Newt Gingrich reminds CCT delegates that our Constitution begins with "We the People..."

I am glad to see that Newt is up on it.  I am not so far off when I say our Constitution has been trampled by our POTUS.... and with audacity.

See his comments at:   http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=34850

U.S. to contribute to $100B climate fund to help developing countries: Hillary Clinton Announces

See the Article about: US will commit $100b to climate fund for developing countries Hillary Cllinton


OMG!!!  Make it stop!

Obama and company are making outrageous commitments around the world without any support base at home - and this is just another one.

Did Mr. Obama consider for a moment that we have huge issues at home that need his attention, and by the way, we could use the $100 BB here.  Oh, and another thing, that is your money and my money he just spent without getting permission to do so!!!

What is with all these decisions being made in the dark of night, and announced the next day... so much for transparency.

Before we make a $100 BB commitment anywhere, we should have the opportunity to like - run it by Congress, dude.

The treaty has little chance of reaching any agreement as it is, and our POTUS is already agreeing to it and funding it before there is any agreed plan for the use of the money.

I thought this CCT NGO was a little flimsy, but this announcement by HRC takes the cake.

No Taxation without Representation!  I am not being represented in this funding offer

Conspiracy of the century? Hackers 'expose' climate change [HQ]

Check this out.

Not only is Lord Christopher Monckton right, here is more evidence that Global Warming is a bunch of bunk.

The basis for the Copenhagen Climate Treaty is hogwash.

Climatic Research Unit Hacked E Mails & Data
Wikileaks
Sunday, November 22, 2009

Summary
This archive presents over 120Mb of emails, documents, computer code and models from the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, written between 1996 and 2009.
The CRU has told the BBC that the files were obtained by a computer hacker 3-4 days ago.
This archive includes unreleased global temperature analysis computer source code that has been the subject of Freedom of Information Act requests.
The archive appears to be a collection of information put together by the CRU prior to a FoI redaction process.
DOWNLOAD/VIEW FULL FILE FROM

fastest (Sweden), current site, slow (US),

"Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky - The Obama / Clinton admin's playbook

Here is the playbook used by Alinsky's protege Hillary Rodham and TAUGHT for years by Obama Read for yourself the background of preparation embraced by our leaders - Marxist / Communistic ideals clearly stated in these main points excerpted from this book: Rules for Radicals By Saul Alinsky - 1971     Hillary Clinton's 1969 Political Science Thesis ("There is Only the Fight") refers to an earlier version of Alinsky’s training manual. "In 1946,” she wrote, "Alinsky's first book, Reveille for Radicals, was published." See also Obama: Training an army of world servers Soviet Education under Lenin Models U.S. Education for the New millennium From Marx to Lenin, Gramsci & Alinsky

Conspiracies- Past & Present

Background information "Obama learned his lesson well. I am proud to see that my father's model for organizing is being applied successfully beyond local community organizing to affect the Democratic campaign in 2008. It is a fine tribute to Saul Alinsky as we approach his 100th birthday." --Letter from L. DAVID ALINSKY, son of Neo-Marxist Saul Alinsky Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky: "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties....       "One Alinsky benefactor was Wall Street investment banker Eugene Meyer, who served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933. Meyer and his wife Agnes co-owned The Washington Post. They used their newspaper to promote Alinsky....Her series, called 'The Orderly Revolution', made Alinsky famous....       "Alinsky’s crowning achievement was his recruitment of a young high school student named Hillary Rodham. She met Alinsky through a radical church group. Hillary wrote an analysis of Alinsky’s methods for her senior thesis at Wellesley College. ...       "Many leftists view Hillary as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to do and say whatever it takes to gain power.        "Barack Obama is also an Alinskyite.... Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project.... Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer." [by Richard Poe, 11-27-07] See also Community Oriented Policing Hillary, Obama and the Cult of Alinsky: "True revolutionaries do not flaunt their radicalism, Alinsky taught. They cut their hair, put on suits and infiltrate the system from within. Alinsky viewed revolution as a slow, patient process. The trick was to penetrate existing institutions such as churches, unions and political parties.... Many leftists view Hillary as a sell-out because she claims to hold moderate views on some issues. However, Hillary is simply following Alinsky’s counsel to do and say whatever it takes to gain power.        "Barack Obama is also an Alinskyite.... Obama spent years teaching workshops on the Alinsky method. In 1985 he began a four-year stint as a community organizer in Chicago, working for an Alinskyite group called the Developing Communities Project.... Camouflage is key to Alinsky-style organizing. While trying to build coalitions of black churches in Chicago, Obama caught flak for not attending church himself. He became an instant churchgoer." (By Richard Poe, 11-27-07)

Opening page - Dedication

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history... the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom — Lucifer.”

---

Prologue

"The Revolutionary force today has two targets, moral as well as material. Its young protagonists are one moment reminiscent of the idealistic early Christians, yet they also urge violence and cry, 'Burn the system down!' They have no illusions about the system, but plenty of illusions about the way to change our world. It is to this point that I have written this book."

---

1. The Purpose

In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people; to realize the democratic dream of equality, justice, peace.... "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.' This means revolution." p.3                               
"Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing." p.6
"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." p.10
"An organizer working in and for an open society is in an ideological dilemma to begin with, he does not have a fixed truth -- truth to him is relative and changing; everything to him is relative and changing.... To the extent that he is free from the shackles of dogma, he can respond to the realities of the widely different situations...." pp.10-11

Notes on Saul Alinsky and Neo-Marxism:      Alinsky's tactics were based, not on Stalin's revolutionary violence, but on the Neo-Marxist strategies of  Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Communist. Relying on gradualism, infiltration and the dialectic process rather than a bloody revolution, Gramsci's transformational Marxism was so subtle that few even noticed the deliberate changes.      Like Alinsky, Mikhail Gorbachev followed Gramsci, not Lenin. In fact, Gramsci aroused Stalins's wrath by suggesting that Lenin's revolutionary plan wouldn't work in the West. Instead the primary assault would be on Biblical absolutes and Christian values, which must be crushed as a social force before the new face of Communism could rise and flourish. Malachi Martin gave us a progress report: "By 1985, the influence of traditional Christian philosophy in the West was weak and negligible.... Gramsci's master strategy was now feasible. Humanly speaking, it was no longer too tall an order to strip large majorities of men and women in the West of those last vestiges that remained to them of Christianity's transcendent God."

2. Of Means and Ends [Forget  moral or ethical considerations]

"The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody." p.24

"The means-and-ends moralists, constantly obsessed with the ethics of the means used by the Have-Nots against the Haves, should search themselves as to their real political position. In fact, they are passive — but real — allies of the Haves…. The most unethical of all means is the non-use of any means... The standards of judgment must be rooted in the whys and wherefores of life as it is lived, the world as it is, not our wished-for fantasy of the world as it should be...." pp.25-26

"The third rule of ethics of means and ends is that in war the end justifies almost any means...." p.29

"The seventh rule... is that generally success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics...." p.34

"The tenth rule... is you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.... It involves sifting the multiple factors which combine in creating the circumstances at any given time... Who, and how many will support the action?... If weapons are needed, then are appropriate d weapons available? Availability of means determines whether you will be underground or above ground; whether you will move quickly or slowly..." p.36

 

Notes: Apparently, Michelle Obama referred to these words during her Democratic National Convention speech: "She said, 'Barack stood up that day,' talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, 'and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about 'The world as it is' and 'The world as it should be…' And, 'All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won't do – that we have an obligation to, fight for the world as it should be." Do you wonder who -- or whose values -- should determine what "the world... should be?"

4. The Education of the Organizer

"To the organizer, imagination... is the dynamism that starts and sustains him in his whole life of action as an organizer. It ignites and feeds the force that drives him to organize for change....
      "The organizer knows that the real action is in the reaction of the opposition. To realistically appraise and anticipate the probable reactions of the enemy, he must be able to identify with them, too, in his imagination, and foresee their reactions to his actions....
     "The organizers searching with a free and open mind void of certainty, hating dogma, finds laughter not just a way to maintain his sanity but also a key to understanding life."pp.74-75
"...the organizer must be able to split himself into two parts -- one part in the arena of action where he polarizes the issue to 100 to nothing, and helps to lead his forces into conflict, while the other part knows that when the time comes for negotiations that it really is only a 10 percent difference." p.78
"...the organizer is constantly creating new out of the old. He knows that all new ideas arise from conflict; [See Dialectic Process]  that every time man as had a new idea it has been a challenge to the sacred ideas of the past and the present and inevitably a conflict has raged." p.79

---

5. Communication [Notice the emphasis on conflict, dialogue, relationships, etc. Team "service" is essential to building strong relationships through "common involvements"]

 "And so the guided questioning goes on without anyone losing face or being left out of the decision-making. Every weakness of every proposed tactic is probed by questions.... Is this manipulation? Certainly...." p.88

"One of the factors that changes what you can and can't communicate is relationships. There are sensitive areas that one does not touch until there is a strong personal relationship based on common involvements. Otherwise the other party turns off and literally does not hear....

     "Conversely, if you have a good relationship, he is very receptive.... For example, I have always believed that birth control and abortion are personal rights to be exercised by the individual. If, in my early days when I organized... neighborhood in Chicago, which was 95 per cent Roman Catholic, I had tried to communicate this, even through the experience of the residents, whose economic plight was aggravated by large families, that would have been the end of my relationship with the community. That instant I would have been stamped as an enemy of the church and all communication would have ceased.

     "Some years later, after establishing solid relationships, I was free to talk about anything.... By then the argument was no longer limited to such questions as, 'How much longer do you think the Catholic Church can hang on to this archaic notion and still survive?' ...the subject and nature of the discussion would have been unthinkable without that solid relationship." pp.93-94

6. In the Beginning: The Process of Power [Notice the compromise needed to build the power base. Yet, since pragmatism has eroded all values, it's simply a matter of ends justifying means. It's not unlike churches that attract members through the world's entertainment -- then continue to soften or hide Truth in order to keep them happy and lure more. ]

"From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams... only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. Until he has developed that mass power base, he confronts no major issues.... Until he has those means and power instruments, his 'tactics' are very different from power tactics. Therefore, every move revolves around one central point: how many recruits will this bring into the organization, whether by means of local organizations, churches, service groups, labor Unions, corner gangs, or as individuals."

     "Change comes from power, and power comes from organization." p.113

"The first step in community organization is community disorganization. The disruption of the present organization is the first step toward community organization. Present arrangements must be disorganized if they are  to be displace by new patterns.... All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new." p.116
"An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent... He must create a mechanism that can drain off the underlying guilt for having accepted the previous situation for so long a time. Out of this mechanism, a new community organization arises....
     "The job then is getting the people to move, to act, to participate; in short, to develop and harness the necessary power to effectively conflict with the prevailing patterns and change them. When those prominent in the status quo turn and label you an 'agitator' they are completely correct, for that is, in one word, your function—to agitate to the point of conflict." p.117
"Process tells us how. Purpose tells us why. But in reality, it is academic to draw a line between them, they are part of a continuum.... Process is really purpose." p.122

---

7. Tactics

"Tactics are those conscious deliberate acts by which human beings live with each other and deal with the world around them. ... Here our concern is with the tactic of taking; how the Have-Nots can take power away from the Haves." p.126

Always remember the first rule of power tactics (pps.127-134):
1. "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have."
2. "Never go outside the expertise of your people. When an action or tactic is outside the experience of the people, the result is confusion, fear and retreat.... [and] the collapse of communication.
3. "Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty. (This happens all the time. Watch how many organizations under attack are blind-sided by seemingly irrelevant arguments that they are then forced to address.)
4. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity."
5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage."
6. "A good tactic is one your people enjoy."
7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Man can sustain militant interest in any issue for only a limited time...."
8. "Keep the pressure on, with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose."
9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself."
10. "The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign."
11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside... every positive has its negative."
12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative."

13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.  In conflict tactics there are certain rules that [should be regarded] as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and 'frozen.'...

     "...any target can always say, 'Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?' When your 'freeze the target,' you disregard these [rational but distracting] arguments.... Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all the 'others' come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target...'

     "One acts decisively only in the conviction that all the angels are on one side and all the devils on the other." (pps.127-134)

---

Alinsky's Rules for Radicals: "Known as the 'father of modern American radicalism,' Saul D. Alinsky (1909-1972) developed strategies and tactics that take the enormous, unfocused emotional energy of grassroots groups and transform it into effective anti-government and anti-corporate activism. ... Some of these rules are ruthless, but they work."

---

Notes from an article by Phyllis Schalfly titled "Alinski's Rules: Must Reading In Obama Era," posted at www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=318470857908277 (2-2-09)

       "Alinsky's second chapter, called Of Means and Ends, craftily poses many difficult moral dilemmas, and his 'tenth rule of the ethics of means and ends' is: 'you do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral arguments.'  He doesn't ignore traditional moral standards or dismiss them as unnecessary. He is much more devious; he teaches his followers that 'Moral rationalization is indispensable at all times of action whether to justify the selection or the use of ends or means.'...

       "The qualities Alinsky looked for in a good organizer were:

• 
  
  ego ("reaching for the highest level for which man can reach — to create, to be a 'great creator,' to play God"),
  
  
• 
  
  curiosity (raising "questions that agitate, that break through the accepted pattern"),
  
  
• 
  
  irreverence ("nothing is sacred"; the organizer "detests dogma, defies any finite definition of morality"),
  
  
• 
  
  imagination ("the fuel for the force that keeps an organizer organizing"),
  
  
• 
  
  a sense of humor ("the most potent weapons known to mankind are satire and ridicule"), and an
  
  
• 
  
  organized personality with confidence in presenting the right reason for his actions only "as a moral rationalization after the right end has been achieved.'...
  
  

"'The organizer's first job is to create the issues or problems,' and 'organizations must be based on many issues.' The organizer 'must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent.'"

A WARNING TO ALL AMERICANS

From Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson 

We lived in California during the winters of 2007 and 2008. We became addicted to Fox News and watched O'Reilly and Hannity and Colmes every night. When we got back home, we upgraded our cable to get Fox. I watched the Presidential campaign very closely, initially because I thought the Democrats would nominate Hillary Clinton, and then in astonishment when they chose an even more hard-left candidate. All of last year I told everyone I could that Obama was not a Democrat, he was a Marxist. He is far to the left of any European leader and even our far left party, the NDP.


I read Saul Alinsky when I was in University. I studied him and his writing carefully. When Bill Ayers and his idiot wife were bombing and killing people at random in the Weather Underground, Weather Underground and the Black Panthers were closely allied. I read David Horowitz's account of changing from a Marxist to a conservative after seeing that the government was afraid to prosecute members of the Panthers for murdering his personal assistant. He suddenly understood the evil that Marxism really was.

After the student radicals failed in creating a Marxist revolution in the United States by violent means, they embraced Alinsky. You would be wise to read "Rules for Radicals" because it outlines how Hillary and Obama planned to get into power, and what they intended to do when they got it.

Socialism is not the correct descriptor for what Obama and the Democrats are doing. They are going to be much more far reaching than anything Sweden has ever been able to do. Obama is following Alinsky's plan, those set out in "Rules for Radicals" and his other writing. The Democrats are attempting to create one party rule in the U.S. and in achieving that, will create crisis after crisis by their own actions and use those crisis to nationalize the means of production in the U.S. You are in the middle of a Communist revolution and few in the U.S. can actually see it for what it truly is.

The U.S. is now on the path of financial destruction. The Constitution has been shredded and individual human rights are being trampled. In less than 8 months. Obama has used a recession to take over the two largest industries in the U.S. He will debase the Dollar and is on the road to creating an incredible energy shortage that will allow him and Congress to take over the energy
industry.

But by and large I think that by the 2010 elections, the Democrats will have gerrymandered electoral districts to the point that it will be impossible for them to lose control of both houses of Congress. The incredible increase in the money supply is going to create Zimbabwe and Venezuela style inflation, and with it, controls on the currency and the amount of money that can be taken out of the country.

I love America , I cannot believe how the ignorance of the American public has created a situation whereby they are going to lose their Republic and slip into an age of repression and tyranny.

I may be nuts, but so far I have been 100% correct in my predictions of what Obama was going to do, because I merely had to look at "Rules for Radicals" to see what was coming next.

I read Glenn Beck's book, "Common Sense" and in it re-read Thomas Paines pamphlet with the same name. I recommend the book.

----------------------------------------------------------

When the storm finally hits (and it will), those of you who supported the Obama administration will be affected as well. It won't just be us gun owners or Flat-Taxers, or Pro-Lifers that get hit. You'll be right there next to us.

You all thought the Conservatives were nut cases. You know, all of us who believe in God, small government, the Second Amendment, etc. You thought you could just go back to sleep after the election was over. In your world, America will continue as before. You'll still have the same rights,
the same nice house, the same big screen television. After all, your high school football team won and the other team lost - go team! Even if you have bothered to look up from the daily grind since Nov 4th, you dismissed everything that has occurred as "politics as usual - the same old stuff".

In the end, it'll all be OK won't it? Not this time.

There are a growing number of citizens in the US that are ready to fight to shut down the government's grab of personal freedom, it's blatant abuse of the constitution, and it's attempt to replace the American way of life with socialism. You have to listen carefully to hear them, but they are there. I won't start that fight, but when it goes down I will join it.

As for you, why, you'll be shocked because you didn't see it coming. And eventually you'll be saddened when you see that we have truly lost the way of life with which you grew up. You'll be saddened that your children and grandchildren live in a socialist, government-controlled gulag where their every movement from cradle to grave is tracked by the government. But most of all,
you'll be saddened by the death of friends and relatives who are brave enough to fight and die for something they believe in.

You know, McCain wasn't much of a candidate. I'll give you that. He was the lesser of two evils for most of us. I don't blame you for not voting for him since, at the time, you didn't know what we all know now. But at least John McCain was an American. He was a supporter of the American way of life and he understood that you can't negotiate with terrorists. He understood and appreciated the sacrifice made by my father and other members of the Greatest Generation.

Mark my words friends. All across America groups are forming. They are forming out of anger and out of desperation at the thought of losing America . They're not militia groups, terrorists as the Department of Homeland security would have you believe; they are Americans, loyal to the constitution. They are mothers and fathers and grandparents. They belong to groups like the
Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, the Peaceful Resistance, the Constitution Party, the Young Conservatives, the 9/12 Project, and Grassfire. Right now they are fragmented, each focused on their own cause. But sometime in the next two years, our government is going to do something really stupid and these groups will come together. Watch for it, wait for it-get ready. It will happen.

When that event happens, whatever "it" is, our great country is going to plunge into chaos for a while. I pray to God that we make it through that time and emerge a stronger, smarter country.

Naval Aviator, Commander Jerry Wilson, jerrywilson@centurytel.net http://www.thewoodlandsteaparty.com/2009/09/02/a-warning-to-all-americans

The 18 Cent Solution - "Re-Management of US Oil to end Oil Wars"

The 18 Cent Solution

MAY 2008

Robert McElroy's proposition of positive solutions to the wars in the Middle East over Oil, and how we can conserve our own natural gas and oil resources.

It has not been said enough – ‘To support the troops, use less energy’.
Many Americans believed the US invaded Iraq to remove a threat from Saddam Hussein, but it is not an acceptable conclusion in light of 1997 United Oil of California testimony before a US House subcommittee on the need for and challenges to a proposed oil and gas pipeline through Afghanistan (now being proposed without US participation by Iran). Prior to that, Richard Nixon drew a clear conclusion in his 1994 book, Beyond Peace that the US must continue to control, even if it involves military action, access to Middle East oil in order to protect the US domestic economy.

That is why we are in Iraq and have been in the region for at least five decades. It is about oil and it is about our individual energy consuming habits. We have been feeding at the cheap energy trough for nearly 100 years and now find we can’t afford to continue that lifestyle. High gas prices may help wean us away from impulsive and unnecessary energy use and that won’t hurt us, perhaps strengthen us personally, but it is an election year and Americans are complaining about the price of gas and candidates naturally want to solve the problem.
To ease our pain Senators Clinton and McCain propose a three-month moratorium on the 18 cent per gallon federal gas tax. Such a savings when the price of gas is still going to be around $4.00 per gallon raises the question if those candidates are telling us that there is simply no other solution to high gas prices or consider us to be energy addicts who will scramble gratefully when thrown a bone.

Perhaps because energy policy is a convoluted mesh of foreign policy, domestic economic policy, political ideology, and catering to special interests, the 18 cent solution is easy to peddle but it is not a solution and it is offered when there are immediate and effective solutions available.
In her recent testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming Massachusetts Institute of Technology energy expert Melanie A. Kenderdine, who was a former official at the Department of Energy, explained that there are things government can do and can do immediately.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is nearly full at 700 million gallons but President Bush continues to purchase millions of gallons of crude thereby increasing demand and rising prices, Ms Kenderdine explained and added that simply releasing millions of gallons from the Reserve on the market would immediately increase supply and drive prices down. She supported her conclusion by contrasting President Bush’s actions to those taken by Bill Richardson when he was Secretary of Energy in the Clinton Administration. Richardson dumped 30 million gallons of crude on the market. “The results were immediate, in spite of the fact that oil had not yet moved into the market--demonstrating the psychological impacts on the market when the U.S. signals its intention to act. . . By the end of the year, actual oil prices had dropped from $30.94 to $20.38 per barrel, a 34% decrease.” She testified.

A more nuanced approach Ms. Kenderdine described would be swapping out the light crude in the Reserve for less expensive dark crude, capturing an immediate profit without lowering the Reserve content. Her suggestions showed saving or profits upwards towards $9 billion.
What seems to be overlooked in the President’s and Congress’ wean-away-from-foreign-oil strategies is 2005 information from the US Energy Information Administration calculating that North America has 100 years of oil resources. Canada is the largest supplier of crude to the US now that the price has made it profitable to extract from Canadian sand. Mexico is an OPEC aligned country but does not have to function under OPEC price controls and the US itself has untapped oil reserves in which investments were justified when oil passed the $40 per barrel price. Where would we be now if the $600 billion we have spent in Iraq had been directed to nurture an energy relationship with our neighbors?
If we used our own oil we would have nearly 100 years to figure out how to meet our energy needs with the estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the continent, solar and bio-energy solutions.

To be sure we would not have lost over 4,000 troops.


##

Are insurance co's against the public option because they're afraid the gov't might actually run health care BETTER than they have? - post by John Watson

Soraya Navarez - Afraid they may have to cut profits 750%
8 hours ago

Holly Kittleman  Nope.
7 hours ago

John Watson - I don't know why everyone just assumes the government would do a bad job. Look at the mess insurance co's got us into. Maybe it's time to give someone else a chance.
about an hour ago

John Watson@Holly: doesn't the military have a govt-run health plan?
about an hour ago
 
Bill Fulbright
John, there is a misconception here. The insurance companies did not get us here. I used to sell group insurance with my family's general agency during the mid-70's. Health insurance used to cost about 30.00 per family in a group, and about 50.00 for non-group family coverage.

Lawyers started taking cases and encouraging a litigious atmosphere where huge settlements were obtained for relatively normal malpractice suits. Sure, there were some crappy doctors who left sponges and scissors in people, but these low level cases made it harder and more expensive to settle the cases that were serious. Due to the huge increase in numbers of medical malpractice suits levied by less than ethical lawyers (and there were and are some very ethical ones - so no bashing here), the cost of settling these suits began an upward spiral of costs, covered by insurance companies, including the cost of medical malpractice insurance. The doctors were shocked, but in order to keep their practices open, they passed the cost along to the insurance buyer by raising their cost schedule. I watched the state of Texas have to create a pool of insurance for basic limits of liability for Doctors only available at 100/300 for basic limits. This initial level of coverage was no longer offered by insurance companies. Once obtained, the Doctors had to go out to the second and third layers of liability umbrella providers of medical malpractice insurance to get the limits of coverage needed to stay open for business.

If that wasn't enough the Auto Workers Unions and the Oil and Chemical Workers Unions were going on strikes for more benefits, the Arab Emirates were raising the price of oil - in short prices were starting to soar....

In my opinion the upward spiral of costs in the health insurance begain due to uncontrolled/non-regulated medical malpractice suits.... hence the need now some 40 years later to press for Tort Reform.

Insurance works on the law of numbers, where many pay a lower cost for the coverage received by a few.. all actuarially proven.

Sure, the insurance companies make a profit, and they should. Did you want to support the beginning of a dis-incentive program that will affect lawyers, doctors, insurance companies - effectively chasing away the good guys because some bad guys went nutty and greedy? (this is now underway with the banks not even in the TARP program) . If the talented people are chased away due to no incentive, and the reins of the institutions are left in the hands of the less capable...... what do you think will be the case? Better quality or less quality?

Look, there is a happy balance for it all, and I think we will find it, but not at the point of a gun. We are being asked to accept a half-baked plan that may not be so good at the moment. There are some very good examples of social health care in europe, from which we can learn alot, and implement a lot.

We are being rushed into a second or third rate solution due to politics, rather than the realistic assessment of real health reform, for which I am in favor.

I have been out of work and dependent upon unemployment insurance, but was not allowed to receive any medical care because I had earned too much money previously. So because I worked for many years and had contributed into this public system, when I needed it for me and my family, it was not there for me.

I do not challenge you lightly, but with real world experience.

The Ten Cannots

TEN CANNOTS - - by William J. H. Boetcker

Here are 10 timeless truths that transcend all politics:

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.


BTW
(Quoted in a Ronald Reagan Speech in 1992 and often mis-attributed to Abe Lincoln because of its similarity in spirit to Honest Abe’s other writings)!

Obama Poised to Cede US Sovereingty

Lord Christopher Monckton, Climate Scientist reveals treaty plans to create a world enforcement government structure!!
Here are links to the Copenhagen Climate Treaty so you can read it for yourself.
NGO Copenhagen Climate Treaty (pdf)
NGO Copenhagen Climate Treaty Full Legal Text (pdf)
NGO Copenhagen Climate Treaty (Word) vol. 1
NGO Copenhagen Climate Treaty Full Legal Text (Word) vol.2

Lord Christopher Monckton, a highly respected Climate Specialist, has delivered an address in which he summarizes a "Climate Debt" Treaty to be signed in December 2009 in Copenhagen in which there will be established:

1. a World Government in which there is no election, and no way to cancel out once it is signed.

2. a redistribution of wealth to 3rd world nations on the premise that we have burned too much CO2 and they haven't so we owe them.

3. the ability to ENFORCE THE TERMS OF THE TREATY.

OUR CHOICES ARE TO:

1. BLOCK THE PRESIDENT FROM SIGNING THIS TREATY - Very Unlikely - as a Nobel Peace Prize winner and extreme left leanings he WILL Sign it.

2. BLOCK THE RATIFICATION OF THE TREATY IN OUR CONGRESS - A real possibility if we ACT by letting our representatives know where we stand - NO WAY will we be sub to a World Governmental Entity put in place by a treaty.

3. A long shot would be for States to secede from the USA. Texas is the most prepared to do this. Others will need time to figure it out.

There are a number of these types of Treaties floating around. The most recent of which is the L.O.S.T treaty, in which we cede our Naval Authority in the Northern Seas around Russia and the Seas between that and Canada. The Sovreign rights that are ours would have been ceded to a World Enforcement Agency with the power to Enforce the Treaty, under which we would be judged by some 75 countries who are NOT our friends. So that is a dangerously similar treaty not yet ratified, but could be. President Reagan vehemenently opposed this treaty, and it was very well known during his administration. Law of The Sea Treaty 2007; Law of the Sea Treaty - Senate Moves to ratify March 2009 - still in debate

Three is another Treaty regarding the leveling of our economic value by creating a North and South American currency - an "Amero" to link our economies together into a larger, and very likely weaker currency.

Please give Lord Monckton a listen. He is INFORMED and not afraid to speak up.

Follow the money.... another article on Dollar Devaluation

No, these are not rumors.  They are perceptions that drive rumors, which then affect policy.  World perceptions.  not necessarily USA perceptions.   We are not the only actors on the stage, nor can we afford to think like that.


Arabian nations look to Euro rather than Dollar for trading oil
China and Russia talk about another type of world currency


Recent comments published on Bloomberg


Dollar as "Also Ran"  or read on below


Demise of the Dollar or read on below


So as it is being said in as many ways as possible... WAKE UP AMERICA


We must re-organize the premise of our economy and dollar.

Let's talk about a plan to save the dollar, initiate and implement the plan, and take it to the market.

Global Currency in the Making - Dollar slide gives rise to new reserve

Watch it!

Here is the beginning of the shift of the monetary base movement.  

A new Global Currency is in the making.  A change in the medium of monetary reserve = a change in the culture.  China seeks to protect its large exposure against the declining dollar by calling for a stronger currency than the euro...If China manages to restructure a Global Currency ....read on...

Dollar's Slide Gives Rise to Calls for New Reserve

By Frank AhrensWashington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The U.S. dollar continued its six-month slide Tuesday amid a growing international chorus that wants the dollar replaced -- or at least supplemented -- as the world's reserve currency, a move that would end the greenback's six decades of global dominance.

The dollar has come under attack from abroad as the economic crisis has played out, thanks to the Federal Reserve's decision to flood a seized-up financial system with liquidity last fall. The central bank's moves likely staved off deflation, but the massive influx of new dollars has devalued existing ones. Foreign nations are worried that the massive U.S. national debt and rising deficits are not being addressed. And though inflation is not yet a concern in the United States, a prolonged slide in the dollar's value could lead to higher prices for consumers.


Further, large emerging economies -- such as China, Russia, Brazil and India -- are tired of kow-towing to the American buck, and sense an opportunity to knock a weakened dollar off its imperial perch.


"The U.S. dollar is headed for also-ran status, and it will continue to lose its value against many other currencies and assets," Miller Tabak equity strategist Peter Boockvar said. "The rest of the world wants the U.S. dollar to lose influence, but no one wants it to be abrupt, as it's in no one's interest. An evolutionary process is what is wanted."
The question is: When will that happen?


"In the next two to three years, it is highly unlikely to see the dollar replaced," said Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Over the next decade, though, we would expect to see other currencies play a much more significant role."


The dollar fell to nearly its lowest point of the year against the yen and euro on Tuesday, which sent the price of gold surging to a record intraday high above $1,045 per ounce, as investors sought a hedge against inflation and foreign nations continued to stockpile the precious metal.


For the American consumer, a falling dollar means U.S. exports sell better overseas, which can lead to more jobs here. But it also means imports costs more, which means higher prices at U.S. stores.
"For the average Joe, the implications of a crisis of confidence in the dollar could end up in higher borrowing costs, lower government expenditures -- so that means reduced services -- and higher taxes," Prasad said. "Most likely, some combination of all of the above."


Stocks, which typically move opposite of the dollar, staged a strong rally on Tuesday, continuing their fast Monday start. The Dow Jones industrial average and the broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index both gained 1.4 percent, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq surged 1.7 percent.


The U.S. dollar has been the world's reserve currency since World War II. Central banks and financial institutions in other nations hold dollars to pay off foreign obligations, or to influence their currency's exchange rate. Commodities, such as oil, are priced in dollars, which spreads the dollar's influence around the world.


But the dollar's dominance is being challenged, thanks to the crisis.


China was the first major power to attack the greenback, calling in March for the dollar to be replaced as the world's reserve currency. China holds more U.S. debt than any other country -- about $800 billion -- and the further the dollar drops, the less the value of the U.S. debt owed to China.


Other nations have followed China's criticism. In March, Kazakhstan criticized the dollar and called for the creation of a new currency it calls the "acmetal" (a coinage combining "acme" and "capital"). Last month, Iran shifted its reserve currency from the dollar to the euro, a move that is likely more political than economic and a response to harsh U.S. criticism of Iran's nuclear moves.


But major powers have spoken against the dollar, as well. In September, Russia said it remains satisfied with the dollar as a reserve currency but said others are also needed. At an international investment summit last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the United States -- and implicitly, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, who controls the money supply -- for "uncontrolled issue of dollars."
Both China and Russia have called for a new "global supercurrency," similar but larger in scale to the euro, that would replace the dollar.


Even the world's big financial institutions are piling on.


"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said in a speech last week.

Arabs Plot to Drop Dollar from OIL TRADING

The Demise of the Dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

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Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars.

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

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The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.