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Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

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    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Gary Edwards

Professor Hoppe's new book: "The Competition of Crooks") | The God That Failed - 0 views

  • And perhaps then, finally, will come the realization that democracy – in whose name all these dirty tricks have been done – is nothing more than an especially insidious form of communism, and that the politicians who have wrought this immoral and economic madness and who have thereby enriched themselves personally (never, of course, being liable for the damages they have caused!), are nothing more than a despicable bunch of communist crooks.
  • democracy which is causally responsible for the fatal conditions afflicting us now
  • The number of productive people is constantly decreasing, and the number of people parasitically consuming the income and wealth of this dwindling number of productive people is increasing steadily. This can’t work in the long run.
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  • That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation.
  • And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic ‘miracles’ would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism.
  • the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.:
  • In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation – that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government “welfare assistance”, subsidies and monopolistic privileges.
  • book’s thesis is that the government is a monopolist of ultimate justice and law enforcement and that every monopoly is always bad from the perspective of the consumer – in this case the citizen. Your alternative solution is a private law society.
  • The basic idea is quite simple. Abolish monopoly and encourage competition.
  • I can only go to a state court of law, staffed by judges who themselves are paid from taxes to enforce government regulations.
  • In this way, government-staged robbery, assault, manslaughter, murder, war is “legally” sanctioned.
  • In a private law society, if we had such a conflict, we would instead approach arbitrators who are independent of both parties, and who are competing with other arbitrators for voluntarily paying customers.
  • We would not use an inherently biased judge working for and paid directly by the state, who is therefore partisan, but rather a neutral third party, to adjudicate the normal human legal conflicts arising between existing and recognized property rights and private contract law.
  • the mediation market.
  • My income from my work is my property (not the state’s) and the restaurant is my property (not the state’s).
  • Therefore, any government-imposed tax upon me or use restrictions upon my property (such as a smoking ban) would therefore be judged unlawful, as robbery and expropriation.
  • the state is nothing but a “great band of robbers,” a mafia, only a much larger, more overwhelming and dangerous one.
  • the subject of class consciousness
  • “there’s absolutely no reason in any case why the state should have anything at all to do with the production of money.”
  • And every newly printed bill causes a redistribution of social wealth.
  • More paper money doesn’t make a society richer overall. It’s just more paper. But every new piece of printed paper reduces the purchasing power of all the other previously-existing paper bills
  • these machinations, taking place every day on an almost unimaginable scale, are nothing more than a gigantic case of fraudulent theft.
  • in a competitive environment, a better kind of money would be produced. Why? Because there’ll always be a demand for means of exchange.
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    Interview with Hoppe where he once again pushes libertarian thinking forward.  Hoppe puts most of the blame on "democracy" itself, caling it "an insidious form of communism".  Good stuff.  Highlighted parts. excerpt: "That the whole democratic house of cards has not yet completely collapsed speaks volumes about the still tremendous creative power of capitalism, even in the face of ever-increasing governmental strangulation. And this fact also allows us to conjecture about what economic 'miracles' would be possible if we had unimpeded capitalism liberated from such parasitism. If, and when, this insight finally bears fruit will depend upon the class consciousness of the population. There is a Marxist myth, eagerly promoted by the state, of an irreconcilable clash of interests between employers (capitalists) and employees (workers), or between the rich and the poor. As long as this myth prevails in public opinion, nothing at all will change and disaster is inevitable. A fundamental change can only occur if, instead of this, the correct realization becomes generally accepted that the only antagonistic conflict of interest in society is the one between tax-payers, i.e. the exploited, and tax-consumers, i.e. the exploiters.: In other words, between the class of people on the one hand who earn their income and assets by producing something that is bought voluntarily and valued accordingly by others; and the class of those on the other hand who produce nothing considered to be of value, but who live instead by living off and enriching themselves from the incomes and assets of other, productive people, forcibly taken via taxation - that is to say all government employees and all recipients of government "welfare assistance", subsidies and monopolistic privileges. Only when the producer class clearly recognises this, and publicly speaks out; when the producers are finally confident to take the moral high ground and reject the insolent admonitions from the po
Gary Edwards

Doug Hagmann: The Embassy Threat, Proxy War - America Conservative 2 Conservative - 0 views

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    The real story behind Benghazi, Syria and WWIII. excerpt: "Benghazi exposed .... It was shortly after the September 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi that I wrote in explicit detail the actual reason for that attack. Thanks to a highly placed source in the intelligence venue, readers learned the truth ten months before the corporate media finally acknowledged that the compound in Benghazi was the operations center for a large CIA weapons smugglin... where Libya was being used as a weaponsstorage depot to arm the anti-Assad "rebels." The attack at Benghazi was described by this administration and the Clinton State Department as a spontaneous protest over an internet video, although that narrative was proven to be a lie. It was a lie they continued to stick with to hide the fact that the U.S., in conjunction with other NATO allies, were actually doing the work of Saudi Arabia. But why - who benefits? To understand the answer to that question, we must look at what Saudi Arabia is and how the Saudi royals came to power. Much like the U.S., the nation of Saudi Arabia itself is a captured operation, established by a cabal of globalists for the sake of oil. It would be helpful to understand the role Aramco and other oil interests played in the establishment of the Saudi power structure. As the Obama regime continued forward to advance this Saudi-globalist agenda, Russia's Putin warned the U.S. that the insanity of destabilizing Syria was not in their best interests, and certainly not in ours. When the warnings were not heeded, proxy groups for Russia, Syria and Iran, in the form of Ansar al Sharia and AQIM launched a deadly assault on the CIA operations center in Benghazi. The continued pressure of possibly exposing the true nature of the activities in Benghazi, from the illegal arms trafficking in violation of international law to the attack itself, became a serious annoyance to the globalist planners and the Obama subjects to the Saudi royals. The assistanc
Gary Edwards

I Am a Peaceful AR-15 Assault Rifle Owner | Casey Research - 0 views

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    ""Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence … from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurances and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable … the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." George Washington I can't think of any reason I need to own my AR-15 assault[1] rifle. I don't pretend to need it for self defense. I also own several handguns. Any one of my handguns would be adequate to allow me an opportunity to defend myself, or another person, from virtually any act of aggression by another individual. Indeed, I could have easily halted any of the recent gun based rampages, by any of those deranged lunatics, with just one of my handguns. I wish I had been there. I have needlessly and peacefully owned my AR-15 for many years. I keep my AR-15 securely locked in a gun safe in the very same home where my young children live. My children are aware of my AR-15. Like many other things in life, I have taught my children about guns. Recently, some of my kids attended a private gun safety class given by a highly experienced gun expert. I enjoyed watching my kids learn about my AR-15. I admit being a bit nostalgic about my AR-15. I spent lots of time learning about every aspect of the AR-15 when I was in Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. I also carried an AR-15 when I served my country in Operation Desert Storm in Saudi Arabia. I had it with me when I lived in a dirt hole on the border of Kuwait. It is the weapon I know better than any other. I own lots of dangerous things I don't need. I don't need my highly modified 600+ hp Z06 Corvette, or my Harley Davidson motorcycle, or that crazy looking knife I sometimes jokingly say was imported directly from the Klingon Empire.[2] Al
Gary Edwards

American Thinker: Obama Is a Stranger in a Strange Land - 1 views

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    The ultimate Stranger in a Strange Land is, of course, Obama. It's no wonder; given his bizarro family, there was no one with whom to bond. Pitifully, the focal point in Obama's life story -- the brave, oppressed Obama Sr. -- is a chimera, all smoke-and-mirrors.  Obama has surrounded himself with other Strangers. His friends are society's misfits: Van Jones, the self-proclaimed Communist; John Holdren, enthralled with devolution and eugenics. Chicago pals Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn tried to destroy their own nation with terrorism.  Obama has been called a Citizen of the World.  While liberals find this appealing, what it actually means is that Obama has come from nowhere and belongs nowhere.   Someone with no country or roots has nothing. Bob Dylan described the predicament and the danger: "When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose."  
Gary Edwards

Porter Stansberry: Get ready... The worst is yet to come - 0 views

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    Porter discusses inflation and the disastrous impact the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel is having on the wealth of Americans.  An interesting chart he provides is the one pricing the Stock Market in GOLD.  Everything should be priced and evaluated in terms of GOLD instead of Federal Reserve paper.  The world would be a better place. there are only two repubican presidential candidates calling for an end of the Bankster Cartel; Ron Paul and Rick Perry.  The rest are with Obama, deep in the Bankster pocket.  Very sad.  But then, the Occupy Wall Street movement is camped out on Wall Street, while the Tea Party movement is Occupying the heart of the Bankster criminal empire - the Federal Reserve Banks.  Both movements seem to be protesting the same criminal Bankster problem.  But OWS has been fooled by the ol "nothing up my sleeve" illusion. excerpt: Here's the fact: America's standard of living is falling at a faster pace today than at any time since the Great Depression. Specifically, the real median income is down 9.8% since the fall of 2008. Additionally, Americans have lost roughly $5.5 trillion in asset value, or about 8.6% of their wealth. When you talk about a depression, what you're really talking about is a collapse in the standard of living. That's what's happening today, right now, in our country. But people continue to go about their lives as though nothing is happening. Certainly, our politicians don't want to draw attention to the problem. Instead, they are behind the campaign to "paper over" these losses with schemes like "quantitative easing." These schemes do nothing to make our economy more productive. They're designed instead to make prices rise so people (hopefully) won't notice how poor they're becoming. If you've been reading my newsletters since 2008, none of this is a surprise to you. I've been warning month after month, year after year, that the government's efforts to paper over our bad debts won't work. And they won't work for tw
Gary Edwards

Rich Dad's Conspiracy of the Rich: The 8 New Rules of Money | Silver Monthly - The Silv... - 0 views

  • he makes it very clear that the rules of money changed dramatically when the U.S. went off the gold standard in 1971.  For up until that time, “technically, prior to 1971, the U.S. dollar was a derivative of gold.  After 1971, the U.S. dollar became a derivative of debt.”
  • The Invisible Bank Robbery
  • He says “since money is invisible, a derivative of debt, bank robberies by bankers have become invisible.” 
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  • Two ways these invisible robberies occur are:  fractional reserve banking, which is nothing more than banks lending money they don’t have; and deposit insurance, which “protects the bankers – not savers.” 
  • “why should an insurance company like AIG receive bailout money in the first place?  Isn’t bailout money reserved for banks?”
  • “because it owed the biggest banks in the world a lot of money and didn’t have the cash to pay up.”
  • five new rules
  • money is knowledge; learn how to use debt;
  • learn to control cash flow;
  • prepare for bad times and you will only know good times;
  • and the need for speed. 
  • The name of the game, according to Kiyosaki, is “cash flow.”
  • The focus has to be on cash flow, not on capital gains.
  • Businesses that provide passive cash flow. Income-producing real estate. Paper assets – stocks, bonds, savings, annuities, insurance and mutual funds. Commodities – gold, silver, oil, platinum, etc.
  • invest in four basic areas:
  • By selling more than you buy, you can eventually become rich.
  • in Kiyosaki’s opinion, the ultimate definition of “sell” is building a business and then taking it public.
  • “knowledge is the new money.”
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    As Kiyosaki writes in his book:  "So has there been a conspiracy?  I believe so, in a way."  He goes on to explain why he believes so, citing the lack of financial education in the school systems, the Federal Reserve Act, and Nixon's 1971 dismissal of the gold standard.  And most interestingly, Kiyosaki believes that 401(k) retirement vehicles placed the retirement money of average people in the hands of Wall Street. The first chapter of the book is entitled 'Can Obama Save the World?'  Kiyosaki's answer is no.  And apparently, Obama doesn't want to even if he could.  For he appointed Summers and Geithner, both of who played a part in repealing the Glass Steagall Act.  In other words, it's the same old same old.  Nothing has changed.  Which means that the average person needs to understand how taxes, debt, inflation, and retirement affect them.  Kiyosaki sums up the chapter by stating that once one understands the new rules of money, then one can "opt out of the conspiracy of the rich." From there, Kiyosaki moves on to explain how we got where we are.  He points the finger at the Federal Reserve Bank, which inflates the money supply, which destroys the value of savings and retirement plans.  And he makes it very clear that the rules of money changed dramatically when the U.S. went off the gold standard in 1971.  For up until that time, "technically, prior to 1971, the U.S. dollar was a derivative of gold.  After 1971, the U.S. dollar became a derivative of debt." Kiyosaki proceeds to discuss what he calls 'The Invisible Bank Robbery.'  He says "since money is invisible, a derivative of debt, bank robberies by bankers have become invisible."  Two ways these invisible robberies occur are:  fractional reserve banking, which is nothing more than banks lending money they don't have; and deposit insurance, which "protects the bankers - not savers."  Then he asks a very pertinent question:  "why should an ins
Gary Edwards

Gadfly ONLINE | The Age of Neo-Feudalism: A Government of the Rich, by the Rich, and fo... - 2 views

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    "THE AGE OF NEO-FEUDALISM: A GOVERNMENT OF THE RICH, BY THE RICH, AND FOR THE CORPORATIONS" excerpt: "The shaping of the will of Congress and the choosing of the American president has become a privilege reserved to the country's equestrian classes, a.k.a. the 20% of the population that holds 93% of the wealth, the happy few who run the corporations and the banks, own and operate the news and entertainment media, compose the laws and govern the universities, control the philanthropic foundations, the policy institutes, the casinos, and the sports arenas." - Journalist Lewis Lapham The pomp and circumstance of the presidential inauguration has died down. Members of Congress have taken their seats on Capitol Hill, and Barack Obama has reclaimed his seat in the White House. The circus of the presidential election has become a faint memory. The long months of debates, rallies, and political advertisements have slipped from our consciousness. Now we are left with the feeling that nothing has really changed, nor will it. This is not by accident. The media circus leading up to the elections, the name calling in the halls of Congress, the vitriol and barbs traded back and forth among people who are supposed to be working together to improve the country, are all components of the game set up by those who run the show. The movers and shakers behind these engaging, but ultimately trite, political exercises are the elite, the so-called upper class, who benefit from the status quo. This status quo is marked by an economic crisis with no end in sight, by the slow but steady growth of a police state aimed at the lowest rungs of society, and a political circus which keeps us enraptured long enough that we don't question what's really going on. Meanwhile, this elite, composed of corporations profiting off of our ignorance, avoid being brought to task for their destruction of democratic governance and the economy. These are the corporations who sent our econo
Gary Edwards

BENGHAZI - THE BIGGEST COVER-UP SCANDAL IN U.S. HISTORY? - WAS BENGHAZI A CIA GUN-RUNNI... - 0 views

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    "LibertyNEWS.com - Editorial Team Special Report It's never fun to admit you've been lied to and duped. There is no comfort in realizing a high-level group in government has conned you. The wound created from such a realization would be deep and painful when paired with extraordinary insult when you realize the cons are people you not only trusted, but people who are tasked with protecting your rights, your liberty, your life. When these people betray you, you're in trouble - big trouble. Unfortunately, we believe America is being betrayed by powerful individuals tasked with our protection. These people are found in the White House, the Congress, the CIA and other government entities - and they're lying to you. Then they're covering it up on an epic scale, in a never-before-seen manner. Here are the basics of what the schemers in government and the complicit media would like for us all to focus on and buy into: Why wasn't there better security at the consulate (keep this misleading word in mind) in Benghazi? Why didn't authorization come to move special forces in for protection and rescue? Why was an obscure video blamed when everyone knew the video had nothing to do with it? Did Obama's administration cover-up the true nature of the attacks to win an election? Truth is, as we're starting to believe, the above questions are convenient, tactical distractions. And truth is, answers to these questions, if they ever come, will never lead to revelations of the REAL TRUTH and meaningful punishment of anyone found responsible. Rep. Darrell Issa knows this, members of the House Committee investigating the Benghazi attacks know this, the White House knows this, and much of the big corporate media infrastructure knows it, too. How do they know it? Because they know the truth. They know the truth, but cannot and/or will not discuss it in public. Here are the basics that we (America, in general) should be focusing on, but aren't: Why do media
Gary Edwards

Tocqueville's Warning to America: The Dangers of Despotism - 0 views

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    "The words of Alexis de Tocqueville in Book Four, Chapter VI of Democracy America are particularly poignant: I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism... I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it, the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it. I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest,--his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not;--he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country. Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their gate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly la
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    "An elective despotism was not the government we fought for." - James Madison
Gary Edwards

Arnold Ahlert: The Real American Divide - The Patriot Post - 0 views

  • Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton provided great examples of the Ruling Class' arrogant mindset. Pelosi believes, as she stated last week, that white, non-college-educated men who vote Republican have “voted against their own economic interests because of guns, because of gays, and because of God — the three G’s, God being the woman’s right to choose.” Clinton was worse. Regarding abortion on demand, she insisted last year that “deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” In other words, one embraces the progressive elitist viewpoint, or one is a religiously inspired bigot with a passé worldview that must be demolished. Thus it is no surprise these elitists conflate anything that dissents from their globalist agenda as a “world of wall-builders,” who have “already done great damage,” states The Economist. That damage includes the Brexit, the rise of nationalist (read: right-wing) parties, and “more electoral victories for closed-world types who pose the greatest threat since Communism.” In other words, elitists disdain national sovereignty and democratically determined destiny, logical responses to skyrocketing levels of elitist-enabled terrorism and uncontrolled immigration, and deeply felt concerns by non-elitists about a global economy that has devastated millions left behind in its wake.
  • The Ruling Class “solutions” for Country Class problems? “Let goods and investment flow freely, but strengthen the social safety-net to offer support and new opportunities for those whose jobs are destroyed,” The Economist states. “To manage immigration flows better, invest in public infrastructure, ensure that immigrants work and allow for rules that limit surges of people.” Codevilla explains what this really means, noting that “our Ruling Class' first priority in any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government — meaning those who run it, meaning themselves.” To achieve that end, new laws are longer than ever, “because length is needed to specify how people will be treated unequally.” Thus, these laws become “primarily grants of discretion,” because “all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.” Codevilla adds, “This defines ‘crony capitalism.’”
  • If that sounds familiar, maybe it’s because WikiLeak emails reveal the DNC granted itself the sole discretion to empower Hillary Clinton’s presidential nomination, right from the beginning. Thus, when Hillary spoke of “bringing people together” during her speech at the convention, it was really about doing so on her and her fellow insiders' terms. And when she promised to get money out of politics, it can be assumed the billions of dollars that have flowed into the Clinton Foundation — dollars that conspicuously align themselves with a number of dubious initiatives — will remain exempt, even as another sham investigation of Clinton behavior conducted by an equally corrupted IRS lends an imprimatur of genuine concern to the spectacle. “If Americans, or at least a majority of them, have not completely lost their own self-regard as a free people, then the November election should turn out to be a referendum on the ‘ruling class,’ and a massive repudiation of Hillary Clinton’s sense of entitlement to be the first woman elected President of the United States,” writes American Thinker’s Salim Mansur. Perhaps. But traditional thinking dies hard. And a corrupt mainstream media — epitomized by CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger drinking wine and celebrating with Democrat delegates at the convention’s conclusion — isn’t about to jeopardize their own Ruling Class status to provide the Country Class with any potentially unifying political insight. Which brings us to Donald Trump. In exclusive communication with The Patriot Post, Codevilla maintained there were no circumstances under which he could support Hillary or any other Democrat, but his view of Trump “is more unfavorable than ever.” He does, however, grant that Trump “is the lesser of two evils.” He sees both candidates as “identical in their disregard for the U.S. Constitution and in the establishment of a post-republican regime — an empire of the will, by of and for favored sectors of the ruling class.”
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  • No doubt Codevilla’s take resonates with millions of Americans appalled by a broken, Ruling Class-dominated political system that produced both candidates. Yet realistically, we are faced with a binary choice, made by either commission or omission. And while Codevilla believes “there is no vehicle for opposition” as yet to a Ruling Class “represented by the establishment of both parties,” our own Mark Alexander warns that “the outcome of the November election will not only determine our president for at least the next four years, but also the composition of the Supreme Court for at least the next quarter-century.” That quarter century could be one in which a constitutionally contemptuous Supreme Court majority appointed by Hillary Clinton makes representative government obsolete, and eliminates any chance, short of armed revolution, for the Country Class to take America back from the Ruling Class. A nation where, as Ayn Rand put it, “The government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission.” A Trump presidency may be nothing more than a distasteful, bite-the-bullet
  • impediment to Ruling Class hegemony. But it is better than no impediment at all.
  • “While most Americans pray to the God who created us in His own image, our Ruling Class prays to themselves as saviors of the planet and as shapers of mankind in their own image.” —from The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla, 2010. While many still frame the 2016 election in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, those divisions are losing their meaning. This election could be the first one in which Americans will either choose to continue abiding a globalist Ruling Class and their government-dominant, one-world agenda, or decide that national sovereignty, the Constitution and American exceptionalism and individualism are worth preserving. To be clear, nationalism does not equal protectionism, nativism or Islamophobia, nor is it solely embraced by know-nothing rubes unworthy of serious consideration — despite the ongoing efforts of the Ruling Class to paint it that way. Codevilla calls people who oppose the Ruling Class the Country Class, and he describes it as a diverse, often inharmonious group that “shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards as inept and haughty.”
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    ""While most Americans pray to the God who created us in His own image, our Ruling Class prays to themselves as saviors of the planet and as shapers of mankind in their own image." -from The Ruling Class: How They Corrupted America and What We Can Do About It by Angelo Codevilla, 2010. While many still frame the 2016 election in terms of Democrats vs. Republicans, those divisions are losing their meaning. This election could be the first one in which Americans will either choose to continue abiding a globalist Ruling Class and their government-dominant, one-world agenda, or decide that national sovereignty, the Constitution and American exceptionalism and individualism are worth preserving. To be clear, nationalism does not equal protectionism, nativism or Islamophobia, nor is it solely embraced by know-nothing rubes unworthy of serious consideration - despite the ongoing efforts of the Ruling Class to paint it that way. Codevilla calls people who oppose the Ruling Class the Country Class, and he describes it as a diverse, often inharmonious group that "shares above all the desire to be rid of rulers it regards as inept and haughty." Ruling Class haughtiness, argues Codevilla, derives from "an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance," and engenders "a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins … and saints," all conveyed in an "in" language that serves as their "badge of identity." Irrespective of their professions, the Ruling Class is also united by the reality that "their road up included government channels and government money. … Hence, whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway in, America's Ruling Class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats." Just as critically, this "fraternity" can only be joined by one who Codevilla says "shares the manners, the tastes, and the i
Paul Merrell

Trump says 'nothing is off the table' for response to Iran - 0 views

  • President Donald Trump told reporters on Thursday said "nothing is off the table" in terms of a response to Iran's ballistic missile test.Trump made the comment in response to a question about whether he would consider military options to respond to Iran, a day after his national security adviser put Tehran on "notice."
Gary Edwards

Can Americans Escape the Deception? - 0 views

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    I've been reading Paul Craig Roberts since high school, when i used to clip his backpage columns in NewsWeek magazine. These days, you have to go to his blog to get the truth. But what a truth it is! Incredible, forceful but presented only as PCR can do. His wake up call to America is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's about our liberty and the all out assault our government, socialist and conservatives alike, has launched on the Constitution. Amerika! This is what it comes to. It's also why i'm a libertarian. Read it and weep. Excerpt is from the 9/11 section. excerpt: In a real investigation, the 9/11 evidence would not have been illegally destroyed, and the investigation would have been conducted by experts, not by government agencies assigned a cover-up and by political hacks. The NIST report is abject nonsense. It explains nothing. It is a fabricated computer simulation of a non-event. The co-chairmen and legal counsel of the 9/11 Commission later wrote books in which they stated that information was withheld from the commission, the military lied to the commission, and the commission "was set up to fail." Yet, these astounding admissions by the leaders of the 9/11 Commission had no impact on Congress, the presstitute media, or the public. All heads were in the sand. Please, whatever you do, don't make us emotional weaklings face the facts. More than one hundred firefighters, police, first responders, and building maintenance personnel report hearing and experiencing scores of explosions in the twin towers, including powerful explosions in the sub-basements prior to the collapse of the towers. Distinguished scientists, authors of many peer-reviewed scientific papers, report finding unreacted nano-thermite in the dust from the towers, tested it for its explosive and high-heat producing ability, and reported the unequivocal results. Seventeen hundred architects and engineers have testified in a petition to Congress that the th
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    For a detailed and fully referenced study of how 9-11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow's conflict of interest and how he kept Commission members in the dark and sabotaged the Commission report, see http://tinyurl.com/6tdfc56
Gary Edwards

Limbaugh on Obama's 'Chip on His Shoulder,' the Phenomenon of the 'Not-Romney' and the ... - 0 views

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    Awesome!  Once again Rush takes us to school. excerpt: VAN SUSTEREN: I guess I mean a motive to -- an intentional motive to hurt the country, versus his (Obama) ideology is one that the way you achieve ideals is different values. LIMBAUGH: This is the question. We are living under a number of assumptions about Obama that have been presented to us by elites of both parties. One of the illusions is Obama's brilliant, that he's smarter than anybody else in the room, messianic. We have never had a politician like this in our midst, we were told in 2007, 2008. Nobody like Obama has ever trod our soil. He was going to unify us. The world was going to love us again. It's going to lower the sea levels. I mean, ridiculous stuff. So the question is, is he just dumb? Does he really believe this economic stuff? Does he really believe that taking capital, money out of the private sector and transferring it to government and unions is the way you grow the private sector? Is that the way (INAUDIBLE) Does he really believe that? Is he that ill educated? Is he the product of nothing other than the American education system and whoever influenced him at home when he was young? Or is he an ideologue? Is he a Marxist socialist who has an agenda that's oriented toward cutting the country down to size? I mean, that's the question. For me, the answer to the question is irrelevant. I think that whatever he's doing, why he's doing it, it's obvious he is doing it. He is taking steps, these 10 policies that are injurious to the country, injurious to individuals, targeting as the enemy the people who work in this country, targeting as the enemy that people that pay taxes. This business of this Occupy Wall Street crowd, which is his -- it was created I think on the basis that Romney was going to be the Republican nominee. Romney's Wall Street, so you get Obama's band out there, Occupy Wall Street, protesting. It was set up to oppose Romney -- Wall Street blamed for all these ills in the e
Gary Edwards

Peter Beinart: How Ron Paul Will Change the GOP in 2012 - The Daily Beast - 2 views

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    Not a big Peter Beinhart fan, but this article explains a large part of the Ron Paul phenom. After a life time as a big C Goldwater-Reagan Constitutional Conservative, this summer i made a full transition to big C Constitutional Libertarian. The tipping point for me was the GAO audit of the Federal Reserve, where they discovered $16.1 Trillion of taxpayer dollars missing from the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel management books. It went to a who's who of international Bankster Cartel members. None of the taxpayer funded "financial collapse of 2008" bailout dollars went to the purposes chartered by their legislation. That includees the TARP $850 Billion, the Obama Stimulous $1 Trillion, and the mega FRBC $16.1 Trillion. No bad debts were purchased and retired. No rotting mortgage securities were swept up and restructured. No shovel ready jobs either. And no one in government or banksterism having caused the financial collapse went to jail. Instead, the perps feasted on the bailout dollars. The debt remains on the books of international Banksters, collecting interest, thirsting for foreclosure. The Bankster Cartel members are flush with cash, but not lending. By law (The Federal Reserve Act of December 23rd, 1913), FRBC members must keep a significant amount of their assets on "reserve" at the Federal Reserve, at 6% interest. In exchange for managing this process and the exploding money supply, the taxpayers of the USA are obligated by law to pay the FRBC 1% per year of (assets under management" (the money supply). Take note: the FRBC takes the 1% per year payment for their services in the form of GOLD!! They will not take payment in the form of paper notes labeled legal tender "Federal Reserve Notes". They only take GOLD. My transition to Constitutional Libertarian begins with a strct reading of the Constitution (the How), the Declaration of Independence, (the Why), and belief in the Rule of Law, not man. The concept of achievi
Paul Merrell

​Syria and the Geneva 2 charade - RT Op-Edge - 0 views

  • In the summertime, people flock to Montreux, Switzerland, to follow the jazz festival. This week, though, the 'performance' is by a positively un-swinging lot, part of the (in theory) very serious Geneva 2 conference on Syria. What is Geneva 2 for? It has nothing to do with 'peace' . It won't yield an international deal to end the Syrian tragedy. The horrible war facts on the ground will remain facts, and horrible; many perpetrators won't be gathering in Montreux. Syrian civil society has not even been invited. And then the whole charade degenerated into pitiful parody even before it started.
  • Meet 'good' and 'bad' Al-Qaeda Time to break it down. Washington ruled that Iran cannot be in Montreux because it supports Assad. It's as simple as that. Washington dictating to the UN is the norm. Washington dictating to the Exiled Syrian 'Opposition' is Also the norm. Everyone is a puppet in this lethal comedy. As for Western spin doctors, they are dizzier than flies over corpses. As Part of the New Western Myth That the Saudi Arabia-Sponsored Islamic Front - Last September Formed Against the US-backed Supreme Military Council - are nothing but 'Al-Qaeda good' , now we have TOP 'Rebels' routinely acknowledging to Western corporate media they are, well, Al-Qaeda. Tens of thousands of foreign jihadis using Al-Qaeda's network of safe houses in Turkey - well, that's not such a big deal. As the Narrative Goes, 'our New friends' in the Islamic Front are just 'conservative Salafi Muslims' . What if they are fond of the odd torture binge and will think nothing of slaying the odd Shiite or Christian? Not such a big deal. As for the 'bad' Al-Qaeda gang - from Al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) - They are on A roll. After all, they are the ones with fighting experience / leverage on the ground. And when push comes to shove, they just run yet another ring around clueless Western necks. Take Ahrar al-Sham. They now lead the Islamic Front - and talk to the Americans. And guess what; they're going to Montreux! The icing on this cake is Takfiri That, Ultimately, Their "interests" are Being Defended by no less than US Secretary of State John Kerry. Washington promoting al-Qaeda? Well, we've seen that movie before.
  • Washington is the Selling Fiction it is 'leading' Geneva 2 to 'reconstruct' Syria. This is utter nonsense. Theoretically - and even that is still extremely debatable - the Obama administration's core interest in Southwest Asia is to negotiate a very complex deal with Iran, which will take most of 2014. Ultimately, this whole charade is between Washington and Tehran. The US Navy will not make Assad 'go' Anytime soon - or Ever; everything so, in Theory, Remains on the table.
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  • And everyone else, the UN, the Holy See, the House of Saud, are just onlookers, even as several players, from the EU to India, China and Japan, can think of nothing but finally normalizing everything with Iran. The Syrian government, for its part, will be in Montreux; it had agreed to the conference long ago. Yet President Assad Laid down ; he will not 'Leave' , as President Barack Obama US demanded The. He will not Let the foreign-Sponsored 'Opposition' Take over. And he may even contest the next presidential elections. Assad went for the jugular when he said Geneva 2 Should be About His own 'War on Terror' . Terror, incidentally, widely supported by the West. So under this perspective, even Washington needs Assad not to go. The bottom line is that the only players who really want Assad to go are the House of Saud and the House of Thani in Qatar. Many in the West have now Realized Assad must Fight to Stay 'the Terrorists' .
  • What's even more farcical is what Ford may have told the SNC stalwarts - still subject to much debate across the Middle East. If Ford really Said That Bandar Bush's Strategy has Been A Total Failure (in Fact turning Syria into an Al-Qaeda Hub) then this points to the Obama Administration, for All Practical Purposes, Sharing the Same Objective as Assad's: Fighting 'Terror' . Still, Geneva 2 will not 'Solve' anything. Iran and Russia will keep supporting Damascus. The desert wasteland from Syria to Iraq will keep being occupied by Bandar Bush-supported and Gulf-supported hardcore sectarian jihadis. The war will keep spreading deeper into Lebanon. The government in Damascus won't collapse. The refugee crisis will soar. And the West Will Keep Striking A pose of Being Concerned with 'Terror' .
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    What a hoot! Hillary's Free Syrian Army defected to the jihadis after the missile strikes on Syria did not happen. Now Obama and Kerry are trying to sell the spin of "good" vs. "bad" Al Qaeda, a fact that in itself underscores that Al Qaeda are a bunch of mercenaries whose services go to the highest bidder.  
Gary Edwards

Who owns the Bank of England? |Dark Politricks - 0 views

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    "Who owns the Bank of England? A brief history of World Banksters By Dark Politricks First a few historical comments by people who helped create two of the worlds most famous central banks, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve. "I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men." - Woodrow Wilson, after signing the Federal Reserve into existence The Bank of England was created in 1694 by a Scotsman William Paterson who famously said: The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing. - William Paterson The history of the Bank of England and how it was taken over by one powerful family hundreds of years ago. Up until 1946 when it was nationalised the Bank of England was a private run bank that lent money it created out of nothing to the English government and was paid back with interest. A very famous story relates to the Bank of England and the infamous Rothschilds, that all powerful banking family. This story was re-told recently in a BBC documentary about the creation of money and the Bank of England. It revolves around the Battle of Waterloo in which Nathan Rothschild used his inside knowledge of the outcome and his faster horses and couriers to play the market by getting the result of the battle before anyone else knew the outcome. He quickly sold his English bonds and gave all the traders who looked to him for guidance the impression that the French had won at Waterloo. The other traders all rus
Paul Merrell

Is an Ukronazi attack imminent? Yes! So what else is new? | The Vineyard of the Saker - 0 views

  • Novorussian officials have called a press conference today to warn about the high risks of an Ukronazi assault on Novorussia in the very near future.  I have asked our translation team and friends to subtitle the video of this press conference and I hope to get it in the next 24 hours or less. The press conference was unique in that Edward Basurin, the Deputy Defense Minister and spokesman for the Novorussian armed forces showed a map with what he described as the Ukrainian attack plans:
  • While I don’t doubt for one second that the Novorussians have pretty much near perfect intelligence about the situation in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine and the plans of the junta (all that provided courtesy of the Russian GRU), I have to say that what this maps shows is extremely predictable too and not fundamentally different from what the Ukronazis tried last year: surrounding and cutting off Donetsk from Lugansk and taking control of key parts (or even all) of the Ukrainian-Russian border.  Basurin also quoted the figures for the junta forces and those are in line with what others, including Cassad, have reported.  The Ukronazi force is most definitely numerically large. Basurin also warned that the attack would be preceded by a false flag attack organized by the junta and blamed on the Novorussians.  Again, nothing new here. To be honest, we are all getting used to ‘cry wolf’ about an impending Ukronazi attack.  And this is hardly our fault.  Such an attack has, indeed, been impending for a long while already and the junta’s bellicose rhetoric has only reinforced this sense of imminent danger.  Furthermore, the recent visit of the British Defense Minister in Kiev only made things worse as the junta always does something ugly when western dignitaries visit Kiev.  Add to this that Poroshenko is scheduled to meet with his German and French counterparts next week and the sense of crisis will be total.  And logically so. So while the tensions are real and definitely based in reality, they are also nothing new here, really.  You could also legitimately that all this panic is nothing else but business as usual and that it will remain so until the regime of Nazi freaks in Kiev is finally replaced by something more or less civilized.  This will inevitably happen but, alas, not in the near future.
  • So we are left with this exhausting and frustrating situation where yet another Ukronazi attack might happen anytime but where it also might not.  That is the inevitable consequence of having evil, weak and insecure psychopaths in charge of an entire country. Yesterday a rumor was started indicating that the Novorussians were planning to organize a referendum to join Russia.  I still don’t know if that rumor is based in reality or not, but I will note that this kind of rumor could also serve as a perfect pretext for a Ukronazi attack. It is clear to me that something has to give, probably soon.  The Ukrainian economy is dead, the stocks of basic goods and energy for next winter are empty, the country is in ruins and social tensions are on the raise everywhere.  I personally cannot image that regime change could happen in Kiev before at least one more attack on Novorussia.  The junta really has nothing left to lose and by massing a large attack force, regardless of how ill prepared this force is, and at least the theoretical such an attack could possibility draw Russia in and, thereby, save the Ukronazi junta in Kiev.
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  • Nobody in Kiev is seriously thinking that they can occupy Donetsk or Lugansk or pacify the Donbass.  Everybody is pretending otherwise, but that ain’t happening.   Everybody in Kiev is fully aware of the fact that the Donbass is lost forever.  So I will repeat this again: the real purpose of an attack will not be to ‘reconquer’ Novorussia, it will be to draw Russia into the Donbass.  How? Well, in theory, if the junta can launch enough men and armor to overwhelm the Novorussian defenses and if these forces succeed in surrounding Donetsk and Lugansk, Russia will really have no other option than to intervene.  Of course, the Russians will easily defeat the Ukronazi forces, in 24 hours or less, but at that point the Nazi regime in Kiev will be saved: it will be able to declare full mobilization, blame every difficulty in Russia, crush any resistance with even more brutality than before and politically force all the US allies to provide aid to the regime in Kiev.  The regime itself, by the way, would be safe as, contrary to the hopes of many, the Russians will not push much beyond the current line of contact.  At most they will liberate Mariupol and or Slaviansk/Kramatrosk as a “penalty” for the Ukronazi attack.  The junta in Kiev will remain safe, at least from the Russians. The real danger for the junta does not come from the Russian military, but from the disillusioned and impoverished Ukrainian people with whom the regime will remain “one on one” unless the Russians intervene.  And as long as this situation will remain like this, a Ukronazi attack will possibly at any moment.  Starting right now.
Gary Edwards

Dorothy Rabinowitz: The Alien in the White House - WSJ.com - 1 views

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    Wow.  Maybe the best analysis of the growing awareness of the vast differential between the patriot citizens of America and the Obammunist now in charge of our country. excerpt:  The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president's earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill. There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama's pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president-single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival-was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans' leader, a man of them, for them, the nation's voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn't lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice-and for good reason. Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July. A great part of America now understands that this president's sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
Gary Edwards

Gold, Peace, and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency | Silver Monthly - The Silver ... - 0 views

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    Gold, Peace, and Prosperity is the title of Ron Paul's essay for a "modern" gold standard.  According to Paul, such a standard would end the relentless boom-bust cycle, and maintain the value of King Dollar.  However, King Dollar would have to be founded on a monetary standard that eschews government tampering. Paul begins his treatise by pointing out that "Congress alone is responsible for inflation, and Congress alone can stop it."  Which means that the old scapegoats - OPEC, greedy CEOs, labor unions - are not the real cause of inflation.  To support his contention, Paul relates a story told by Marco Polo in his travels through China.  As Paul states, "Abuse of paper money led to the expulsion of the Mongol dynasty from China." Bretton Woods - in 1944 - supposedly established a new gold exchange standard.  In Paul's opinion, Bretton Woods was "nothing more than an international Federal Reserve System."  And of course, it didn't do anything but cause more inflation.  Then on August 15, 1971, President Nixon "closed the 'gold window.'"  This was the beginning of "managed fiat currency." Paul states that since 1971, the price of gold has increased "more than twentyfold."  The trade deficit has increased by 1146%, and the Consumer Price Index has increased 79%.  Due to these imbalances, he concludes that the dollar is dead.    Rather than pronouncing the Last Rites over the dollar, followed by a mournful funeral and weeping and wailing, Paul views the death of the dollar as an opportunity.  "The time is ripe for the institution of a trustworthy monetary system."  And it's not all that difficult.  The way to stop inflation is to "stop inflating the money supply."  Paul then cites the three main reasons politicians, bankers, etc., desire inflation:  greed, power, and a way to pay the government's bills without raising taxes sky-high.  The answer - the only alternative - to inflation is
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