By managing the money, government can steer the whole economy even more firmly down the left fork in the road.

If the banks are forced to keep TARP cash -- which was often forced on them in the first place -- the Obama team can work its will on the financial system to unprecedented degree. That's what's happening right now.

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

Think about it: If Rick Wagoner can be fired and compact cars can be mandated, why can't a bank with a vault full of TARP money be told where to lend? And since politics drives this administration, why can't special loans and terms be offered to favored constituents, favored industries, or even favored regions? Our prosperity has never been based on the political allocation of credit -- until now.

Which brings me to the Pay for Performance Act, just passed by the House. This is an outstanding example of class warfare. I'm an Englishman. We invented class warfare, and I know it when I see it. This legislation allows the administration to dictate pay for anyone working in any company that takes a dime of TARP money. This is a whip with which to thrash the unpopular bankers, a tool to advance the Obama administration's goal of controlling the financial system.

After 35 years in America, I never thought I would see this. I still can't quite believe we will sit by as this crisis is used to hand control of our economy over to government. But here we are, on the brink. Clearly, I have been naive.(source)

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Takeover The Industries, Claiming They Weren't Serving The People

Cloward-Piven Strategy

Just like ol' Joe [Stalin] would have done, Barry is making his comrades proud: he has just taken over GM. In a stunning move of government-run-amok, Barry has pushed a sitting CEO out of work so that he could appoint an apparatchik in his place.

How did Barry do it? Well, this coward communist waited until the dark of night to pull this government takeover of one of our largest companies in America. In one breath, Barry said last week that he was giving GM 60 days to get "it's ship in order", then days later, he fires its CEO for not doing the job "right".

"But I thought Barry gave the company bosses 60 days to get it together" I hear you saying. Well, you, me, and millions of concerned citizens are saying the same thing.

And not only us, pray tell. There was an elected official who also asked that question. But he is a Republican, and we all know that Republicans are only looking out for the rich, right? “Why would you ask Rick Wagoner to resign when you are giving G.M. 60 days to meet a new target, but you aren’t saying what the new goal is yet,” queried Representative Thaddeus G. McCotter, whose district is right outside of Detroit. (source)

For this, and the past 60 days of communist takeover of America, we are holding our tea parties across America.

"What did Barry say as he ran over our Constitution?" you may ask.



Well, just like any proud Bolshevik Politburo member would say, as he lives in a lap of luxury while the peasants [in their worker's paradise] starve, "I am doing this for YOU!"

That's right! Barry uses the phony crisis [see Cloward-Piven link above] of needing to "stand behind your car warranties"! See, he's doing this massive power grab for you and me. Don't believe me? Read it here.

Hell, I just had my Dodge worked on days ago--there was NO worry on my part at all. But that doesn't matter to a good dictator like Barry. Never let the facts get in the way of your 5-year plans, collectivization, and social justice.

And as his Trotskyite chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel says, "never let a good crisis go to waste"!

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Destroy Charitable Donations, Then Claim Only Government Can Fix It

Cloward-Piven strategy

If the entire press conference featuring Barry's amazing speaking skills is too tiresome to endure, as it is for me, then scroll forward to the 41:00 mark. This is where Barry explains his brilliant reasoning in taxing charitable donations:



Now watch this "Democrat strategist" on Fox News try to spin this ridiculous move by Obama as "an insult to Americans who give to charities":

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Never Let A Good Crisis Go To Waste

Cloward-Piven strategy


This is the moment they've been praying for: a distressed nation becomes so desperate and hysterical that unscrupulous leaders can easily take advantage of their situation. They created the real estate bust by forcing banks to make home loans to unworthy prospects, based solely on race, then campaign that "only we can save you".

Once in office, there isn't a calm, methodical move to let the markets purge their bad loans and promise to never do this again. In fact, the crisis-making has only begun. Now that Obama is in office, he has turned a 1.3 trillion dollar federal spending deficit into a 3.4 trillion dollar deficit (so far). And he hasn't even been in office for 90 days yet.

Just like any adolescent would say, Barry whines that "I was given a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit by the Bush administration", as if to justify heaping on gargantuan "stimulus packages" on top of an already-crippling amount. This is the mindset of a boy who has never been in charge of anything. Nobody who cares about our nation's well-being would sink us further into debt in this fashion.

But it's all part of a master plan, of course:


And all of the Stalinists in Barry's cabinet are goose-stepping in rhythm:



Can you imagine the hue and outcry from the bedwetters from the Left if anyone from the Bush administration had said such positive things about so many of us losing our careers? "He's out of touch!" they would have cried. But now, since it's Hillary, Rahm, and Barry making such a callous, uncaring statement, the brainwashed of this nation are looking the other way. Their hypocrisy is defeaning.

Cloward-Piven Strategy: Castrating The US Inspector General

Cloward-Piven

From Byron York at the The Examiner:

The RAT hiding deep inside the stimulus bill
By Byron York
Chief political correspondent 2/19/09

The far-reaching — and potentially dangerous — provision that no one knows about.

You’ve heard a lot about the astonishing spending in the $787 billion economic stimulus bill, signed into law this week by President Barack Obama. But you probably haven’t heard about a provision in the bill that threatens to politicize the way allegations of fraud and corruption are investigated — or not investigated — throughout the federal government.

The provision, which attracted virtually no attention in the debate over the 1,073-page stimulus bill, creates something called the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board — the RAT Board, as it’s known by the few insiders who are aware of it. The board would oversee the in-house watchdogs, known as inspectors general, whose job is to independently investigate allegations of wrongdoing at various federal agencies, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House.

In the name of accountability and transparency, Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

When Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, a longtime champion of inspectors general, read the words “conduct or refrain from conducting,” alarm bells went off. The language means that the board — whose chairman will be appointed by the president — can reach deep inside a federal agency and tell an inspector general to lay off some particularly sensitive subject. Or, conversely, it can tell the inspector general to go after a tempting political target.

“This strikes at the heart of the independence of inspectors general,” Grassley told me this week, in a phone conversation between visits to town meetings in rural Iowa. “Anytime an inspector general has somebody questioning his authority, it tends to dampen the aggressiveness with which they pursue something, particularly if it’s going to make the incumbent administration look bad.”

I asked Grassley how he learned that the RAT Board was part of the stimulus bill. You’d think that as a member of the House-Senate conference committee, he would have known all about it. But it turns out Grassley’s office first heard about the provision creating the RAT Board last Wednesday, in a tip from a worried inspector general. It wasn’t until Friday morning — after the bill was finished and just hours before the Senate was to begin voting — that Grassley discovered the board was in the final text. “This was snuck in,” Grassley told me. “It wasn’t something that was debated.”

Snuck in by whom? It’s not entirely clear. “I intend to get down to the bottom of where this comes from,” Grassley vowed. “And quite frankly, it better not come from this administration, because this administration has reminded us that it is not about business as usual, that it is for total transparency.”

Maybe not this time. When I inquired with the office of a Democratic senator, one who is a big fan of inspectors general, I was told the RAT Board was “something the Obama administration wanted included in this bill.” When I asked the White House, staffers told me they’d look into it. So for now, at least, there’s been no claim of paternity.

The RAT Board has all sorts of other things wrong with it. For one thing, it’s redundant; there is already a board through which inspectors general police themselves, created last year in the Inspectors General Reform Act. For another thing, it could complicate criminal investigations stemming from inspector general probes. And then there’s the question of what it has to do with stimulating the economy.

But none of that matters now. It’s the law.

Last Friday, when he learned the RAT Board was in the final bill, Grassley wanted to voice his objections on the Senate floor. But there was no time in the rush to a vote, so Grassley’s statement went unread. “It’s fitting that the acronym for this board is RAT,” he was prepared to tell the Senate, “because that’s what I smell here.” (source)