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Why should I pay so you can get drunk?
Feb.
29, 2008—Beer
drinkers take note. Fergal Murray, the brewmaster for the legendary
Irish brew, Guiness, is coming to Washington, DC. Is DC having
a Bobby Flay "beer throw-down?" No. Murray
is lending his celebrity status as the world's foremost brewmaster to
aid the lobbying of Congress to make St. Patrick's Day an official
national holiday in the United States. 
Think
about it. A beer-drinking holiday where working class stiffs (who will
almost certainly end up stiff) can fill their oversized bellies with Guiness
or some of the hard liquor Diageo/Guiness substitute like J&B,
Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, or Baileys.
BeerAdvocate.com—a
Guiness project—(who even knew such a website existed?) has
launched a cyber-petition to make March 17 a real, honest-to-goodness
beer/booze-guzzling national holiday. In the spirit of green beer, Murray
will be visiting pubs all over the nation's capital—followed by stops
in as many of the beer-drinking cities in America where he hopes to find
enough sober people to collect a million signatures (from 21+ year olds)
by midnight on March 16, 2008. With much fanfare, the petitions will be
delivered to Congress on Monday, March 17. I expect the petitions will
be personally delivered to the nation's top drunk, Teddy Kennedy.
And, I expect a ton of holiday-loving beer and booze drinkers will be
ecstatic over such a notion. 
They
can go to proposition317.com
and sign an online petition. The mouse-operated virtual pen allows you
to actually scrawl your own signature. But you have to be 21-years of
age or older to sign—and you should be sober enough to write..
If you're wondering why Murray doesn't devote his efforts to making St. Patty's Day a national holiday in the country where the Blarney Stone and Guiness beer are national shrines, its because there are nine times as many Irish-blooded beer drinkers here than there are in all of Ireland (plus a 100 million more who are Irish one day a year).
Which brings us to the reality of this scenario. Why should I have to pay so you can get drunk on St. Patty's Day? Making St. Patrick's Day a national holiday means—as far as the federal government goes—someone is asking me to foot a chunk of the bill to pay some 2,483,202 civilian federal government workers to have a day off so they can go out, drink green beer, act like a fool and get drunk on my dime. Granted, as much as I would love to see all of the government offices—and the legislature—closed (since that means Congress is not creating any new laws), I don't think I want my tax dollars used to fund a new national holiday where the taxpayers are obligated to give close to 2.5 million bureaucrats a paid day off so they can drink green beer and have a hangover the next day.
Primary Shenanigans
Jan. 16, 2008—Sen. Barack Obama won against Democrats in Iowa using legal shenanigans—which means he didn't really honestly win. .Sen. John McCain won in New Hampshire using legal shenanigans—which means he didn't really honestly win. (Sen. Hillary Clinton won in New Hampshire without any of the anticipated Clinton shenanigans. (They would come later, in Michigan.) An Obama supporter gave Hillary the win by asking a question that revealed Hillary's human-side (and we didn't think she had one.)
In Michigan, John McCain attempted to resort to the same legal shenanigans. that gave him his win in New Hampshire. McCain, using Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman [I-CT] as a shill, asked Democrats and independents in Michigan to cross over and vote for McCain to keep former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney from winning the primary that would become Romney's first win. McCain, a hawkish liberal who claims to be a fiscal conservative from a State that, shortly more than a decade ago, traditionally voted Republican. McCain, whose voting record verifies his liberal bonafides, needed the crossover Democratic vote to win in Michigan. In November, of course, the crossover voters that would have given their State's GOP delegates to McCain would vote for the Democratic candidate, whomever it is. New Hampshire and Michigan would fall into the Democratic win column on election eve. McCain, like Rudy Giuliani, is not in this race to win. Both are designated losers. In national politics, the losers get to keep their campaign war chests. Being a presidential nominee virtually guarantees you get to retire as a millionaire.
The strategy that allows a candidate to win using legal loopholes that are deliberately built into the primary should never be allowed because it cheats every honest voter in those States which allow it. Politics is big business. It's controlled by big business—and by big bankers who secretly place millions of dollars of soft money behind the candidates whose loyalty they are buying. Our political system is designed to make the working class think they are selecting the candidates for whom they will cast their votes in the general election in November, but nothing could be farther from the truth. As you can see from the $100 million war chests amassed by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, McCain-Feingold did not stop that practice. It merely hamstrung the Republican Party in order to give the campaign fundraising advantages to the Democrats who traditionally do not raise as much corporate money as the GOP since the Democrats are traditionally anti-free enterprise and pro-State control..
As the bankrollers finance the campaigns of those they expect to win and lose—(you can't pick a winner if you don't know, beforehand, who is going to lose the contest)—the media anoints both the anticipated winner and the anticipated loser by declaring them to be the front-runners. And, by virtue of the ability of the media to brainwash large segments of the idiot population, they become the front-runners. even when, like Rudy Giuliani, you only poll around 6%.
The first anointed Democratic front-runner was Hillary Clinton even though every honest pollster in the United States knew that Hillary was hated by 52% of the voting population, and that only 35% of the potential registered voters (those who are alive and can actually be polled) said they would vote for her. (Since 1996, over 10% of all Democratic votes nationwide have come from dead people. They used to be called the Daley dead. Now they're the Soros dead.) Surrogate voters, shuttled from precinct to precinct, cast ballots in their names.
The first anointed Republican presidential candidate was Rudy Giuliani. By what stretch of the New York Times' vivid imagination (which they call reporting) do they think conservative America—which is concerned about two issues: illegal aliens stealing American jobs and securing this nation from terrorists—would elect the most unqualified man running as the standard-bearer of the GOP? Giuliani was a mayor. Not just a mayor, but the liberal mayor of a sanctuary city. Giuliani is about as popular with Republicans as Dennis Kucinich is with Reagan Democrats. Giuliani was the media-ordained front runner because he would be the easiest candidate for Hillary Clinton to beat.
The second easiest Republican for any Democrat to beat is McCain—who is now the designated GOP front runner. (The liberal media expects you to blindly cast your vote for the front runner. That, of course, then makes their predictions correct.) McCain won the New Hampshire primary only because the Stale allows crossover Democrats who would never vote for a Republican in the general election to vote for GOP candidates in the primary. (That guarantees that the weakest Republican gets their delegate votes for the White House.) If you check McCain's voting record in the US Senate, you'll find he votes more often with Teddy Kennedy [D-MA] and Hillary Clinton [D-NY] than he does with Jim Inhofe [R-OK], Jeff Sessions [R-AL] or when they were in the Senate. Fred Dalton Thompson [R-TN] or Zell Miller [D-GA].
The fact that those unfair loopholes exist is the fault of the citizens of those States who allow political party bosses to steal their right to be represented in the political process by not firing the State legislators who refuse to close those loopholes. Most of the State legislatures are in control of the Democrats. And, at county level—where all elections are won or lost—over 65% of the voting booths are firmly in control of Democrats, so when you hear Democrats grumbling that Republicans are stealing votes, take it with grain of salt. Ninety percent of the vote theft is done by Democrats whose tax and spend, open borders rhetoric rubs across the grain of America. Which, of course, is why liberals like Hillary Clinton pretend they are moderates.
In their non-binding caucus, Iowa allows any registered voter to cast a ballot—even if they are not residents of the State. That presented Obama with the opportunity to win Iowa. His political contacts in Illinois—and Trinity United Church of Christ—brought in busloads of college students from the University of Illinois. Not only did those students become his ground force in Iowa, they also became the voters who put him over the top and gave him his Iowa win. Democrat and independent voters who would otherwise have voted for Hillary Clinton cast their votes in Iowa for Mike Huckabee—not because they believed the Baptist preacher, but because they knew he was a wolf in sheep's clothing who would lose against any Democrat who got the nomination. The only two candidates the Democrats fear are Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.
Again, Iowa doesn't count except that it's the launching pad that gives traction to one person in each party, creating the illusion that there's a visible front-runner going into New Hampshire. If Huckabee really had star quality, he would have won New Hampshire. He doesn't. He's a social liberal pretending to be a conservative. Unfortunately for Huckabee, but thanks to the Internet, his lies are easy to catch—and, thanks to YouTube™, to replay over and over again. Huckabee is discovering that he can't escape his lies. In Bible Belt South Carolina, where Huckabee is an ordained Baptist preacher, he should be polling high double digit numbers. He's polled 15% in New Hampshire and won 16% of the votes in Michigan —just about where he was before his miraculous Iowa win.
Hillary Clinton entered the New Hampshire campaign trailing Barack Obama by 13 points which she converted to a statistical dead heat. But that wasn't the reason Hillary seemed to have lost her fire. Rumors were reported by the Boston Globe that Hillary has lost a half dozen of her big money backers who were throwing their financial resources behind Obama. Two of those financial supporters were close enough to the Clintons to have slept in the Lincoln bedroom when the Clinton's converted the White House into a fundraising bed and breakfast in 1996. A list of Obama's top 130 fundraisers—many of whom former Clinton fundraisers—show the paradigm shift that has been very quietly occurring over the last month. Banks that were supporting the Clintons that are now also supporting Obama. They include Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase—David Rockefeller influenced banks. Is Rockefeller worried that Hillary can't carry the day? Or is he just covering all the bases like JP Morgan in 1912?
Thus far, Obama has not tapped DLA Piper—Hillary Clinton's top money source. Nor has he tapped a couple of very important sources Hillary shares with John McCain: DLA Piper is a high technology company with offices located throughout the Asia, Europe, the United States—and, most important, in the Middle East. Blank Rome LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP. are bankrolling both McCain and Clinton. Blank Rome, which specializes in IRS regulations, is McCain's primary money source. If McCain or Hillary gets elected don't think about a simplified tax code for 4 to 8 years. Greenberg Traurig specializes in international law. They would love to see international court decisions incorporated into the US Code. The appointment of liberal federal judges would be much appreciated by Greenberg Traurig, LLP. You can pretty much predict the agenda of any incoming president by the company's which "invest" in their candidacy. Big money donors don't give millions of dollars because they like the candidates or believe in their political philosophies. They give money because they expect much more in return.
Hillary Clinton is running scared. That's the reason when the Democratic National Committee warned the State of Michigan they would lose their delegate votes at the convention if they held their Democratic primary before Super Tuesday, Hillary Clinton—the only major Democratic candidate to do so—made the decision to run anyway. Hillary, as the sole candidate, took 54% of the vote. What that means is if Michigan's delegates are reinstated, Hillary wins them all by default. To keep her from winning them, 50.1% of the voters had to vote "uncommitted." Less than 46% did. If Hillary's key money people have truly pulled the plug on her, can we expect to see more of the circa 1996 community outreach programs to Chinese organizations sponsored by the Clinton campaign?
Steroid Studs...Stealing Bases
Dec. 17, 2007—The Steroid Studs. It bothered me when Baltimore Oriole outfielder Sammy Sosa broke Roger Maris' 1961 61-home run season, and ended up the 1998 National League season with 66 homers—slamming 20 of them over the fence in one month in a seesaw battle with St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire who ended the season with 70-homers. Sosa's record bothered me only because a magic era of baseball had died. McGwuire bothered me for another reason. Why? Because, even before the season ended that year, people were already raising the specter that McGwire and other MLB long ball hitters might be using anabolic steroids. I never thought that about Sosa. Sosa, who hit his 59th homer on September 9, 1999 could have reasonaly tied Ruth that year—or borke it honestly. Ruth hit his 60th homer on September 30, 1927. With 21 days in the 154-season, Sosa had time to break Ruth's record. Sosa, to me, is the only current MLB player who could have honestly broken Ruth's 154-game 60 home run record—his cork-filled bat notwithstanding.
Babe Ruth's "short season" 60-homer record stood unbroken from 1927 until New York Yankee Roger Maris broke it in 1961. Maris beat the Sultan-of-Swat only because the Major League season in 1961 was 162 games—8 games longer than the 154 game season in 1927. Maris, like the Babe, did it without the use of anabolic steroids. San Francisco Giant's Barry Bonds—who is now under a federal indictment—hit 73 long balls in 2001. In July, 2007 Bonds hit his 756th career home run, breaking the record set by Hank Aaron—another player who never used anabolic steroids. Bonds is now the official home-run hitter. His record—and those of Sosa and McGwire have something of a 1919 Chicago Black Sox taint about them.
The battle of the Steroid Studs built attendance at America's ball parks as a new breed of superhero—albeit synthetic ones—was built from the illegal use of drugs like anadrol, dianabol, durabolin, equipoise, oxandrin, and winstrol. MLB management, pleased with the gate, heard the stories about illegal anabolic steroid use but closed their eyes to the rumors because the new generation of baseball superstars were good for business. McGwire, who became known as the Babe Ruth of the 1990s, admitted to taking the steroid Androstenedione during his record-setting year. McGwuire, who earned the nickname"Big Mac" from his team mates, retired from professional baseball. When Jose Canseco wrote his tell-all book about professional baseball, he told the Congressional committee that launched an investigation based on his accusations that steroids were "...as acceptable in the 1980s and mid-to-late 1990s as a cup of coffee." He urged the committee members to enact legislation to toughen the laws on the use of anabolic steroids saying he thought "...it would be a major mistake to let the league police itself—no ifs, ands or buts about it. We'll be back here quicker than quick."
While Sosa has never admitted to using steroids, nor has been found to have used them, he was suspended for using a cork-filled bat which is against the rules in Major League Baseball. When a bat he was using in a game splintered and was found to be cork-filled, Sosa insisted he only used cork-filled bats during practice, and couldn't understand how one of them got into the game.
Conseco's tell-all book led to a 21-month investigation that MLB Commissioner Alan H. "Bud" Selig and the MLB club owners—who were enjoying the revenue from the increased gate—would just as soon the investigation not happened. Hired to head the investigation was former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell [D-ME] who currently heads the global law firm of DLA Piper. While the Mitchell Report confirmed rampant use of performance enhancing steroids by MLB players—presently and past—the 409 page report was more than a few yards short of recommending measures to stop the practice—such as making anabolic steroid use by professional athletes a felony; or permanently suspending steroid users. The Mitchell recommendations included frequent drug tests—monthly or quarterly, and the most laughable one—displaying posters in all of the players' locker rooms warning players of the dangers of using human growth hormones. Twenty-one months and 409 pages were expended to confirm that management should already have been aware of: their players were taking anabolic steroids—most of which were hard to detect shortly after usage.
What the Mitchell Report did bring into the open were the names of several players who had previously denied—under oath, or to investigators—the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Most of those players have passed several drug tests. Mitchell attempted to interview 500 current and former ball players. Only 68 of them would talk to him.
Implicated in the growing scandal are some of MLB's brightest stars. Among them are home run king San Francisco Giant Barry Bond, New York Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens, Baltimore Orioles Miguel Tejada, Yankee Andy Pettitte—who claims he used human growth hormone two to four times to help recover from an injury—and Washington National's catcher Paul Lo Duca. After striking a deal with Mitchell as part of an agreement with federal prosecutors, several clubhouse attendants—including Kirk Radomski, a former Mets attendant—admitted distributing steroids and human growth hormones to players. Radomski provided documents to the Mitchell committee that included copies of checks, mailing labels and telephone records. Among those whose names appeared in his records were Baltimore Orioles players Larry Bigbie, David Segui, and Adam Piatt. Piatt admitted supplying steroids to Tejada when they were teammates in Oakland, but admitted he had no knowledge whether or not Tejada ever used the steroids he provided.
Trainer Brian McNamee also struck a deal with federal prosecutors. McNamee admitted that he supplied Roger Clemens with steroids when he was a pitcher with the Toronto Blue Jays. He also admitted supplying Yankee pitcher Andy Pettitte with HGH in 2002. As previously stated, most of the players whose names appear in this article have never tested positive for steroids in any drug test implemented since the drug-testing policy went into affect in 2005. Most players either stopped or greatly curtailed the use of steroids and human growth hormones when the industry imposed mandatory testing—and a 50-game suspension for the first offense.
Barry Bond had his record-breaking 73 home runs in 2001. In 2000, he hit 49 home runs. In 1999, he hit 34. In 2002, he hit 46 home runs, in 2003 and 2004, he hit 45 each year. In 2005 when MLB instituted mandatory testing, Bonds hit 5 home runs the entire season.
First year Yale Law School student Aaron Zelinsky who wrote an op-ed piece for courant.com believes the best way to stop the use of anabolic steroids is to tie the players earnings to blood tests they will be required to take a regular intervals. If at any point the player tests positive for steroid use, they would forfeit any remaining salary—and pension—and be banned from baseball for the rest of their lives, adding that "...drastic times call for drastic measures." Zelinsky proposed that the contracts signed by professional ball players be paid over 30 years, Since even a first year law student knows you can't go back and alter contracts already signed, his idea, while scary, won't work. In addition, his idea can't incorporate the endorsement deals which are generally worth far more than the players' MLB paycheck.
Zelinksky also proposed mandated blood tests well into the retirement years of the player so that virtually undetectable steroids would ultimately be detected by their absence in blood samples from the elderly player, at which time, the player is then stripped of his pension. As unique as the idea is, it is so invasive of that retired players' privacy no court would allow it nor would the law allow MLB to strip a man of a pension to which he contributed. Aaron, sadly, you just flunked Law 101.
However, as much as the owners like the increased attendance, and the manufacturers like having MLB superstars endorse their products, stealing the the titles of the former greats is—or at least should be—a crime. When you use human growth hormones or other types of steroids that allow you to perform in a manner you could not perform without them, you are stealing another man's sweat equity investment in MLB that you are not entitled to.
George Herman "Babe" Ruth hit 60 runs in a 154-game season. No other player in the history of the game has matched that feat. He is the undefeated King of Swat. In 1961, Yankee Roger Maris hit 61-homers, breaking the Babe's record. But it took Maris 162 games to do it. Neither Maris nor Ruth used performance-enhancing drugs (unless you count Ruth's 91-proof bourbon and the hangover he usually had when he arrived at the ball park as a performance enhancing drug). Maris' title carries an asterisk noting his season was 8-games longer than Ruth's.
But asterisks are not enough for today's Steroid Studs. The titles they have been credited with need to be completely erased from the record books. They didn't earn them—the steroids they took earned them. Sports figures who cheat are not entitled to the accolades of success, nor do they belong in any Hall of Fame. Further, if you want to stop steroid use, don't punish the players—punish the owners. Don't suspend the players for using steroids. Fire the players and suspend the franchise. Steroid use will end overnight.
But most of all, let's stop honoring disgraced players. We need to restore the records to honest players who earned their titles through sweat equity investment in the sport, not from the use of performance enhancing drugs that let little Billy Batson become Captain Marvel. The Steroid Studs don't even deserve an asterisk.
Huckabee favors state tuition for illegals
Nov. 28, 2007—Amnesty, Illegal Immigration, the jobs drain—and using illegals to bring down the cost of labor in the United States—will not only be the most important issue during the 2008 presidential campaign for working class moderates and those on the right, it will be the only issue. The far left believes the issue will be Iraq because social progressives desperately want to surrender to al Qaeda. They haven't surrendered to anyone since they threw in the towel in Vietnam. I'm not quite sure what former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee thinks the key issue will be in 2008 since he dances so adroitly around every issue that tugs at the heartstrings of Christian conservatives that he should be on Dancing With the Stars. I actually find myself wondering if he's related to Bill Clinton—or worse, Hillary?
The social progressive Baptist preacher who cleverly poses as a rock-solid conservative like Ron Paul (who scores well with National Right to Life on everything excepet parental notification) has fooled a lot of good people on his song-and-dance tour thus far. Deceit must be an inherited gift in Arkansas. Sadly, much respected WorldNetDaily's newest scribe, Chuck Norris bought the Huckster's spiel. Huckabee appears to have ripped off a page or two from the Clinton playbook—saying one thing with a straight face while your history shows you actually stand for something else. Huckabee, who joined the Bush-43 amnesty choir early on, now claims he's against illegal immigration although, he adds, he's not a lunatic about it.
In his "Ask The Governor" radio program on the Arkansas Radio Network, a caller accused Gov. Mike Huckabee of ignoring the law when it comes to illegals—a fact that every Arkansan knows. The caller, Chris, asked Huckabee if he had taken an oath to uphold the laws of the United States. Huckabee said he did. "Okay then," Chris said, "why would you turn a blind eye to illegal immigrants invading our country and coming in and basically breaking our laws?"
Huckabee denied that he was not enforcing federal immigration laws, adding that illegal aliens who try to vote or try to apply for welfare benefits should be arrested. "If they are caught as illegal aliens," he replied to the caller, "I don't have a problem with sending them back.." Huckabee told another caller that illegals in Arkansas do not receive welfare benefits—or food stamps or health care benefits. While Huckabee insisted that he believed illegals who tried to vote in US elections should be arrested, he strangely favors giving illegals drivers licenses that, under the Democratically-enacted National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the Motor Voter Law) automatically registers them to vote.
Huckabee announced his plan to give scholarships to illegal aliens in his State address on Jan. 11, 2005 when he made it clear he was going to push through legislation that would provide taxpayer-funded scholarships for the children of illegals in Arkansas (HB 1525, enrolled by Joyce Elliott [D-Little Rock]. The following day the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Elliott was pleased "...to know we will have an ally in the governor's office." When conservatives began taking potshots at the governor, Huckabee compared not providing illegals with college educations to the 1957 "Little Rock Nine"—black students who were prevented from attending the all-white Little Rock Central High School. Huckabee defended himself by accusing his conservative base of bigotry when he said, "We're all racists if we don't think that we should have to give illegal aliens college scholarships, saying nothing of the US citizens who would lose out on that same opportunity." Like all social progressives, Huckabee missed the point. Providing scholarships and financial assistance to the children of US taxpayers works for all us since our children are benefiting from our sweat equity investment in this nation. Our kids. Our taxes. Our future. What doesn't work is—Our taxes. Illegal aliens benefiting from our sweat equity (in which they invest nothing). Open borders. Loss of sovereignty. Mike, we gave at the office. We aren't willing to give up our sovereignty because your major campaign contributors need cheap labor.
Huckabee, like the rest of the social progressives (which Huckabee is even though he's a Baptist preacher) would like us to think he believes that illegals with drivers' licenses would never take advantage of that loophole and illegally vote in a US election—and particularly, would never vote a liberal into office who favors amnesty and fast-tracking illegals to citizenship.
In 2001 Huckabee favored Arkansas bill HB 2212 that would give drivers' licenses to illegals. And, if Huckabee—or any other presidential candidate on either side of the aisle—claims it never occurred to him/her that illegals would abuse the drivers' license privilege by using it as a voter card, then I would suggest that particular candidate is too stupid—or dishonest—to be allowed to run for the highest office in the land.
Recognizing the fact that amnesty and illegal aliens will be the sole voting issue from center post right in 2008, Huckabee is trying hard to mitigate six years of pro-amnesty rhetoric. When he was interviewed by ABC's Senior Correspondent Jake Tapper, Tapper asked Huckabee why people are so mad about illegal immigration. Huckabee said, "Well, people are mad...because it's illegal. They're mad because the federal government has shown just how dysfunctional it is."
Tapper shot back: "But, weren't you enabling it?"
"The issue that we've got to deal with," Huckabee responded, "is that, if you have a federal government that never deals with a secure border and then fails to do anything about dealing with [illegal] people when they get employed, and they can get employed with false documents, the question is, why don't you secure the border, end the sanctuary cities and amnesty, which I would do? ...What you do is elect a president who will fix the problem where it needs to be fixed—at the border."
Mike has that Clintonesque rhetoric down pat. His attempt to legislate amnesty in Arkansas and give illegals voting rights suddenly becomes George Bush's fault. Realizing he didn't get himself out of the box Tapper stuck him in, Huckabee concluded the interview by saying, "Now if that causes people to say, 'Well, I'm not going to vote for him,' fine. There are plenty of candidates out there who I guess would grind their heel in the face of a 6-year old child. Not me."
While Huckabee now believes that securing our borders must be our top priority, and that border security is now a national emergency, the former Arkansas governor was part of the Bush cabal that supported amnesty for illegal as a means of adding 20 million needed taxpayers to the tax roll—until Bush and his GOP cohorts realized that GOP voters and moderate Democrats would vote them out of office if they voted for amnesty—or even for giving illegals legal status in any form. Huckabee also now opposes sanctuary cities—but feels its imperative to provide healthcare and social services for the children of illegals (without verifying their legal status—a form of sanctuary). After pushing for drivers' licenses for illegals, he now opposes that, too. He has taken John Kerry's title as the king of flip-flop.
Huckabee is the perfect Arkansas chameleon, He's for or against whatever you're for or against. He's the perfect rural state politician—but only if the voters don't read newspapers, watch TV or listen to the radio. A man like that could actually get elected governor of a rural State twice. Then, who knows...he might even run for President. Oops...he is. Lord, I sure hope lightning doesn't strike twice. Picture the worst nightmare in the world with a presidential race in which both the Democratic and Republican candidates are clones of Bill Clinton.
Calderon claims sovereignty over US soil.
Less than eight
months after replacing Vicente Fox, Mexican President Felipe
de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa has morphed into a dangerous facsimile
of Nazi despot Adolph Hitler and, sadly, President George W.
Bush is starting to look a little too much like Neville Chamberlain.
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In
his televised State of the Union address to the Mexican people from the
National Palace in Mexico City on September 2, Calderon said "...Mexico
does not stop at its borders. That means wherever there is a Mexican,
there is Mexico. And, for this reason, the government action on behalf
of our countrymen is guided by principles, for the defense and protection
of their rights."
Calderon also bragged in his speech that he created 618 thousand jobs in Mexico since taking office in January. In point of fact, Calderon simply held open the already swinging door between the United States and Mexico and gave the one finger wave to American industrialists who were exporting both factories and jobs from US cities to Mexico in order to capitalize on cheap labor and the lack of binding arbitration laws South of the border at the expense of the US labor pool whose sweat equity built those companies from mom and pop operations to transnational giants.
Ignoring the
fact that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 requires
US law enforcement to go after US employers who hire illegal aliens—and
to prosecute them—Calderon protested the increase in raids
by Immigration Control and Enforcement [ICE] agents on US employers
hiring illegal aliens in violation of US law. Calderon said that
what Bush is doing is "...little more than a faint nod"
to his responsibility to enforce US immigration law. (Calderon
might be surprised to know that 78% of the American people agree with
that assessment. Bush is not even coming close to doing his job.)
In his speech Calderon complained that The Department of Homeland
Security was sending out notices to US employers that the Social
Security Administration was sending notices informing employers of
non-matches between employees' names and their Social Security numbers.
The employer must resolve the discrepancies with 90 days or be forced
to fire the employee—or face a $10,000 fine for knowingly employing
an illegal alien. 
(Author's
note: I wonder if Social Security will be sending the mismatch
list to the US government since the Bush-43 Administration is the
nation's largest employer of illegal aliens?)
Bill Clinton-appointed US District Court Judge Maxine Chesney issued a temporary restraining order requested by the AFL-CIO (which now represents the right of illegal aliens to take your job), the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center (a Hispanic rights group) barring Homeland Security from forcing employers to fire illegal aliens. The suit argued that the letter from Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to the employers was an effort to pressure business owners to fire workers whose documents had been flagged for discrimination. The judge, whom CNN anchor Lou Dobbs observed acted more like she was an employee of the Mexican government than a sitting US federal judge, like many of the judges appointed by both Clinton and former President Jimmy Carter have trouble following the Constitution, and simply ignore federal law when it gets in the way of their social agendas. In this case, the law in question has been on the books for 21 years. Of course, the entire federal government found it convenient to ignore the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 for 21 years, too.
Calderon did not mention it in his speech that Chertoff warned that his agency will not tolerate interference by sanctuary cities when it comes to checking the legal status of job applicants and turning a blind eye to hiring illegal aliens. "We are exploring our legal options," Chertoff told a House panel on Wed., Sept. 5, "I intend to take as vigorous legal action as the law allows to prevent that from happening—prevent that kind of interference. I don't know if I have the authority to cut off Homeland Security funds [to those cities] if I disagree [with their] policy on immigration. And, I have to say the consequence of that might be to put the citizens at risk, you know, in the event of a natural disaster. I don't want to put people's lives at risk, but I do think where the law gives me the power to prevent anybody from interfering with our activities, we will use the law to prevent that interference." The sanctuary cities Chertoff referred to are: Baltimore, Dallas, Denver, Miami, Minneapolis, Newark, New Haven, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.
The Nazification of Europe began with Hitler's argument that wherever German people live, they live on German soil. (Sound familiar? If not, reread the first paragraph.) Hitler positioned himself as the injured party in a scrape with Europe over land seized from Germany at the end of World War I.
Calderon's speech suggests—and, in the United States, the overt action of the National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens [LULAC], the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund [MALDEF] and the Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (the most radical of all of the Hispanic groups)—that Mexico has claimstaked all of the land Mexico ceded to the United States in the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, signed between the United States and Mexico at the end of the Mexican-American War on Feb. 2, 1848. The land ceded to the United States included all of what is now California, Nevada and Utah and parts of what is now Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming—or 525,000 square miles of what is now some of the most valuable real estate in the Western United States. Simply put, Mexico—or the Hispanic advocacy groups causing civil unrest in the southwest—wants the land back. They view the citizens of the United States, not the illegal aliens flooding across the border in an unbroken stream, as the squatters.
On Sept. 2, Calderon continued his televised tirade against the United States by saying: "We strongly protest the unilateral measures taken by the US Congress and government that have only persecuted and exacerbated the mistreatment of Mexican undocumented workers. The insensitivity towards those who support the US economy and society has only served as an impetus to reinforce the battle...for their rights," adding "where there is a Mexican, there is Mexico...Mexico does not end at its borders."
Like Hitler did to England, Calderon is doing to America. Calderon is confident that even if Bush engages in media saber-rattling, the the weak-knee sissies who control both the House and Senate will hold the cowboy in check since the US military is not in a position to fight another war—particularly when this one would be on the US-Mexican border. Calderon is confident that the United States will do what England did in 1939—make even more concessions. Tough talk, Hitler discovered from 1937 to 1939, gets tangible results. Hitler's conquest of Europe began before the first shots were ever fired. Conquest begins with the concessions of men afraid to call the bluff.
The eradication of any nation's sovereignty begins with the erasing of its borders.
Record job losses in August heighten recession fears
Sept. 10, 2007—An unexpected spike in the number of Americans who were 'down-sized" (i.e., laid off or fired) in August offered one small ray of hope to purveyors of credit in America—lower interest rates. I guess we can thank people like Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who have been diligently working in secret places behind closed doors for her "contributory constituents" (i.e. foreign national Chinese and Indians who contribute heavily to her campaign in exchange for "national favors" for their countries). Hillary's financial constituents in the Chinese and Indian communities are paying for the Senator and her allies to outsource service sector jobs that were created when NAFTA stripped the "factory job cupboard" clean—and entire factories were ripped from the American landscape and sent to the overpopulated third world whose people represent human capital to the transnational industrialists who are searching for tomorrow's consumers in the emerging nations—and whose "emerging" peoples are eagerly grabbing today's jobs like they were "shopping bargains" coming ashore like imports from the United States.
American politicians appear unconcerned, believing those they favored with our few remaining jobs will reciprocate by investing their new found wealth in America, creating even more jobs here to replace the jobs politicians like Hillary Clinton have sent to China and India as a quid pro quo for the campaign contributions that have made her the Democratic front runner for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Only, Clinton—and her buddies John Kerry, Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer—may have done their "job" too well. Job losses in July were a tepid 42,897 compared to those for August which hit 84,014—an increase of 49%.
Pressure on the economy from the collapsing housing boom followed by the disintegration of the subprime housing market virtually strangled the financial sector in July and triggered a new backlash of middle class layoffs. The mortgage industry responded quickly to the subprime loan debacle by closing offices and jettisoning thousands of sales jobs. Close to half of the job losses in August came from the financial sector. Mortgage companies and subprime lenders who caved under intense pressure from the federal regulators, terminated 35,752 employees as they scrambled to downsize their operations before going belly-up as the tsunami of mortgage money vanished overnight like the aftermath of a massive tidal wave, leaving only destruction in its wake.
Job weakness is obvious well beyond the housing sector. It could decimate the financial sector before the end of the year as the credit card industry—which also invested heavily in the subprime boom—becomes the next victim of joblessness. As the credit card industry tightens its hatches to await the anticipated tsunami of loan defaults, subprime credit card providers—like the subprime mortgage lenders—are preparing for the worst as subprime investors scramble to find safe havens for their investment dollar—US government bonds. But, that's not even safe as yields on 10-year Treasury notes sank to 4.37%. When that crunch hits, it will impact the entire retail industry and America will experience its first major economic recession in almost three decades, ending for years the prosperity of the Reagan years.
Wall Street, which is bracing for another negative hit, desperately needs a Fed interest rate cut to stave off a second correction in the market—which is now suffering from a new case of the jitters. The Dow fell 250 points last Friday after falling 900 points from its July 19 high of 14,000.41. The merchant princes on Main Street also need an interest rate cut to stimulate major ticket credit spending to stave off a recession. If they don't get it there will be chunks of coal in a lot of holiday stockings this Christmas.
While interest rate cuts traditionally bolster the market almost overnight, their impact on Main Street America will take a few months to kick in, leading one Charles Schwab investment strategist to remark that she wasn't "...sure a rate cut will be a quick elixir," adding that "...it will help mitigate the broader impact of the problem we are facing."
And that "problem" is Wall Street fat cats— transnational industrialists, bankers and merchant princes—who manipulate the market to make the economy appear more robust than it actually is.The transnationalists behind the rapidly emerging New World Order have been exploiting America's human capital by exporting their jobs. And, by manipulating the stock market, they have succeeded in creating the illusion that the American economy is healthy.
Wall Street has artificially inflated the value of the corporate stocks of the transnationalists whose companies are now investing their equity in the third world. It is those investments that make the market appear robust. While corporate America appears healthy, the American wage earner has pretty much been in "personal recession" since the Clinton co-presidency signed NAFTA into law in 1993 and opened the floodgates that allowed not only the jobs drain, but the mass exodus of factories from your backyard to China. With the goods made in China, India and the other low wage, overpopulated third world nations returning to the United States through Mexico, the industrial strength—and personal wealth—of this nation is being drained by the greedy provocateurs of profit who are stealing this nation's heritage and transferring our wealth to our enemies in Eastern Europe and Asia.
A major correction, that will make the Great Depression of 1929 appear like a burp after an expensive meal is just around the corner.
Outlawing campaign contributions will save the lives in war zones.
Aug. 2, 2007—In
October, 2004 an unknown, brand new, struggling defense contractor
with no big dollar lobbyists hawking their MRAP (Mine Resistant, Ambush
Protected vehicle) to powerful Congressmen, Senators or Department of
Defense officials, parked their heavily armored MRAP—called Cougar—between
the two Senate office buildings on Capital Hill. 
South
Carolina-based Force Protection, Inc. wanted Congress to
see the safest 21st century IED resistant vehicle in the world. Congress
did not appear interested.
On that bright, sunny October day, dozens of Congressional staffers came out of their ivory tower to gawk at the 13-ton, desert-tan military vehicle. Staffers climbed all over the MRAP like curious shoppers at a local shopping mall eagerly googling a shiny new Lamborghini. Several staffers were given rides in the safest war zone vehicle in the world. Although 315 US military personnel had been killed by roadside IEDs, and the military was clamoring for a mine-resistant utility vehicle, not one Congressman or Senator—from either side of the aisle—showed up to look at the Cougar or later, to inquire about it. However, when major defense contractor, International, (Navistar) recently parked their V-hulled MRAP—MaxxPro—by the Capital, Congressmen and Senators milled around the unit like dogs sniffing a freshly sprayed fire hydrant as International officials and their lobbyists reminded the Capital Hill crowd that International builds 160 thousand trucks a year—none of which, by the way, were MRAPs. And, throwing in a dig against Force Protection, International president Archie Massicotte, also quipped: "...and, we've never delivered late on an order."
Today,
with the military still begging for enough MRAPs to prevent any loss of
life from IED attacks, and with the casualty toll standing at over 1,500
dead from IEDs, the US House and Senate still showed little interest in
the Cougar as recently as last fall. Not because they weren't sold
on the concept of mine-resistant vehicles, but because most of the high-priced
lobbyists who shower Congressmen and Senators with donations to their
campaign war chests and who endow their PACs, worked for major defense
contractors who didn't offer V-hulled armored vehicles. Those contractors
manufacture the existing types of armored vehicles currently used by the
military. They don't want to see those contracts canceled in favor of
the MRAPs manufactured by their competitors.
The most powerful members of Congress will still defend their actions by insisting Force Protection, Inc. was just too small to get a sole-source contract when there were more capable contractors available. They're right about one thing. Force Protection was too small. The company was started on a virtual shoe string.
In
2002 equity investment banker Frank Kavanaugh bankrolled Madhava
Rao Mankal's floundering California speed boat company, Sonic
Jet Performance with an anemic money transfusion of $25,000. When
Mankal found Garth Barrett, the former Rhodesian military
officer was building a new type of armored, mine-resistant vehicle. The
V-hull, developed by Barrett's company, Technical Solutions,
would deflect underbody blasts away from the passenger compartment and
protect the occupants of the vehicle. In June of 2002, Kavanaugh
and Mankal took over Technical Solutions. Force
Protection, Inc. was born.
In 2002, Force Protection, Inc. was a penny stock with dollar dreams. A year ago, when it was a "sole source" defense contractor (meaning it was the only company in the world creating a product the military needed very badly), the price of Force Protection stock soared to $30 per share. In 2004, the US Marines ordered 27 Cougars from Force Protection. In 2005, they ordered 122 and in 2006, 79 more—at the cost of $500 thousand each. Today the stock is sitting at around $18 and Force Protection, Inc. is no longer a "sole source" supplier.
But in 2004, when the Marine Corps was taking heavy IED casualties, Congress—and then Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—wanted the contracts for the new generation of MRAP "spread out" among the major defense contractors. Dealing with sole source suppliers, he said, was a mistake.
Gen.
Michael Brogan, who heads the Marine Corp. Systems Command, disagreed,
saying using a sole source supplier with a product like the Cougar
was not a mistake. Force Protection, Inc—which had
invented a better mousetrap—was unfortunately still a pint-sized
Mickey Mouse in gallon-sized Mighty Mouse military contractor world. In
February, Force Protection won a contract to supply the
military with 125 Cougars by the end of June. They weren't
ready until the first week of July. Force Protection, now
headed by Gordon McGilton, was forced to form an alliance with
General Dynamics to keep their military business because
General Dynamics had the capability of delivering the volume
the government needed.
The
defense department—and the Congressmen and Senators who oversee them—have
decided that the military simply can't rely on sole-source contractors,
pointing out that Force Protection was late on most of their
deliveries (even though the inspector general admitted their MRAPs delivered
as promised. Contracts to build clones of Force Protection's
MRAP have been awarded to International Military, Armor
Holdings, BAE Systems (which is also building MRAPs
for the Iraqi government), General Dynamics, Oshkosh
Trucks and Protected Vehicles. Oshkosh
partnered with military contractor Ceradyne (that produces
ceramic body armor for ground troops).
Force Protection, which has over $1.3 billion in contracts with the military, has them not because they are the best product (even though they are the only battlefield tested product), but because when the military needed an "off-the-shelf-product," Force Protection, Inc. had the only one—and the government bought it. Today, seven defense contractors share the MRAP pie. For Congressmen and Senators for which negotiating who gets what inside the beltway, seven campaign contributors are better than one.
Helen Chenoweth-Hage dies in car crash
Oct. 3, 2006—Just
received this from a close friend on Capitol Hill . Not too many years
ago Dr. Paul Teller, Deputy Director of the Republican Study Group
in the House of Representatives worked for me at the Washington Times.
In his work there he became very close to Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth
Hage working closely on her re-election efforts in 1996 and 1998.
Paul
even had the opportunity to visit with her family in Idaho a few months
before jumping ship and gong to work on the Hill. Chenoweth-Hage
was elected during the Republican Revolution of 1994 when the GOP took
over Congress.
Paul's
email this morning began: "This is a devastating loss..."
He then posted the Associated Press release "CARSON CITY, Nev.
(AP) -- Former U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage, who held "endangered
salmon bakes" and once accused federal agents of using black helicopter
gunships, died Monday in a car crash, her daughter said. She was 68. 
"Chenoweth-Hage,
whose arch-conservative, often libertarian and sometimes extreme views
made her popular with militia movements, was the passenger in a one-car
crash near Tonopah, Nev., 172 miles northwest of Las Vegas, said her daughter
Meg Chenoweth Keenan. No one else was seriously hurt, she said.
[Chenoweth-Hage] ran for Congress in 1994 against Idaho incumbent
Democrat Larry LaRocco and gained national attention when she held
"endangered salmon bakes," serving canned salmon and ridiculing the listing
of Idaho salmon as an endangered species during fundraisers.
"An advocate of smaller government and property rights, Chenoweth-Hage won the race and served a self-imposed three-term limit as a U.S. representative. Chenoweth-Hage called for the disarming of federal resource agents in 1995 after claiming that they had landed black helicopters on private land in eastern Idaho to enforce the Endangered Species Act. The claim drew national criticism, and she later conceded she had never personally seen the now-infamous gunships."
America has lost a grand lady. Helen Chenoweth-Hage will be sadly missed by those of us who respect the Constitution of the United States and the rule of law—and limited government.
Over 200 illegals using one housewife's social security number
June 22, 2006—Audra Schmierer realized someone else was using her Social Security number in February, 2005 when she got a notice from the Internal Revenue Service demanding payment of $15,813.00 in back income taxes. Schmierer is an housewife in Dublin, California who has not worked since the birth of her son in 2000. The taxes were due from a job in Texas—somewhere Schmierer has never lived, and from an employer for whom she's never worked.
Schmierer was shocked to learn from the IRS when they checked that dozens of people were using her Social Security number—200 of them to be exact. In 17 States. The federal government knew a lot of different people were using Schmierer's Social Security for quite some time. They' knew because the IRS computers spit out the duplicate use of Social Security numbers whenever they happen—as soon as they happen. When duplicates occur, the Internal Revenue Service assumes its not fraud, and sends letters to the employers notifying them of an error in the use of the offending number. Other than fining the business owner $50 for each inaccurate number submitted, there isn't much the IRS can do. While it is a crime to use someone else's Social Security number, it is not the job of the IRS to track down purveyors of false ID. It's the job of the FBI—but its also one of those authority "gray areas" since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. If ID counterfeiters create bogus identification for illegal aliens, the crime falls under the purview of Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] so usually raids on bogus ID mills are joint FBI and ICE operations.
Schmierer was told by the IRS that over 81 people were currently earning incomes on her Social Security number. When she started digging, Schmierer obtained over 200 W-2s and 1099 tax forms that contained her Social Security number but different names. The IRS assured her that the erroneous tax bills would be wiped out. But, they warned her, the problem was going to continue as long as illegal aliens were able to buy bogus ID containing her Social Security number since Social Security numbers aren't like credit card numbers where you simply cancel the card and issue a new number.
Laborers from Florida to Washington State were using her Social Security number to secure employment in construction, high tech companies and fast food restaurants. Some of those using it were men. Some were women. Information gleaned from FBI investigations of many of them determined that the majority of the users of Schmierer's Social Security number were illegal immigrants. Illegals purchase phony identification from underground ID mills that can be found in every urban center in the country. The going rate for a bogus Social Security card, green card or driver's license is $80 to $125. If the "customer" is Muslim the price could be higher since the quality of the workmanship will have to be much better. Most counterfeiters can turn out an ID package consisting of all three documents within 30 minutes to three hours for the typical Mexican "customer."
Some of the documents are good enough to fool a cop checking a pedestrian's ID, but most of them aren't good enough to fool a computer if the ID is run for warrants. Unfortunately, most of the employers who hire illegals aren't concerned about whether or not their identification is genuine—or even if its poor quality. They simply want to cover their butts in case an ICE agents asks to check the I-9 completed by the job applicant to make sure they possessed a green card, a Social Security card and a drivers' license when they applied for their job.
Around 6 a.m. on Tuesday, June 20 FBI and ICE agents raided a two-bedroom apartment on 16th St. NW in Washington, DC. They woke the eight Hispanic men who were sleeping there and arrested them. Taken into custody were Eladio Espinoza-Cuevas, 50; Andrews Angel Vasquez-Soriano, 41; Alberto Martin Vasquez-Soriano, 40; Luis Vasquez, 33; Julio Cesar Pacheco-Vasquez, 24; Cesar Cuevas-Mendez, 24; Luis Angel Mendez-Hernandez, 21; and Juan Antonio Pacheco-Vasquez, 20. Luis Vasquez faces federal charges for immigration fraud. The others face similar charges, but will likely be deported instead of charged.
Agents found more than 100 fake documents in the apartment. The feds also found electronic devises used to counterfeit the documents they sold. Also found was about $14 thousand in cash. The ring that was broken is thought to be part of an international ID ring run by the Castorena-Ibarra family—whose leader was just arrested in Mexico.
ICE agents said the ring distributes their bogus IDs throughout the country, They have ties with groups in Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago. These group has been under surveillance by ICE since shortly after 9-11. The task force has already arrested 195 people. All of them except one were illegal aliens. Most of them were Mexican although Hispanics from other Central American countries were also arrested. Over 10 thousand counterfeit documents with a street value of more than a million dollars were seized. The federal government prosecuted 60 illegals thus far. Some were charged with aggravated identity theft—which carries a minimum of 2 years in prison; others were charged with counterfeiting fraudulent immigration documents which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and a fine of $250 thousand.
There is little satisfaction for people like Audra Schmierer who have had their Social Security numbers stolen and can expect, every two to three years, to receive a letter from the IRS dunning them for unpaid taxes and penalties or threatening them with jail for not filing a 1040 on income earned in Texas, California, or somewhere else she's never been.
Greenspan warns of bubble on "exotic" mortgages
June 21,
2005—Everyone's buying a new home. Home ownership in America
is skyrocketing—so are the unsustainable prices not only of new homes
but existing homes whose appraised values have likewise skyrocketed because
of the tremendous increase in home building both east and west of the
Mississippi . 
What disturbs Greenspan most is the explosion of interest-only home loans (for the first year or two that help home buyers qualify for homes they could not otherwise afford—and should not be buying) and what the chairman describes as "exotic" adjustable-rate mortgages over the last 12 months to bolster the housing market when it began to sag. Further, unscrupulous mortgage brokers who earn an income only when they sell a mortgage, are persuading cash-strapped home owners who "overbought" five or ten years ago to refinance with an adjustable rate or modified rate debt-consolidation mortgage to reduce their monthly outlay. Mortgage brokers earn the sale by showing the home owner repayment schedules that include all of the debts to be consolidated in the new adjustable rate mortgage verses the new mortgage payment minus all other debt. Cash-strapped home owners think they just discovered the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It looks good on paper, but people who abuse credit cards will suddenly find, with all their credit cards paid off, they have a lot of available credit to abuse all over again.
To
encourage them to sign, they remind them that if they decide to wait,
within three to five years—when they can afford the home they
are considering—with rising prices, they won't be able to
buy that home since it will likely double in value by then.
If the mortgage broker finds the unsuspecting buyers a mortgage that offers both a variable interest rate and a modified principle clause, the home buyers are setting themselves up for a foreclosure sale before they ever move into their new home. As long as interest rates remain extremely low, the home buyer will be relatively safe. However, if interest rates rise substantially about the same time the exemption from paying any of the principle expires, the homeowner is going to have a mortgage payment 30% to 50% higher than it was when the home was purchased. On a $400 thousand to $600 thousand home, a principle-free, adjustable rate mortgage might start as low as $2,500 a month—and unexpectedly mushroom to $3,500 to $4,000 or more a month with no warning. Mortgage brokers aren't concerned whether or not you can afford the payments on your new home once the papers are signed. They get paid for originating the loan.
"To
be sure," Greenspan admitted, "these financing
vehicles have their appropriate uses. But to the extent that some households
may be employing these instruments to purchase a home that would otherwise
be unaffordable, their use is beginning to add to the pressure in the
marketplace." Greenspan noted that the bubble in some
of the nation's hottest real estate markets is due to the drop in interest
rates and the exotic mortgage packages being offered to people who probably
cannot afford the homes they are buying. 
But
even more troubling to Greenspan is reversal pricing. During a
housing boom, home prices spiral upward because of the demand. Real estate
brokers know, in many markets, the homeowner's asking price is the place
where prospective purchasers begin bidding for the home. But as Greenspan
noted, when the bubble bursts—and they always do—reverse pricing
results when reality sinks in and demand establishes the new value of
the home.
Just as reality caused the i-tech bubble to burst when the overpriced internet stocks collapsed and retirement accounts vanished overnight, reverse pricing will topple the inflated values of a ton of million dollar homes. All that will be left of the unrealistic value of the homes will be the tax assessments. When home sales die in any market, foreclosure rates increase proportionately—and Fanny Mae, Freddie Mac, or HUD take the financial hit since they guaranteed the loans to the mortgage banks that extended the credit. But ultimately it is the taxpayers who discover they are paying for million dollar public housing units that no one except the welfare crowd can afford.
Greenspan noted that "...although we can't rule out home-price declines, especially in some local markets, these declines, were they to occur, likely would not have substantial macro-economic implications." That will be of little a comfort to the middle-income couples who buy a new $750 thousand home, live in it for a year or two, get transferred, and discover when realtors try to sell their beautiful albatross that—in that particular post-bubble "local" real estate market—$750 thousand dollar homes are now selling for $450 thousand.
By the way, does it seem strange to you that Greenspan noted the residential building boom is international? It doesn't seem strange to me. He also suggested that he is clueless why this international building boom is taking place. Perhaps we should tell him. The residential home building boom, fed by billions of dollars from the world's richest industrialists who have an interest in making it appear that the world economy—and in particular the economies of the industrial nations that are losing roughly 30% of all of their jobs to the emerging nations—is healthy when it's not. The building boom in the emerging nations—where affordable shelter is desperately needed—is a visible sign to the people in the developing nations that prosperity has finally found them. In reality, all that is really happening is that the wealthy industrialists and bankers are simply investing in the human capital whose sweat equity will turn the wheels of commerce for the New World Order as world government replaces the nation-states during this, or the next, decade.
The Downing Street Memo
Note: you are seeing this memo unedited, in its entirety. This is the memo that Sen. John Kerry said proved Bush knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Once the actual memo made its way onto the Internet for the whole world to see, excerpts from six other memos, written by antiwar members of Parliament that contained only the nonsupported views of the writer that everyone knew there were no WMD in Iraq. These notes—which had absolutely nothing to do with the Tony Blair meeting memo—were also referred to by the antiwar communists in Europe collectively as "the Downing Street Memos" (in the hope that people reading them would link them to the actual Downing Street Memo) since in those memos, various anti-Blair members of Parliament, from 2002 to 2005, said they knew there were no WMD in Iraq
Subj: Downing Street Memo
Date: Friday, June 17, 2005 6:10:30 AM May 01, 2005
The secret Downing Street memo SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL - UK EYES ONLY
DAVID MANNING
From: Matthew Rycroft
Date: 23 July 2002 S 195 /02
cc: Defence Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Attorney-General, Sir Richard Wilson, John Scarlett, Francis Richards, CDS, C, Jonathan Powell, Sally Morgan, Alastair Campbell IRAQ: PRIME MINISTER'S MEETING, 23 JULY Copy addressees and you met the Prime Minister on 23 July to discuss Iraq. This record is extremely sensitive. No further copies should be made. It should be shown only to those with a genuine need to know its contents.
John Scarlett summarised the intelligence and latest JIC assessment. Saddam's regime was tough and based on extreme fear. The only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action. Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming. His regime expected their neighbours to line up with the US. Saddam knew that regular army morale was poor. Real support for Saddam among the public was probably narrowly based.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
CDs said that military planners would brief CENTCOM on 1-2 August, Rumsfeld on 3 August and Bush on 4 August. The two broad US options were:
(a) Generated Start. A slow build-up of 250,000 US troops, a short (72 hour) air campaign, then a move up to Baghdad from the south. Lead time of 90 days (30 days preparation plus 60 days deployment to Kuwait).
(b) Running Start. Use forces already in theatre (3 x 6,000), continuous air campaign, initiated by an Iraqi casus belli. Total lead time of 60 days with the air campaign beginning even earlier. A hazardous option. The US saw the UK (and Kuwait) as essential, with basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus critical for either option. Turkey and other Gulf states were also important, but less vital. The three main options for UK involvement were:
(i) Basing in Diego Garcia and Cyprus, plus three SF squadrons.
(ii) As above, with maritime and air assets in addition.
(iii) As above, plus a land contribution of up to 40,000, perhaps with a discrete role in Northern Iraq entering from Turkey, tying down two Iraqi divisions.
The Defence Secretary said that the US had already begun "spikes of activity" to put pressure on the regime. No decisions had been taken, but he thought the most likely timing in US minds for military action to begin was January, with the timeline beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections.
The Foreign Secretary said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran. We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would also help with the legal justification for the use of force.
The Attorney-General said that the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action. There were three possible legal bases: self-defence, humanitarian intervention, or UNSC authorisation. The first and second could not be the base in this case. Relying on UNSCR 1205 of three years ago would be difficult. The situation might of course change.
The Prime Minister said that it would make a big difference politically and legally if Saddam refused to allow in the UN inspectors. Regime change and WMD were linked in the sense that it was the regime that was producing the WMD. There were different strategies for dealing with Libya and Iran. If the political context were right, people would support regime change. The two key issues were whether the military plan worked and whether we had the political strategy to give the military plan the space to work.
On the first, CDs said that we did not know yet if the US battleplan was workable. The military were continuing to ask lots of questions.
For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.
The Foreign Secretary thought the US would not go ahead with a military plan unless convinced that it was a winning strategy. On this, US and UK interests converged. But on the political strategy, there could be US/UK differences. Despite US resistance, we should explore discreetly the ultimatum. Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN.
John Scarlett assessed that Saddam would allow the inspectors back in only when he thought the threat of military action was real. The Defence Secretary said that if the Prime Minister wanted UK military involvement, he would need to decide this early. He cautioned that many in the US did not think it worth going down the ultimatum route. It would be important for the Prime Minister to set out the political context to Bush.
Conclusions:
(a) We should work on the assumption that the UK would take part in any military action. But we needed a fuller picture of US planning before we could take any firm decisions. CDs should tell the US military that we were considering a range of options.
(b) The Prime Minister would revert on the question of whether funds could be spent in preparation for this operation.
(c) CDs would send the Prime Minister full details of the proposed military campaign and possible UK contributions by the end of the week.
(d) The Foreign Secretary would send the Prime Minister the background on the UN inspectors, and discreetly work up the ultimatum to Saddam. He would also send the Prime Minister advice on the positions of countries in the region especially Turkey, and of the key EU member states.
(e) John Scarlett would send the Prime Minister a full intelligence update.
(f) We must not ignore the legal issues: the Attorney-General would consider legal advice with FCO/MOD legal advisers.
(I have written separately to commission this follow-up work.)
MATTHEW RYCROFT (Rycroft was a Downing Street foreign policy aide)
