GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona . She writes an open letter to our nation’s leadership: “I am a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel anypolitical party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. Instead, we are burdened with Congressional Dukes and Duchesses who think they know better than the citizens they are supposed to represent.
There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would feel so horribly disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut-job am I? Well, these briefly are the views and issues for which I seekrepresentation: One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels.. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution.
P.S., I’m not a racist. This is not to be confused withlegal immigration. Two, the STIMULUS bill. I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you No, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal. Three: Czars. I want the circumvention of our constitutional checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution, and honor it. Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There are many conflicting opinions and it is too soon for this radical legislation. Quit throwing our nation into politically-correct quicksand. Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision that will burden me, my children, and grandchildren. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night without even reading it. Slow down! Fix only what is broken — we have the best health care system in the world — and test any new program in one or two states first.
- Texas health officials secretly transferred hundreds of newborn babies‘ blood samples to the federal government to build a DNA database, a newspaper investigation has revealed. According to The Texas Tribune, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) routinely collected blood samples from newborns to screen for a variety of health conditions, before throwing the samples out. But beginning in 2002, the DSHS contracted Texas A&M University to store blood samples for potential use in medical research. These accumulated at rate of 800,000 per year. The DSHS did not obtain permission from parents, who sued the DSHS, which settled in November 2009. Now the Tribune reveals that wasn’t the end of the matter. As it turns out, between 2003 and 2007, the DSHS also gave 800 anonymised blood samples to the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) to help create a national mitochondrial DNA database. This came to light after repeated open records requests filed by the Tribune turned up documents detailing the mtDNA programme. Apparently, these samples were part of a larger programme to build a national, perhaps international, DNA database that could be used to track down missing persons and solve cold cases. Jim Harrington, the civil rights attorney who filed the blood spot lawsuit (pdf) last year on behalf of five Texas parents and who directs the Texas Civil Rights Project, suggests to the Tribune that the DSHS settled with the parents to avoid risking a court case that might have revealed the DNA database. “This explains the mystery of why they gave up so fast,” he says.
President becomes UN Special Envoy to earthquake-stricken Haiti.
A born-again neo-conservative US business wheeler-dealer preacher claims Haitians are condemned for making a literal pact with the Devil.
Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, Bolivian, French and Swiss rescue organizations accuse the US military of refusing landing rights to planes bearing necessary medicines and urgently needed potable water to the millions of Haitians stricken, injured and homeless.
Behind the smoke, rubble and unending drama of human tragedy in the hapless Caribbean country, a drama is in full play for control of what geophysicists believe may be one of the worlds richest zones for hydrocarbons-oil and gas outside the Middle East, possibly orders of magnitude greater than that of nearby Venezuela.
Haiti, and the larger island of Hispaniola of which it is a part, has the geological fate that it straddles one of the worlds most active geological zones, where the deepwater plates of three huge structures relentlessly rub against one anotherthe intersection of the North American, South American and Caribbean tectonic plates. Below the ocean and the waters of the Caribbean, these plates consist of an oceanic crust some 3 to 6 miles thick, floating atop an adjacent mantle. Haiti also lies at the edge of the region known as the Bermuda Triangle, a vast area in the Caribbean subject to bizarre and unexplained disturbances.
This vast mass of underwater plates are in constant motion, rubbing against each other along lines analogous to cracks in a broken porcelain vase that has been reglued. The earths tectonic plates typically move at a rate 50 to 100 mm annually in relation to one another, and are the origin of earthquakes and of volcanoes. The regions of convergence of such plates are also areas where vast volumes of oil and gas can be pushed upwards from the Earths mantle. The geophysics surrounding the convergence of the three plates that run more or less directly beneath Port-au-Prince make the region prone to earthquakes such as the one that struck Haiti with devastating ferocity on January 12.
A relevant Texas geological project
Leaving aside the relevant question of how well in advance the Pentagon and US scientists knew the quake was about to occur, and what Pentagon plans were being laid before January 12, another issue emerges around the events in Haiti that might help explain the bizarre behavior to date of the major rescue playersthe United States, France and Canada. Aside from being prone to violent earthquakes, Haiti also happens to lie in a zone that, due to the unusual geographical intersection of its three tectonic plates, might well be straddling one of the worlds largest unexplored zones of oil and gas, as well as of valuable rare strategic minerals.
The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts reduced the likelihood that union boss supporters on Capitol Hill will be able to “pay back” their benefactors with the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act.
As a result, union bosses are working furiously on a new way to get their agenda passed – by pushing to get their own lawyer a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
The NLRB is an “independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector.”
In some ways, this is even more dangerous than the EFCA legislation. If Big Labor is successful in placing their crony on the NLRB, he can push the main components of the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act with no regard for the outcome or its consequences.
We know that both voters at large and even rank-and-file union members oppose the basic elements of EFCA, eliminating the secret ballot and mandatory, binding arbitration, but Big Labor has no concern about the job losses that would result as forced unionization would line their pockets.
Faced with the threat that they can’t get the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act passed in Congress, union bosses are working to ram through Craig Becker, an SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer.
Becker believes “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.”
By John W. Whitehead
President, The Rutherford Institute
“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.” – Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America
Ominous developments in America have been a long time coming, in part precipitated by “we the people” – a citizenry that has been asleep at the wheel for too long. And while there have been wake-up calls, we have failed to heed the warnings.
Just consider the state of our nation:
We’re encased in what some are calling an electronic concentration camp. The government continues to amass data files on more and more Americans. Everywhere we go, we are watched: at the banks, at the grocery store, at the mall, crossing the street. This loss of privacy is symptomatic of the growing surveillance being carried out on average Americans. Such surveillance gradually poisons the soul of a nation, transforming us from one in which we’re presumed innocent until proven guilty to one in which everyone is a suspect and presumed guilty. Thus, the question that must be asked is: can freedom in the United States flourish in an age when the physical movements, individual purchases, conversations and meetings of every citizen are under constant surveillance by private companies and government agencies?
We are metamorphosing into a police state. Governmental tentacles now invade virtually every facet of our lives, with agents of the government listening in on our telephone calls and reading our emails. Technology, which has developed at a rapid pace, offers those in power more invasive, awesome tools than ever before. Fusion centers – data collecting agencies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Security Agency – constantly monitor our communications, everything from our internet activity and web searches to text messages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to government agencies, which are now interconnected – the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police – a relationship which will make a transition to martial law that much easier. We may very well be one terrorist attack away from seeing armed forces on our streets – and the American people may not put up much resistance. According to a recent study, a greater percentage of Americans are now willing to sacrifice their civil liberties in order to feel safer in the wake of the failed crotch bomber’s attack on Christmas Day.
The U.S. lost ground on many fronts. Scores declined in seven of the 10 categories of economic freedom. Losses were particularly significant in the areas of financial and monetary freedom and property rights. Driving it all were the federal government’s interventionist responses to the financial and economic crises of the last two years, which have included politically influenced regulatory changes, protectionist trade restrictions, massive stimulus spending and bailouts of financial and automotive firms deemed “too big to fail.” These policies have resulted in job losses, discouraged entrepreneurship, and saddled America with unprecedented government deficits.
In the world-wide rankings of economic freedom, the U.S. fell to eighth from sixth place. Canada now ranks higher and boasts North America’s freest economy. More worrisome, for the first time in the Index’s 16-year history, the U.S. has fallen out of the elite group of countries identified as “economically free” by the objective measures of the Index. Four Asia-Pacific economies now sit atop the global rankings. Hong Kong stands in first place for the 16th consecutive year, followed by Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Every region of the world maintains at least one country among those deemed “free” or “mostly free” by the Index.
Rural Mich. counties turn failing roads to gravel- Some Michigan counties have turned a few once-paved rural roads back to gravel to save money. More than 20 of the state’s 83 counties have reverted deteriorating paved roads to gravel in the last few years, according to the County Road Association of Michigan. The counties are struggling with their budgets because tax revenues have declined in the lingering recession. The counties estimate it takes about $10,000 to grind up a mile of pavement and put down gravel. It takes more than $100,000 to repave a mile of road. Reverting to gravel has happened in a few other states but it is most typical in Michigan.
On Sunday in Iran, mass protests were drowned in blood by government authorities; at least ten reportedly have been killed with hundreds injured. The events have been given ample coverage in the U.S. media, with the intention of further demonizing Iran’s repressive government. Absent in the American media are the deeper implications of the protests, which, to anyone paying close attention, constitute a powerful revolutionary movement.
"Someone recently said that credit
was the life blood of the economy.
This happens to be a lie.
Hard work, production, and the creation
of products that are needed and wanted
by others—these are the true life blood
of an economy."
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=a6461f94-449c-4e75-bb58-670426089d53)
![[index2010]](http://sg.wsj.net/public/resources/images/ED-AK833_index2_NS_20100119142047.gif)
