Saturday, January 29, 2011

Back to the subject of Oil and energy

Problem is if the US actually took this and kept it at home the Arab/
Moslem markets would collapse....

That would be bad for business.

Contact Information:
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey
Office of Communication
119 National Center
Reston, VA 20192 Main Contact
Phone: N/A

Read FAQs about the Bakken Formation.
Listen to a podcast with the lead scientist on this topic.
Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3
billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an
area known as the Bakken Formation.
A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-
fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to
the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

3 to 4.3 Billion Barrels of Oil in North Dakota and Montana

Technically recoverable oil resources are those producible using
currently available technology and industry practices. USGS is the
only provider of publicly available estimates of undiscovered
technically recoverable oil and gas resources.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in
drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have
resulted in these substantially larger technically recoverable oil
volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the
Bakken Formation by the end of 2007.

The USGS Bakken study was undertaken as part of a nationwide project
assessing domestic petroleum basins using standardized methodology and
protocol as required by the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of
2000.

The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS
oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous"
oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS. A "continuous" oil
accumulation means that the oil resource is dispersed throughout a
geologic formation rather than existing as discrete, localized
occurrences. The next largest "continuous" oil accumulation in the
U.S. is in the Austin Chalk of Texas and Louisiana, with an
undiscovered estimate of 1.0 billions of barrels of technically
recoverable oil.

"It is clear that the Bakken formation contains a significant amount
of oil - the question is how much of that oil is recoverable using
today's technology?" said Senator Byron Dorgan, of North Dakota. "To
get an answer to this important question, I requested that the U.S.
Geological Survey complete this study, which will provide an up-to-
date estimate on the amount of technically recoverable oil resources
in the Bakken Shale formation."

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically
recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists
conducted detailed studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and
the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their
findings with historical exploration and production analyses to
determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.

USGS worked with the North Dakota Geological Survey, a number of
petroleum industry companies and independents, universities and other
experts to develop a geological understanding of the Bakken Formation.
These groups provided critical information and feedback on geological
and engineering concepts important to building the geologic and
production models used in the assessment.

Five continuous assessment units (AU) were identified and assessed in
the Bakken Formation of North Dakota and Montana - the Elm Coulee-
Billings Nose AU, the Central Basin-Poplar Dome AU, the Nesson-Little
Knife Structural AU, the Eastern Expulsion Threshold AU, and the
Northwest Expulsion Threshold AU.

At the time of the assessment, a limited number of wells have produced
oil from three of the assessments units in Central Basin-Poplar Dome,
Eastern Expulsion Threshold, and Northwest Expulsion Threshold.
The Elm Coulee oil field in Montana, discovered in 2000, has produced
about 65 million barrels of the 105 million barrels of oil recovered
from the Bakken Formation.

Results of the assessment can be found at http://energy.usgs.gov.

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

The Enumerated Rights Are Hanging By A Thread

The Enumerated Rights Are Hanging By A Thread
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27368.htm

--
"9/11 changed nothing. Politicians still lie, cheat, and steal for money and power. Ordinary people still struggle every day to defend rights that were supposed to have been guaranteed."
— L. Neil Smith

For less than the cost of one hour with most lawyers, you can learn how to control judges and lawyers yourself!

State Of The Police State: Everything's Illegal

If you are worried that we are heading toward a police state, wake up: we are already there.

A federal warrant has been issued for the arrest of 78-year-old Julian Heicklen for refusing to attend a scheduled court hearing after receiving a summons charging him with "jury tampering."

"I did not attend the hearing on Monday. However a Tyranny Fighter (that's the name of Heicklen's blog) was present. She reports that the Assistant U. S. Attorney charged me with distributing literature without a permit, a violation of a Homeland Security regulation. The summons says the charge is jury tampering, a violation of a U. S. statute. The right hand does not know what the right hand is doing."
http://tyrannyfighters.com/progress-report-2011-01-26/

Had Heicklen appeared in court to answer the summons he would have prepared a defense based on the assertion of the summons that he was somehow guilty of jury tampering. He would then have been blind-sided by the Assistant U.S. Attorney, who was actually bringing charges for "distributing literature without a permit."

How does one survive such corruption by the courts? Are you aware that such corruption exists throughout the courts system in the United States?

Heicklen was interviewed on 09 November 2009, the day the alleged offense took place. (video: 3:21)
http://blogofbile.com/2010/12/01/dhs-turn-over-footage-from-2009-11-09-arrest/

State Of The Police State: Everything's Illegal
http://www.examiner.com/libertarian-news-in-national/state-of-the-police-state-everything-s-illegal?CID=examiner_alerts_article

--
"Don't call people who boss you around and steal your money 'public servants.' They're not! They're a parasitic ruling class of God-complex narcissistic megalomaniacs."
- Larken Rose

For less than the cost of one hour with most lawyers, you can learn how to control judges and lawyers yourself!

ACLU, feds coordinated attack on Arizona crackdown on illegals

ACLU, feds coordinated attack on Arizona crackdown on illegals

A public interest organization that uncovers and prosecutes corruption in government said it has confirmed from Department of Justice documents that the federal agency under Barack Obama's command worked hand-in-hand with the American Civil Liberties Union to attack Arizona over its tough new immigration law.

Read the latest now on WND.com.

--
When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

Sinclair Lewis

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

The Revolutionary Wave

The Revolutionary Wave
Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen – is the West next?
by Justin Raimondo, January 28, 2011

It started, of all places, in Tunisia, a land of sunny beaches and sleepy walled cities – the first stirrings of a revolutionary wave that, before it's crested, may reach American shores.

The spark flared first in the small town of Sidi Bouzid, in central Tunisia, where Mohamed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old graduate student, was accosted by the authorities for selling produce in the souk – the equivalent of a farmer's market – without a license. Bouazizi, like many in emerging economies, could not find a job in his field – or any other field – and so was forced to resort to hawking olives and oranges to support his family of eight. The officials reportedly humiliated him, and when he went to city hall to try to go "legal," they wouldn't even let him in the door. These are the circumstances that led to his now famous act of self immolation: in protest, and in full view of passersby, he stood in front of city hall, poured lighter fluid on himself – and struck a match.

This spark set off a prairie fire still burning its way across the Middle East, a conflagration born of boiling resentment and red-hot anger directed at the authorities that has already spread to Egypt and Yemen, and shows every sign of flaring up well beyond the region. As a global economic downturn punctures the delusions of economic planners and technocrats worldwide, the bursting of the bubble brought on by unrestrained bank credit expansion is generating a political tsunami that promises to topple governments from North Africa to North America.

Egypt is the perfect candidate for what we might call the Bouazizian revolution – a US-supported kleptocracy ruled by a coalition of the military, the technocrats, and Washington, with the overarching figure of Hosni Mubarak – now 82 – presiding over it all. As in Tunisia, one of the key issues is the succession: rumors that the Egyptian dictator was planning to pass power on to his son, Gamal, fueled popular fury against this latter-day Pharaoh. In both cases, the state is controlled by a single party – in Egypt, it is the National Democratic Party still resting on the long-ago laurels of an anti-colonialist uprising, and since reified into a bureaucratic incrustation on the body politic.

Another similarity – which, somehow, most commentators have failed to note – is that all these upsurges are against regimes that have enjoyed practically unqualified US military and political support. Tunisia's Ben Ali was a favorite of George W. Bush's, and the Tunisian tyrant continued to enjoy support from the Obama administration. US aid to the regime hovered in the $20 million range, all of it in military, "anti-terrorist," and anti-narcotics detection sectors, and was slated for an increase in FY 2010. Egypt, of course, is the linchpin of US-friendly countries in the region, and Yemen is the latest battleground in our never-ending "war on terrorism."

Just follow the money. The American taxpayers have shelled out an average $2 billion-plus per year to our Egyptian sock puppets since 1979. As for Yemen, as Warren Strobel points out, "U.S. aid to Yemen increased significantly in fiscal year 2010 to about $67 million, and is due to increase in the current fiscal year to $106 million." That's not counting $170 million in military aid. This gravy train is undoubtedly the single largest income stream flowing into the country: Yemen, in short, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US government. The same can fairly be said about Egypt.

On her January surprise visit to Yemen, Hillary Clinton is said to have " gently chided" Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to loosen his tenacious grip on the country's political life, but as she got on the plane to depart she stumbled and took quite a fall – prefiguring the probable fate of Saleh, and, indeed, the various US puppet regimes in the region. The US is taking the same approach to Egypt, where demonstrators are demanding the resignation of Mubarak and being murdered in the streets: oh, but don't worry, says White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, the Mubarak regime is "stable" in spite of it all.

This is arrant nonsense: Mubarak will follow Ben Ali into exile soon enough. Gamal has already packed up and fled to London with his family – and, reportedly, 100 pieces of luggage! The Egyptian authorities deny it, and the Guardian reports news of the son's flight "appears to be wishful thinking."

In any case, the geniuses in charge of the US government are quite wrong if they think Mubarak can withstand the rising tide of protest, and the reason for their blindness isn't hard to see. This administration seems to have forgotten the catchphrase popularized by its Clintonian predecessor: " It's the economy, stupid." In this case, it's the world economy, stupid: the global economic downturn that economist Nouriel Roubini – who predicted the 2008 implosion of the financial markets – says " can topple regimes." Commodity inflation means skyrocketing food prices – around two thirds of the consumer price index for emerging economies, as Roubini points out.

Roubini – and nearly every libertarian economist of the "Austrian" school – has long warned about the coming financial crisis of the West, the first seismic tremors of which we have been experiencing here in America since November 2008. But this is just the beginning: in the short term, unfunded liabilities and the interest on the national debt will account for a whopping 60 percent of GDP, and it won't be long before it's 100 percent. When that day comes – or, perhaps, long before it – the worldwide economic meltdown will be paying us a rather unwelcome visit, with consequences that are likely to make Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and Greece look like romps in the park.

Our rulers can't see the locomotive coming down the tracks, even though they're standing right in its way: they still insist on the myth of " American exceptionalism," which supposedly anoints us with a special destiny and gives us the right to order the world according to our uniquely acquired position of preeminence. Yet that preeminence is increasingly being called into question by the economic facts of reality – and our own refusal to get our financial house in order. Blinded by hubris, and the habit of authority, the political class in America is no different, in essence, from its counterparts in Tunisia and Egypt: corrupt, arrogant, and used to commanding obedience, the Best and the Brightest are prisoners of their own complacency. Unable to comprehend, or sympathize with, the plight of the world's miserable masses, encased in a bubble where the worst crisis they have to personally face is a broken chair lift at Davos, these preening Louis XIVs and Marie Antoinettes are in for a rude shock.

The nature of these populist revolts against authority will take on a different character according to where and when they occur, naturally enough: in Tunisia and Egypt, we see protests sparked by petty humiliations such as Mr. Bouazizi had to endure. In Greece and Great Britain, mass upsurges are the result of austerity budgets that cut ordinary people off at the knees while the banksters get bailed out. In America, we see the Tea Party rising against the tyranny of indebtedness and economic strangulation of the ordinary citizen – but this is just a prelude to the rising chorus of discontent and outright rebellion that will threaten American society in the years to come.

The revolutionary wave now sweeping the world will not exempt America, in spite of the myth of "American exceptionalism." We cannot and will not be excepted from the iron laws of economics, which mandate that you can't consume more than you produce – no matter how many Federal Reserve notes (otherwise known as "money") you print.

The implications for US foreign policy are radical, and unsettling. While the decline and fall of the Roman Empire occurred over centuries of decay and degeneration, the process as it unfolds in America is likely to occur with what, in terms of human history, appears to be lightning speed. As our allies and satraps fall, one by one, across the Middle East and Europe, their fate prefigures our own.

Before we start cheering this world revolution as the salvation of us all, however, it ought to be remembered that revolutionary regimes often turn out to be worse than the tyrannies they've overthrown. There's no telling what direction these political insurgencies will take, either in the Middle East or in America. As a negative example, recall the ideologies that arose in the 1930s in the wake of the Great Depression German National Socialism, Italian Fascism, and Eurasian Bolshevism – and be forewarned. On a more positive note, here in the United States, at least, the possibilities are more balanced, although the dangers should not be underestimated.

What we are in for, finally, is a radical realignment of power, a vast shift that will break up the political landscape of every country on earth and shatter all the old assumptions. That old Chinese fortune-cookie curse, "May you live in interesting times," is about to come true.

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/01/27/the-revolutionary-wave/

Obama’s Corporatist Big Plans

The Goal Is Freedom
Obama's Corporatist Big Plans
Guess who's running the economy?
Sheldon Richman
Posted January 28, 2011

Win the future. What did Barack Obama mean when he uttered those ridiculous words in some form more than ten times during his State of the Union speech? Was it just an exhortation or does it have actual content? If "we" -- who exactly? -- are to win the future, does everyone else have to lose? If not, what's his point?

Are we even meant to think about this?

Obama's program is nothing more than a stepped-up corporatism, draped – as it so often is – in rah-rah red-white-and-blue, all the better to keep the public from looking too closely. If the people can be distracted by patriotic fanfare cheerleader chants about being No. 1 -- jingoist can-do-ism -- maybe they won't notice that the program is merely an updated state capitalism in which the government combines with well-connected business executives and anointed union leaders to manage the economy in hopes of preventing the crisis that could call into question the very legitimacy of statism. It's a tall order considering the mess the economic managers have created.

Tuesday night Obama delivered a message punctuated with an aggressive nationalism that insults the spirit of cosmopolitan free-market liberalism:

"We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world," he said.

How repulsive! The liberal vision isn't a zero-sum Olympic rivalry among nation-states, with governments alternately cajoling and cudgeling their populations to perform. It's a positive-sum world where individuals, not countries, compete and cooperate in pursuit of their well-being within a division of labor and harmony of interests, unobstructed by governments and their sanctioned monopolies -- and oblivious of political boundaries.

Corporatist Schemes

As I suggested, none of this is really meant to be analyzed. It's meant rather to alarm the people about the dire future that allegedly awaits a United States that can't dominate the world economy. And that domination cannot be achieved unless we all acquiesce in whatever corporatist plans Obama and his business cronies cook up. (To be sure, military domination is part of the program.)

Rough translation: "You want jobs? Trust us."

Obama quite understands this is not the free market. His corporate partners would want nothing to do with it if it were. There simply is no way for the "country" to lead the world economically without a government-business partnership at the helm, picking the winners and rigging the system to accomplish objectives chosen by "our leaders."

This will be an orchestrated economy (nothing new), and certainly not a "left-wing" anti-business agenda. (It's certainly no variant of socialism, which was always aimed at the reigning system of privilege.) On the contrary, it will be more of what we've long had: the traditional American state-capitalist regime. The free market (they believe) can't be trusted to pick the right winners. ( Hayekian knowledge problem? What's that?)

"We need a coordinated commitment among business, labor and government to expand our manufacturing base and increase exports…. [G]overnment should incentivize this investment in innovation." writes Jeffrey Immelt, chairman of GE, who now chairs Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness (CJC). "Working with Boeing CEO Jim McNerney, who leads the President's Export Council, the [CJC] will look for ways to harness the power of international markets."

You can be sure that Immelt and McNerney, who regularly count on the government's Export-Import Bank to finance their exports, won't be lobbying for the free market. Neither will new White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, whose corporate resume is as long as your arm, be working to move government off the stage.

Don't be misled by Obama's pledge to review existing regulations. The corporate elite will be happy to see the elimination of regulations that are burdensome to them. But regulations are only half the corporatist story. The other half consists of the myriad subsidies, guarantees, and monopoly rents -- such as from intellectual "property" -- that buffer incumbent companies from the bracing winds of competition.

Phony Free Trade

And speaking of "intellectual property," the next time you hear Obama or a business executive extol free trade, bear in mind that every multi- and bilateral trade agreement has as its centerpiece a stringent U.S.-style IP regime. Today the price of the free flow of goods is the stifling of the free flow of ideas on which freedom and progress have always depended.

Real free traders know that government agreements are subterfuges serving special interests. You want free trade? Drop all trade barriers and set a good example.

Obama says we're at a "Sputnik moment." Let's remember, however, that the first Sputnik moment launched the biggest surge of government power since the New Deal. Every kind of intervention, including federal involvement in education, was justified in Cold War terms -- and most people fell for it.

We should reject the false choice between corporate statism and stagnation, and say no thank you to the "big things" Obama and his business cronies have in store for us.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/corporatist-obama/

Three Cheers for Egyptians and for Al Jazeera!

Three Cheers for Egyptians and for Al Jazeera!
Jim Bovard

It is great to see so many people with the courage to risk all defying a corrupt, oppressive government.

It is great to see the party headquarters of a corrupt regime going up in flames.

And it is great to see American politicians squirming as the authoritarian tool they have bankrolled for 30 years totters and looks heading for a fall.

This is one of Al Jazeera's finest hours. Their English-language coverage is superb.

While much of the American government has derided Al Jazeera for years, that network has actually been more forthright against oppression than has the U.S. government. Ahmed Mansour, the journalist who interviewed me for an hour ( in Arabic) back in 2006 was beaten by Egyptian security forces while reporting in that country. But he never backed down.

http://jimbovard.com/blog/2011/01/28/three-cheers-for-egyptians-and-for-al-jazeera/

Cow Most Sacred

Cow Most Sacred
Andrew Bacevich and Tom Engelhardt, January 28, 2011

Oh, the nostalgia of it all! As Nick Turse reminds us in his book The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, when the media went after the Pentagon in the 1980s for outrageous spending, at stake was "a $7,600 coffee pot, $9,600 Allen wrenches, and the most famous pork barrel item of them all those $640 toilet seats." Same in the 1990s with the $2,187 the Department of Defense doled out for a C-17 door hinge otherwise purchasable for $31, the $5.41 screw thread inserts worth 29 cents, and the $75.60 screw sets priced in the ordinary world at 57 cents.

Weren't those the good old days? Now, few take out after the DoD for such minor peccadillos, not when a $75.60 screw set looks like a bargain-basement deal compared to a Pentagon that has already invested $20 billion in training the Afghan military and police and is prepared to pay $11.6 billion this year and possibly $12.8 billion in 2012 for more of the same; or to an intelligence outfit, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, that doesn't hesitate to sink $1.8 billion into an all-new headquarters complex in Virginia for its 16,000 employees and its estimated black budget of $5 billion; or to the close to $200 million that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has, according to a McClatchy News investigation, sunk into construction projects in Afghanistan that "have failed, face serious delays, or resulted in subpar work"; or to a Department of Homeland Security that thought it a brilliant idea to fund an "emergency operations center" in Poynette, Wisconsin (population 2,266) to the tune of $1 million; or to General David Petraeus who, in 2008 as Iraq War commander, invested $1 million in turning a dried-up lake in Baghdad into an Iraqi water park to win a few extra hearts and minds. (Within two years, thanks in part to neighborhood power cuts, the lake had dried up again and the park was a desolate wreck.)

Where, in fact, are those Allen wrenches now that we need them, now that Congress has insisted that an alternate second engine (being built by Lockheed Martin) should be kept in production for the staggeringly costly, ever-delayed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which already has an engine (being built by Pratt & Whitney)? Even the Pentagon doesn't want that second multi-billion dollar engine built, the White House has denounced it, but Lockheed is still being paid. All of this, and so much more, should be shocking waste at a moment when Camden, New Jersey, the nation's "second most dangerous" city, has just laid off nearly half its police force and almost a third of its firefighters. But few here even blink.

Sacred cow? Somehow it seems like the perfect term for the U.S. national security budget. Let Andrew Bacevich, author most recently of the must-read bestseller,Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, explain just how we landed in this hole and just why we're not likely to get out of it. (To catch Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses the money that pours into the national security budget, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.) Tom

Cow Most Sacred
Why Military Spending Remains Untouchable
By Andrew J. Bacevich

In defense circles, "cutting" the Pentagon budget has once again become a topic of conversation. Americans should not confuse that talk with reality. Any cuts exacted will at most reduce the rate of growth. The essential facts remain: U.S. military outlays today equal that of every other nation on the planet combined, a situation without precedent in modern history.

The Pentagon presently spends more in constant dollars than it did at any time during the Cold War this despite the absence of anything remotely approximating what national security experts like to call a "peer competitor." Evil Empire? It exists only in the fevered imaginations of those who quiver at the prospect of China adding a rust-bucket Russian aircraft carrier to its fleet or who take seriously the ravings of radical Islamists promising from deep inside their caves to unite the Umma in a new caliphate.

What are Americans getting for their money? Sadly, not much. Despite extraordinary expenditures (not to mention exertions and sacrifices by U.S. forces), the return on investment is, to be generous, unimpressive. The chief lesson to emerge from the battlefields of the post-9/11 era is this: the Pentagon possesses next to no ability to translate "military supremacy" into meaningful victory.

Washington knows how to start wars and how to prolong them, but is clueless when it comes to ending them. Iraq, the latest addition to the roster of America's forgotten wars, stands as exhibit A. Each bomb that blows up in Baghdad or some other Iraqi city, splattering blood all over the streets, testifies to the manifest absurdity of judging "the surge" as the epic feat of arms celebrated by the Petraeus lobby.

The problems are strategic as well as operational. Old Cold War-era expectations that projecting U.S. power will enhance American clout and standing no longer apply, especially in the Islamic world. There, American military activities are instead fostering instability and inciting anti-Americanism. For Exhibit B, see the deepening morass that Washington refers to as AfPak or the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater of operations.

Add to that the mountain of evidence showing that Pentagon, Inc. is a miserably managed enterprise: hide-bound, bloated, slow-moving, and prone to wasting resources on a prodigious scale nowhere more so than in weapons procurement and the outsourcing of previously military functions to "contractors." When it comes to national security, effectiveness (what works) should rightly take precedence over efficiency (at what cost?) as the overriding measure of merit. Yet beyond a certain level, inefficiency undermines effectiveness, with the Pentagon stubbornly and habitually exceeding that level. By comparison, Detroit's much-maligned Big Three offer models of well-run enterprises.

Impregnable Defenses

All of this takes place against the backdrop of mounting problems at home: stubbornly high unemployment, trillion-dollar federal deficits, massive and mounting debt, and domestic needs like education, infrastructure, and employment crying out for attention.

Yet the defense budget a misnomer since for Pentagon, Inc. defense per se figures as an afterthought remains a sacred cow. Why is that?

The answer lies first in understanding the defenses arrayed around that cow to ensure that it remains untouched and untouchable. Exemplifying what the military likes to call a "defense in depth," that protective shield consists of four distinct but mutually supporting layers.

Institutional Self-Interest: Victory in World War II produced not peace, but an atmosphere of permanent national security crisis. As never before in U.S. history, threats to the nation's existence seemed omnipresent, an attitude first born in the late 1940s that still persists today. In Washington, fear partly genuine, partly contrived triggered a powerful response.

One result was the emergence of the national security state, an array of institutions that depended on (and therefore strove to perpetuate) this atmosphere of crisis to justify their existence, status, prerogatives, and budgetary claims. In addition, a permanent arms industry arose, which soon became a major source of jobs and corporate profits. Politicians of both parties were quick to identify the advantages of aligning with this "military-industrial complex," as President Eisenhower described it.

Allied with (and feeding off of) this vast apparatus that transformed tax dollars into appropriations, corporate profits, campaign contributions, and votes was an intellectual axis of sorts government-supported laboratories, university research institutes, publications, think tanks, and lobbying firms (many staffed by former or would-be senior officials) devoted to identifying (or conjuring up) ostensible national security challenges and alarms, always assumed to be serious and getting worse, and then devising responses to them.

The upshot: within Washington, the voices carrying weight in any national security "debate" all share a predisposition for sustaining very high levels of military spending for reasons having increasingly little to do with the well-being of the country.

Strategic Inertia:In a 1948 State Department document, diplomat George F. Kennan offered this observation: "We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population." The challenge facing American policymakers, he continued, was "to devise a pattern of relationships that will permit us to maintain this disparity." Here we have a description of American purposes that is far more candid than all of the rhetoric about promoting freedom and democracy, seeking world peace, or exercising global leadership.

The end of World War II found the United States in a spectacularly privileged position. Not for nothing do Americans remember the immediate postwar era as a Golden Age of middle-class prosperity. Policymakers since Kennan's time have sought to preserve that globally privileged position. The effort has been a largely futile one.

By 1950 at the latest, those policymakers (with Kennan by then a notable dissenter) had concluded that the possession and deployment of military power held the key to preserving America's exalted status. The presence of U.S. forces abroad and a demonstrated willingness to intervene, whether overtly or covertly, just about anywhere on the planet would promote stability, ensure U.S. access to markets and resources, and generally serve to enhance the country's influence in the eyes of friend and foe alike this was the idea, at least.

In postwar Europe and postwar Japan, this formula achieved considerable success. Elsewhere notably in Korea, Vietnam, Latin America, and (especially after 1980) in the so-called Greater Middle East it either produced mixed results or failed catastrophically. Certainly, the events of the post-9/11 era provide little reason to believe that this presence/power-projection paradigm will provide an antidote to the threat posed by violent anti-Western jihadism. If anything, adherence to it is exacerbating the problem by creating ever greater anti-American animus.

One might think that the manifest shortcomings of the presence/power-projection approach trillions expended in Iraq for what? might stimulate present-day Washington to pose some first-order questions about basic U.S. national security strategy. A certain amount of introspection would seem to be called for. Could, for example, the effort to sustain what remains of America's privileged status benefit from another approach?

Yet there are few indications that our political leaders, the senior-most echelons of the officer corps, or those who shape opinion outside of government are capable of seriously entertaining any such debate. Whether through ignorance, arrogance, or a lack of imagination, the pre-existing strategic paradigm stubbornly persists; so, too, as if by default do the high levels of military spending that the strategy entails.

Cultural Dissonance: The rise of the Tea Party movement should disabuse any American of the thought that the cleavages produced by the "culture wars" have healed. The cultural upheaval touched off by the 1960s and centered on Vietnam remains unfinished business in this country.

Among other things, the sixties destroyed an American consensus, forged during World War II, about the meaning of patriotism. During the so-called Good War, love of country implied, even required, deference to the state, shown most clearly in the willingness of individuals to accept the government's authority to mandate military service. GIs, the vast majority of them draftees, were the embodiment of American patriotism, risking life and limb to defend the country.

The GI of World War II had been an American Everyman. Those soldiers both represented and reflected the values of the nation from which they came (a perception affirmed by the ironic fact that the military adhered to prevailing standards of racial segregation). It was "our army" because that army was "us."

With Vietnam, things became more complicated. The war's supporters argued that the World War II tradition still applied: patriotism required deference to the commands of the state. Opponents of the war, especially those facing the prospect of conscription, insisted otherwise. They revived the distinction, formulated a generation earlier by the radical journalist Randolph Bourne, that distinguished between the country and the state. Real patriots, the ones who most truly loved their country, were those who opposed state policies they regarded as misguided, illegal, or immoral.

In many respects, the soldiers who fought the Vietnam War found themselves caught uncomfortably in the center of this dispute. Was the soldier who died in Vietnam a martyr, a tragic figure, or a sap? Who deserved greater admiration: the soldier who fought bravely and uncomplainingly or the one who served and then turned against the war? Or was the war resister the one who never served at all the real hero?

War's end left these matters disconcertingly unresolved. President Richard Nixon's 1971 decision to kill the draft in favor of an All-Volunteer Force, predicated on the notion that the country might be better served with a military that was no longer "us," only complicated things further. So, too, did the trends in American politics where bona fide war heroes (George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, John Kerry, and John McCain) routinely lost to opponents whose military credentials were non-existent or exceedingly slight (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama), yet who demonstrated once in office a remarkable propensity for expending American blood (none belonging to members of their own families) in places like Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It was all more than a little unseemly.

Patriotism, once a simple concept, had become both confusing and contentious. What obligations, if any, did patriotism impose? And if the answer was none the option Americans seemed increasingly to prefer then was patriotism itself still a viable proposition?

Wanting to answer that question in the affirmative to distract attention from the fact that patriotism had become little more than an excuse for fireworks displays and taking the occasional day off from work people and politicians alike found a way to do so by exalting those Americans actually choosing to serve in uniform. The thinking went this way: soldiers offer living proof that America is a place still worth dying for, that patriotism (at least in some quarters) remains alive and well; by common consent, therefore, soldiers are the nation's "best," committed to "something bigger than self" in a land otherwise increasingly absorbed in pursuing a material and narcissistic definition of self-fulfillment.

In effect, soldiers offer much-needed assurance that old-fashioned values still survive, even if confined to a small and unrepresentative segment of American society. Rather than Everyman, today's warrior has ascended to the status of icon, deemed morally superior to the nation for which he or she fights, the repository of virtues that prop up, however precariously, the nation's increasingly sketchy claim to singularity.

Politically, therefore, "supporting the troops" has become a categorical imperative across the political spectrum. In theory, such support might find expression in a determination to protect those troops from abuse, and so translate into wariness about committing soldiers to unnecessary or unnecessarily costly wars. In practice, however, "supporting the troops" has found expression in an insistence upon providing the Pentagon with open-ended drawing rights on the nation's treasury, thereby creating massive barriers to any proposal to affect more than symbolic reductions in military spending.

Misremembered History:The duopoly of American politics no longer allows for a principled anti-interventionist position. Both parties are war parties. They differ mainly in the rationale they devise to argue for interventionism. The Republicans tout liberty; the Democrats emphasize human rights. The results tend to be the same: a penchant for activism that sustains a never-ending demand for high levels of military outlays.

American politics once nourished a lively anti-interventionist tradition. Leading proponents included luminaries such as George Washington and John Quincy Adams. That tradition found its basis not in principled pacifism, a position that has never attracted widespread support in this country, but in pragmatic realism. What happened to that realist tradition? Simply put, World War II killed it or at least discredited it. In the intense and divisive debate that occurred in 1939-1941, the anti-interventionists lost, their cause thereafter tarred with the label "isolationism."

The passage of time has transformed World War II from a massive tragedy into a morality tale, one that casts opponents of intervention as blackguards. Whether explicitly or implicitly, the debate over how the United States should respond to some ostensible threat Iraq in 2003, Iran today replays the debate finally ended by the events of December 7, 1941. To express skepticism about the necessity and prudence of using military power is to invite the charge of being an appeaser or an isolationist. Few politicians or individuals aspiring to power will risk the consequences of being tagged with that label.

In this sense, American politics remains stuck in the 1930s always discovering a new Hitler, always privileging Churchillian rhetoric even though the circumstances in which we live today bear scant resemblance to that earlier time. There was only one Hitler and he's long dead. As for Churchill, his achievements and legacy are far more mixed than his battalions of defenders are willing to acknowledge. And if any one figure deserves particular credit for demolishing Hitler's Reich and winning World War II, it's Josef Stalin, a dictator as vile and murderous as Hitler himself.

Until Americans accept these facts, until they come to a more nuanced view of World War II that takes fully into account the political and moral implications of the U.S. alliance with the Soviet Union and the U.S. campaign of obliteration bombing directed against Germany and Japan, the mythic version of "the Good War" will continue to provide glib justifications for continuing to dodge that perennial question: How much is enough?

Like concentric security barriers arrayed around the Pentagon, these four factors institutional self-interest, strategic inertia, cultural dissonance, and misremembered history insulate the military budget from serious scrutiny. For advocates of a militarized approach to policy, they provide invaluable assets, to be defended at all costs.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book is Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest TomCast audio interview in which Bacevich discusses the money that pours into the national security budget, click here or, to download it to your iPod, here.

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/01/27/cow-most-sacred/

Re: Pelosi on the SOTU - what a liar she is!!

On Jan 28, 8:58 pm, Tommy News <tommysn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Put the bottle down, Keithie Keith.
>
> FYI: Nancy Pelosi was THE most effective speaker of the house in
> history,

I guess Tommy never heard of John McCormick. Nancy was
effective at one thing and one thing only, just like the rest of her
demagogue ilk. she went against the majority of Americans and rammed
laws down their throats.
That is why the demagogues lost the house, Nancy Pelosi's
effectiveness. Tommy!?
>
>
>
>
>
> > I lost "Nanc", when she said that President Obama had surpassed President
> > Bush's, "Job Creation" record, in nine months, as compared to Bush's eight
> > years in office......Put the crack rock pipe down Nanc, (and yes CW, I
> > realize that this is a harsh critical metaphor, but come on!!!)
>
> > On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 8:01 PM, dick thompson
> > <rhomp2...@earthlink.net>wrote:
>
> >> Then you deny that Pelosi was on Greta's show? You can't even support
> >> your
> >> own lying eyes. FAIL!!! Big Time. The funny part is that when you look
> >> at the viewers watching the speeches Zero got the lowest ratings of the 3
> >> (Bambi, Ryan, Bachman). Ryan and Bachman both had more viewers than the
> >> president did even on CNN!!
>
> >> On 01/28/2011 10:52 AM, Tommy News wrote:
>
> >>> This is from Faux Noise For The Birds and Sheeple!
>
> >>> What liars they are, and what a liar Dickie Dick is!
>
> >>> On 1/27/11, dick thompson<rhomp2...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >>>> e
> >>>> http://video.foxnews.com/v/4510871/minority-leader-pelosi-responds/
>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> >>>> For options& help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> >>>> * Visit our other community at
> >>>>http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
> >>>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> >>>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
> >> --
> >> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> >> For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> >> * Visit our other community at
> >>http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/> * It's
> >> active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the
> >> latest breaking news, and more.
>
> > --
> > Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> > For options & help seehttp://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> > * Visit our other community athttp://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> > * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> > * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>
> --
> Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
> Have a great day,
> Tommy- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: Sarah Palin about the SOTU, jobs and the economy

See what I mean. It is still true. She smacked your guys around
REAL good. They have not yet recovered from the WTF idea they
started. Total waste of air is what they are and she showed it very
well. Now what are they going to do. They will have trouble using
SEIU on her since that crew is under investigation for combining with
Hamas and the Muslims. Holder is ducking and dodging trying to keep
his head down so he doesn't have to try to explain what is going on in
his bailiwick. Zero is sputtering about what he spoke on in that lousy
SOTU speech he gave. He is still trying to explain how he expects to
save money by keeping the spending at the inflated figures his crew is
doing with it. TARP is also under investigation for the lies about the
extent it will play in the huge deficit they ran up.

And way way way back there is Little Tommy News spouting "Small Minds,
Petty Thoughts, a Dutch proverb" as if that will help the cause.
Forget it. You are toast and so is your team.

On 01/28/2011 09:00 PM, Tommy News wrote:
> OK, I will.
>
> The Pitbull in Lipstick is a laughing stock.
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 1/28/11, dick thompson<rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> You can repeat Dutch proverbs all day long but face it, she smacked your
>> guys around REAL GOOD there. Bambi's WTF slogan got shown up for the
>> idiocy it is.
>>
>> On 01/28/2011 11:21 AM, Tommy News wrote:
>>> The Pitbull in Lipstick is a laughing stock.
>>>
>>> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>>>
>>>
>>> On 1/27/11, dick thompson<rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>> http://video.foxnews.com/v/4512578/sarah-palin-takes-on-/?playlist_id=87485
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>>>> For options& help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>>>
>>>> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
>>>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>>>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>> --
>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>> For options& help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>
>> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: Sarah Palin about the SOTU, jobs and the economy

OK, I will.

The Pitbull in Lipstick is a laughing stock.

"Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb

On 1/28/11, dick thompson <rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
> You can repeat Dutch proverbs all day long but face it, she smacked your
> guys around REAL GOOD there. Bambi's WTF slogan got shown up for the
> idiocy it is.
>
> On 01/28/2011 11:21 AM, Tommy News wrote:
>> The Pitbull in Lipstick is a laughing stock.
>>
>> "Small minds, petty thoughts". Dutch Proverb
>>
>>
>> On 1/27/11, dick thompson<rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>> http://video.foxnews.com/v/4512578/sarah-palin-takes-on-/?playlist_id=87485
>>>
>>> --
>>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>>> For options& help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>>
>>> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
>>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>>
>
> --
> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: Pelosi on the SOTU - what a liar she is!!

Put the bottle down, Keithie Keith.

FYI: Nancy Pelosi was THE most effective speaker of the house in
history, despite her age, gender, hometown, gay friends, and looks. (I
say those things with sarcasm, deferring to the critics who hate
Pelosi simply because they find her old, liberal, and unattractive.)

On 1/28/11, Keith In Köln <keithintampa@gmail.com> wrote:
> I lost "Nanc", when she said that President Obama had surpassed President
> Bush's, "Job Creation" record, in nine months, as compared to Bush's eight
> years in office......Put the crack rock pipe down Nanc, (and yes CW, I
> realize that this is a harsh critical metaphor, but come on!!!)
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 8:01 PM, dick thompson
> <rhomp2002@earthlink.net>wrote:
>
>> Then you deny that Pelosi was on Greta's show? You can't even support
>> your
>> own lying eyes. FAIL!!! Big Time. The funny part is that when you look
>> at the viewers watching the speeches Zero got the lowest ratings of the 3
>> (Bambi, Ryan, Bachman). Ryan and Bachman both had more viewers than the
>> president did even on CNN!!
>>
>>
>> On 01/28/2011 10:52 AM, Tommy News wrote:
>>
>>> This is from Faux Noise For The Birds and Sheeple!
>>>
>>> What liars they are, and what a liar Dickie Dick is!
>>>
>>> On 1/27/11, dick thompson<rhomp2002@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> e
>>>> http://video.foxnews.com/v/4510871/minority-leader-pelosi-responds/
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>>>> For options& help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>>>
>>>> * Visit our other community at
>>>> http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/>
>>>> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
>>>> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
>> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>>
>> * Visit our other community at
>> http://www.PoliticalForum.com/<http://www.politicalforum.com/> * It's
>> active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the
>> latest breaking news, and more.
>>
>
> --
> Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
> For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
>
> * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
> * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
> * Read the latest breaking news, and more.

--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

The Tipping Point Has Passed: Sweeping Change is at Hand

coto2admin | January 28, 2011 at 9:03 pm | Tags: economy, global change, NWO, Resistance, Tipping point | Categories: Economy Economics, Environment, Human Relationships, Resistance | URL: http://wp.me/pAnVO-3Fx

By Michael Edwards Activist Post When so many diverse forces converge and conflict, a tipping point of global awareness to the human condition is reached. The momentum must spill over into a time of sweeping change. The Awakening We head onward toward 2012 and the awakening provided by our choices from the myriad scenarios of [...]

Re: Jesse Ventura Sues TSA and DHS Over Airport Screening Violations

I didn't read what you posted, but I remember I was working (roofing)
for cash and Jesse"s ad came on the radio, and I remember thinking I'd
vote for him.

On Jan 28, 10:31 am, plainolamerican <plainolameri...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Tell Jesse to stop his whining.
> Airport security is a must.
>
> that said, it is important to also keep TSA in check when it comes to
> their watch list.
>
> On Jan 28, 11:05 am, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Jesse Ventura Sues TSA and DHS Over Airport Screening ViolationsWritten by Kelly Holt
> > Tuesday, 25 January 2011 17:55
> > Former Minnesota governor JesseVentura is set to wrestle with the Transportation Security Administration(TSA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through a lawsuit he filed on Monday, according toThe Hals Reportfor January 25. After enduring enhanced screening last November at a Minnesota airport, Ventura claims the TSA full-body scan and pat-down violated his privacy rights.The Star Tribuneadded that Ventura is asking a Minnesota federal judge to issue an injunction ordering officials to stop subjecting him towarrantless and suspicionless scansand body searches. His suit also names Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and TSA Administrator John Pistole as defendants.
> >
> > The argument set forth by the lawsuit is that the required searches are unwarranted and unreasonable intrusions on Governor Ventura s personal privacy and dignity," and are a justifiable cause for him to be concerned, specifically that he was subjected to warrantless rubbing of the genitals when a TSA agent conducted the pat-down. As a consequence of a 2008 hip replacement surgery, Ventura lives with a titanium plate that sets off the alarm in an airport screening magnetometer, requiring him to submit to a secondary search. He notes that prior to November, officials had always used a non-invasive hand-held wand, but during the November incident he wasn t given that option.
> >
> > The governor s attorney, David Olsen, commented, "The security procedures are going too far. There s a line somewhere and he believes that line has been crossed." A TSA spokesman stated that the agency doesn t comment on pending litigation.
> >
> > Ventura s suit is one of a growing number against the TSA and DHS for humiliating and unconscionable incidents resulting from the new search procedures.PrisonPlant.comreported several recent high-profile cases describingoutrageous behavior on the part of TSA agents.
> > Frequent traveler and businessman Jon Corbett has filed his own lawsuit and started a blog,TSA Out of Our Pants!. His efforts have gained momentum, and his simple reasoning is that the best defense against TSA overreach is the travelers themselves. Having grown in up New York City and witnessed the events of 9/11, Corbett nevertheless noted that he knows of not one instance in which the TSA has stopped a terrorist.
> >
> > Ventura and others agree. Not to mention the authors of the Fourth Amendment, who wrote:
> >
> > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
> > http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/usnews/constitution/6034-jess...- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: The Truth:

Say something

On Jan 25, 5:41 pm, Wes <wesleykell...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > > I wouldn't say Jesus was a Socialist and he did use force that one
> > > time in the temple (maybe that was a mistake)
>
> > Force against a table?
> > He knocked over tables, he didn't knock over people.
>
> 15And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out
> of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the
> changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 16And said unto them that
> sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an
> house of merchandise.http://www.biblegateway.com/keyword/index.php?search=overthrew+tables...
>
> He made a whip and drove them out. like I said, maybe he regrets it
> because it gave them a reason to have him killed.
>
> On Jan 23, 10:05 pm, studio <tl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jan 23, 4:44 pm, Wes <wesleykell...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > I wouldn't say Jesus was a Socialist and he did use force that one
> > > time in the temple (maybe that was a mistake)
>
> > Force against a table?
> > He knocked over tables, he didn't knock over people.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum

* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.

Re: Revolution in Egypt officially starts!!

Egypt's Mubarak sacks govt, vows democracy

Egyptian general cuts short pentagon visit

http://www.alarabiya.net/english/

SEIU Thugs being investigated for possible ties to Terrorist Groups Hamas and FARC

Scotty Starnes | January 28, 2011 at 3:00 PM | Tags: FACR, FBI, Hamas, Islamic terrorists, President Obama, SEIU, SEIU local 73, socialists, terrorist groups | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4he

Socialist and Islamic terrorist joining forces? Where have we seen this before? Remember Hitler and Iran?

Remember, Obama said that SEIU's agenda was his agenda.

BigGovernment.com reports:

Prominent current and former members of SEIU local 73 are being investigated for their potential ties to the Hamas and FARC terrorist groups.

Late last year, their homes were raided by the FBI, and they were subpoenaed to appear in front of a grand jury for questioning.

Joe Iosbaker, Chief Steward of SEIU 73, and Tom Burke (former board member of SEIU 73) are among 9 people who are subjects in the investigation. None of them have been charged with any crimes, yet.

Two days ago, they refused again to appear in front of the grand jury.

The interesting thing about these SEIU folks is that they also belong to a violently radical group called the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. From their website:

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is a revolutionary socialist and Marxist-Leninist organization in the United States.

1) We stand for the right to self-determination up to and including secession for the African American nation in the Black Belt South.

While rejecting Zionist claims on Palestine and white supremacist claims to a white southern nation or northwestern nation, we do acknowledge the fact that the most advanced sections of the Black liberation movement, from the 1800s on, have demanded a Black Republic in the South.

It gets worse from there.

This is the same group who, along with the other subjects of the FBI investigation, takes credit for staging the 2008 RNC protest-riots.

Shockingly, SEIU leadership is supporting their accused members, and the chosen strategy of not cooperating with law enforcement.

Beginning at 6:15 in the video below, SEIU's Matt Brandon gives the union's full-throated support for targets of the investigation.

Let that sink in for a minute. SEIU members are being investigated for potential ties to terrorists, and SEIU leadership is supporting non-cooperation with law enforcement. Can we question their patriotism yet??

Add a comment to this post

WordPress.com | Thanks for flying with WordPress!
Manage Subscriptions | Unsubscribe | Express yourself. Start a blog.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://subscribe.wordpress.com

More PC Bullshit...Asian-American Politician wants Rush Limbaugh to apologize for making fun of Chinese President Hu Jintao

Scotty Starnes | January 28, 2011 at 6:20 PM | Tags: bigotry, chinese language, Hu Jintao, racism, Rush Limbaugh, Sen. Leland Yee (D-Calif) | Categories: Political Issues | URL: http://wp.me/pvnFC-4hm

Maybe this libtard can ask Jerry Lewis to apologize while he's at it?

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Rush Limbaugh's imitation of the Chinese language during a recent speech made by Chinese President Hu Jintao has stirred a backlash among Asian-American lawmakers in California and nationally.

California state Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from San Francisco, is leading a fight in demanding an apology from the radio talk show host for what he and others view as racist and derogatory remarks against the Chinese people.

I guess Hollywood is racist for imitating the way other people talk. Like the typical white surfer dude or the black gangster portrayed in movies. This is the politically correct world we live in.

In recent days, the state lawmaker has rallied civil rights groups in a boycott of companies like Pro Flowers, Sleep Train and Domino's Pizza that advertise on Limbaugh's national talk radio show.

"The comments that he made - the mimicking of the Chinese language - harkens back to when I was a little boy growing up in San Francisco and those were hard days, rather insensitive days," Yee said in an interview Thursday. "You think you've arrived and all of a sudden get shot back to the reality that you're a second-class citizen."

Hey look. A democrat playing the race and victim card in one hand.

During a Jan. 19 radio program, Limbaugh said there was no translation of the Chinese president's speech during a visit to the White House.

"He was speaking and they weren't translating," Limbaugh said. "They normally translate every couple of words. Hu Jintao was just going ching chong, ching chong cha."

This also got Rosie O'Donnell in trouble when she did the same thing on the view. Don't recall Senator Yee being upset about it...probably because O'Donnell is a libtard like himself.

He then launched into a 20-second-long imitation of the Chinese leader's dialect.

The next day, Limbaugh said he "did a remarkable job" of imitating China's president for someone who doesn't know a language spoken by more than 1 billion people.

"Back in the old days, Sid Caesar, for those of you old enough to remember, was called a comic genius for impersonating foreign languages that he couldn't speak," Limbaugh said. "But today the left says that was racism; it was bigotry; it was insulting. And it wasn't. It was a service."

Add a comment to this post

WordPress.com | Thanks for flying with WordPress!
Manage Subscriptions | Unsubscribe | Express yourself. Start a blog.

Trouble clicking? Copy and paste this URL into your browser: http://subscribe.wordpress.com