In a political primary contest, it's the number of delegates that determines the winner; that often corresponds to the popular vote, but not always. Our Uncle, the Tired Old Media, declared Hillary Clinton the winner in Nevada in the Democratic race. Here is the number of delegates won by each of the top two candidates in that race: Obama---13; Clinton---12. Hello, TOM, Hillary lost.
On top of that, did you notice the amount of coverage given to the second place winner in the Republican race in Nevada? Was there any coverage? The marginalizing of Ron Paul continues. In every other race thus far, the second place (and often the third place) winner either has been interviewed or, at least, discussed by the pundits. There hardly was any mention of even Paul's name.
The Corporate Media are busy molding public opinion, convincing people that at this early stage in the Presidential race certain candidates simply are not viable. Keep in mind that some time ago TOM essentially had written off John McCain as being out of the running. Now the Media are busy promoting certain candidates, while at the same time declaring that the Dem and Repub races are "wide open".
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
The Corporatocracy at Work in NH?
7-6-14: NOTE--- Today I eliminated the broken links in this post...couldn't fix them. The ones below should work.
There appear to be serious problems with the primary election in New Hampshire.
We all should give serious consideration to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs
Finally...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_len_hart_080112_princeton_university.htm
All of the above may not prove anything definitively, but do raise questions. Are elections being stolen? Is using the hackable, easily corrupted Diebold voting machine or optical scanner a wise idea?
There appear to be serious problems with the primary election in New Hampshire.
We all should give serious consideration to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiiaBqwqkXs
Finally...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_len_hart_080112_princeton_university.htm
All of the above may not prove anything definitively, but do raise questions. Are elections being stolen? Is using the hackable, easily corrupted Diebold voting machine or optical scanner a wise idea?
Friday, January 11, 2008
The Lodi Case: Overly Zealous, Unprofessional FBI
NOTE: Today, 6-21-14, I fixed the broken link below; it should work now.
I urge people to watch at least Parts 5, 6, & 7 of this revealing piece (each segment is less than 10 minutes long). Actual interrogation tapes of the suspects are shown, demonstrating the desperation of the FBI to make a case after having paid an informant about $250,000 dollars.
These are examples of how NOT to conduct an interrogation. I say that because I personally knew Professor Fred Inbau, the man most responsible for developing techniques for modern criminal interrogations...and because the ex-FBI consultant in the piece confirms my belief.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywithin
This is pretty scary---it demonstrates with painful clarity what can happen when the Fed Govt thinks you're guilty, and you don't exercise your right to an attorney before questioning. As the ex-FBI consultant stated, "It's shameful.".
I urge people to watch at least Parts 5, 6, & 7 of this revealing piece (each segment is less than 10 minutes long). Actual interrogation tapes of the suspects are shown, demonstrating the desperation of the FBI to make a case after having paid an informant about $250,000 dollars.
These are examples of how NOT to conduct an interrogation. I say that because I personally knew Professor Fred Inbau, the man most responsible for developing techniques for modern criminal interrogations...and because the ex-FBI consultant in the piece confirms my belief.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/enemywithin
This is pretty scary---it demonstrates with painful clarity what can happen when the Fed Govt thinks you're guilty, and you don't exercise your right to an attorney before questioning. As the ex-FBI consultant stated, "It's shameful.".
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Gun Control and the Statist Mind
Rather than infringe on law-abiding peoples' rights, the Government should severely punish those who initiate force. But then, that makes too much sense.
The Statist mind believes that it is much better to try and eliminate all possible danger, no matter what the cost to law-abiding folks. The Nanny Syndrome involves a belief that the safety and nourishment of "society" trumps any individual right that gets in the way of that lofty goal. Unalienable individual rights?...forget them if they get in the way. The Constitution?...forget it if it gets in the way. Common law precedence [which was: an individual basically is free to do anything as long as that action does not infringe on the rights or property of others]?...forget it. The "good of society" is the greatest good. Some of us think not; we believe that freedom of the individual is the greatest good---as long as that individual does not initiate force or fraud. [If the person does initiate force or fraud, then legally punish that individual severely; don't take away the rights of law-abiding people.]
Statist thinking is that government must "take care of" people, because the world is dangerous and (most of all) unfair. The cost of trying to make the world "fair" is staggering---loss of individuality, loss of freedom, and loss of income on an unprecedented scale. Government not only taxes us to an unnecessary degree, but often charges an additional fee for its "services".
Society is not an organism...it has no rights; it is made up of individuals who have unalienable rights that have nothing whatsoever to do with any government anywhere. Unalienable rights are not the same as "civil rights"; the latter are granted by statute.
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/14thamend.php
Even requirements for gun permits are infringements on the unalienable right to self-defense possessed by law-abiding people. Furthermore, the permit requirement often is economically discriminatory; a permit in some places can cost as much as $150.
A great myth surrounding gun control has spread in this country: that a lack of gun control increases crime. Not true at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyoLuTjguJA
The Supreme Court decision on this issue should prove interesting; it is due sometime between April and July.
The Statist mind believes that it is much better to try and eliminate all possible danger, no matter what the cost to law-abiding folks. The Nanny Syndrome involves a belief that the safety and nourishment of "society" trumps any individual right that gets in the way of that lofty goal. Unalienable individual rights?...forget them if they get in the way. The Constitution?...forget it if it gets in the way. Common law precedence [which was: an individual basically is free to do anything as long as that action does not infringe on the rights or property of others]?...forget it. The "good of society" is the greatest good. Some of us think not; we believe that freedom of the individual is the greatest good---as long as that individual does not initiate force or fraud. [If the person does initiate force or fraud, then legally punish that individual severely; don't take away the rights of law-abiding people.]
Statist thinking is that government must "take care of" people, because the world is dangerous and (most of all) unfair. The cost of trying to make the world "fair" is staggering---loss of individuality, loss of freedom, and loss of income on an unprecedented scale. Government not only taxes us to an unnecessary degree, but often charges an additional fee for its "services".
Society is not an organism...it has no rights; it is made up of individuals who have unalienable rights that have nothing whatsoever to do with any government anywhere. Unalienable rights are not the same as "civil rights"; the latter are granted by statute.
http://www.originalintent.org/edu/14thamend.php
Even requirements for gun permits are infringements on the unalienable right to self-defense possessed by law-abiding people. Furthermore, the permit requirement often is economically discriminatory; a permit in some places can cost as much as $150.
A great myth surrounding gun control has spread in this country: that a lack of gun control increases crime. Not true at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyoLuTjguJA
The Supreme Court decision on this issue should prove interesting; it is due sometime between April and July.
Monday, December 24, 2007
The Shadow Government: A Bit of History
This is from Professor Carroll Quigley, the late and renowned macro-historian, who was Bill Clinton's mentor at Georgetown University---and was written about 45 years ago. Excerpts from his book, Tragedy and Hope (1966):
[All emphasis added.]
"There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Group has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so...
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments...
"[A] front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group...
"On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy...
"In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland...
"The American branch of this 'English Establishment' exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript )...
" They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies...
"It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the frame-work of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's...
"It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers...
"Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chamber, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations...
The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the 'most respected' newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions..."
[My point here is to illustrate that those who founded the "Shadow Government" were beyond political party affiliations, right v. left, and all that propaganda. I believe that is still true today...and today, the Shadow Government is greatly expanded and includes many multi-national corps, not just those in banking, oil, and newspapers.]
[All emphasis added.]
"There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international Anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Group has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups, and frequently does so...
"I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960's, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments...
"[A] front organization, called the Royal Institute of International Affairs, had as its nucleus in each area the existing submerged Round Table Group. In New York it was known as the Council on Foreign Relations and was a front for J.P. Morgan and Company in association with the very small American Round Table Group...
"On this basis, which was originally financial and goes back to George Peabody, there grew up in the twentieth century a power structure between London and New York which penetrated deeply into university life, the press, and the practice of foreign policy...
"In England the center was the Round Table Group, while in the United States it was J.P. Morgan and Company or its local branches in Boston, Philadelphia, and Cleveland...
"The American branch of this 'English Establishment' exerted much of its influence through five American newspapers (The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune, Christian Science Monitor, the Washington Post, and the lamented Boston Evening Transcript )...
" They were gracious and cultured gentlemen of somewhat limited social experience who were much concerned with the freedom of expression of minorities and the rule of law for all, who constantly thought in terms of Anglo-American solidarity, of political partition and federation, and who were convinced that they could gracefully civilize the Boers of South Africa, the Irish, the Arabs, and the Hindus, and who are largely responsible for the partitions of Ireland, Palestine, and India, as well as the federations of South Africa, Central Africa, and the West Indies...
"It was this group of people, whose wealth and influence so exceeded their experience and understanding, who provided much of the frame-work of influence which the Communist sympathizers and fellow travelers took over in the United States in the 1930's...
"It must be recognized that the power that these energetic Left-wingers exercised was never their own power or Communist power but was ultimately the power of the international financial coterie, and, once the anger and suspicions of the American people were aroused, as they were by 1950, it was a fairly simple matter to get rid of the Red sympathizers...
"Before this could be done, however, a congressional committee, following backward to their source the threads which led from admitted Communists like Whittaker Chamber, through Alger Hiss, and the Carnegie Endowment to Thomas Lamont and the Morgan Bank, fell into the whole complicated network of the interlocking tax-exempt foundations...
The Eighty-third Congress in July 1953 set up a Special Committee to investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations with Representative B. Carroll Reece of Tennessee, as chairman. It soon became clear that people of immense wealth would be unhappy if the investigation went too far and that the 'most respected' newspapers in the country, closely allied with these men of wealth, would not get excited enough about any revelations to make the publicity worth while, in terms of votes or campaign contributions..."
[My point here is to illustrate that those who founded the "Shadow Government" were beyond political party affiliations, right v. left, and all that propaganda. I believe that is still true today...and today, the Shadow Government is greatly expanded and includes many multi-national corps, not just those in banking, oil, and newspapers.]
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Money and Shifting Economic Theory
"The 'Great Inflation' of the 1970's challenged and permanently altered economic theory. It vindicated the once-controversial analysis of Milton Friedman, then at the University of Chicago...
"In a 1970 lecture, 'The Counterrevolution in Monetary Theory', Mr. Friedman outlined 11 propositions about how monetary policy affects the economy. All were wildly controversial, almost disreputable, at the time. Most are accepted today...
"Today, most macroeconomists also accept Mr. Friedman's most famous proposition -- that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon. Contrary to what I learned in macroeconomics class, 'cost push' inflation was a myth. Pay and price increases did not drive inflation; they reflected it. Americans wanted higher nominal wages and prices to keep up as the real value of each dollar declined.
To combat cost-push inflation, the Nixon administration imposed wage and price controls in 1971. Various controls, notably on energy prices, lingered throughout the 1970's. But inflation did not go away, because all these policies treated the symptom, not the cause." [Emphasis added]
From: http://www.vpostrel.com/articles-speeches/nyt/friedman.html
(A New York Times article)
AND...
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." [Emphasis added]- Prof. Carroll Quigley, renowned, late Georgetown macro-historian (mentioned by former President Clinton in his first nomination acceptance speech), author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966).
AND...
"Although much of his trail-blazing work was done on price theory—the theory that explains how prices are determined in individual markets—Friedman is popularly recognized for monetarism. Defying Keynes and most of the academic establishment of the time, Friedman presented evidence to resurrect the quantity theory of money—the idea that the price level is dependent upon the money supply. In 'Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money', published in 1956, Friedman stated that in the long run, increased monetary growth increases prices but has little or no effect on output." [Emphasis added]
From: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Friedman.html
"In a 1970 lecture, 'The Counterrevolution in Monetary Theory', Mr. Friedman outlined 11 propositions about how monetary policy affects the economy. All were wildly controversial, almost disreputable, at the time. Most are accepted today...
"Today, most macroeconomists also accept Mr. Friedman's most famous proposition -- that inflation is always a monetary phenomenon. Contrary to what I learned in macroeconomics class, 'cost push' inflation was a myth. Pay and price increases did not drive inflation; they reflected it. Americans wanted higher nominal wages and prices to keep up as the real value of each dollar declined.
To combat cost-push inflation, the Nixon administration imposed wage and price controls in 1971. Various controls, notably on energy prices, lingered throughout the 1970's. But inflation did not go away, because all these policies treated the symptom, not the cause." [Emphasis added]
From: http://www.vpostrel.com/articles-speeches/nyt/friedman.html
(A New York Times article)
AND...
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..." [Emphasis added]- Prof. Carroll Quigley, renowned, late Georgetown macro-historian (mentioned by former President Clinton in his first nomination acceptance speech), author of Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (1966).
AND...
"Although much of his trail-blazing work was done on price theory—the theory that explains how prices are determined in individual markets—Friedman is popularly recognized for monetarism. Defying Keynes and most of the academic establishment of the time, Friedman presented evidence to resurrect the quantity theory of money—the idea that the price level is dependent upon the money supply. In 'Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money', published in 1956, Friedman stated that in the long run, increased monetary growth increases prices but has little or no effect on output." [Emphasis added]
From: http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/bios/Friedman.html
Friday, December 7, 2007
"War Becomes Perpetual...
when it is used as a rationale for peace." ~ Norman Solomon, from the film at the link below.
This is excellent on propaganda in America. From LBJ to GWB, it details how "officials in Washington" and the media have sold wars to the public via distortions, omissions, and/or outright lies.
To my Conservative friends, yes, it leans Left (and is narrated by Sean Penn); but I'm not part of the Left, and I found great value in it. If nothing else, the Nixon tape on the nuclear option is worth the watch...and why Phil Donahue's show was cancelled...and several other interesting bits.
To those who really don't have time for these hour-plus documentaries, please try and watch at least the first 19 minutes. I don't think that you'll regret it. Can't do 19 minutes? OK...do 15 minutes, or 10.
http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/war_made_easy.php
This is excellent on propaganda in America. From LBJ to GWB, it details how "officials in Washington" and the media have sold wars to the public via distortions, omissions, and/or outright lies.
To my Conservative friends, yes, it leans Left (and is narrated by Sean Penn); but I'm not part of the Left, and I found great value in it. If nothing else, the Nixon tape on the nuclear option is worth the watch...and why Phil Donahue's show was cancelled...and several other interesting bits.
To those who really don't have time for these hour-plus documentaries, please try and watch at least the first 19 minutes. I don't think that you'll regret it. Can't do 19 minutes? OK...do 15 minutes, or 10.
http://www.moviesfoundonline.com/war_made_easy.php
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