National Debt Is Still the Biggest Threat to Our National Security

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily a power to destroy, because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” – John Marshall

Americans are in denial about the simple fact that our national debt is the biggest threat to our national security. National debt grew exponentially from Washington’s profligate deficit spending, recessions, and wars.

When I looked today at the national debt clock, each taxpayer owed approximately $142,000, the figure changing rapidly based on factors such as the value of the dollar, trade deficits, and the latest sums borrowed from U.S. taxpayers or from whatever country willing to buy our Treasury Securities, T-bills, T-notes, and T-bonds - China, Japan, and oil exporters being the largest buyers of U.S. debt so far.

The national debt to most Americans is something on paper in a faraway place that does not concern or affect us. Americans have no idea how it grew so exponentially large, where it came from, who owes it, who owns it, and how many zeroes a trillion has.

Perhaps the debt figure would become more real to Americans and take on dire significance if each taxpaying citizen would receive a bill for $142,000 payable in full right now, no kicking the can down the road to our children and grandchildren in exchange for our current comfort.

It is true, our national debt is measured in dollars, which we can always print in order to meet our payments. This is called monetizing the deficit. Doing so, however, creates inflation, as too much money is chasing too few goods. A responsible government should never print money in outlandish excess of GDP, the amount of final goods and services produced in a year. If they do, hyperinflation will occur, and severe devaluation of the currency.

“Since 1971, U.S. borrowed $50 trillion to produce only $13 trillion of goods and services in a 40 year period.” Egon von Greyerz, a financial analyst with Matterhorn Asset Management AG in Zurich, Switzerland, said, “From 1971 when President Nixon ended the gold-backing of the dollar, virtually all of the growth in the Western world has come from the massive increase in credit rather than from real growth in the economy.”

The mantra that the “rich are not paying their fair share” promoted by the MSM sound bites and the Democrat ruling party prompted many to calculate what would happen if we were to confiscate every millionaire and billionaire’s wealth, what impact would have on our national debt, the accumulated budget deficits of previous years. All the U.S. accumulated wealth would last a mere two months.

There is a difference between income and wealth. The Democrats are talking about taxing the rich (income), not taxing the wealth – big difference which voters clearly do not understand. Taxing income will result in “spreading the wealth” from producers to takers in the name of “social justice” and the subsequent consumer spending, with no tangible assets created. Excessive tax discourages capital formation and job creation, stifling economic growth. Perhaps that is the political intent of the ruling party.

Taxing the rich already brings in the lion’s share of revenue to the Treasury. If the rich are taxed too much, who is going to create manufacturing jobs, the government?

Average earners and small businesses that pay taxes at the personal income tax level are now the rich - the middle class will be taxed more when the Bush era tax cuts expire and the Obamacare taxes will go into effect in January 2013, contracting job creation. The Democrats and the President have no intention or concrete plans to cut spending. Their main goal seems to be tax increases.

According to Mark Steyn, if the government was to confiscate all of the $44 billion that Warren Buffett has, it would only last four days at the current level of spending.

Much ado has been made in the press about Warren Buffet who did not pay the same tax percentage as his secretary. When Mr. Buffett complained, I was not clear what kept him from writing a “fair share” check to the IRS, matching his secretary’s percentage.

Mark Steyn calculated again that, if everyone’s tax indebtedness would go up according to this Buffett rule, the deficit created by the Obama administration in 2011 would be paid off in 514 years and we would still have the deficits created in the other three years of this presidency.

The national debt has exceeded $16.3 trillion but Gross Domestic Product (all the final goods and services produced in a year domestically) is only $15.3 trillion, one trillion short. The federal revenue from taxes is $2.4 trillion. We have spent almost 7 times what we raise in taxes annually. 

The problem is not that Americans, rich or poor, are not paying enough taxes, the problem is that Congress and this administration are spending too much money. Spending to GDP ratio is 41 percent.

We have paid so far in 2012 almost $4 trillion in interest from excessive borrowing when our money supply from cash and savings is $10.3 trillion.

Our national debt has exploded in the last four years. During President Obama’s first three years in office, it grew by $4.7 trillion, an increase of 45 percent. (factcheck.org)

Our current policy seems to be putting pressure on the U.S. dollar until two options remain - default on the U.S. debt, or monetizing it by printing more money. If we default, as in any case of bankruptcy, creditor nations would demand payment in American assets – our oil fields, mines, land, parks, monuments, buildings, military bases, and even the indentured servitude of generations of taxpayers.

Can we refuse to pay our national debt?  We could but the consequences might not be so pleasant. Britain, Germany, and Italy blockaded the ports of Venezuela during the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903 when dictator Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in the Venezuelan civil war.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the following during the November 20 speech to the Center for a New American Security (a think-tank in Washington):

“One of the national security threats is the question of whether or not the leaders we elect can, in fact, govern and can, in fact deal with the challenges that face this country.” (Emelie Rutherford, Defense Daily, November 26, 2012)

Secretary Panetta was initially questioned during this meeting why the Senate failed to pass the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST). Most Americans are actually glad that LOST was not ratified since it is part of U.N. Agenda 21’s plan of global governance.

Sequestration may not be such a good idea when it involves the military. Si vis pacem, para bellum, the Romans said, “if you want peace, prepare for war.”

Panetta acknowledged that budgeting “can’t just be about cutting, it’s got to be about investing, investing in space and cyber, investing in unmanned systems, investing in the kind of capability to mobilize quickly if we have to. And most importantly, maintaining our defense industrial base in this country so that we are not in a position where I’m forced to contract out the most important defense capabilities that I need. I can’t do that. I can’t just contract those out to another country. I’ve got to have that capability here in the United States.”

National debt is the number one threat to national security. If we keep squandering trillions of dollars borrowed from our potential foes and have nothing to show for our spending, except increasing dependency of our population on welfare, food stamps, and entitlements, if we cut NASA and rent space on Russian flights, if we spend so much that we are no longer able to invest in infrastructure, technology, medicine, space exploration, industry, manufacturing, and defense, our integrity as a powerful nation is severely threatened and damaged.

 

 

I Dream of Southfork

The late Larry Hagman was credited with saving Romania from communism. In a video clip, the actor who portrayed the infamous and villainous J. R. Ewing tells the story of a Romanian who approached him on a visit to the formerly communist country with tears in his eyes, “Thank you, J.R., for saving Romania.”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HZ4FNIn0VA)

Millions of people around the globe tuned in from 1977 to 1991 to watch the TV show Dallas and the celluloid life of the fictitious Ewings, the oil rich tycoons, the detestable J.R., his alcoholic and co-dependent wife Sue Ellen, his honest brother Bobby, and all his sordid affairs.

I am not sure why the tyrant Ceausescu allowed us to watch Dallas. Perhaps he thought or was advised that this soap opera represented everything that was bad about capitalism and we needed one more reason to hate capitalism. Instead, we loved it!

Every weekend we tuned in faithfully, escaping for one hour from our imprisoned lives, glued to black and white TVs. The streets were empty, whole blocks would get together to watch the soap opera on the one TV screen that was larger and newer, and we prayed that the local government did not turn our electricity off.  It was common occurrence to have blackouts – we had shortages of everything else, all the time, due to poor centralized planning by uneducated communist bureaucrats.

The ranch at Southfork became larger than life; its palatial surroundings made our concrete block apartments seem so small, that one could easily fit into Sue Ellen’s well-appointed closet. I was disappointed when a Texan friend told me that the Southfork ranch was rather small. We had imagined a massive mansion with beautiful bedrooms and a huge kitchen stuffed to the brim with food. Southfork became a metaphor for freedom and success through the opulent lifestyles of the Dallas characters.

We thought all Americans were rich like the Ewings and money grew on trees. We longed for and saw freedom through the eyes of a badly scripted soap opera that kept our poor and miserable proletariat mesmerized.

There was a love-hate relationship with the character of J.R., the all-around bad guy without a conscience who tortured his wife with his blatant infidelity.

When J.R. was shot by Kristen, everybody asked me who did it since we were watching episodes distributed ahead of everyone else in the world. My relatives, whom I was visiting, were quite disappointed when I did not know at the time the answer to the question of the day - who shot J.R.

Larry Hagman told the Associated Press, “I think we were directly or indirectly responsible for the fall of [communism.]” “They would see the wealthy Ewings and say, ‘Hey, we don’t have all this stuff.” (reason.com)

I don’t think J.R. Ewing helped overthrow communism at all, directly or indirectly, but it gave us hope that someday we could make it to America, the land of the free. Our dreams could come true, and success would be within reach through hard work if only the communist party, its brutal regime, and the dictator Ceausescu were gone.

It took a long time to topple communism, from its initial creep after the forced abdication of the king in 1948, until 1989 when the dictator and his wife were executed for treason and other crimes against humanity. There were many who emboldened the millions suffering under the Iron Curtain to break the chains of communism – among them the Polish Pope, John Paul II. When people could hunger and suffer no more, the barbed wire fences and concrete walls were demolished, and justice was served.

Sadly today, people who were born, raised, and grew old under the welfare-dependent, freedom robbing communism, never learned how to cope on their own and be self-reliant. Those Romanians are now the pro-communism voices, joined by neo-communist and pliable youth who are naïve enough to believe in a failed and miserable utopia. The lessons of history fall by deaf ears.

 

 

 

 

European Union and the Welfare State

The Bilderberg Group’s Steering Committee met on November 13-14, 2012 for the 61th working session of the world’s most exclusive club, during the Rome Film Festival at Hotel de Russie, hoping to blend in with celebrities, fans, reporters, and movie directors, hidden in plain view, to discuss the fate of the EU, Italy, Greece, and Spain.

Forgoing the rental of an entire hotel and the secrecy surrounding previous meetings, the 80 people in attendance spent, according to the Italian daily newspapers, Il Vostro  (http://www.ilvostro.it/economia-e-lavoro/il-club-bilderberg-a-roma-per-commissariare-litalia/58693/) and InvestireOggi (http://www.investireoggi.it/attualita/che-ci-fa-il-club-bilderberg-a-roma-alcune-strane-coincidenze/), 100,000 euros, a pricey sum considering that ordinary citizens of the 27-member union were asked to make deep cuts in their welfare state driven budgets.

The Bilderberg attendees included a long list of Italian CEOs, Mario Monti, the Italian Prime Minister, cabinet members, Italian bankers, Mario Draghi, the European Central Bank president, the owner or RAI, Tom Enders of Eads, Marcus Agius of Barclays, Kenneth Jacobs of Lazard, Edmund Clark of Td Bank, and the chairman of Alcoa and of Shell.

Spain, Italy, and Greece have protested vehemently over the required austerity measures which citizens were unwilling to accept - they strongly believed that the crisis was engineering by the very people who were now “concerned” with resolving it.

Additionally, once citizens became dependent on the welfare state, mentality, and largesse, it was much harder to become self-sufficient. When the free money and entitlements were scaled back and financial responsibility was required in order to pay for banks that gambled with derivatives but were unwilling to write off the resulting losses, the masses protested vehemently and even violently.

The blame game was exacerbated by the British weekly, the Economist, after its 14 page report called France’s economy a “ticking time bomb and the biggest threat to the euro currency’s stability.” The French called the photograph headlining the article, a bundle of French baguettes tied with a lit fuse and the French flag, inflammatory and “French bashing.” The Economist had accused the French voters in March of being in “denial,” calling President Francois Hollande “dangerous” for Europe. (France 24)

As a strategic member of the Eurozone, France is a threat to EU because of its large public sector that encompasses 57 percent of GDP. The socialist president Francois Hollande was elected on the promise of 75 percent income tax on the rich, higher taxes on companies, wealth, capital gains, and dividends, a higher minimum wage, more entitlements, and the rollback of the Sarkozy measure to increase the retirement age.

Politicians/oligarchs spent huge sums to control the Eurozone. German industry in general and its exports profited from the initial EU conglomeration. After Germany gave over one trillion euros in bailouts to Italy, Spain, and Greece, Germany’s economic growth slowed down, even in rich parts of Germany like Mainz and the industrialized Rhineland.

Germany’s economy has been successful when compared to the Eurozone. When compared to the period when the currency was the German mark or when compared to other non-EU countries, it has been a failure. (http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2012-11-12.html)

According to Rodney Atkinson, “Germany’s success in productivity is ironically due not to GDP per capita growth but to wages falling relative to production.” Thus Germany was “left with poor consumers at home and poor consumers abroad who cannot afford to pay their debts to Germany.” Chancellor Angela Merkel urged German companies to give their employees higher wage increases in 2012. “Prosperous Bavaria is challenging in court a fiscal balancing system that makes it hand over some revenue to poorer federal states.” (Reuters, October 15, 2012)

The fiscal engineering is not a surprise. Socialist states promote re-distribution of wealth and progressives endorse taxing the rich excessively in order to “even-out the playing field” in the name of social justice. If we were to confiscate the entire accumulated wealth of every rich person in this country, it would last perhaps, at the current rate of government spending, less than two months.

The permanent euro bailout, the European Stability Mechanism, has been challenged in Constitutional Court by 37,000 Germans, the largest Constitutional complaint in German history, but the oligarchs prevailed. The European Central Bank (ECB) decided in September that it would purchase unlimited quantities of sovereign bonds from EU countries in crisis. ECB will link its market interventions to ESM, applying strict austerity criteria to any country that seeks aid. National parliaments will have no control over the unlimited hyper bailout fund, making them irrelevant. (Phillip Wittrock)

The Catalan-speaking Catalonia, a wealthier region in Spain with high-tech industries and productive farming, paying the lion’s share in taxes to Madrid, while getting less revenue when its own finances are overstretched, resents having to pay for poor areas such as Spanish-speaking Andalucia. Similarly, Dutch-speaking Flanders resents paying for French-speaking Wallonia. (Paul Taylor and Robert-Jan Bartunek, October 15, 2012)

Heather Grabbe, the Brussels director for the Open Society Institute, explains the separatist move among many states and countries as not correlated to money but an expression of “historical grievances and language.” (Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, Europe’s Richer Regions Want Out, October 6, 2012)

Could it be that rich and productive countries are tired of subsidizing social welfare, re-distribution of wealth schemes, failed multiculturalism, and sloth?

Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish Prime Minister, warned separatist regions that opting for independence will mean being shut out of EU – new member states admission requires unanimous agreement. With unemployment at 25 percent in Spain, 6 of its 17 regions asked the central government for a bailout. Creating jobs and improving economic growth can only happen by the existence of the private sector and economic activity of citizens who pay taxes to the government.

To say that people in Spain or Italy do not like to pay taxes, it is an understatement. According to the Tax Research Institute in the U.K., 22.5 percent of GDP in Spain comes from work off the books. As fewer people are paying taxes in the underground economy, the state debt gets larger, more austerity measures are required, and fewer resources exist to jump-start the economy. (Lisa Abend, Time World, October 31, 2012)

Italy’s Prime Minister, Mario Monti, wants his country to be bailed out as well because he ‘fears the parliamentary democracy could bring down the European Union.” Mass demonstrations in Rome against German imposed austerity measures reflected those in Spain, France, Greece, and Portugal. There is a deep resentment against Germany’s dominance in the EU.

Nigel Farage believes EU bailouts are nothing short of subjugation of countries in financial need to the new world order. Farage describes the next phase of EU control as forcing those who “do not need or want a bailout to accept a bailout, to sign budget guarantees and to have the power to strike down national budgets after they’ve been through national parliaments.”

“I feel that the Euro zone is now in a very dark place, economically, socially, politically, and I fear for the countries trapped inside in that prison will be there for many years to come. It is against this backdrop that the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the European Union.” (Nigel Farage, UK Independence Party)

Oskar Freysinger, Vice President of the Swiss People’s Party, pointed out in an interview that the European Union is imposed on nations by technocrats. He believes that EU will fail eventually because “citizens are identifying less and less with a bureaucratic anti-democratic and centralized power” like the EU.

Tony Blair thinks that the EU needs a president who can rule over a “sustainable” European integration. UN Agenda 21 is promoting everything sustainable, why not a sustainable integration under the aegis of a president elected through Europe-wide election? (The Telegraph, October 29, 2012)

The Brits are not charmed by EU since the union is costing them jobs and it aims to wipe out national borders. Brussels pays EU citizens to cross borders in order to find employment elsewhere, but it won’t pay for Brits to move within their country in search of jobs.

“A common European jobs market exports Greek and Spanish unemployed to the relatively rich north in order to bolster confidence in the Euro and keep it going until the next crisis summit.” (Tim Aker, Get Britain Out, November 1, 2012)

Rodney Atkinson has given the best and most succinct explanation in favor of the EU demise, the end of the welfare enslaving union whose ultimate goal is to gain one world government control. “The European Union is responsible for the abolition of 27 national constitutions, 27 parliaments, 17 currencies and 17 Central Banks and a record decline in the share of world trade and wealth creation attributable to its members. There are over 25 million unemployed in the European Union and it has never been so detested by those who ‘benefit’ from its institutions.” (EU Fiddles Illegal Nobel Prize, October 24, 2012)

Giving up the security of a mediocre standard of living provided by the welfare system for the insecurity of making a better living, earning it, and being proud of the accomplishments of self-reliance born by a productive citizen mentality, is easier said than done. Millions of Europeans have become accustomed to the socialist year-end bonus, the 13^th salary, the six weeks paid vacations, drinking on the job, the legal difficulty of employers to fire inadequate employees, two years paid maternity leave, missing work for weeks when afflicted by a simple cold, retiring at 50 in more than 600 professions, being taken care of from cradle to grave by a state lording over its citizens, having a small state-assigned apartment, utility bills subsidies, socialized medical care, spa and massage vacations when overworked, and many, many other  perks.

As Margaret Thatcher so aptly put it, “The problem with socialism is that at some point, you run out of other people’s money,” and huge national debt becomes a threat that can no longer be ignored.

Welfare dependency reduces other beneficial programs such as national defense. Europeans have become accustomed to United States protecting their continent while they are free to spend lavishly on social programs while belittling the “stupid” Americans and their efforts.

Welfare mentality has made Europeans lazier, working less hours per week than American counterparts. During frequent union strikes and demonstrations they complain that they are overworked.

Europeans and their multicultural residents have learned how to game the system to maximize benefits. Few care or take pride in earned success. Young people have no work ethic or shame that they demand more and more entitlements, expecting society to take care of all their problems while the truly helpless fall quietly through the cracks of an overburdened social welfare system.

We are not far from Europe; all you have to do is look at the liberal states that voted socialism and Santa Claus every day.  The largest case study is California, the home of the deprived and proud of it – huge public sector wages, benefits that would make Europeans proud, a declining tax base as job creators and producers are moving out of state, decreased economic production, high unemployment, ever-increasing welfare enrollment from citizens and illegal aliens, higher taxes, and huge deficits. The poverty rate is 23.5 percent. Michigan, Illinois, Miami, D.C. are not far behind. Social Security was “created to prevent destitution among the elderly. It now subsidizes the comfortable” and has become an expected and entitled way of life. (Robert J. Samuelson, Welfare State, No Matter what You Call It, Is Breaking Us, November 19, 2012)

The ultimate irony of the welfare state dependency is exemplified by the pride with which the U.S. Department of Agriculture advertises the distribution this year of the greatest amount of food stamps ever to 47 million people while the National Park Service asks visitors to stop feeding the animals because they grow dependent on handouts and do not learn to care for themselves. “Social justice” and helplessness born of dependency have replaced self-reliance.

Cordt Schnibben of Der Spiegel asked in “Prison of Debt Paralyzes West,” if there is a human debt gene. The welfare state has brought western debt to unmanageable levels. Economic systems, whether capitalist or socialist, seem to be plagued by an unending crisis. Democracies can’t manage money and are resorting to printing, creating money out of thin air, incurring trillions in additional debt in order to sustain the welfare state. He said that “the introduction of the euro is nothing but the continuation of debt mania with more audacious methods. The euro countries took advantage of the favorable interest rates offered by the common currency to get into even more debt.” He believes that democracy breeds loose monetary policy, allowing too much government spending on social programs. Politicians at the municipal, state, and national levels have become utterly irresponsible in their handling of money in the pursuit of political control of the masses, offering lavish benefits to a citizenry that demands ever more in exchange for a perennial vote for the party that promises and dispenses most goodies.

The recent EU Budget Summit in Brussels failed to agree on the next seven-year budget – the “rich” and the “poor” countries disagreed on key points. The richest countries, Germany, the U.K., Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands decided to cut their contribution to the collective pool of welfare cash.

 

 

 

Blogtalk Radio with Silvio Canto Jr. of Dallas

My hour chat with Silvio on Thanksgiving, pop culture, and the economy on 11-21-12.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/11/22/todays-message

Butler on Business, WAFS 1190 Atlanta

My ten minute segment on WAFS 1190 on Petreus, the gasoline riots in Jordan. I come on at the 30 minute mark. (November 14, 2012)
http://host1.cyberears.com//17876.mp3

National Heritage Sites and Agenda 21

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, how many single-family homes damaged by the storm surge will be rebuilt as high density dwellings? This is after all, the Smart Growth trend across the country – destroy traditional homes in the suburbs because they are “unsustainable” and build high rises in inner cities.

Smart Growth meetings across the country at the local level tout “consensus building” where the outcome has already been decided by a small group of “visioning” experts paid by non-governmental organizations with funds to burn from various federal government agencies, including the U.S. Park Service.

The method used by the “visioning” experts is the Delphi technique developed by the Rand Corporation during the Cold War era as a mind-controlling tool, a “consensive  process.” The technique was used to lead a targeted group to a pre-determined outcome, while maintaining the illusion that the public had open input.

The state of Virginia passed an Amendment to restrict eminent domain abuse, the taking of private property and single-family dwellings in order to develop the same land into high density complexes that are more profitable for counties, bringing in much more revenue. The Democrat’s sample ballot showed that they were against the measure – they preferred to demolish low density traditional middle class homes in order to make room for their UN Agenda 21 goals. Builders are eager to satisfy government demanded UN land development as the consumer driven free enterprise system is killed by regulations and by government fiat. One fourth of a conservative county with single family homes voted that it was a good idea to relinquish property to the government. This begged the following questions:

1.      Did they vote out of ignorance?

2.      Did they not understand the issue on the ballot?

3.      Did they strongly believe that the government has the right to take your property with compensation, and then sell it to the highest bidder who would then develop it into high density habitation, resulting in much higher tax revenue for the government?

Sustainable development economists and UN promoters have one goal in mind, replacing the current capitalist system with sustainable development, a form of global economics for the “common good,” a communist world society in which the United Nations will play the role of benevolent dictator.

The root of the word communist is the Latin word “communis,” shared, common. Stalin’s communist Five Year Plan (1932-1933), to strip landowners of property, organize citizens into communes, control agriculture centrally, and increase industry (steel, iron, electric) resulted in the death of almost 10 million Ukrainians from famine.

Mao Tse Tung’s Great Leap Forward (1959-1961) plan to strip landowners of property, organize citizens into communes, centrally control agriculture, and increase industry (steel, iron, massive building projects) resulted in the death of 40 million people from starvation.

President Obama’s Rural Council executive order passed in 2011 encourages “public-private partnerships,” “helps rural communities connect regionally to collaborate,” “expands markets for agriculture,” and “increases renewable energy and conservation.” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/06/09/obama-administration-establishes-white-house-rural-council-strengthen-ru)

John Adams said in defense of private property, “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If ‘Thou shalt not covet’ and “Thou shalt not steal’ were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free.” (A Defense of American Constitutions)

At the other end of the spectrum, Thomas Paine wrote in “Agrarian Justice” in 1797, “There could be no such thing as landed property originally. Man did not make the earth, and, though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity on any part of it.”

Daniel Webster said in his address to the Massachusetts Convention, “Power naturally and necessarily follows property.”

A growing number of property rights advocates that oppose government land grab in any form are also opposing the seemingly innocent move by the U.S. Park Service to designate more and more areas as National Heritage sites. Property owners see the increased designation as predatory federal bureaucracy, a covert land grab.

The Park Service allocates funds to a local group designated as a managing body composed of local government officials and environmental groups who in turn set up non-elected boards, councils and regional coordinating agencies to oversee land use in the heritage area via specific planning and zoning. The managing group, once entrenched in the area, receives operating funds from the Park Service to direct all business to be conducted in a way that they do not consider harmful to the heritage area. Property owners and businessmen are never consulted or given a voice in these non-elected managing bodies. (Tom Deweese, American Policy Center, Warrenton, Virginia)

National Heritage Area Act of 2012, sponsored by Rep. Charles Dent (R-PA15) is the proposed HR 4099 that would grant open-ended powers to local management bodies, empowering them to regulate human activities inside the heritage area, with the potential to affect the lives of millions of Americans without public debate. The management body would operate in the best interest of their organization, disregarding the interests of the property owners in the heritage area.

Americans love to preserve their history and their heritage. They certainly did not object to the idea, many years ago, that certain sites need to be protected for future generations. “There are 49 such sites across the country, West Virginia, Virginia, Iowa, Florida, Colorado, the entire state of Tennessee, the entire city of Baltimore” and many more to come. (Tom DeWeese, in an interview to WHDN Boston, posted on YouTube on Nov. 7, 2012)

The problem is that we have already secured preservation for our monuments, parks, and historical sites. HR 4099 would confiscate huge tracts of land that hold a historical site within a large perimeter of land. This land, whether agricultural or residential, would no longer be allowed to be developed unless the government gives permission.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the Sierra Club, Nature Conservancy, National Audubon Society, National Historic Preservation, and Scenic America receive millions from the federal government to fund “cleverly designed schemes” that stop land development.

The Crooked Road, Virginia’s Historic Music Trail, preserves blue grass and Blue Ridge mountain music. (http://thecrookedroad.org/) There are auditoriums in the area where the music is already played and preserved. The trail encompasses 15 counties. Why is it necessary to create an extensive boundary around 15 counties? In the Florida Everglades people were moved off the land after generations of ownership. The Bull Run (Manassas Battle Field) is already extensively preserved yet, because of the National Heritage designation, people cannot put a cell tower on private land because “Robert E. Lee did not see a cell tower and we won’t see one now.” (Tom DeWeese)

When Congressman Wolf of Virginia was asked by Tom DeWeese if citizens were notified about the buffer zones around their properties and the boundary zones of the Heritage site, the answer was no because there was language in the bill that allowed people to opt out. DeWeese described the scenario where a citizen would go to City Hall requesting to opt out of a zoning regulation and how he/she would be laughed out of the room.

Martha Boneta of Loudon County, Virginia, could not use 20 acres of her agriculture designated land to farm because it was considered “Hallowed Grounds.” There was indeed an encampment in the area during the Civil War but nobody died there. For two years, her cattle could not even seek shade in the oak grove and her children could not play there. She was also fined for selling agricultural products on her property and for having a children’s birthday party on her farm. Three lawsuits were filed in August 2012 against a new ordinance that imposes strict limits on hours and activities at 13 local vineyards.  (http://www.loudountimes.com/index.php/news/article/virginia_watchdog_fauquier_wineries_say_county_is_stomping_on_their_assets/)

These well-crafted environmental buffer zones that are designated in the National Heritage Area seem innocuous and unrelated until citizen’s rights to free use of their private properties clash with their rules. The NGOs indirectly control land zoning and activities by putting pressure on local boards. It is expensive to fight NGOs flush with taxpayer and private cash. As Gary Franchi of WHDN 9 Boston says, “The NGOs syphon off taxpayer dollars to fulfill agendas that they themselves create.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQM3_4jt-c)

 

 

 

 

 

My Trip to Obama-Mart

Yesterday was an interesting excursion into the future of our new country. As many liberals have told me, the earth is still spinning and I need to grow up, the people have spoken, and they are in control now. Even in victory, Democrats are unhappy; they must completely squash the opposition. I cannot help but think of California, a one-party state ruled by liberals, what will happen to this once prosperous secular state.

We had gone grocery shopping and decided to walk over to the newly renovated Wal-Mart, bustling with shoppers of any nationality possible, most speaking their native tongues in a cacophony of foreign sounds. The first encounter was the two large posters on the front door, telling customers the shopping days for SNAP.

We felt out of place, alien, and dirty, as if this was not our country anymore. The few black and white people who spoke English were “rara avis.”

A lady was walking around with her belly hanging out, proudly announcing to the world that she was very pregnant. Grotesquely fat people with overladen carts with food were moseying around the isles. I never understood how Americans claim they are so poor and exploited yet they eat the most, as exemplified by their girth. Other nations spend a large percentage of their incomes to buy food, yet we shout that we are poor. Maybe this is an expression of what we now do in this country, accepting the lowest denominator as the norm – no more American exceptionalism.

Liberals told us that things are going to be great now that they rule the new country. We are going to have expensive “free healthcare,” higher taxes, more spending, less military, leaving us more vulnerable and less respected in the world, but, we are going to be just like everyone else, mediocre and dependent on government.

The future is not about “bringing people up;” it is about lowering the bar because the bar was unfairly set too high. We are the American Union, soon to catch up with the European Union. We are all Europeans now, excited at the prospect of total socialism. Why should someone who worked hard their entire lives, made right decisions, and saved, should have more than someone who self-indulged on drugs all the time, did not show up for work, but kept having babies out of wedlock? We have to spread the wealth, willingly or by executive fiat.

On a busy Saturday afternoon, brand new banks of cash registers were empty while the available ones had long lines of impatient people. Could it be incompetence or the fact that Wal-Mart is cutting down employees in order to avoid the expensive compliance with Obamacare?

One lady, frustrated by the long wait in the fast checkout lane, was shouting to the ceiling, I presume to the cameras, “It’s idiots like us who have to pay.” In a disjointed speech, she continued, “Six men own 40 percent of the wealth, we should all storm and take it. Management, come to the cash register! My time is valuable too.” She explained to the entire line that she could not shop at the union-owned grocery stores because prices were too high. She did not need the bulk of Costco either. Following her logic, she should have been happy with Wal-Mart – their low prices have allowed many American families to buy their food and necessities while leaving disposable income for other expenses. It is not Wal-Mart’s fault that both Republican and Democrat Congressmen de-industrialized America by approving NAFTA, GATT, WTO, allowing free trade with China, and resulting in multinational corporations moving their factories overseas, firing workers, and destroying millions of manufacturing jobs in the process. The spectacle I was witnessing was a sad expression of the dumbed down electorate who are changing the face of America for the worst.

The opportunity cost of standing in this line at Wal-Mart was higher than what I was shopping for but I was learning a valuable lesson. I am not sure most people would understand or care what opportunity cost is. We live in one of the most educated areas in the country yet this is the result of our dumbed down educational system. Nobody wants to work $12 an hour jobs so they hire foreigners who do not speak English.

Our paper currency claims proudly, “In God We Trust.” Is this still the case? Are we still running the new country on Christian principles or are we now running it on secularism and statism, the new SS? Are atheism and mother Earth our new gods? If we held a referendum today and there was no voter fraud, would God and Christianity win? Are we still a Judeo-Christian nation?

Did we peak as a nation before 9/11? Did Osama bin Laden succeed in taking us down? Do we now worship the god of “self,” whatever is best for me and makes me feel good is my new god?

If Democrats get enough rope, they will hang themselves with it and I think, we should let it happen. It will be painful for us and the rest of the world.

Do the “evil rich” need to be taught a lesson in sharing by the Democrat largesse? History will tell. To mirror the recent special, “The Men Who Built America,” our children and grandchildren may watch a special years from now on the history channel, “2030 – The Men Who Destroyed America” – Woodrow Wilson, FDR, bankers, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Richard Nixon, Treasury Secretaries, some recent Presidents, the Supreme Court, and the Federal Reserve may feature prominently.

 

Carbon Tax is Still Environmental Piracy

“Why would they [illegal immigrants] vote for a party that is going to cut taxes they do not pay, but take away government benefits they do receive?” Patrick J. Buchanan

As the country is reeling from the electoral loss and the re-election of President Obama, half rejoicing and the other half in stunned disbelief, the economic reality is beginning to sink in.

People chose the promise of Santa Claus and Christmas every day of the year. Government Santa is likely to slow down in delivering unearned freebies as the economy worsens.

The Dow Industrials reacted immediately to the re-election by dropping more than 300 points. All other indexes also dropped more than 2 percent the next day. The finance and energy sectors will be the hardest hit by the promised increased regulation.

De-developing America has been a stated goal of the President’s platform during the first campaign by increasing energy costs through the bankruptcy of many coal plants via onerous EPA regulations.

Republicans are co-culprits to the de-industrialization of America. They approved NAFTA, GATT, WTO, and allowed free trade with China. Multi-national corporations moved their factories overseas, fired workers, destroyed 6 million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and moved 55,000 factories out of the U.S. (Patrick J. Buchanan, “Is the GOP Headed for the Boneyard?” November 8, 2012)

The stranded homeless from Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey and New York are poorly cared for, electricity is still absent in many areas, and the infrastructure damaged from the storm surge is at least eight months away from being repaired. To make matters worse, a cold front and a virus outbreak in the FEMA camp is exacerbating the misery.

The divided government, the Democrat controlled Senate and White House, and the Republican controlled House, has many challenges to address. The “fiscal cliff” and reaching the debt ceiling are the most immediate.

On January 1, 2013 the Bush era tax cuts will expire and new higher taxes will take effect, a total of $500 billion, affecting individuals, families, struggling small businesses, and investors. In such a climate of more taxation and lower business confidence, it will be very hard to create jobs. The Obamacare mandate and penalties will additionally force many businesses to make painful layoffs – resulting in higher unemployment.

Massive budget cuts to the military will be automatically enforced through sequestration, a legislative tactic to hold the military budget hostage to the tax increases that Democrats and the administration wish to enforce. Cutting the military drastically and its budget at the time when the Middle East is a basket case, North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran are exercising their military muscles, is not a very safe idea.

Speaker Boehner’s tax reform plan to lower tax rates and eliminate certain tax deductions would lead to higher economic growth than the current anemic 2 percent, resulting in more tax revenues. Raising tax rates without cutting spending is not a viable option. The Speaker of the House believes that “shoring up entitlements and reforming the tax code to bring jobs home” would go a long way to increase economic activity and raise revenue.

Democrats in Congress are eager to raise taxes and continue deficit spending to stimulate the economy. Keynesian economists, who believe it is the government’s job to smooth out the fluctuations in the economy, would choose government spending and tax breaks to stimulate the economy in bad times.

The Washington Post’s Steven Mufson has a bolder suggestion to solve the problem of out-of-control deficit spending that Congress has engaged in: pass a carbon tax to raise enough money to bring the budget deficit under control. “Climate activists hope a carbon tax would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by penalizing the use of coal, oil, and natural gas.” (Carbon Tax getting closer look, November 10, 2012)

Mufson quotes William Pizer from Duke who said that a “$20-a-ton tax on carbon dioxide would raise gasoline prices by about 20 cents per gallon and boost electric bills slightly.” The tax would take place “upstream, at coal mines, oil and gas wells, or terminals for oil tankers at U.S. shores.”

The problem is that higher gasoline and electricity prices would fall on those who can ill-afford them because average Americans spend a larger percentage of their incomes on gasoline and electricity. Companies who export to countries that don’t have carbon taxes would have to be given subsidies in order to compete, more government spending of taxpayer dollars we do not have. Liberals forget that there is also on-going carbon trading in California and the northeastern part of the United States. The environmentalists proposals to tax CO2 emissions is nothing more than a get-rich scheme for those in power, and a sure way to raise cash for more spending, it has nothing to do with the environment or saving the planet, it resembles more environmental piracy.

Jeff Flake (R-Arizona) co-sponsored a carbon tax bill in 2009 but now “has no plans to reintroduce it or support it as part of a tax reform package.” The American Petroleum Institute opposes the carbon tax on grounds that it will constrain energy production and it will impact the American people by increasing costs.

Add all the EPA onerous new regulations and you have a recipe for economic disaster. It does not matter to liberals that China and India would continue polluting with a vengeance. As long as our polluters are taxed, which in turn will pass these taxes to consumers, the budget deficit gap will be solved – until liberals run out of money and the debt ceiling must be raised again or another scheme will be devised to bring in more revenue.

If the fiscal cliff is not averted, the fiscal crisis will be accompanied by higher unemployment, higher inflation, higher food and energy prices, and higher interest rates. Republicans will have to cave in to Democrats because all the subsequent pain the American public will experience will be blamed on Republicans. After all, we’ve been hearing for the past years every day, everything is Bush’s fault and President Obama inherited a mess from President Bush.

Hurricane Sandy gave mayor Bloomberg a fresh excuse to promote global warming and his Agenda 21 plan for New York. EPA can step in and limit CO2 from power plants and other sources through executive orders. Expensive renewable energy will be pushed again at the forefront in spite of the 12 or more bankruptcies that occurred in the last four years. Corn will be taken out of the food supply and put into bio-fuels, including a new brand of Diesel mixed with rapeseed oil that Europeans are already using, DieselMaxx.

According to Paul Driessen, “Billions of dollars in taxpayers’ subsidies continue to flow each year to bureaucratic zealots, environmental pressure groups, universities, and other organizations. These dollars fund junk science, strained justification for indefensible rules, more pressure to regulate for increasingly diminished returns, and outright propaganda.” (Green agenda threatens economic future, Washington Times, November 8, 2012)

Americans are perennially optimistic and that’s a good thing. Fifty percent of Americans are also extremely gullible and believe in government as Santa Clause. They refuse to accept the fact that “fundamental change” is inevitably life-altering, cannot be reversed, may not have a quick fix, or may not have a fix at all. It is not a piece of merchandise that you can return to the store later if dissatisfied.

When faced with pessimism, Americans react by either verbally shooting the messenger with personal insults or discounting experienced opinion as ranting or defeatist attitude. We are Americans and we can fix everything. President Obama is going to help all poor people by giving them the opportunity to succeed. Somehow before Obama arrived on the world stage, the opportunity to succeed did not exist.

I live in Realityville and have observed carefully the European Union and its disastrous socialist economic policies and multiculturalism. These policies are finally bearing fruit in the U.S. We are a new country today, following into the footsteps of the failed lab experiment of the European Union, including the proposed carbon taxes, a form of environmental piracy.

The End of an Empire

Our Constitutional Republic died a peaceful death on November 6, 2012. Having reached the point of no return in a comatose state after years of progressive and illegal immigration assaults, the fabric of conservative society is now completely unraveled and Uncle Sam’s America is no more.

The United States of America is now relegated to the dust bin of history as a “has been” empire. The Shining City on the Hill, the hope of so many millions since July 4, 1776, no longer exists. What rises from the ashes is a country that few of us will recognize, like, or learn to accept submissively.

After 236 years of existence, a new country emerges today, run by secular progressives who rejected our Constitution, what we stand for, and who we are as a nation. The Supreme Court will be forever altered after its last conservative members will be replaced by the liberal academics who call themselves “progressives.” The rule of law will be implemented by Executive Orders, making Congress irrelevant.

The communist motto “Forward” that resonated with so many ignorant Americans will plunge us into many years of darkness from which we will never be able to recover. We have proven our Founding Fathers right, they did give us a Constitutional Republic and we were unable to maintain it.

The forces of the failed communist fundamental transformation that were driven underground in many places around the world, resurfaced with a vengeance in the United States and have now taken over.

How long we will still have freedom of speech, movement, assembly, and control of our private property remains to be seen. Faith and churches will be driven underground, allowing secularism to prosper and take deep roots among the progressives whose God is Mother Earth.

The welfare dependent Americans, unions, and illegal aliens have chosen for the rest of us the dark path of serfdom to big government and to socialist utopia.

Who would have guessed that the very people who were complaining that the government is not extricating them from disaster or giving them the help they needed in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, would vote for the very politicians who turned their backs on needy Americans after the lights went dark when the political photo opportunities ended?

Who would have guessed that Americans were as ignorant and irresponsible as to choose fiscal destruction over fiscal sanity for their children and grandchildren, secularism and communism over faith, dependence over personal responsibility and self-reliance?

Americans have been protesting for the last four years the dismal state of the economy and the direction of our country, the corruption of our politicians, and the loss of personal and economic freedom.

Rallies in support of conservatism overwhelmed venues for Mitt Romney while rallies for our bumbling President became scarcer and scarcer. Yet, miraculously, at the ballot box, our President won all over the country.

We lost seats in the Senate. Americans chose liars and cheats to be their Senators and Representatives, rejecting those who protected the Constitution. The candidate from Massachusetts who claimed direct American Indian lineage to Pocahontas is now a Senator, having defeated Scott Brown. Representative Allen West lost his seat by a narrow margin but the infamous Wasserman Schultz from Florida kept hers. 

Americans chose high unemployment, reduction of our military, communist indoctrination of their children, and loss of personal freedoms unlike we have never seen before in this country.

I am saddened by the loss of millions and millions of American soldiers who have died to preserve freedom yet we lost it on November 6, 2012. Those buried in cemeteries around the world and at Arlington must be rolling in their graves today. We shamelessly allowed their sacrifice of blood and treasure to go in vain. We have no honor because we let down all the soldiers who fought in recent times and returned home limbless with lives shattered from physical and mental wounds of war.

I mourn today the loss of my adopted country. I have fought hard over the last four years to prevent its overt and accelerated destruction but the darker forces stronger than many of us have overcome concerted efforts by millions of Americans to maintain the Republic. Mediocrity, sloth, godlessness, dependence, cowardice, using the law selectively or ignoring it, and hopeless corruption will define the new country. Only God can save us now with his mercy and grace.

Women, Use the Hard-Earned Right to Vote, Wisely

The Night of Terror took place on November 15, 1917 in a prison called the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia. Thirty-three defenseless women dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House asking for their right to vote. The warden ordered his forty prison guards armed with clubs to teach the suffragists a lesson they would never forget.

According to the press of that era, Lucy Burns was chained to the cell bars with her hands above her head all night, bleeding. Dora Lewis was shoved so hard into her cell that she hit her head on the iron bed rails and passed out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, suffered a heart attack because she thought Dora was dead.

The 33 innocent women were convicted of “obstructing sidewalk” traffic. For weeks, they were subjected to the cruelty of their guards, bent on teaching them the harsh lesson ordered by the President – chocking, beating, grabbing, slamming, and kicking them into submission. Their food was infested with worms. Alice Paul refused to eat and, after being tied to a chair, liquid was poured down her throat through a tube until she vomited. Pauline Adams served a 60 day sentence.

President Woodrow Wilson, a progressive Democrat, attempted to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul, one of the leaders, insane. She would then be sent to a state institution for life. The psychiatrist refused by saying, “Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.”

Women finally got the right to vote on August 18, 1920 when the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. Amendment XIX prohibits any United States citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton drafted the amendment that was first introduced in 1878. Tennessee’s ratification was the final vote needed to add the amendment to the Constitution. Challenged in 1922 in Leser v. Garnett, the Supreme Court rejected the claim that the amendment was unconstitutionally adopted.

Young women voting in the 21^st century helped put an unknown charismatic man in the White House in 2008, our first black President, with the platform of “hope and change” and a handy teleprompter, Greek columns, women fainting, and special God-like voice sound effects.

Nobody bothered to challenge or ask what kind of hope and what kind of change our country was going to be subjected to, who asked for this change, and who gave him the mandate to systematically destroy our economy: oil industry, coal industry, energy, health industry, automobile, banking, school loans, education, and NASA.

Once in office, President Obama began a constant barrage of attacks on our Constitution, passing executive order after executive order, the largest number in modern time, making Congress irrelevant, and disregarding the law.

Four years later unemployment is 14.6 percent, not the falsely reported 7.9 percent, everybody lost 40 percent of their wealth and their pension funds, housing is in shambles, business confidence is so low, it is negligible, 47 million Americans are on food stamps, the highest ever in the history of the United States, and the national debt, the biggest threat to our national security, grew in four years from $10 trillion to over $16 trillion and climbing, not counting Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security who are supposedly secure in a non-existent lockbox that Congress has raided long time ago to pay Peter with Paul’s funds.

In two days, young and old women alike will have the chance to vote again for Obama’s non-existent economic platform with the motto “Forward.” You must elect him first before he is actually going to tell you what he is going to do to our country. I am not sure what “Forward” means to the Democrats, I only hope it does not mean going over the cliff like a herd of sheep following the leader on the same disastrous path the U.S. has pursued since 2008. We certainly are not better off than we were $6 trillion ago.

For those who need a refresher in history, “Forward” was the Marxist-Leninist motto in communist Russia and all the other assorted communist Soviet satellite countries. “Vorwärts” ("Forward") was also the central mouthpiece of the Social Democratic Party of Germany published daily in Berlin from 1891 to 1933 and 1948 to present time.

I only hope that women will not take lightly the responsibility to vote in an informed manner. We must remember that women have gained the right to cast a ballot equal with men only 92 years ago. In many third world countries that liberals adore and admire as superior to our own, women are still not allowed to vote or their testimony in court is worth half the testimony of a man.

When you are unemployed with a worthless college degree in your pocket, have no health insurance, are angry that the government is taxing you too much to pay for 47 percent of the population who pays no taxes but receive welfare, the border is not being watched, the government is out of control with its spending, the military is cut down to size and you are afraid for our future as a nation, the quality of education is going down while the cost is escalating, remember how you voted or what you did when you chose to stay home on election day.

November 6, 2012 is perhaps the most important vote of your lifetime – the choice is yours and it is quite simple – do you want to salvage what is left of our Constitutional Republic and free market capitalism, or do you want to live as a serf indebted to an omnipotent government who will tell you what to do from cradle to grave?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday Chat with Silvio Canto from Dallas

My fifty minute chat with Silvio Canto of Dallas on economy, EU, and Agenda 21.
Friday, November 2, 2012
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2012/11/02/our-friday-chat-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

Lessons from Hurricane Sandy

Having lived in the Tornado Alley for 30 years, I have learned many valuable lessons. After many raging tornadoes, straight line winds, and hurricanes I understood that churches and other Americans near and far, not the big government, were the first line of defense after a disaster.

Mennonites, Baptists, Mormons, and the National Guard came by truckloads with bulldozers, shovels, and chain saws to extricate their fellow Americans from trees and debris. Utility trucks from places as far away as Utah helped restore our power.

I have never met a Mormon who was not giving and caring to their fellow man. For this reason, I do not understand the sheer hatred against Mitt Romney’s Mormonism. At the same time, liberals bend over backwards to appease and co-exist with “religions” that preach hate and terrorism.

How can New Jersey turn down utility crews from Alabama who came to help restore their power, just because they were not union members? There are still one million people in New Jersey without power yet crews from Alabama were told to stand down. They are either going back home or to New York. Does the Democrat pro-union political machine trump the misery and suffering of Americans?

When FEMA was run properly, help was forthcoming. The Red Cross fed us hot meals when our homes were unusable and the entire food supply had spoiled in freezers, refrigerators, and grocery stores. We barbequed meat for the entire street before it spoiled. We took showers at the YMCA, schools, or the local gym if they had generators.

We survived Katrina. Mississippians never complained or blamed the president when entire communities were razed off the face of the earth – the only remnants were the concrete outlines of the former homes’ foundations. We rolled up our sleeves under the leadership of the Republican governor Hailey Barbour and we rebuilt because that is what resilient Americans do, we do not wait for Uncle Sam to come to the rescue.

We were never so arrogant to claim, in shameless hubris, that humans were in control of Mother Earth. We did not cause global warming and we are not responsible for cycles of disastrous weather. Bad weather events such as Sandy have occurred periodically throughout our planet’s history. Soil samples prove that massive tsunamis and hurricanes had occurred long before humanity reached the industrial age. Time and effort would be better spent to find a way to minimize the damaging effect of natural events. Destroying our way of life and returning to pre-industrial age is not a rational answer.

Liberals are fond of mixing climate with weather events. Mayor Bloomberg was eager to point out, “Our climate is changing. And while the increase in extreme weather we have experienced in New York City and around the world may or may not be the result of it, the risk that it might be – given this week’s devastation – should compel all elected leaders to take immediate action.”

I would prefer that leaders take immediate action and reduce our national debt, the number one threat to our national security. Taxing us more is not a solution.

Bloomberg continues by promoting their sustainability plan (U.N. Agenda 21), PlaNYC 2030 (www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/home/home.shtml),

carbon foot print reduction, and C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, “a partnership among many of the world’s largest cities – local governments are taking action where national governments are not.” While he stops short of blaming global warming for hurricane Sandy, he implies it, touting the steps taken by the current administration in reducing carbon consumption, enforcing cap-and-trade, implementing higher fuel-efficiency standards, tighter control on mercury emissions, and closing the dirtiest coal power plants, the very same steps that supposedly saved 13,000 lives each year but killed millions of jobs.

Bloomberg, a rich urbanite, cannot fathom the idea that climate has changed for millennia and people had to adapt or die off. Rural residents are not deluding themselves and others that the power of nature can be controlled by man. You can ask the dinosaurs that even a 100 percent tax to offset carbon footprint cannot change global events. It is just a scheme to make money and to make people like Al Gore rich.

The fact that millions are crowded into high-rise apartments in densely populated areas, leaving people exposed, more vulnerable, with more casualties in the wake of a weather related event, escapes the liberal mind. We now track and keep very accurate records of catastrophic weather events. In the past the data was scarce, records sketchy, and news did not travel so fast without the Internet.

It is common sense that coastal areas are prone to flooding. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure it out. The Washington Post was quick to point out that “Climate change predictions foresaw Hurricane Sandy scenario for New York City.” There is at least a show a week on National Geographic or the History Channel predicting global Armageddon and what life would be like after people and coastal areas disappear. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/climate-change-predictions-foresaw-hurricane-sandy-scenario-for-new-york-city/2012/10/31/b78de428-2374-11e2-ac85-e669876c6a24_blog.html?wpisrc=nl_buzz)

Computer modeling and satellites enable scientists to forecast and track massive super storms. Forecasting of weather events is done by a $13 billion program run by NOAA and NASA. There is a problem with satellites that are nearing their life cycle or have already passed it. These satellites fly pole-to-pole, across the Equator, scanning the planet for weather patterns, helping to predict major storms five days ahead. Launching replacements called Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) will not occur until 2017, possibly causing a gap in the continuity of the ability to forecast weather accurately. It is unclear how the JPSS-1 spacecraft will carry the scientific payload into space. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/us/dying-satellites-could-lead-to-shaky-weather-forecasts.html)

Mercy Chefs, a relief agency that serves hot meals to disaster victims, is staging operations in lower Manhattan to serve Hurricane Sandy’s victims while rich liberals think that it is a good idea to host the New York City marathon surrounded by so much need. Mercy Chefs served 900 people after the initial setup. According to Gary LeBlanc, there are 40,000 people in the vicinity where they are serving hot meals, many residents still without power and water for the next 10 days.

I understand need, pain and suffering – I’ve lived through many hurricanes, a few earthquakes, and many tornadoes. I hope Democrats use this painful lesson to ponder the fact that immediate help and relief does not come from Big Government, it comes from ordinary fellow Americans who do extraordinary things.

Liberals have always lived in the capitalist lap of luxury but have yearned for the poverty of communism. As they ardently advocate and support utopia at all costs, liberals are finally getting painful lessons from a hurricane, of what everyday life is like under communism - power goes out for weeks on end, water is turned off, hot water is seldom available, heat is anemic, wood, coal, gasoline, and heating oil are hard to find and expensive, and food is very scarce, distributed in long lines, with rationing coupons, or on the black market. The only difference between communism and a natural disaster is the culprit that causes all the pain and suffering – irrational control freaks or Mother Nature.