o'amnesty - o'pander's Illegal Immigrants' healthcare

Left-wingnuts often make the claim that o'scamcare doesn't "mandate" that illegal aliens are to receive medical care ... typical '1984 Orwellian' "Newspeak." -- rfh

From: Minuteman PAC  Sent: Friday, August 12, 2011 Subject: Stop ObamaCare for Illegal Immigrants

Joe Wilson was right... ObamaCare DOES cover illegal immigrants!      Earlier this week, we let you know about the $8.5 million in ObamaCare funding directed by the Department of Health and Human Services solely to provide free or reduced healthcare to migrant workers and their families - in other words, illegal immigrants!      Remember all the flak Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina took from the Obama-loving leftwing media back in September 2009 when he yelled "You lie!" when Obama promised the nation that ObamaCare would not cover illegal immigrants?      Now, we have our answer.  Wilson was right and Obama continues to be a liar...

     Sadly, providing illegal immigrants with free healthcare subsidized using YOUR tax dollars is nothing new.
     In 2007, we learned about Mexico's Ventanillas de Salud (Health Windows) program that directs MEXICAN citizens who illegally live in the U.S. to use taxpayer funded clinics in a dozen cities which have Mexican consulates.
     In Los Angeles County alone, illegal immigrants cost taxpayers nearly $440 million in health services annually and whopping $1.1 billion statewide.
     The Mexican consul in Los Angeles proudly announced that nearly 300,000 illegal immigrants hailing from Mexico and living in the area benefited from the referral program.

     To really rub salt in the wound, the whole referral operation promises to assess "consulate clients" (illegal immigrants) for eligibility to government-funded (that's U.S.-funded) health insurance and other primary care services and offers free legal assistance to those who are denied coverage.
     That must be nice.
     One of the most memorable quotes during the process of passing ObamaCare was Nancy Pelosi's "We need to pass Obamacare so that the public can find out what's in it."  One of the more memorable results of ObamaCare thus far was all of the friends and loyal lobbyists in the Obama Club who have received ObamaCare waivers.
     Now, with healthcare funding and services for illegal immigrants and cuts for the care of U.S. Citizens, we have one more reason to add to our laundry list for defeating Barack Obama in 2012.
     Thanks to Americans like you, who care about the safety and future of our country, there is mounting pressure to stop Obama from transforming America into a socialist state jam-packed with illegal immigrants benefiting from our tax dollars.  But it will take the lead of an emboldened House and Senate to turn up the pressure.  THEY MUST HEAR LOUDLY FROM PATRIOTS LIKE YOU!      Our mission is clear: Help elect candidates who carry out their constitutional duty to defend our borders and oust those who do not.
      Everyday Washington tells us we can no longer afford to care for our own citizens in need, so why are we caring for Mexico's?
For America, Minuteman PAC

          P.S.  As you well know, Minuteman PAC is an independent Political Action Committee of the Minuteman civilian border security movement, supported by many volunteers of the nation's oldest, largest and most-effective citizen's border vigilance group, the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.  ... If you can afford it, please generously give a contribution of $20, $30, $50, $100 or more to Minuteman PAC to get this word out to your fellow Americans!  We will need funds above and beyond $250,000 to help make our case on radio, TV, in newspapers and on the Internet to in order to secure our border with Mexico, crush Obama's plans to grant mass-Amnesty, and nix ObamaCare for illegal immigrants.

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bcc'd "red diaper babies" & RINOs

email Congress & W.H.: http://capwiz.com/congressorgfb/issues/alert/?alertid=41045506

government contacts: http://harrold.org/rfhextra/contact_the_us_government.html

o'tax'n spend - 16 trillion dollar federal reserve party YOU HAVE BEEN ROBBED!! ROYALLY!

video source: http://youtu.be/o-pav_yPFkI (4m59s)

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o'redistribute - Poverty in America

From: baja Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2011 Subject: Poverty in America

Study: Americans "in Poverty" Are Seldom Poor

     Most of the Americans the federal government defines as "in poverty" are "not poor in any ordinary sense of the term," according to a new study - especially when compared to the poor in less developed countries.

     "To the average American, the word "poverty" implies significant material deprivation, an inability to provide a family with adequate nutritious food, reasonable shelter, and clothing," the study from The Heritage Foundation states.

     "The actual living conditions of America's poor are far different from these images."

     The Census Bureau reports that there are 43 million Americans living in poverty.  To help them, taxpayers spend some $900 billion a year in federal and state dollars - over $20,000 for each person deemed poor - through more than 70 means-tested programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care and more.

     But according to the government's own survey data, in the past decade the average household defined as poor by the government lived in a house or apartment with air conditioning and cable TV, The Heritage Foundation study found.

     The household had a car - one-third had two or more cars -  two color televisions, a DVD player, and a microwave.

     "The home of the average poor family was in good repair and not overcrowded," the study observes.

     "In fact, the typical poor American had more living space than the average European - average, not poor.

     "When asked, most poor families stated they had sufficient funds during the past year to meet all essential needs."

      Study authors Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield cite U.S. Department of Energy data showing that in 2005, the most recent year on record:

• 62 percent of poor American households had a clothes washer in the home, and 53.2 percent had a clothes dryer.

• 65.1 percent had more than one TV.

• 54.5 percent had a cellular phone.

• 38.2 percent had a personal computer.

• 36.6 percent had an answering machine.

• 29.3 percent had a video game system.

• 25 percent had a dishwasher.

• 5.2 percent had a photocopier - and .6 percent even had a Jacuzzi.

     The study also found that 5.9 percent of households "sometimes" did not have enough food, and just 1.5 percent "often" did not have enough.

"Some poor Americans do experience significant hardships, including temporary food shortages or inadequate housing, but these individuals are a minority within the overall poverty population," the study authors concluded.

     "Poverty remains an issue of serious social concern, but accurate information about that problem is essential in crafting wise public policy. Exaggeration and misinformation about poverty obscure the nature, extent, and causes of real material deprivation, thereby hampering the development of well-targeted, effective programs to reduce the problem."

     Former Congressman Ernest Istook, now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, echoed that sentiment in a recent Newsmax blog: "By defining poverty so broadly, we drain resources that instead could be focused on those who truly are in dire straits.   And we spend billions that could be cut from the budget instead."

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o'quantitative - Why QE2 Failed: "The Money All Went Offshore" (Ellen Brown, GR)

From: kd Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 Subject:  Ellen Brown: Why QE2 Failed - The Money All Went Offshore

We all knew we had been had but what could we have done about it?

Remember when we next vote out every rat incumbant. ...KD

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The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25566

Why QE2 Failed: The Money All Went Offshore

By Ellen Brown, Global Research, July 9, 2011

     On June 30, QE2 ended with a whimper.  The Fed's second round of "quantitative easing" involved $600 billion created with a computer keystroke for the purchase of long-term government bonds.  But the government never actually got the money, which went straight into the reserve accounts of banks, where it still sits today.  Worse, it went into the reserve accounts of FOREIGN banks, on which the Federal Reserve is now paying 0.25% interest. 

     Before QE2 there was QE1, in which the Fed bought $1.25 trillion in mortgage-backed securities from the banks.  This money too remains in bank reserve accounts collecting interest and dust.  The Fed reports that the accumulated excess reserves of depository institutions now total nearly $1.6 trillion.    

     Interestingly, $1.6 trillion is also the size of the federal deficit – a deficit so large that some members of Congress are threatening to force a default on the national debt if it isn't corrected soon. 

     So here we have the anomalous situation of a $1.6 trillion hole in the federal budget, and $1.6 trillion created by the Fed that is now sitting idle in bank reserve accounts.  If the intent of "quantitative easing" was to stimulate the economy, it might have worked better if the money earmarked for the purchase of Treasuries had been delivered directly to the Treasury.  That was actually how it was done before 1935, when the law was changed to require private bond dealers to be cut into the deal.   

     The one thing QE2 did for the taxpayers was to reduce the interest tab on the federal debt.  The long-term bonds the Fed bought on the open market are now effectively interest-free to the government, since the Fed rebates its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs.   

     But QE2 has not helped the anemic local credit market, on which smaller businesses rely; and it is these businesses that are largely responsible for creating new jobs.  In a June 30 article in the Wall Street Journal titled "Smaller Businesses Seeking Loans Still Come Up Empty," Emily Maltby reported that business owners rank access to capital as the most important issue facing them today; and only 17% of smaller businesses said they were able to land needed bank financing.      

How QE2 Wound Up in Foreign Banks 

     Before the Banking Act of 1935, the government was able to borrow directly from its own central bank.  Other countries followed that policy as well, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; and they prospered as a result.  After 1935, however, if the U.S. central bank wanted to buy government securities, it had to purchase them from private banks on the "open market."  Former Fed Chairman Marinner Eccles wrote in support of an act to remove that requirement that it was intended to keep politicians from spending too much.  But all the law succeeded in doing was to give the bond-dealer banks a cut as middlemen.   

     Worse, it caused the Fed to lose control of where the money went.  Rather than buying more bonds from the Treasury, the banks that got the cash could just sit on it or use it for their own purposes; and that is apparently what is happening today.

     In carrying out its QE2 purchases, the Fed had to follow standard operating procedure for "open market operations": it took secret bids from the 20 "primary dealers" authorized to sell securities to the Fed and accepted the best offers.  The problem was that 12 of these dealers – or over half -- are U.S.-based branches of foreign banks (including BNP Paribas, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, UBS and others); and they evidently won the bids.   

     The fact that foreign banks got the money was established in a June 12 post on Zero Hedge by Tyler Durden (a pseudonym), who compared two charts: the total cash holdings of foreign-related banks in the U.S., using weekly Federal Reserve data; and the total reserve balances held at Federal Reserve banks, from the Fed's statement ending the week of June 1.  The charts showed that after November 3, 2010, when QE2 operations began, total bank reserves increased by $610 billion.  Foreign bank cash reserves increased in lock step, by $630 billion -- or more than the entire QE2.  

     In a June 27 blog, John Mason, Professor of Finance at Penn State University and a former senior economist at the Federal Reserve, wrote:  

     In essence, it appears as if much of the monetary stimulus generated by the Federal Reserve System went into the Eurodollar market. This is all part of the "Carry Trade" as foreign branches of an American bank could borrow dollars from the "home" bank creating a Eurodollar deposit. . . .

     Cash assets at the smaller [U.S.] banks remained relatively flat . . . . Thus, the reserves the Fed was pumping into the banking system were not going into the smaller banks. . . .  

[B]usiness loans continue to "tank" at the smaller banking institutions. . . .

     The real lending by commercial banks is not taking place in the United States. The lending is taking place off-shore, underwritten by the Federal Reserve System and this is doing little or nothing to help the American economy grow.  

Tyler Durden concluded: 

. . . [T]he only beneficiary of the reserves generated were US-based branches of foreign banks (which in turn turned around and funnelled the cash back to their domestic branches), a shocking finding which explains . . . why US banks have been unwilling and, far more importantly, unable to lend out these reserves . . . .  

. . . [T]he data above proves beyond a reasonable doubt why there has been no excess lending by US banks to US borrowers: none of the cash ever even made it to US banks! . . . This also resolves the mystery of the broken money multiplier and why the velocity of money has imploded. 

     Well, not exactly.  The fact that the QE2 money all wound up in foreign banks is a shocking finding, but it doesn't seem to be the reason banks aren't lending.  There were already $1 trillion in excess reserves sitting idle in U.S. reserve accounts, not counting the $600 billion from QE2. 

     According to Scott Fullwiler, Associate Professor of Economics at Wartburg College, the money multiplier model is not just broken but is obsolete.  Banks do not lend based on what they have in reserve.  They can borrow reserves as needed after making loans.  Whether banks will lend depends rather on (a) whether they have creditworthy borrowers, (b) whether they have sufficient capital to satisfy the capital requirement, and (c) the cost of funds – meaning the cost to the bank of borrowing to meet the reserve requirement, either from depositors or from other banks or from the Federal Reserve. 

Setting Things Right

     Whatever is responsible for causing the local credit crunch, trillions of dollars thrown at Wall Street by Congress and the Fed haven't fixed the problem.  It may be time for local governments to take matters into their own hands.  While we wait for federal lawmakers to get it right, local credit markets can be revitalized by establishing state-owned banks, on the model of the Bank of North Dakota (BND).  The BND services the liquidity needs of local banks and keeps credit flowing in the state.  For more information, see here and here.  

     Concerning the gaping federal deficit, Congressman Ron Paul has an excellent idea: have the Fed simply write off the federal securities purchased with funds created in its quantitative easing programs.  No creditors would be harmed, since the money was generated out of thin air with a computer keystroke in the first place.  The government would just be canceling a debt to itself and saving the interest. 

     As for "quantitative easing," if the intent is to stimulate the economy, the money needs to go directly into the purchase of goods and services, stimulating "demand."  If it goes onto the balance sheets of banks, it may stop there or go into speculation rather than local lending -- as is happening now.  Money that goes directly to the government, on the other hand, will be spent on goods and services in the real economy, creating much-needed jobs, generating demand, and rebuilding the tax base.  To make sure the money gets there, the 1935 law forbidding the Fed to buy Treasuries directly from the Treasury needs to be repealed. 

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Ellen Brown is an attorney and president of the Public Banking Institute, http://PublicBankingInstitute.org. In Web of Debt, her latest of eleven books, she shows how the power to create money has been usurped from the people, and how we can get it back. Her websites are http://webofdebt.com and http://ellenbrown.com.   Please support Global Research -- Global Research relies on the financial support of its readers.  Your endorsement is greatly appreciated -- Subscribe to the Global Research e-newsletter

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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements contained in this article. -- To become a Member of Global Research -- The CRG grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles on community internet sites as long as the text & title are not modified. The source and the author's copyright must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com  --- www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner. -- For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com © Copyright Ellen Brown, Global Research, 2011 -- The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25566 © Copyright 2005-2007 GlobalResearch.ca -- Web site engine by Polygraphx Multimedia © Copyright 2005-2007

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bcc'd "red diaper babies"

o'commissar - déjà vu: 1934 Chicago Tribune cartoon [redux]

It's good to be reminded from time to time about American history. -- rfh

From: piloto Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 Subject: 1934 CARTOON - NOT FUNNY!

Is  this scary?  This cartoon was in the Chicago Tribune in 1934,
Look carefully at the 'plan of action' in the lower left hand corner.     

The signature is that of Pulitzer Prize (1961) winner Carey Cassius Orr (1890-1967), who was working for the Chicago Tribune in 1934.

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Quoted from http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/06/14/trib-reruns-1934-cartoon-planned-economy-or-planned-destruction

     "The man in the mortarboard flogging the Democratic donkey is Rex Tugwell, the leader of FDR's "Brain Trust", a character out of academica.  The Brain Trust was supposed to come up with new ideas to help America.  The two mortarboard-wearing kids in the wagon represent recent Ivy League college graduates hired to staff the New Deal.  The cartoonist from the conservative Chicago Tribune, Mr. Orr, is calling them socialist "pinkos" (term that wasn't then in use, "pinkies' is what Orr called them).  [...]

     The most prominently featured man shoveling money off the wagon is Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, who was known for his socialist leanings.  Most us are aware that FDR confiscated gold in 1934, but most people are not aware that the gold confiscation was a clause in the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1934.  It is also important to remember that 90% of the American population lived on farms during the Depression.

     The man behind Wallace is Harold L. Ickes, Secretary of the Interior and director of the Public Works Administration.  As head of the PWA, Ickes had a lot of say on what and where public works projects were built.  The biggest of course was the Tennessee Valley Authority.  Ickes was well-known for backing many other socialist endeavors.  Ickes was also the father of Harold M. Ickes, a key player in the Clinton administration.

     The other man behind Wallace was a mystery to me.  In fact, I had trouble reading the label on him in the cartoon.  That man is Donald Richberg, who was called "assistant president" in the FDR administration.  Both he and Ickes came through Chicago politics and were leaders of the Progressive movement there.  Both Ickes and Richberg were key players in pushing the National Industrial Recovery Act which imposed fascist codes of conduct on American industry which dictated how key industries in America were to be run.  The National Recovery Administration was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court in 1935, which decision led to FDR's effort to "pack" the Supreme Court with more cooperative justices.

     The significance of this cartoon is that it depicts the visible signs of manipulation by the financial elite that runs America, which was in full control of the country back during the Depression, for decades before that and for the decades leading up to the present."

D. Dial  "Pretty amazing how history repeats itself, wouldn't you agree?"
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/06/14/trib-reruns-1934-cartoon-planned-economy-or-planned-destruction#ixzz1Pr5d3TwT

  cartoon color copy source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Careyorrchitrib34.jpg

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Obama is packing the government with Big Green ideologues
Read more at the Washington Examiner:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/obama-packing-government-big-green-ideologues

By: Ron Arnold, 16Jun11

     President Obama has packed his Cabinet agencies with left-wing ideologues, just like President Roosevelt tried with his 1937 "Supreme Court packing bill." Roosevelt failed, but Obama is still at it.

     Now it's Rebecca Wodder, former Wilderness Society official and current chief executive officer of Big Green's dam-killing, water-grabbing, natural gas enemy, American Rivers Inc. ($12.1 million 2010 revenue), who is Obama's nominee for assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks for the Department of the Interior.

     The "assistant" in that job title doesn't mean just some office flunky, it's arguably the most powerful office in the Interior Department, second only to Secretary Ken Salazar.

     Wodder would be boss of the National Park Service ($2.9 billion budget, 21,000 employees, 84.4 million acres) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ($2.7 billion budget, 7,900 employees, 96.2 million acres).

     It's not a job, it's an empire. So it's not hard to see why Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, ranking Republican member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has serious reservations about her nomination.

     Last week, Inhofe said in a press release that Wodder campaigned for the so-called Clean Water Restoration Act, which would have imposed federal control over all bodies of water in the country, down to the fish pond in your neighbor's back yard.

     Internal Revenue Service records show that Wodder's group got millions, including $750,000 from the Hewlett Foundation, to remove hydropower dams, weakening America's power grid.

     She's also a rabid opponent of natural gas hydraulic fracturing, unlike her predecessor, Tom Strickland, who said we should actively and aggressively develop our energy resources.

     Wodder may be a one-woman double-dip recession, but Obama's other Big Green nominee awaiting Senate confirmation is worse: John E. Bryson, former head of Edison International, parent company of Southern California Edison.

     Bryson has been criticized for all the wrong reasons. He was co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council in 1970, and one of its first attorneys to file mountains of lawsuits against industry.

     He was just out of Yale Law School, filing suits over pesticides, smog and other fashionable issue-of-the-month cases. He got tired of that after six years, went into California Gov. Jerry Brown's first administration, and then into public utilities.

     Obama's brief nomination announcement late last month recited Bryson's electric utility credentials and said the former executive would "add a business outlook to his inner circle."

     But Bryson's resume neglected to mention that in August 2008, he joined the global private equities firm that pioneered Gordon Gekko-style leveraged buyouts, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co, as a senior adviser.

     And we missed the press release from two months earlier -- coincidence, no doubt -- that said, "Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and Environmental Defense Fund Announce First-of-Its-Kind 'Green Portfolio' Partnership."

     EDF earlier gave cover to KKR in the $45 billion acquisition of TXU, a Texas utility, the largest leveraged buyout in history, in return for promises to cut coal-fired plants out of the picture.

     In a Washington Examiner special report in 2010, I exposed EDF's virtual ownership of the Commerce Department agency, NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the long EDF ties of NOAA chief administrator Jane Lubchenco, and EDF's stranglehold on NOAA's disastrous "catch shares" regulation of America's fisheries.

     The catch-share program now haunts them. A Senate subcommittee has set a hearing on catch-share scandals for next Monday in Boston, but Lubchenco won't be there -- she refused to testify. Neither will Fred Krupp, EDF's $407,000-a-year president -- he, too, refused to testify.

     Now we have an EDF co-conspirator nominated as secretary of commerce. Best to let Bryson take the Lubchenco/Krupp way out and not testify -- but in his case, for lack of a confirmation hearing.

Examiner Columnist Ron Arnold is executive vice president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise.

Read more at the Washington Examiner:  http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/obama-packing-government-big-green-ideologues

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"Those who do not remember the past  are doomed  to repeat it.

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bcc'd " red diaper babies aka 'pinkos' "http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/2011/06/obama-packing-government-big-green-ideologues