Proposals on New World Currency

Russia and China are coordinating proposals on a new global currency that could replace the US dollar as a reserve currency to prevent a repeat of the global economic crisis, the Kremlin said on Monday.

"We have received proposals from our colleagues in China, detailed proposals," President Dmitry Medvedev's top economic adviser Arkady Dvorkovich said. "Our positions are very similar.

"We have similar positions on the development of the international financial architecture," he told reporters.

Ahead of the Group of 20 summit in London later this week, the Kremlin has published a raft of proposals to overhaul the global economic order, including plans for a supra-national currency that could replace the US dollar.

China has come forward with similar ideas.

US President Barack Obama has said he does not see why the dollar should be replaced and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the summit would have more immediate issues to discuss.

"So far, not everybody is ready for that," acknowledged Dvorkovich. "We will insist on that at all levels."

Medvedev has said the international community should have a say when the world's richest countries make decisions with global implications, as in the US financial crisis, sparked by the collapse of the market for subprime or higher risk mortgages.

Moscow also understood however, that many countries were not ready to undertake additional "political obligations," said Dvorkovich, expressing hope that major economies would at least be open to consultations on the subject.

Dvorkovich said he hoped Russia and other major developing economies would also get an equal say and the attention they deserve during the G20 meeting.

"We are hoping that our voice will be heard but I would like to stress that we do not have a desire to pit our voice against that of our partners," he said, referring to developing economies Brazil, India and China who join Russia in what is known collectively as 'BRIC.'

"There will be no separate joint (BRIC) communique, nor should there be," Dvorkovich said. "This is the summit of the leaders of the G20 countries."

Critics have suggested China and the United States, whose economies are closely intertwined, would likely steal the show by promoting their own agenda and turning the G20 forum into a 'G2' summit.

Dvorkovich said the US and China would have ample time to discuss bilateral issues on the summit's sidelines

Separately, Dvorkovich said Medvedev would meet Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on April 1, just before the summit. Medvedev was also scheduled to meet US President Barack Obama, China's Hu Jintao and Britain's Brown that day.

Source:  AFP 2008

Posted:  Daily Thought Pad - Proposals on New World Currency

Hezbollah Smuggling Across U.S.- Mexican Border

America’s porous southern border is an entry point for more than Mexican cartels and their illegal drugs — the Iranian-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah has been smuggling drugs and people into the U.S. as well.

Hezbollah has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America, and is now using the same routes into the U.S. that the Mexican cartels use for smuggling, according to an exclusive report in The Washington Times.

The group relies on “the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers, and transportation experts as the drug cartels,” said Michael Braun, who recently retired as assistant administrator and chief of operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

“They work together. They rely on the same shadow facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected,” he said. 

Hezbollah, which fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006, funds its operations in part from a large Lebanese Muslim diaspora, and some of that funding comes from criminal enterprises.

Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, was arrested in 2002 for smuggling 200 people, including Hezbollah supporters, into the U.S. He was sentenced last year to 60 years in a Mexican prison.

But the cross-border flow of drugs and people has intensified since the U.S. reduced access to the country by air and water following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. And the drug wars between the cartels have claimed the lives of more than 8,000 people since January 2008, destabilizing Mexico along the border and prompting President Barack Obama to send additional agents there.

Adm. James Stavridis, commander of U.S. Southern Command, recently told a House committee that the connection between drug traffickers and “Islamic radical terrorism” is a growing threat to the U.S.

Braun said members of the Quds force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have been operating in South America and “could be commanding and controlling Hezbollah’s criminal enterprises from there.”

And a senior U.S. defense official said that in addition to Hezbollah, al-Qaida could also use the Mexican cartels’ trafficking routes to smuggle operatives into the U.S.

“The Mexican cartels have no loyalty to anyone,” another official told the Times. “They will willingly or unknowingly aid other nefarious groups’ [entry] into the U.S. through the routes they control. It has already happened. That’s why the border is such a serious national security issue.”

Source:  NewsMax.com

Posted: Knowledge Create Power -  3.30.09

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Meltdown - Personal Note From Ron Paul

"There is no better book to read on the present crisis."

Many Americans are looking to the new administration to solve our economic problems. Unfortunately, that is probably a vain hope. Although we were promised "change," we are only getting a continuation of the same superficial economic fixes that have damaged so many economies in the past, and that will only delay the return of prosperity.

These fixes are based on the false belief that the free-market economy has failed. But it is not the market that has failed. It is intervention into the market that has failed. The Federal Reserve and its manipulation of money and interest rates have failed. None of this can be blamed on the free market.

That's why Meltdown, a New York Times bestseller, is so important. This book actually gets things right. It correctly identifies our problems, their causes, and what we should do about them. It treats the architects of this debacle not with the undeserved reverence they receive in Washington and on television, but with the critical eye that is so conspicuously missing from our supposedly independent thinkers in academia and the media.

In a short span, Tom introduces the layman to a range of subjects that have been excluded from our national discussion for much too long. Among many other things, Tom explains Austrian business cycle theory, which he correctly identifies as the single most important piece of economic knowledge for Americans to have right now. In so doing, Tom provides Americans with the most persuasive and rational account of how we got here. Only if we correctly assess the causes of the debacle can we hope to propose a path to recovery that might actually work and not simply prolong the agony.

Our years of living beyond our means, of buying everything on credit and on money printed out of thin air, are over. Sure, our government will carry on with its nonsensical policy of curing indebtedness with more indebtedness, inflation with more inflation, but the game is up. It's not going to work. The resources aren't there. The more we intervene and the more we prop up economic zombies, the worse off we'll be. But the sooner we understand what has happened, assess our economic situation honestly, and rebuild our economy on a sound foundation, the sooner our fortunes will be restored.

Ideas still matter, and sound economic education has rarely been as urgently necessary as it is today. There is no better book to read on the present crisis than this one, and that is why I am delighted to endorse it.

Sincerely,  Rep. Ron Paul

Forrest Gump Explains The Banking Mess

Mortgage Backed Securities are like boxes of chocolates. Criminals on Wall Street stole a few chocolates from the boxes and replaced them with turds. Their criminal buddies at Standard & Poor rated these boxes AAA Investment Grade chocolates. These boxes were then sold all over the world to investors. Eventually somebody bites into a turd and discovers the crime. Suddenly nobody trusts American chocolates anymore worldwide.

Hank Paulson now wants the American taxpayers to buy up and hold all these boxes of turd-infested chocolates for $700 billion dollars until the market for turds returns to normal. Meanwhile, Hank’s buddies, the Wall Street criminals who stole all the good chocolates are not being investigated, arrested, or indicted.

Mama always said: ‘Sniff the chocolates first, Forrest’.

Quote of the day from a fund manager:

“This is worse than a divorce… I’ve lost half of my net worth and I still have my wife…”

The bailout–a different perspective:

Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a pack of nit-wits who couldn’t make money running a whore house and selling booze?

Posted in Banking, Nationalization, politics at 9:11 am by Administrator - 01.20.09

Permalink

Dick Morris - Suspects Obama Planning to Takeover ALL BANKS

 Dick Morris - Suspects Obama Planning to Takeover ALL BANKS

• PHONY MORTGAGE PLAN

Source: Daily Thought Pad

Senator Dodd's Wife Paid by AIG

Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, who received $280,000 in campaign contributions from AIG, is now defending his wife’s involvement with the beleaguered insurance giant.

According to a report in RealClearPolitics.com, Jackie Clegg Dodd worked as an outside director from 2001 to 2004 for a Bermuda-based company affiliated with AIG — IPC Holdings Ltd.

In 2003, Clegg received $12,000 per year and an additional $1,000 for each IPC directors and committee meeting she attended, according to a proxy statement. Clegg served on the audit and investment committees during her final year on the board.

Dodd, whose Recovery Act amendment in February ratified hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to executives at AIG and who has been a recipient of campaign contributions from that struggling company, was quick to downplay his wife’s involvement.

“To try to connect the AIG bonuses and my wife’s service on the board of this company, which ended five years ago, is nothing more than a cheap political attack,” Dodd said.  Hmmm...

But according to the RealClearPolitics report, Clegg was a busy hands-on director, attending more than 75 percent of board and committee meetings – all while serving as the managing partner of Clegg International Consultants, LLC, which she created in 2001.

In 2001, a public offering of 15 million shares of IPC stock raised $380 million. IPC simultaneously raised more than $109 million through a private placement sale of 5.6 million shares of stock to AIG -- giving AIG a 20 percent stake in IPC.

AIG sold its shares in IPC in Aug. 2006.

IPC paid millions each year to other AIG-related companies for administrative and other services.

American International Group, Inc. (AIG) is a major American insurance corporation based in New York City.

It suffered from a liquidity crisis after its credit ratings were downgraded. In Sept. 2008 the Federal Reserve Bank created an $85 billion credit facility to enable the company to meet its cash obligations.

In Nov. 2008 the U.S. government increased the total loan package to $152 billion. The company came under the gun following its allocation of about 165 million USD as bonuses to its executives.

By: Dave Eberhart © 2009 Newsmax

Hmmm...  Geithner who was the "engineer" of the program that allowed AIG to give out the ludicrous bonuses that have been at the forefront of news programs for more than a week has gotten away with saying he didn't know about the bonuses until a couple weeks ago and now  we find out that Senator Dodd's wife is on the AIG gravy train.  What else are we being told that just isn't so???

Posted:  Knowledge Creates Power - 03.25.03

Cheap Political Theater

Death threats to executives at AIG, because of the bonuses they received, are one more sign of the utter degeneration of politics in our time.

Congressman Barney Frank has threatened to summon these executives before his committee and force them to reveal their home addresses-- which would of course put their wives and children at the mercy of whatever kooks might want to literally take a shot at them.

Whatever the political or economic issues involved, this is not the way such issues should be resolved in America. We are not yet a banana republic, though that is the direction in which some of our politicians are taking us-- especially those politicians who make a lot of noise about "compassion" and "social justice."

What makes this all the more painfully ironic is that it is precisely those members of Congress who have had the most to do with creating the risks that led to the current economic crisis who are making the most noise against others, and summoning people before their committee to be browbeaten and humiliated on nationwide television.

No one pushed harder than Congressman Barney Frank to force banks and other financial institutions to reduce their mortgage lending standards, in order to meet government-set goals for more home ownership. Those lower mortgage lending standards are at the heart of the increased riskiness of the mortgage market and of the collapse of Wall Street securities based on those risky mortgages.

Senator Christopher Dodd has played the same role in the Senate as Barney Frank played in the House of Representatives. Now both are summoning government employees and the officials of financial institutions before their committees to be lambasted in front of the media.

Dodd and Frank know that the best defense is a good offense. Both know how hard it would be to defend their own roles in the housing debacle, so they go on the offensive against others who are in no position to reply in kind, given the vindictive powers of Congress.

This political theater is in one sense cheap beyond words. In another sense, it is costly beyond words.

It is cheap because the politicians who are creating this distraction from their own role also voted for the very legislation that enabled contracted bonuses to be paid by companies like AIG that received government bailout money. If members of Congress can't be bothered to read the laws they pass, then they have no basis for whipping up lynch mob outrage against people who did read the law and acted within the law.

Just as everyone seemed to be a military expert a couple of years ago, when it was chic to say that the "surge" in Iraq would not work, so today everyone seems to be an expert on executive pay.

Whether the particular executives who received bonuses were the ones responsible for AIG's problems, or were among those who warned against those problems, is something that those of us on the outside don't know. That includes those in politics and the media who are making the loudest noise.

The politicians claim to be protecting the taxpayers' money. But having politicians trying to micro-manage any business is far more likely to make those businesses lose more money, including the taxpayers' money.

Securities based on risky mortgages are what toppled financial institutions but it was the government that made the mortgages risky in the first place, by making home-ownership statistics the holy grail, for which everything else was to be sacrificed, including commonsense standards for making home loans.

Politicians and bureaucrats micro-managing the mortgage sector of the economy is precisely how today's economic disaster began. Why anyone would think that their micro-managing the automobile industry, or executive pay across a wide sweep of other industries, is likely to make things better in the economy is a mystery.

The real point is to pander to envy and resentment against people who make a lot of money. Envy is always referred to by its political alias, "social justice." But to put the lives of the wives and children of executives at risk for the sake of Beltway grandstanding shows how low our political saviors have sunk.

By: Thomas Sowell - a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy, and writer for  Townhall.com ©Creators Syndicate

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American Tea Party Song

This song is the National Rallying Cry of the movement against president Obama's outrageous government over-reaching stimulus package.

...and what seems like endless spending bills since then.

Freedom Is Not Free

Stand up for the Constitution!

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  Every... "Our" Country Needs A Leader Like This!

The Weimar Solution

“The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency,” said Lord Keynes.

Ben Bernanke disagrees. A student of the Depression, the Fed chair appears far more fearful of deflation — a vicious cycle of falling prices, debt defaults, home foreclosures and rising unemployment.

Deflation is what America underwent in the 1930s. A Fed-created bubble burst, causing margin calls to go out to stockholders, who ran to their banks that, besieged, collapsed, wiping out a third of our money. As Milton Friedman, who won a Nobel for his thesis that the Federal Reserve caused the Great Depression, told PBS in 2000: “For every $100 in paper money, in deposits, in cash, in currency, in existence in 1929, by the time you got to 1933 there was only about $65, $66 left. And that extraordinary collapse in the banking system, with about a third of the banks failing … with millions of people having their savings essentially washed out, that decline was utterly unnecessary.

“(T)he Federal Reserve had the power and the knowledge to have stopped that. And there were people at the time who were … urging them to do that. So it was … clearly a mistake of policy that led to the Great Depression.”

Is Bernanke fighting the war of 1929 in 2009? Surely, today, with the explosion in M1, the basic money supply, there is no shortage of dollars out there, even if they are not circulating fast enough.

To end our recession, Bernanke may be running an even greater risk: hyper-inflation. This has destroyed more nations than deflation or even depression.

Recall: It was French military intervention in the Ruhr in 1923, to force payment of war reparations, and Weimar’s decision to let the currency fall and pay the French in cheap marks that led to the wipeout of the German middle class, the discrediting of that democratic republic and the Munich beer-hall putsch of Adolf Hitler.

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation,” said Ernest Hemingway, “is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”

Which brings us to last week’s shocker...

The Fed will buy up $300 billion in long-term Treasury bonds and spend $750 billion more buying sub-prime mortgages to remove them from the balance sheets of ailing big banks, to get the banks lending again.
Bernanke is printing money to buy U.S. bonds.

This new gusher from the Fed, after the $700 billion TARP bailout, comes on top of a Congressional Budget Office estimate that this year’s deficit will be $1.85 trillion, 13.1 percent of gross domestic product, more than twice the share of the U.S. economy of the largest previous postwar deficit.

Concluding the dollar is being abandoned in a frantic Fed effort to stop the recession, markets reacted instantly. The dollar plunge was the steepest since the Plaza Agreement of 1985. Gold shot up to $950 an ounce. Silver had a 12 percent run-up, the sharpest ever. Oil prices surged above $50 a barrel. Commodity markets advanced.

The Fed seems to have confirmed the fears of Premier Wen Jiabao, who said that China is “definitely a little worried” about the value of the U.S. bonds Beijing has purchased with the dollars piled up from her trade surpluses with the United States.

Can one blame the Chinese? They have already been burned on their U.S. investments. And if the defense of the dollar against its ancient enemy inflation is being abandoned, and protecting the dollar is to take a back seat to the Fed’s fight to avoid deflation, than it is indeed time to get out of the dollar and dollar-denominated assets.

For inflation is theft. It make liars and cheats of governments. By eroding the value of a currency, inflation punishes savers and creditors and rewards debtors. And what nation is the biggest debtor of them all? The United States of America.

Insidiously, inflation consumes the value of cash, savings, municipal bonds, corporate bonds, Treasury bonds and T-bills. Friends who lent America money, who bought our debt in good faith, are robbed and made fools of, while speculators who bet against America by shorting the dollar in the currency markets are vastly rewarded.

Given the $3.6 trillion budget Obama plans, the $1.8 trillion in red ink he will run by Oct. 1 and the trillions the Fed is pumping into the economy, gross domestic product should spike, as it did after the far smaller stimulus package of 2008.

We will feel a healthy glow, and folks will begin to sing, “Happy Days Are Here Again.”

Yet, one senses that we are doing again exactly what we have done before in this generation. Rather than endure the pain and accept the sacrifices to cure us of our addiction, we are going back to the heroin. And this time, with Dr. Bernanke handling the needle, we may just overdose.

---

By Pat Buchanan who is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,"  "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and  "Where the Right Went Wrong."

The Case for Letting AIG Fail

AIG offices in New York City - Photo by Mario Tama/Getty

There's an uproar about whether the government should let AIG fail, a debate re-energized by the latest revelation of bonus payments going to AIG's executives. In fact, there's a good case to be made that AIG should fail, and it has nothing to do with bonuses.

More Related

• AIG: Paying Taxpayers Back with Taxpayer Money
• Financial Meltdowns: How Big a Blow?
• Obama’s Challenge: Containing the AIG Bonus Outrage

The rescue of AIG is warping the banking system and unnecessarily extending the credit crisis. This misguided effort stems from a lack of transparency and some basic misconceptions about AIG's business. (Read "Obama's Challenge: Containing the AIG Bonus Outrage.")

Let's take a moment to review how AIG made money and why it's now losing so much. Most of AIG's losses have been attributed to its failing positions in credit-default swaps (CDSs). Essentially, AIG is swapping cash flows with other institutions: those banks pay AIG a small sum on a regular basis, and then under certain conditions — like mass foreclosure or corporations' defaulting on their loans — AIG pays out a large sum. In other words, AIG sold insurance; its problem is that it is paying out too much.

Of course, it's a bit more complicated than that because of the funky nature of AIG's insurance. Other types of insurance do not carry the same risks because when one claim pays out, it does not snowball. AIG's insurance on foreclosures and other defaults is not like insurance for accidents and disasters; while earthquakes in California are not correlated with earthquakes in New York, foreclosures are spiraling out of control together, fueled by a widespread recession.

Moreover, investors and banks that hold credit-default swaps do not necessarily own the tranches of mortgages and bonds that the CDSs insure. AIG may have even written multiple swaps over the same mortgages and bonds. It would be as if an insurance company had sold earthquake insurance on one house to multiple investors. When the house falls, so does AIG.

But there's a true insight into this mess if you just step back and consider the bigger picture, not just AIG. Regardless of the details of the various swap contracts, they all represent potential transfers of wealth between financial institutions. If we consolidated the entire financial sector, all these debts would effectively vanish.

Think again of the insured house. Many institutions hold insurance on the house; on the other side are insurance companies and the like making an opposite bet. If the house is destroyed, one group of institutions wins and the other group loses. Considering all institutions together, no money was truly lost — it's what economists call a zero-sum game. In good times, risk-hungry banks loved this game, but now they have become risk-averse, and the game seems to have changed. So how can many of the banks simultaneously claim enormous swap losses without a single bank claiming significant profit?

Here are two possibilities: either the vast majority of all swaps — not just AIG's — are held by investment banks, or a significant portion is held by other financial institutions like hedge funds. Suppose all swaps are held by banks. Since swaps are a zero-sum game, the banking industry as a whole cannot lose money on swaps. Then there is no need for a bailout. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)

Alternatively, if hedge funds hold significant positions, then it is possible for the banking industry as a whole to net a loss on swaps. That loss would be the hedge funds' gain. This means the bailout is ultimately saving the hedge funds.

Whichever it is, if the number of institutions involved in swap-trading were limited to those trading with AIG, then AIG is probably not too big to fail. We have to worry about chains of claims. Just because AIG dealt only with banks does not mean those banks did not rewrite similar contracts with hedge funds.

The most direct solution for the swap problem is to settle all such agreements and eliminate their uncertainty from the equation. If the payments are reversed, or the payments are stopped, or they are settled once and for all, the uncertainty will vanish.

The problem with keeping the swaps on the banks' books is that their potential payoff or loss is random, depending on the particular details of the contract and various outcomes in the world. Moreover, banks today are risk-averse and often factor worst-case scenarios into current pricing. Thus, they are far more likely to claim losses than profits on such instruments.

At the very least, there should be full transparency. Any institution receiving money from the government — and ultimately from American taxpayers — should reveal its holdings. Even institutions that do not require a bailout should be more closely tracked by regulators. The government can and should monitor all transactions, even those over-the-counter.

We have focused too much on each individual bank and its possibility for failure. The economy does not need every bank to survive; it needs most. Right now, we need to know which ones. By propping up financial institutions that are subject to unknown potential losses, the government is prolonging the uncertainty about whether they will fail. This perpetuates the crisis of confidence in which banks do not trust one another enough to loan mo

By ARI J. OFFICER - Time Magazine

And then there is the whole subject of multi-national corporations that put business before Country, ideology, people or much of anything else.  AIG is the embodiment of the multi-national corporation gone wrong and all that goes with it.  The AIG fiasco should be our warning of what is wrong with companies that get to big.  AIG operates in 135 countries and insures everything from banks to movie stars... too big, too impersonal, too dangerous!  But this is a subject for another day!!!

$2 Trillion Argument - Glenn Beck Find's the Pro's and Con's From the Experts

On Thursday the Feds bought up $1.15 Trillion in Securities... They bet the farm without asking "You"

March 20, 2009 - 12:29 ET

Is the fed's 'bet the house' strategy going to be effective? If not, what happens? Glenn talked about this on TV last night and because it's such a confusing issue, he wanted to present the best arguments on both sides of the issue. Here they are:

PRO Government “Bet the House” Spending Plan arguments

• ‘Rambo Fed’ Will Buy Treasuries to Combat Crisis
  By committing to buy Treasuries and double his purchases of mortgage debt, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke signaled his determination to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression and his willingness to pump as much cash into the economy as needed to end the current crisis.
• Fed launches bold $1.2T effort to revive economy
  With the country sinking deeper into recession, the Federal Reserve launched a bold $1.2 trillion effort Wednesday to lower rates on mortgages and other consumer debt, spur spending and revive the economy.
• Fed in Bond-Buying Binge to Spur Growth
  Dramatic Plan to Purchase $300 Billion in Treasurys Causes Biggest Drop in Interest Rates Since '87; Perils of Printing Money

CON Government “Bet the House” Spending Plan arguments

• The Fed End Game
  People are rightly outraged about the AIG bonuses but the amounts involved in that are tiny compared to the size of our problems.
• Dollar Rally Crumbles as Fed Ramps Up Printing Press
  The rally that pushed the dollar to the highest levels since 2006 is in danger of crumbling as the Federal Reserve starts buying Treasuries and ramps up its purchases of mortgage debt, adding to a flood of greenbacks.
• The Fed's Futile Move
  In an effort to promote liquidity and boost the economy, the Federal Reserve announced plans to grow the money supply by another 50 percent to 60 percent.

Source:  GlennBeck.com

Obama's Words on Arabic Network Gave the Wrong Message to our Enemies!

...says Brigitte Gabriel of Obama's first interview on Arabic Network: "His move would have been great if we are dealing with people who share our values and our outlook on life." While it is noble to talk about listening to others address their concerns and willing to hear what they are saying, when it comes to the Middle East he just enforced with his rhetoric "all too often the United States starts by dictating" the attitude of the Muslim Street against America.

President Obama discounted the fact that the United States has been listening to leaders in the Middle East for three decades and brokered a peace treaty between the Palestinians and Israel in 2003. While he wants to send a message of a change of policies in America under his administration to the Muslim Street, he is sending the wrong message with his words to our enemies.

The message was: "We are begging for you to have mercy on us because we are so weak and we do not want to fight you." The radicals are delighted with his action because now they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that America is going to be a pushover for the next four years trying to beg forgiveness and appease.

We have to think like our enemies and not like what we would do if this was us. America is the enemy of the radical Islamists in the Middle East from Iran to Syria to Hizbollah to Hamas to the Muslims Brotherhood.

America is not the enemy of the moderates in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait and the moderate regimes. These radicals are blinded by religious radicalism and believe they are on a mission to fight "the infidels" headed by the United States. That is not going to change unless you change the words of the Koran written by the Prophet Mohammed.

Obama's reference about Israel having to make tough choices and about the Israelis willing to give up territories for peace emboldens Hamas as well as Syria who wants to get back the Golan Heights - a very strategic point in northern Israel. What is his saying that Israel needs to withdraw from the West Bank like they did from Gaza in 2005 because that will give them peace? We saw what this type of appeasement earned Israel from Hamas.

Brigette Gabriel is author of:  They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It

Posted by:  Ask Marion - Knowledge Creates Power

American Tea Party Song

American Tea Party Song by Lloyd Marcus

Source: www.youtube.com

Freedom Is Not Free

Stand up for the Constitution!

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Grassroots Movements and Tea Parties Are in the Wind

Is It Time For You to Take the Leap?

"Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality." ...Earl Nightingale: Author, The Strangest Secret, Lead the Field

We can plant any seed we want in the soil, and if it's given enough time and attention, it will grow into a flower, vegetable, or tree. The same goes for our mind. We can plant misery and negative thoughts, or we can choose to plant the most hopeful, success-focused thoughts we can muster. With enough time and attention, those seeds will grow as well. Will they grow into a promising future or a mediocre life? That depends on what you planted.

Dear Reader,

Nine years ago this month I made a big change. After sixteen years in the money management business, I accepted a job writing about the financial markets for Agora Publishing.

My former colleagues told me I was nuts.

"Nobody gets to the point where he has all these clients, all these assets and all these fees coming in and then just quits," one co-worker insisted. "People spend sixteen years in this business to be exactly where you are now. No one in his right mind just walks away."

But I did. I was bored.

I love the financial markets. I loved my clients, too. But I was tired of having the same repetitive conversations about their accounts every day.

I needed to re-pot myself. And when my friend and former colleague Steve Sjuggerud decided to step down as Investment Director of The Oxford Club to start a hedge fund, I had the opportunity.

There was one drawback, however. The starting salary I was offered was only a small fraction of what I was currently making.

I left anyway. And I've never regretted it for a minute.

Doors opened up that I could never have imaged when I first took the job. I've traveled the world, from Europe and South America to Africa and the Orient. After years of being chained to my telephone and my "quote machine," I was free at last.

Last summer I made another leap. After twenty-eight years living in central Florida, my wife Karen and I decided to move our family to Charlottesville, VA - just to try it out.

"You've only been here seven months?" a woman I met last week asked. "So your job brought you here?"

"No," I said.

"You have family here in Charlottesville?"

"No."

"You had friends here?"

"No."

"Really?" she persisted. "Who did you know here in town?"

"No one, actually."

From her expression, you'd have thought she'd just identified someone in the federal witness protection program.

There were plenty of good reasons we moved here, of course. Unlike Florida, there are four gorgeous seasons. (Well, three. I'm still not crazy about that last one.) Charlottesville is a charming town with tons of culture - thanks to the University of Virginia - and no big-city problems.

The majestic Blue Ridge sits just west of town, providing spectacular sunsets. In twenty minutes, I can be hiking the Appalachian Trail. And I have family in Staunton less than an hour away.

It hasn't been a completely smooth transition, of course. There's no major airport here. We're renting a furnished house. (And learning just how little of "all that stuff" back in Florida we actually need.)

The toughest part was leaving friends we've known for most of our lives. But we still go back to visit. And we're already making new ones. It looks like we're here to stay.

People we meet often tell us they dream of doing something like this. Only money holds them back, they say.

But I read an inspiring column by my old friend Steve Sjuggerud this week and it reminded me that while a lack of money can dictate your choices, it doesn't mean they have to be poor ones.

If this sounds counterintuitive, read his essay and you'll see what I mean. Just click here - It's Never Too Late to Escape

Carpe Diem,

Alex Greene, SpiritualWealth

Glenn Beck: Last Line of Defense

Don't be distracted by the 'big news' of the day; it's usually just a smokescreen...

Watch Glenn Beck weekdays at 5 p.m. ET on FOX News Channel

I've been telling you for weeks to not be distracted by the "big news of the day" because it's usually just a smokescreen. But on Wednesday, I fell for it myself. 

While everyone — including me — was taking sides on the AIG bonuses, something much more important was happening: The Fed announced it will pump a $1 trillion into the system by buying debt from our treasury. 

Since they've lowered interest rates as far as they can, this is really a last ditch effort; it's like they put our entire economy up on the roulette table and the wheel is spinning. 

To put this in perspective, think of America like a sick patient with a nasty staph infection. The doctors first try Penicillin to cure the patient. When that doesn't work, they try something else. And when all else fails they hook an IV to the patient. 

That last line of defense was just hung over "patient America" yesterday, but we were all 
— and that includes me — too focused on AIG to notice. 

Here's what this means: We're borrowing money from ourselves to pay for programs we can't pay for. 

And that's why the price of gold shot up about 75 bucks in 18 hours. Investors aren't stupid. They know the risks this poses, especially to inflation and our dollar. 

So let me play doctor here and give you the diagnosis without talking to you like a 4-year-old: The antibiotic we've just been given has never once worked in the history of the civilized world. 

Can this time be different? Absolutely, but only if we've got the guts to make some life-changing decisions; decisions that will force us to shoulder some unthinkable pain in the short term, but decisions that may just save this patient's life.

Pelosi: “Enforcing Immigration Laws In The US Is Un-American” - With Video

FOX:

Pelosi Tells Illegal Immigrants That Work Site Raids are Un-American

The speaker of the House told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants recently that enforcement of immigration laws in the United States is “un-American.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently told a group of both legal and illegal immigrants and their families that enforcement of existing immigration laws, as currently practiced, is “un-American.”

The speaker, condemning raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, referred to the immigrants she was addressing as “very, very patriotic.”

“Who in this country would not want to change a policy of kicking in doors in the middle of the night and sending a parent away from their families?” Pelosi told a mostly Hispanic gathering at St. Anthony’s Church in San Francisco.

“It must be stopped….What value system is that? I think it’s un-American. I think it’s un-American.”

Pelosi said she was invited to the church by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., as part of his 17-city, cross-country tour called United Families, which he says is intended to put a human face on the immigration debate.

“We think that families are the cornerstone of our society and our nation, and an immigration system should preserve those families, not destroy them,” Gutierrez told FOX News Capitol Hill Producer Chad Pergram on Tuesday.

The congressman is collecting petitions that ask President Obama to “stop the immigration raids and deportations that are tearing our marriages, families and children apart.” He is expected to present those petitions when Hispanic members of Congress meet with the President Wednesday.

On Saturday night, Pelosi joined Gutierrez before a cheering crowd at St. Anthony’s chanting, “Si se puede,” or “Yes we can.”

Referring to work site enforcement actions by ICE agents, Pelosi said, “We have to have a change in policy and practice and again … I can’t say enough, the raids must end. The raids must end.

“You are special people. You’re here on a Saturday night to take responsibility for our country’s future. That makes you very, very patriotic.”

“I was embarrassed by what she said,” said Rick Oltman, with Californians for Population Stabilization, an anti-illegal immigrant group. “Exhorting illegal aliens for taking responsibility for our country’s future…. In fact, sitting there in the audience…. I really resented that comment.”

“I think it was pandering to the crowd but also insulting to American citizens who consider themselves to be patriotic, who obey the rule of law,” said Oltman, who shot a video of the rally.

By William Lajeunesse

Source:  Pat Dollard - The War Starts Here

Bankruptcy, Not Bailout

by Newt Gingrich

"Outrage" is the word on everyone's lips to describe the fat bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds to the failed executives at AIG - and it is an outrage.
It's an outrage that the American people are being asked to pay for the bad behavior of people who should have known better, be they reckless traders on Wall Street or reckless borrowers on Main Street.

But the cure for our outrage is not merely, as President Obama is demanding, that AIG be prevented from paying its executives. The $165 million in planned bonuses - as manifestly undeserved as it is - is chicken feed compared to the $170 billion in taxpayer funds AIG has received so far.

Nor is it acceptable to ask Americans to keep throwing their tax dollars at failed companies and their leaders.

The answer is an old fashioned one: AIG should choose between receivership or bankruptcy. It should not be allowed to choose more bailouts from the taxpayer.

Restore the Rule of Law: Allow Failing Corporations to go Bankrupt

Under U.S. law, Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to reorganize. Chapter 7 allows a company to dissolve itself.

The choices for AIG, as both an insurance and non-insurance company, are more complicated, but ultimately boil down to the same options. And for other companies either receiving or looking to receive a bailout from the taxpayers, the option should instead be bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy would send a needed message to U.S. investors: Don't assume the government will bail you out when you do something stupid.

And most importantly, bankruptcy would replace the rule of politicians over U.S. financial institutions with the rule of law.

Geithner Didn't Inherit the Policy of Throwing Billions at Failing Companies - He Helped Create It

Because when it comes to Washington's handling of the financial crisis, so far we've had the rule of politicians, not the rule of law.

Most prominent among the politicians in question is Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

As Americans' level of outraged has risen, so has the level of finger pointing by Geithner and others for the mess we're in.

But Treasury Secretary Geithner is disingenuous at best and untruthful at worst when he says that he "inherited the worst fiscal situation in American history."

The truth is that Secretary Geithner didn't inherit the policy of throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at failing companies - he helped create it.

Even before he was Treasury Secretary - when he was still head of the New York Federal Reserve - Geithner was so deeply involved in the government's bail out of Bear Stearns, its take over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and its bailout of AIG that this was the Washington Post's headline from September 19, 2008:  "In the Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner Forge a Committee of Three".

The first meeting of the first bailout - of Bear Stearns - was held in Geithner's office. And the first meeting of what has become a $170 billion bailout of AIG was held - where else? In Geithner's New York Fed office.

Why Not Bankruptcy for AIG? Because Wall Street Wouldn't Have Done As Well

From the outset, Geithner was central to the developing policy of having the taxpayers bail out ailing financial institutions like AIG rather then allow them to go bankrupt. And for months now, we've been told that these bailouts were necessary to avoid a wider, cataclysmic, financial meltdown.

But now it's clear that other, less noble, considerations were at play.  As the Wall Street Journal editorialized yesterday, the real outrage over the AIG bailout isn't executive bonuses, it's that billions in taxpayer funds intended for AIG have been passed through to benefit foreign banks and Wall Street behemoths like Goldman Sachs.

And as former AIG CEO Hank Greenburg testified last October, these financial institutions wouldn't have faired as well if AIG had filed for bankruptcy protection rather than do what it did, which was to negotiate a bailout with Timothy Geithner's New York Federal Reserve.

Here's how Greenburg put it:

"Although AIG stockholders could have fared better if the company had filed for bankruptcy protection, other stakeholders - like AIG's Wall Street counterparties in swaps and other transactions - would have fared worse."

For the Cost of Bailing Out AIG, Every American Household Could Have Free Electricity For a Year

So now everyone is outraged, and rightly so. But the lavish executive bonuses being paid with taxpayer funds are just the beginning of the story.

So far, the American taxpayers are on the hook for $170 billion to AIG - that's an astounding $1,224 per taxpayer.

What else could we have done with all this money?
$170 billion would pay for more than doubling the Navy's fleet of aircraft carriers.

$170 billion would pay for a four-year education at a public university for more then two million Americans.

$170 billion would cover the electricity bill of every household in America for an entire year.

When You Reward Failure, All You Get is More Failure

What Washington should learn from all this outrage is to return to the common sense that should have guided it all along: When you reward failure, all you get it more failure.

A company that needs a $170 billion taxpayer bailout is a failed company. The executives that led that company are failed executives. But instead of having to face the consequences of their failure responsibly through bankruptcy or receivership, AIG and its Wall Street "counterparties" are being rewarded for their recklessness - with our money.

Thanks to the Bush-Obama-Geithner policy of bailing out failing companies, we now have the worst of all possible scenarios: A taxpayer subsidized, government supervised private company; an unsustainable public/private hybrid that is too public to make its own decisions and too private to be responsible to the taxpayers that are keeping it alive.

Outrages like the fat cat bonuses currently dominating the headlines will only continue as long as the rule of politicians supplants the rule of law on Wall Street.

Congress should rethink this entire process. The dangers of a domino-like financial meltdown are real. But so, too, is the danger that the outrage of the American people will reach the point that we no longer trust the dire warnings - or the righteous indignation - coming from Washington.

  Your friend,

   Newt Gingrich

P.S. -- Historian William Forstchen and I have collaborated on many different works of historical fiction. I'm proud to announce that Bill has a new novel out, called One Second After. It's a fascinating and disturbing account of what America would be like in the aftermath of an electro magnetic pulse (EMP) attack. Like everything Bill does, One Second After expertly combines human drama and geopolitical reality for a fictional look at what could be an all-too-real future.

Columbine Remembered -- What a great speech!

Guess our national leaders didn't expect this, hmm? On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.

They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness. The following is a portion of the transcript:

"Since the dawn of creation there has been both good & evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.”

"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used.. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was
Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.

"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy -- it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage,
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question "Why?"
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc.

Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs -- politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA... They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties. We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of  massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -- I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"

Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man's speech…  Please send this out to everyone you can.

God Bless~

A Call To Arms

Like many of you, I have raised my right hand on several occasions, taking a solemn oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same..."

At this moment in our great nation's history, we are facing formidable enemies, both "foreign and domestic."

I know you are already standing on the front lines of many battles to preserve our Constitutional Republic. I encourage you to join us on one more battlefront -- the high ground in the campaign to preserve liberty by providing the next generation of Patriots an indispensable resource, and enlisting their support.

The Patriot Post is a leading voice for individual liberty, the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and the promotion of free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.

One of our primary missions is outreach to collegiate readers -- from whose ranks our next generation of Patriots and policymakers will rise. The Patriot provides alternative perspective to the relentless liberal indoctrination, and is a great source of support and encouragement to conservative students and professors, who too often stand alone among their peers for the preservation of liberty.

The Patriot Post is leading a surprisingly well-organized charge into the world of Internet politics." --Harvard Political Review

We use the most cost effective means to reach the largest number of readers, but there are millions of young people who have yet to be invited to join our ranks.

Because The Patriot is published without a subscription fee, it reaches an ever-growing audience of not only collegiate readers, but tens of thousands of military personnel and those in mission fields around the world. Its readers include high-level policymakers in the executive and legislative branches, leaders in state and local government, key thinkers in the community of conservative research and academic policy organizations, and, most important, grassroots conservative leaders across the nation.

The Patriot Post is not sustained by any political, special interest or parent organization, and our mission and operation budgets are funded by -- and depend entirely upon -- the voluntary financial support of Patriots like you.

Please help us expand the ranks of young Americans defending liberty.

Support The Patriot today!

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander

Publisher, PatriotPost.US

Obama's Attack on Medical Civil Liberties

Candidate Barack Obama offered a compelling but formless message of hope and change. Many Americans desiring a new national direction filled his empty rhetorical vessels with their dreams and aspirations. It worked.

But now, obliged by his office, President Obama is giving those words definition and shape bewildering even some of his most ardent supporters.

While the media remain fixated on a slumping economy that gets sicker with each punishing presidential prescription, a different set of defining and similarly freedom-diminishing policy directives emerging from the White House goes dissimilarly unnoticed.

Earlier this month, the President took the first step in rescinding a Bush administration moral conscience regulation which enforces existing legal protections against discrimination and intimidation for doctors and other healthcare professionals who invoke conscience by refusing to participate in medical procedures they believe immoral.

The rule, which was finalized last year placed no restriction upon any legal medical procedure; it simply brought the executive branch into compliance with several existing laws including:

the 1973 "Church Amendments" which protect doctors and other healthcare professionals from discrimination due to religious belief or moral conviction;

the 1996 “Public Health Service Act Amendment” which prohibits government from discriminating against individual and institutional healthcare providers who choose not to provide abortion services or receive abortion training; and

the 2004 "Hyde-Weldon Amendment” which prohibits certain federal funds going to federal and state agencies and programs that discriminate against healthcare providers who decline to offer or refer abortion services.

Simply put, these three venerable laws passed by Congress and signed by former Presidents protect doctors and nurses from being professionally threatened because they allow their conscience to dictate their professional actions.

By eliminating the enforcement of these legal protections, the Obama Administration is signaling that it intends to ignore the law and refuse to protect the civil liberties of healthcare professionals based upon religious or moral conscience. Without enforcement, healthcare personnel will have scant legal recourse for intimidation and bigotry rendering the laws intended to protect them meaningless.

Former Bush Administration Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said the conscience protection was absolutely necessary to confront a growing intolerance in the health field for “individual conscience, certain religious beliefs, ethnic and cultural traditions and moral convictions.”

Sister Carol Keehan, representing Catholic hospitals as president of the Catholic Health Association said, “We have seen a variety of efforts to force Catholic and other healthcare providers to perform or refer for abortions and sterilizations.''

Efforts to roll back freedom of conscience protections are only the latest in a series of aggressive actions that demonstrate intolerance for those whose conscience is convicted in support of a culture of life:

In the first month of his presidency, Obama reversed the established Mexico City policy that kept taxpayer money from being used by international organizations for abortions as a method of family planning protecting millions of American from paying for a procedure that they find morally objectionable.

Last week, the President unilaterally lifted embryonic-stem-cell research restrictions.

In the President’s recent healthcare summit, groups that support abortion were invited but pro-life groups with a stake in healthcare were excluded.

With the President’s support, Congress recently approved $50 million in funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). UNFPA is complicit in China's unspeakably cruel one-child enforcement policy, which employs forced abortion and sterilization.

The President’s nomination of Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be the new Secretary of Health and Human Services prompted George Weigel who leads Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center to question whether “conscience-rights protection for pro-life physicians and health-care workers [will] be sustained, amended, or eliminated.”

In February, the Administration decided that it would no longer extend hiring protections to faith-based organizations but would instead review on a “case-by-case basis.

The last Congress passed federal funding for embryonic-stem-cell research without hearings in either the House or the Senate, closed the bill to all markups, and bypassed the committee process entirely, we expect the same closed process in this Congress.

Yet, the most hostile assault against the civil liberties in the medical profession may be yet to come.

In 2007, Obama promised a Planned Parenthood gathering on the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade that, as president, he would sign the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA). If enacted, FOCA would repeal all federal and state restrictions on abortion including the ban on partial-birth abortion. FOCA would force all public hospitals and health programs offering maternity services to provide abortions. Moreover, provisions in state constitutions that protect speech and the free exercise of religion of those whose conscience is opposed to abortion could be invalidated.

Having no reason to believe that President Obama will not fulfill this radical campaign pledge, some Catholic bishops are talking openly about engaging in civil disobedience to protect Catholic hospitals and their doctors from being forced to perform abortions.

The chilling effect of the Obama administration forcing doctors and nurses to choose between their losing their careers and being compelled to participate in abortions against their moral and religious belief is incalculable. Not only will pro-life doctors and nurses be driven from the professions, but patients will lose the ability to choose doctors who reflect their own religious and moral convictions, doctors who now help them to make healthcare choices based upon them.

The fact is, there are doctors and nurses who have no moral objection to abortion. Why then, should some medical professionals be compelled to do something that compromises their conscience? It is one thing to hold fast to the pro-abortion position as a matter of a personal opinion, it is quite another to force someone else to compromise their moral integrity.

Now the clock is ticking on the thirty-day review and public feedback period where public opinion might change the administration’s direction toward religious freedom. Let’s hope.

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Rick Tyler serves as Gingrich’s spokesperson and is the Founding Director of Renewing American Leadership.

By: Newt Gingrich and Rick Tyler © 2009 Newsmax

Grassroots Movements and Tea Parties Are in the Wind

After only 50-days into Obama's term there are Grassroots Movements and Tea Parties in the wind all across the United States. As of Friday March 13^th there were 141 Tea Parties planned in 12 States for Tax Day, April 15^th 2009, and not to celebrate or join the Obama vision of Hope and Change… Other organizers and radio stations are encouraging Americans to mail tea bags to the White House and the Congress between now and Tax Day while others are planning to dump tea in the Chesapeake.

MY NEW FAVORITE TEA COMPANY

Eric Odom reports that the Portsmouth Tea Company in Somersworth, NH has volunteered to donate 70 pounds of tea for the Tax Day Tea Party protests scheduled for April 15.

“The real power to create change, real change, resides in you.” said Glenn Beck of Fox News and author of The Christmas Sweater on Glenn Beck Day, Friday March 13^th. People all around the United States joined him for celebrations and parties in the “You Are Not Alone” movement that Glenn has started in conjunction with his http://www.the912project.com/ website a type of think tank and online gathering place for the movement, called The 912 Project based on how we all felt on 9/12…the day after 9/11, 2001 and what was most important to most Americans on that day – God, family, friends, our Country, your core beliefs and our values.

People all around the Country are joining together to form a new grassroots movement. And it has nothing to do with President Obama’s Hope and Change campaign rhetoric, rather a back lash grassroots movement against the Obama rhetoric, crazy spending, more taxation and socialistic ideas as well as some unpopular policies that began during the Bush years. It is a movement of people: Republicans. Independents, Libertarians, Democrats, young, old, legal residents and American Citizens that have had enough and are tired of feeling alone, tired of feeling cheated and tired of being robbed of the Country they love. Beck’s event scheduled on Glenn Beck Day galvanized the movement and challenged people to stand up and do something to create change, the change that the average American wants, not the change that is putting us on the road to socialism.

Glenn Beck started formulating his thoughts after receiving a call from a viewer of his show that was ready to give up and check out. He has started the “We Surround Them” Movement, which embraces 9 principles and 12 values of which 3 are the core values of the Navy Seals and our Armed Forces in general: loyalty, integrity and honor. Glenn had a host of guests on his show including a Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell and author of Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, a Green Beret Ray Struba, Chris Gardner - survivor and Inspiration for Pursuit of Happiness, Ben Sherwood – author of The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life, David W. Checketts – Chairman & Founder, SCP Worldwide, and Chuck and Gina Norris – black belt, actor and author of Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America along with tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of everyday Americans at local events.

Below are the 12 values and 9 principles of the “WE Surround Them” Movement

The 12 Values

• Honesty
• Reverence
• Hope
• Thrift
• Humility
• Charity
• Sincerity
• Moderation
• Hard Work
• Courage
• Personal Responsibility
• Friendship

The Nine Principles

1. America is good.
2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.
3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.
4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.
5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.
6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.
7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.
8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.
9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

You Are Not Alone!!!

The United States was built on and by people who believed in these principles and values as well as in the U.S. Constitution and the Bible but we have let concepts like social relativity and political correctness that often go against our personal and our Country’s core beliefs, replace them. We have also gotten to the point where we, as a Country and a people, have allowed every group under the sun to dictate to us to allow their beliefs and traditions over ours.

We also do not have a liquidity problem in this Country; we have a problem of trust!

Ben Sherwood, author of The Survivors Club: The Secrets and Science that Could Save Your Life talked about the importance of surrounding ourselves with like-minded people. It could even make a difference in our longevity. Glenn encouraged everyone to sit around your kitchen table with friends and talk, really talk about how you feel, what you think and why. It is okay to disagree. It is not okay to become isolated. Sherwood said that social isolationism is what is killing us because it creates the feeling of being alone. Ben Sherwood then said that the Navy’s expert on survival says the number “1” secret to surviving is ‘Faith in God’, something else we are afraid to admit to or talk about. The size of the crowd in the emergency room relates directly to the survival rate in the operating room he said and we are isolating ourselves from community… neighbors, community, church; the small community let alone the larger one.

Chris Gardner, the inspiration for the movie Pursuit of Happyness praised Glenn Beck for organizing his event and appeared on Friday’s show. He said that if he had been given a bailout instead of having to work and fight for himself and his son, he would not have been on the show or talking to Glenn and millions of viewers, and implied that he would probably still be living on handouts. Gardner is funding a study himself to research the feasibility of giving every adult American Citizen and Legal Alien 1 million dollars instead of pumping Trillions into banks and companies that are failing and bankrupting this Country, after which they take the money to throw lavish parties and pay huge bonuses with our, taxpayer, money. This author and many Americans have said and thought the same thing. Over the weekend, AIG had the audacity to tell us and the White House through Treasury Secretary Geithner to essentially go fly a kite and that he had no authority to stop them from paying out their millions in bonuses, while nothing of all this money is flowing down to Main Street after bankrupting generations of future Americans. This bailout mentality is not working and it is not the American way. Democracy guarantees everyone an equal playing field and the opportunity to play on it, but it does not guarantee us success.

Even Michael Steele of the RNC was told on Friday by a friend after his latest goof, “You need to re-read the Constitution, the Bible and the RNC 2008 Platform” and make a decision to do your job for the people you represent.

Glenn closed by saying, “There are 3-types of people: (1) the ones who were burying their heads in the sand on 9/10; (2) the ones who were overcome and living in fear on 9/11; and (3) those who stood up, heads high, and did/and still do what is right.” “Which kind are you?”, he asked.

Meet with your friends, around your kitchen table… Talk about your values; what you believe in, talk about what you are afraid of, talk about what you want and talk about what we have lost and need to find. It is okay to talk about feelings, values and principles, politics, religion or God and what you think is wrong and need to change. It is okay to disagree. In fact, intellectuals, media people, and just about everybody until we allowed liberal and socialistic ideas to take over our Country do and did 'agree to disagree', argue and speak their minds. It is called freedom of speech and an exchange of ideas and it is something we have lost.

Glenn will have another event on 9/12 2009 to tell us all what he has done to change things and encourages us to do something as well and then share; something small, something big, many things… whatever you can do, but something and his show and the The 912 Project will be there as support until then.

It is Tea Time, my friends~

  A Couple of Must Reads Per Glenn Beck:

The 5000 Year Leap: A Miracle That Changed the World & The Real George Washington (American Classic Series)

The 5000 Year Leap discusses the 29 principles our Founding Father embraced to build the Foundation of our Country

Plus: John Adams (HBO Miniseries)

 By Marion Algier - Ask Marion 

Related Articles:

WE Surround Them

Michael Farris - United Nation’s Convention on Rights of a Child Material

At What Point Does the Hope and Change Begin??

Every... "Our" Country Needs A Leader Like This! (Below)

Prime Minister John Howard – Australia

Every... "Our" Country Needs A Leader Like This!

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks. 

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation's mosques. Quote:

'IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture. Since the terrorist attacks on  Bali  , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.' 

'This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom' 

'We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society, Learn the language!' 

'Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools.. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.' 

'We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.' 

'This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this.. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom, 'THE RIGHT TO LEAVE'.'

'If you aren't happy here then LEAVE. We didn't force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.' 

Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, American citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths.  I am an immigrant... and I say, "AMEN!"

Grassroots Movements and Tea Parties Are in the Wind - Posted:  03/15/09