Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare…

In a landmark 5-4 ruling, the court upheld the individual insurance requirement at the heart of Obamacare...[Full Story]

GOP Vows Repeal as Supreme Court Upholds Obamacare

Obamacare - The Latest News

Rep. Poe to Newsmax: US Can’t Afford Obamacare

6/28/2012 3:08:20 PM

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare, Congress must act quickly to repeal the legislation and stop the government from taking over patients health-care choices, Rep. Ted Poe told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Thursday.

Attorney Gen. Bondi: Our President Has Failed

6/28/2012 2:59:42 PM

The representative system of government only works when leaders are honest with the people, Florida Attorney Gen. Pam Bondi Thursday. The most sobering part of the Supreme Court decision (on Obamacare) is that it set Constitutional limits.

Attorney Gen. Cuccinelli: Ruling About Liberty, Not Healthcare

6/28/2012 2:52:58 PM

Virginia Attorney Gen. Ken Cuccinelli found the silver lining in Thursday s Supreme Court ruling, upholding the Affordable Care Act. This was about liberty and not about healthcare, Cuccinelli told Newsmax.TV.

Rep. Gardner to Newsmax: Election Will Right Court Mistake

6/28/2012 2:24:48 PM

Rep. Cory Gardner on Thursday denounced the U.S. Supreme Court s decision to uphold Obamacare, saying it gives the government an unprecedented power to tax Americans.

Rush: Obamacare 'Largest Tax Increase in the History of the World’

6/28/2012 2:16:55 PM

The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obamacare Thursday morning is an act of deception. Obamacare is simply a massive tax increase, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said.

Rubio: Obamacare Is ‘Middle Class Tax Increase’

6/28/2012 2:05:47 PM

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising star in the Republican Party, said the Supreme Court ruling confirms that Obamacare is essentially a Middle Class Tax Increase, and predicted opponents will win new support for repealing the healthcare law.

Cassidy to Newsmax: Americans ‘Deliberately Deceived’

6/28/2012 2:00:21 PM

Rep. Bill Cassidy accused President Barack Obama Thursday of deliberately deceiving the American people about the individual mandate in Obamacare, saying the Supreme Court decision had finally revealed what it really is a new tax on Americans.

Dershowitz: The Healthcare Decision Is Good in the Short Term, Questionable in the Long Term

6/28/2012 1:56:36 PM

Alan M. Dershowitz's Perspective: When former President George W. Bush nominated John Roberts to become Chief Justice of the United States, a newly elected senator named Barak Obama voted against his confirmation.

Pelosi Calls Ruling a ‘Victory,’ Invokes Kennedy

6/28/2012 1:52:14 PM

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi invoked the memory of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy on Thursday as she hailed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare as exciting and a victory for America's families.

WSJ: Court Ruling on Obamacare Vindicates Hospital Consolidation, Investments

6/28/2012 1:37:35 PM

The Supreme Court decision to uphold President Barack Obama s Affordable Care Act vindicates the hospital industry in its more than two year-strategy of consolidation and investment to control costs and gain better bargaining position with payers, the Wall Street Journal...

Tea Party Leader Martin to Newsmax: Court ‘Got It Wrong’

6/28/2012 1:32:16 PM

The head of the Tea Party Patriots said Thursday the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to uphold Obamacare, and pledged that her group would help Americans correct this decision by repealing the law.

Gingrich: Obamacare Repeal 'Defining Issue of Fall Campaign'

6/28/2012 1:26:58 PM

The Supreme Court ruling in favor of President Barack Obama s healthcare overhaul will do little to reduce the uncertainty that is preventing employers filling job openings, former GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich predicted. Instead that doubt will continue at least...

Rep. Gardner: SCOTUS Decision 'Unprecedented'

6/28/2012 1:26:53 PM

Rep. Cory Gardner sounded a popular Republican theme Thursday in the wake of the Supreme Court decision upholding Obamacare.

Rep. Gohmert Calls for Justice Kagan’s Impeachment

6/28/2012 1:21:08 PM

Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert called the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Obamacare “illegitimate” and said Justice Elena Kagan should be impeached because she served as U.S. Solicitor General when the law was passed.

WSJ: Drugmakers Will Pay Billions in Fees, Price Cuts Due to Healthcare Ruling

6/28/2012 1:01:55 PM

The Supreme Court s decision to uphold Obamacare gives drug companies more certainty, The Wall Street Journal reported, even though drugmakers will spend billions of dollars in fees and price cuts. Beginning in 2014, individuals will be required to have health insurance...

Romney: I Will Repeal Obamacare as President

6/28/2012 12:56:03 PM

Reacting to the Supreme Court decision to uphold Obamacare, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he agreed with the dissenting justices and will act to repeal Obamacare if he is elected president. I agree with the dissent, and what the court did not do on the...

McConnell: Court Blew Obama’s Cover By Declaring Healthcare Overhaul a Tax

6/28/2012 12:41:20 PM

The Supreme Court blew the cover of President Barack Obama and the Democrats when it ruled that the provisions of the healthcare law are indeed a tax, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Newsmax in an exclusive interview.

Court Ruling Lets More Than $800 Billion in Higher Taxes Proceed

6/28/2012 12:36:35 PM

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the bulk of the 2010 healthcare law means wealthy investors may sell assets before the end of the year as taxes in the overhaul remain in place and will take effect next year.

Roberts Based Ruling on Judicial Restraint

6/28/2012 12:36:02 PM

If the U.S. Supreme Court had wanted to make history, it could have: Striking down the individual mandate in the health-care law would have been the most weighty Supreme Court ruling since Franklin Roosevelt s first New Deal was ruled unconstitutional three-quarters of a...

Obamacare Ruling Helps Most, but Not All, Healthcare Niches

6/28/2012 12:33:16 PM

The Supreme Court's decision to uphold President Barack Obama's historic overhaul is expected to be a boon to most of the healthcare industry by making coverage affordable for millions of uninsured Americans.

Kudlow: Obamacare Taxes Bad for Economic Growth — and All Families

6/28/2012 12:26:46 PM

Twenty new or higher taxes across-the-board are bad for economic growth, bad for job hiring, bad for investors, and bad for families. A tax is a tax is a tax, according to Judge Roberts.

Huckabee: GOP Sweep Needed to Repeal Obamacare

6/28/2012 12:19:09 PM

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee denounced the U.S. Supreme Court s decision upholding the Affordable Health Care Act and called for donations to his super PAC to make sure that our Congress and the White House are in the right hands through a GOP sweep of the polls in...

Insurance Group: Obamacare Ruling Won't Lower Costs

6/28/2012 12:15:11 PM

A Supreme Court decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) won't do anything to lower healthcare costs, Janet Trautwein, CEO of the National Association of Health Underwriters (NAHU), said Thursday. The Supreme Court...

Bill McCollum: War Against Obamacare 'Has Just Begun'

6/28/2012 12:13:09 PM

Former Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, a leading figure in the legal challenge to Obamacare, tells Newsmax he is disappointed and shocked that Chief Justice John Roberts voted to uphold the individual mandate provision in the healthcare reform bill. But he...

Rep. Cassidy: 'American People Deliberately Deceived' By Obama

6/28/2012 12:13:05 PM

Rep. Bill Cassidy, a member of the GOP Doctors Caucus, called Thursday s Supreme Court decision, a bad day for fiscal responsibility.

More Special Coverage Stories — Click Here

Related:

Related Stories

• Dick Morris: Court Decision Could Come Back to Haunt Obama
• McConnell: Court Blew Obama’s Cover By Declaring Healthcare Overhaul a Tax
• Huckabee: GOP Sweep Needed to Repeal Obamacare
• Boehner Renews Vow to Try to Repeal Obamacare
• Romney: I Will Repeal
• Beck: “The Glenn Beck Program” and “Real News” were free today to discuss the ramifications of Robert’s Court ObamaCare Decision. – “Make this election in 2012 a mandate for American values” – register to vote now!

h/t to  Newsmax.com – to AP for photo

Stay tuned… More to come on this shocking ruling…

Supreme Court Issues Huge Win for President Obama, and a huge loss for the American People!!

Or… Was Judge Roberts Just Playing Bridge?

SCOTUS ObamaCare Ruling creates largest tax increase on middle class ever and hands the GOP a second front issue for Election 2012: the repeal and replacement of ObamaCare and the loss of jobs (which this ruling will make worse) in a faux artificially propped up economy will energize Conservatives, Independents and Constitutionalists en masse~

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,repeal and replace ObamaCare,Supreme Court,surpreme Court rulings,taxes

Exclusive - The Vetting - Barack Obama, the First Tea Partier

Barack Obama in tea party type costume, left in photo, marching in a July 4, 1997, parade in Chicago

A 1997 photograph has been unearthed showing Barack Obama marching in a tea-party-style parade, long before the tax-cutting, patriotic movement began, and despite Obama’s apparent disdain for “teabaggers,” as he has termed them.

“Yes, that really is Barack Obama wearing a regimental coat and carrying a tricorn hat in his hand,” writes John Sexton of Breitbart.com, which is publishing the photo. “And that flag behind him really is a Gadsden flag, with its serpent and its ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ slogan.”

Sexton notes, “In 2009, President Barack Obama reportedly called members of the tea party ‘teabaggers.’ It turns out that our fourth greatest president, first in so many things, may have been the first ‘teabagger’ himself.”

Breitbart.com explains the forgotten photo has been in plain view for fifteen years, explaining it appeared on the front page of Chicago’s Hyde Park Herald on July 9th, 1997, snapped by photographer Nancy Campbell Hays.

It says the original picture, which was donated to the University of Chicago, isn’t yet available for public view, and the image obtained by Breitbart News was very dark, and so it was lightened in Photoshop.

The Herald’s caption below the photograph read:

“Hey, look over here! Something catches the attention of Senator Barack Obama (13th), Rep. Barbara Flynn Currie (25th), Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) and Stephanie Franklin as they lead the annual ’4th on 53rd’ parade.”

Breitbart points out neither Democrats nor the media have been especially kind to the tea party in recent years:

“MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was one of many who saw mockery of the ‘teabaggers’ as the first recourse. (The word was used so often by liberals in 2009 that Oxford made it a Word of the Year finalist.) Liberal sites like Talking Points Memo presented attendees who dressed up the way Obama did above as weirdoes. The ever-predictable Bill Maher got hoots from his audience when he donned his own tricorn hat (complete with dangling tea bags) to bash the Tea Party on TV.

“President Obama blamed the ‘teabaggers’ for his failures, according to Jonathan Alter’s book ‘The Promise: President Obama, Year One,’ complaining that his own 2009 stimulus ‘helped to create the tea-baggers and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party to where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.’ (Vice President Joe Biden is blaming them still.)

Neither Democrats nor the media have been particularly kind to the Tea Party. There is hardly space to go through all the times the Tea Party has been compared to terrorists (including by the Vice President) or fascists, or the many times it has been accused of racism by progressives in supposedly mainstream news outlets. That's a book-length story of its own.

“Yet in the dramatic battles over trumped up charges of Tea Party racism and extremism, Obama never mentioned his own ‘Tea Party’ episode — and neither has anyone in the media, even as Obama’s allies and friends on the left ridiculed the Tea Party for seeking to make the same symbolic connections to the country’s founding.”

Sexton noted: “Since 2009, the ridicule of tea party signs and costumes has been so constant from Obama, the mainstream media, and the left that Glenn Beck encouraged people to stop dressing up so as not to give them an excuse.”

Barack Obama, left, marching in a July 4, 1997, parade in Chicago. Courtesy Breitbart.com

Given the photo above, it is certainly a good time to think back upon some of the ridicule Tea Party members were forced to endure for evoking the Revolutionary War era by their dress and choice of symbols.

With most politicians, wearing colonial dress for a public celebration like the 4th of July would be considered a bit colorful, but not extraordinary.

In Obama's case, it's more like proof of hypocrisy.

Since 2009, the ridicule of Tea Party signs and costumes has been so constant from Obama, the mainstream media, and the left that Glenn Beck encouraged people to stop dressing up so as not to give them an excuse.

It didn't work, though. The NAACP still saw the costumes as part of a disturbing, nationalist impulse:

The Revolutionary War-era costumes, the yellow “Don’t tread on me” Gadsden flags from the same era, the earnest recitals of the pledge of allegiance, the over-stated veneration of the Constitution, and the defense of “American exceptionalism” in a world turned towards transnational economies and global institutions: all are signs of the over-arching nationalism that helps define the Tea Party movement.

So, by the NAACP's logic, it would appear that Barack Obama is an over-arching nationalist, and perhaps a racist, anti-Semitic nativist as well.

That, or the left has been engaged in three years of juvenile character assassination to protect a guy who never got the memo about the worrisome deeper meaning of regimental coats and tricorner hats.

h/t to Joe Kovacs at WND

 

Want to see what REAL tea partiers look like? Take a look at the amazing photos in “Don’t Tread On US,” with a special foreword by Chuck Norris!

The Tea Party Manifesto

Give Us Liberty

Black Belt Patriotism

Maxine Waters 'Mean Spirited' Tea Party Hurting 'People Of Color’

Technorati Tags: tea party,Tea Party Activists,tea party movement,tea party effect,Obamaland,BHO,Chicago,Chicago politics,parades,media bias

Occupy and Tea Party - Does the Media Tell You The Truth?

By: AJ

Take a look at what goes on at a Tea Party gathering. Lydia Ortega, Brian Sussman, Mimi Steel and Neil Mammen were speakers at California’s Silicon Valley Tea Party.

Silicon Valley Tea Party – 15 April 2012 – Lydia Ortega (A Professor at San Jose State University!)

Silicon Valley Tea Party – 15 April 2012 – Brian Sussman

Silicon Valley Tea Party – 15 April 2012 – Mimi Steel

Video that Mimi Steel referenced in her speech: SFBAY CAPR-Mark Levin-CA War On Suburbia-4-9-12

Silicon Valley Tea Party – 15 April 2012 – Neil Mammen

Take a look at what goes on at an Occupy gathering in California’s Oakland May Day Mayhem.

MAY DAY MAYHEM IN OAKLAND: Occupy continues on their Destructive Path

Who do you stand with? Do you stand with those who want to preserve and restore our free markets, property rights and Liberty? Or do you stand with the vile and violent Occupiers who want to destroy America (or, as Obama calls it, “transform America”)?

Obama, his administration and specific Congressional Representatives have voiced their support for Occupy, so we know who they stand with. Will you be voting against them in the 2012 election?

Let’s get right down to it… it’s time to believe what you see with your own eyes, not what the propaganda media feeds you. Does the media tell you the truth? No.

Ask your family, friends and neighbors to watch these videos so they can see the dramatic difference between Occupy and the Tea Party. Then ask them if they knew the difference before they saw these videos.

It’s time for everyone to decide who they stand with – and then stand! And vote accordingly!

-----------------------------

OWS Arrests (Over 6000) -vs- Tea Party Arrests (0):

But Where is the Liberal Media on this?

Most Controversial Reality Show Ever:  Tea Party vs.Occupy (ExposetheMedia.com)

Related articles

• When will this White House Condemn the OWS Violence? (votingamerican.wordpress.com)
• Your One Stop Resource for all things Obama: Voting American’s 481 Links to the Facts! (votingamerican.wordpress.com)
• Watch The Liberals May Day Mayhem OWS Style live from 3 Different Locations (ireporters.wordpress.com)
• Banned Ireporters Presents: 305 Links to the Facts on Barack Obama (ireporters.wordpress.com)
• American Journalism is Dead: Communist Style Left Wing Propaganda Continues… (ireporters.wordpress.com)
• When will President Obama Condemn the Violence coming from the OWS Protesters? (twighlightslastgleaming.wordpress.com)
• Occupy Chicago May Day March Pics You Won’t See in Establishment Media  (libertynews.com)
• OWS Arrests (Over 6000) -vs- Tea Party Arrests (0): Where is the Liberal Media on this? (votingamerican.wordpress.com)
• TEA PARTY vs. OWS: Good vs. Evil? (teaparty.org)
• May Day Alert (askmarion.wordpress.com)
• Faceoff: Occupy Wall Street vs. Tea Party  (hypervocal.com)
• Cleveland won't renew Occupy group's permit  (chron.com/news)
• Hannity Rips Apart Occupy Organizer in Tense Segment: ‘Get Your Ass Out of Bed…and Get to Work!” (noisyroom.net/blog)
• OWS: Occupy Smackdown  (askmarion.wordpress.com)
• Photos and Videos from Occupy Boston – (massresistance.org)

The OWS Violent Protests are a Direct Result of President Obama and His Minions!

Community Organizing for the Constitution: The Price of Liberty

Mimi Steel, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views, 12/26/11

As the New Year begins, it is traditional to reflect on the past and look forward to the future. It is a time to assess where we have been and where we want to go, a time to determine priorities and resolve to accomplish them. From the perspective of one new to political activism, this is a daunting task. Reflecting on the past brings the realization of what a unique and remarkable country the United States of America truly is. To begin the US Constitution with the words “WE THE PEOPLE” in bold font was absolutely unheard of, revolutionary, in the annals of European history. Think about that. We were colonies that came from countries ruled by kings and queens. The elite owned the land, made the rules, and dictated the course of most people’s lives. You were born in to a class from which there was no escape. You were either one of the very few powerful or one of the serfs. There was little in between.

Then the upstart colonies came up with an idea, the grand experiment, that man could rule himself. They unleashed the genius of the human mind by instituting the rule of law, by laying the groundbreaking philosophy that all men were equal under that law, and by allowing people the right to pursue happiness (invent things, acquire property, and enjoy the fruits of their own labor). They limited government and mankind thrived.

Unfortunately we are now on the verge of squandering this magnificent gift of our Founders. Not only do we not appreciate it, too many of our fellow citizens distain it, too many of us are complacent, willing to let others do the heavy lifting of government. Let someone else deal with it. I’m too busy with my career. I am raising my family. I don’t have time. Great excuses abound.

While most of us have been blissfully ignorant of government, our opposition has become increasingly emboldened in their efforts to control government at all levels. And who can blame them? Those of us who want the government to leave us alone, tend not to get involved in politics. Those who think the government is the answer are the ones who show up at that city council meeting and all other levels of government demanding that the government do one thing or another that promotes their interests and most likely goes against the interests of the individual. The collective is ascendant in America. It’s for the greater good. Then we complain. We look around after all these years of our uninvolvement and wonder why things are the way are. It’s really quite simple. If you “cede” the field of battle, you lose. And right now, most of us have not even been aware that there was a battle being fought. Americans are fair-minded and trusting individuals generally. We elect people to office and assume that they will do the right thing. But if you don’t show up to support those people and policies or if you elect people with a different philosophy from yours because you could not be bothered to learn their positions on issues, you lose.

So here we are with a New Year upon us and many Americans starting to wake up to the realization that America is being fundamentally transformed in to something that is no longer a Representative Republic. We are in imminent danger of answering the question “Can man rule himself?” in the negative and turning over our god given rights to a handful of powerful elites who are happy to tell us how to live, where to live, and to control just about every aspect of our lives from what we eat to our health care.

We let this happen. Our self-absorption in our own lives has brought us to this point. There is no one to save us from this fate. The system was designed for WE THE PEOPLE. If WE THE PEOPLE are absent, the spoils go to the spoilers-those who see government as the solution to all problems. Every government solution chips away at man’s freedom. This is only going to get turned around if enough citizens get involved in their local communities. Very few of us have the money or connections to influence Presidential politics, Senate or Congressional politics, or even State Senate and Assembly positions. But we can influence our local city council. We can take an active role in city government. Many of these elections are won or lost by a few hundred votes. Most people don’t even bother to learn about local candidates and what they stand for. Yet local is where it is at.

As you make your New Year’s resolutions, I hope one of them will be to become a Community Organizer for the Constitution. Get involved in a local taxpayer association, homeowners association, 912 Group or Tea Party Group. Join up with people of like mind who want to preserve freedom, not subvert it. Your country needs you now more than ever before. And the only sacrifice on your part is to spend some of your precious time to insure the future of your children and grandchildren so they can live in freedom as you did. What is that worth?

You can join Mimi in Community Organizing for the Constitution through her website at www.bayarealiberty.org or on twitter @912CalGal.

Greg Palast: Vulture’s Picnic

The older you get the more you realize how often things are connected and how sometimes things that you thought were at opposite ends of the spectrum actually come full circle and intersect. Such is the case here… see side story at the bottom.

Video: Greg Palast "I Do Investigative Reporting! I Don't Think It's Legal Under Patriot Act 4 In The U.S."

Lazy Ouzo-Swilling, Olive-Pit Spitting Greeks
Or, How Goldman Sacked Greece

Here's what we're told:

Greece's economy blew apart because a bunch of olive-spitting, ouzo-guzzling, lazy-ass Greeks refuse to put in a full day's work, retire while they're still teenagers, pocket pensions fit for a pasha; and they've gone on a social-services spending spree using borrowed money. Now that the bill has come due and the Greeks have to pay with higher taxes and cuts in their big fat welfare state, they run riot, screaming in the streets, busting windows and burning banks.

I don't buy it.  I don't buy it because of the document in my hand marked, "RESTRICTED DISTRIBUTION."

I'll cut to the indictment:  Greece is a crime scene.  The people are victims of a fraud, a scam, a hustle and a flim-flam.   And––cover the children's ears when I say this––a bank named Goldman Sachs is holding the smoking gun.

********

This is an adaptation of an excerpt from Vultures' Picnic, Greg Palast's new book, out next week, an investigator's pursuit of petroleum pigs, power pirates and high-finance fraudsters. Read the first chapter or just get the book here.

********

In 2002, Goldman Sachs secretly bought up €2.3 billion in Greek government debt, converted it all into yen and dollars, then immediately sold it back to Greece.

Goldman took a huge loss on the trade.

Is Goldman that stupid?

Goldman is stupid—like a fox. The deal was a con, with Goldman making up a phony-baloney exchange rate for the transaction.   Why?

Goldman had cut a secret deal with the Greek government in power then.  Their game:  to conceal a massive budget deficit.  Goldman's fake loss was the Greek government's fake gain.

Goldman would get repayment of its “loss” from the government at loan-shark rates.

The point is, through this crazy and costly legerdemain, Greece's right-wing free-market government was able to pretend its deficits never exceeded 3 percent of GDP.

Cool. Fraudulent but cool.

But flim-flam isn’t cheap these days: On top of murderous interest payments, Goldman charged the Greeks over a quarter billion dollars in fees.

When the new Socialist government of George Papandreou came into office, they opened up the books and Goldman's bats flew out.  Investors' went berserk, demanding monster interest rates to lend more money to roll over this debt.

Greece's panicked bondholders rushed to buy insurance against the nation going bankrupt.  The price of the bond-bust insurance, called a credit default swap (or CDS), also shot through the roof.  Who made a big pile selling the CDS insurance?  Goldman.

And those rotting bags of CDS's sold by Goldman and others? Didn't they know they were handing their customers gold-painted turds?

That's Goldman's specialty.  In 2007, at the same time banks were selling suspect CDS's and CDOs (packaged sub-prime mortgage securities), Goldman held a “net short” position against these securities. That is, Goldman was betting their financial "products" would end up in the toilet. Goldman picked up another half a billion dollars on their "net short" scam.

But, instead of cuffing Goldman's CEO Lloyd Blankfein and parading him in a cage through the streets of Athens, we have the victims of the frauds, the Greek people, blamed.  Blamed and soaked for the cost of it.  The "spread" on Greek bonds (the term used for the risk premium paid on Greece's corrupted debt) has now risen to — get ready for this––$14,000 per family per year.

Euro-nation, the secret Geithner memo, and the Ecuador connection

Why did the Greek government throw its nation's fate into Goldman's greasy hands?  What the heck was in the "RESTRICTED" document? And why did I have to take it to Geneva, to throw it down in front of the Director-General of the WTO for authentication, a creepy French banker I otherwise wouldn't bother to spit on, and then tear off to Quito to share it with the grateful President of Ecuador?

To give you all the answers would require me to write a book.  I have:  Vultures' Picnic––in Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Fraudsters.

It's really quite important to me that you read it, that you get it now.  That's a funny statement, I suppose, from an author.  But if you've been reading my stories in The Guardian or watching my reports on BBC Newsnight, you've gotten the facts; but I really want to let you inside the investigations, to cross the continents with me and follow down the leads so that you can get a full picture of The Beasts.  The Beasts and their trophy wives, intelligence agency go-fers, political concubines and bone-breakers.  And besides, it's enormous fun when it's not scary as sh*t.

********

Here's a taste of Chapter 12 - The Generalissimo of Globalization - from the film-enhanced eBook edition.  [And more on the 1% Greece-ing us, check out the upcoming issue of In These Times.]

VIDEO:  Vultures' Picnic - Chapter 12 - The Generalissimo of Globalization

Note:  I will be in Chicago for In These Times on November 29, part of our 15 city tour that begins this coming Sunday, November 13, in Portland, then moves to San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Denver, Boulder, New Mexico, Albuquerque, Chicago, Madison, New York, DC, Houston, Burlington, and Atlanta. Find out more info here.

***

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores, which will be released on November 14 by Penguin USA.

Greg Palast just wrote Vultures' Picnic

Video:  Vulture's Picnic, 1% Vultures Praying on 99% Greg Palast Interview

Related: 

Video: UKIP Nigel Farage – How dare you tell the Italian and Greek People Wath to do!!!  - Nov 2011

Out of the blue I received information from a friend on Greg Palast’s new book:  Vultures' Picnic 

In 1970 two politically active kids were Presidents of their high school classes in Southern California.  Both went through the next 40+ years of their lives involved in writing, photography and political activism… one a progressive and the other a tea party type.  One is Greg Palast and the other is the writer of this was well as several other blogs, Marion Algier.

Amazing how two people, coming from the same high school with opposite points of view can come full circle and actually find some common ground…  agreeing on fraud, corporate greed, inept and corrupt government, banksters and the list surely goes on, while still disagreeing on so much. And fun to look back!

Poly Class Presidents 1970  - Left:  Greg  and Middle: Marion

By Marion Algier

Ask Marion~  -  h/t to Jean Stoner

Tea Party Movement… Misunderstood, Under Exposed or Feared??

The Tea Party Movement is a grassroots movement that has swept the nation and slowed down the Progressive Dream of fundamentally transforming the United States into a country that nobody wants or will recognize, in one presidential term… before anyone noticed.  That really was the Progressive goal.  But nobody counted on a counter-revolution or awakening of any kind.  Yet it is amazing how many people do not know what the tea party movement is, stands for, or what they have accomplished.  But the Progressives on both sides of the aisle know and are fighting them in every way they can.

Do yourself a favor and check out the Tea Party and what they stand for before writing them off or worse yet considering them the enemy based on misinformation.  You owe it to yourself, future generations and to hope and the concept freedom!

The Progressive left has lied about the Tea Party and its members and the mainstream media controlled by the liberal left has painted them to be exactly the opposite of what they are!  Now some of the professional politicians on the right are attacking them as well.

Here is a conversation about the April 15th Tax Day Tea Party in Yuma AZ:

Comment by Sue H. in Yuma via AsAMom

I missed our rally to stay home out of the wind, not as young as I used to be, so this is 2nd hand information. The tea party group had leased space at a local park right off the river where we had our first rally. When the chairman got to the park he found a large group of young marine families having a cook-out while the kids played in the river. Instead of getting huffy, he asked them to just move over and we would share the space. We set up as planned, then Russ started talking to us. One of the Marines drug his chair over and listened for about 5 minutes, then stood up next to Russ and asked "Just what is the tea party all about?" As so many of our members are retired military, it never entered my mind that young active duty military would not know. How many of these families can afford to have cable TV and watch Fox News?  Or have time to watch TV at all? What if your only source of info was what the main stream media told you? Ladies and Gentlemen, we need to find a way of letting the general public, especially our military, what the different tea party/912'er groups are doing… how and why we started and what we want to do. The only suggestion I can come up with now is to have some of the youth attend our meetings to see for themselves. You may have heard Glenn Beck say that part of his new movement is to reach out to the youth of the country.  Maybe we should do the same. And yes, be prepared to answer the questions of the youth who have only been taught the liberal point of view. Try to get yourself invited onto college and high school campuses. Don't get mad, laugh then remind them that all the name calling is the action of a 3-year-old who can't get their way, what are you a spoiled child or an adult.  Too many of our youth don’t even know American History, nor have they been taught independent thinking.

Response by Stacy F. via AsAMom

Sue... Wow this is interesting to me. I consider myself young at 29 and my husband is 32 and we are very involved and concerned. We watch and listen to Beck daily. BUT is does seem like others our age are oblivious to what’s going on. I had the book "Broke" sitting out and my brother in-law says "Who's Glenn Beck?" What!? Seriously!!?  I heard Beck talking about reaching the youth as well and I'm interested to know what he has in store. It is also worth mentioning that even though this brother did not know who Beck is, he (and our other family members) are getting very concerned about food storage. All our lives we've been taught "Get some food storage" and it's gone in one ear and out the other, but recently the family members have been getting together and actually doing something about it; sacrificing trips to the Valley and Disneyland in order to save cash, and put food away! I think the message is reaching all of us one way or another. I think high schools, and colleges are a good idea... as well as reaching out to young married couples somehow. I will admit that we as young couples feel that our parents or someone will always be there to help us out!!! My father in-law laughed when I told him that and he admitted that they will be there but we need to try and help ourselves AND OTHERS if we can. I think young people still have the feeling that their parents or the government will help them and they'll be OK. This may need to be part of our message when we talk to younger people!

*Remember the Progressive Movement started along before the Tea Party!  Their goal for generations has been to dumb down America, distract us through  the media and to destroy America’s educational system, the family unit and our churches.  How many generations of Americans don’t even know what they don’t know and need to be reached??  And many others know there is something wrong, but have no idea where to start or who to connect with.  Be that connection!!*

The Work of the Tea Party Is Now … TO WORK

This is a concept that has rattled around in the back of my head for a while, a bit formless but I knew it was there and eventually I could share it with you … and then BAM! Bill Hennessey wrote it all out in his blog for me! Thanks Bill, for allowing me to be lazy and draft on your thoughts.

We’ve heard in the past few weeks here in Upstate South Carolina radio host Russ Cassell lament on WORD a few mornings “Where are the tea party rallies? We had huge tea party rallies in 2009 and 2010? Why aren’t there any tea party rallies this year?” and he went on and on about whether the tea party was “over” or “dead”. I called one morning to explain to him that the time for rallies and protests was over, that those events accomplished their purpose of waking up patriots, letting them know they were not alone, and giving them a passion and a purpose but that the work of the tea party now was … TO WORK! The rallies never accomplished the purpose of changing the minds of politicians as evidenced by the health care passage in the face of stunning numbers of rallies; the rallies were successful in what they accomplished in empowering the first wave of tea party patriots. Then THOSE PATRIOTS took on the task of changing the politicians, either their minds or their occupations! I gave him some specifics of what the tea parties had been doing for the past year … electing historic numbers of conservatives to office at local, state, and federal level … and quite recently how the South Carolina tea parties worked together to convince 13 GOP Reps in Columbia to take their name off of a Health Exchange Bill that would have served to help implement Obamacare. But Russ just couldn’t wrap his head around those facts, and his parting words to me as he went to break were along the lines of “Well, I guess the Union protesters in Wisconsin have more passion then the tea party does.”

Many of you have heard me express this before, but Hennessey does it really well! Here are a few excerpts from his article … but PLEASE go read the entire thing.

It’s time to start growing again.

In 2009, the first year of the movement, we did two things: we rallied and we demonstrated. These public events attracted the people who a) believe what we believe, and b) know it. They told me at Tea Party after Tea Party, “I’m so glad to know I’m not alone.”

So 2009 was the big coming together. It was all one, long recruitment drive.

Then in 2010, we went into campaign mode. We took the people had and put candidates into offices. All tolled, we elected about 800 Tea Party candidates nationwide. That ain’t bad.

Since the election, we haven’t added to our rosters. In fact, we might have even lost a few.  (This is debatable depending on the area and the particular tea party group… some have continued to grow!)

It’s time to broaden. (And that should be hard because more people are scared and finally starting to wake up!)

and …

See, we might have attracted everyone who believes what we believe and knows it; we’ve barely made a dent in the millions upon millions of Americans who believe what we believe but don’t know it yet.

This second group–Unknowing Believers–is the largest political group in the country. They love liberty, they hate debt, and they like (real) transparency. They just don’t realize how much they have in common with people of the Tea Party movement.

This I believe. Those who were open to being impacted by rallies and protests have already joined us. There are many people all around us who did not “wake up” in 2008 and 2009 in the same way/at the same time many of us did, but the alarm clock has begun buzzing incessantly in their ear and we need to make sure that when their eyes open … we are there. Hennessey urges us to make this happen by being positive and focused, having great conversations with anyone around which, because of the times we live in, will naturally evolve to issues of jobs, education, finances, security, and that we can share our enthusiasm for constitutional values and free market solutions as we find things in common with the next wave of the newly awakened patriots. Be ready. Know what you believe and why you believe it. Don’t overwhelm; suggest solutions and give them hope … and a task! Watch them get excited the way you and I got excited when we realized that there WAS something we could do!

Look for the Unknowing Believers, and take every opportunity to find common ground and encourage them.

Cross post from Spartanburg Tea Party – h/t to RS RedState

**  Make yourself recognizable in your neighborhood and community through acts of kindness, volunteering and the sharing of solid information.  **

Video:  What Liberals Really Think about the Tea Party

Video:  Why they really hate the Tea Party

Nobody wants to admit the real reason why they hate the Tea Partiers: It's because they're insisting on an adult, constitutional, responsible government that lives within its means and a despite what they say, a lot of people just don't want that.  They want to be taken care of, even though the government local, state and federal cannot afford it.

GOP Kingmakers Wipe Tea Party Seats Off Map

By Charles J. Little  -  Saturday, 23 Apr 2011 11:52 AM 

Tea party lawmakers are being targeted for elimination by their own party, as old-guard Republicans use the Census-mandated redistricting process to erase seats won by last year’s upstarts, the National Journal reports.

House freshmen from several GOP-majority states are in danger oflosing out in a political realignment that rewards more connected veteran representatives. It may be cold comfort to tea partyers that the hostile redistricting process proves their point: They really don’t belong to the political establishment.

“They did not have ties with incumbents and weren’t afforded a seat at the table,” said political journalist Ed Feigenbaum.

Rep. Jeffrey Landry, a tea party-backed winner last November in Louisiana, saw his seat vaporized under redistricting. Louisiana’s GOP power brokers also scattered Landry’s base of support across multiple congressional districts so that four-term Rep. Charles Boutsany can survive any potential 2012 primary challenge from Landry.

Louisiana has to give up one congressional seat because of sluggish population growth over the ten-year period counted by the latest Census. But even in faster-growing states that will hold all their seats, or gain seats, Republicans are eating their young and moving to protect well-connected incumbents over tea partyers.

What this means is that the tea party members and supporters and their candidates will have to keep fighting even harder and keep educating people!

© Newsmax. All rights reserved:   GOP Kingmakers Wipe Tea Party Seats Off Map

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Resources:

The Tea Party Goes to Washington

Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto

The Tea Party Manifesto

Rules for Radical Conservatives

A New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending, and More Taxes

The Conservative Hand: A Manifesto to Achieve Conservative Political Goals

Tea Party activists call on the congress to kill the democratic Healthcare reform bill

Members of the conservative tea party movement protested Democratic Senators inside the U.S. Capitol in opposition to President Obama's health care reform plan. Chip Reid reports. 

Related:

Last Call to Stop ObamaCare