FedUpUSA

Posts Tagged ‘Criminals’

I am not the author of today’s catchy headline. No, that was Gretchen Morgenson writing in the New York Times on January 5, 2013.

If you were hoping that things might be different in 2013 — you know, that bankers would be held responsible for bad behavior or that the government might actually assist troubled homeowners — you can forget it. A settlement reportedly in the works with big banks will soon end a review into foreclosure abuses, and it means more of the same: no accountability for financial institutions and little help for borrowers.

Last week, The New York Times reported that regulators were close to settling with 14 banks whose foreclosure practices had ridden roughshod over borrowers and the rule of law. Although the deal has not been made official and its terms are as yet unknown, the initial report said borrowers who had lost their homes because of improprieties would receive a total of $3.75 billion in cash. An additional $6.25 billion would be put toward principal reduction for homeowners in distress.

Gretchen was reporting a few days before the official announcement. The deal was done, and the settlement turned outto be $8.5 billion, with $3.3 billion of that set aside for cash relief for homeowners.

The settlement Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co, Wells Fargo & Co and five other banks entered with regulators pays out up to $125,000 in cash to homeowners whose homes were being foreclosed when the paperwork problems emerged.

Remember that $125,000 number. That’s pure propaganda, given the size of the group of aggrieved mortgage holders.

About $3.3 billion of the $8.5 billion settlement with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will be in cash, with the rest in changes to the terms of loans or mortgage forgiveness.

In April 2011, the government required banks that collect payments on mortgages, known as servicers, to review whether errors in the foreclosure process had harmed borrowers.

Gretchen did some “back of the envelope” math for us. I am too lazy to correct it for the lower cash settlement.

Some back-of-the-envelope arithmetic on this deal is your first clue that it is another gift to the banks. It’s not clear which borrowers will receive what money, but divvying up $3.75 billion among millions of people doesn’t amount to much per person. If, say, half of the 4.4 million borrowers were subject to foreclosure abuses, they would each receive less than $2,000, on average. If 10 percent of the 4.4 million were harmed, each would get roughly $8,500.

Gretchen then did a follow-up on January 12, 2013 called Paying the Price, but Often Deducting It, which I will not quote. She notes that these unimpressive settlements are usually tax-deductible for the banks.

And then FRONTLINE (PBS) ran yet another hour-long documentary about why no bankers have gone to jail. It’s called The Untouchables, and contains this quote from Lanny Breuer, who has been the head of the Department of Justice’s criminal division in the 1st Obama administraton, and who was still in that position when the documentary was made.

MARTIN SMITH — You gave a speech before the New York Bar Association. And in that speech, you made a reference to losing sleep at night, worrying about what a lawsuit might result in at a large financial institution.

LANNY BREUER — Right.

MARTIN SMITH — Is that really the job of a prosecutor, to worry about anything other than simply pursuing justice?

LANNY BREUER — Well, I think I am pursuing justice. And I think the entire responsibility of the department is to pursue justice. But in any given case, I think I and prosecutors around the country, being responsible, should speak to regulators, should speak to experts, because if I bring a case against institution A, and as a result of bringing that case, there’s some huge economic effect — if it creates a ripple effect so that suddenly, counterparties and other financial institutions or other companies that had nothing to do with this are affected badly — it’s a factor we need to know and understand.

This is as candid a statement as you’re ever going to read that the banks in question are considered too big to fail, and, as such, they are above the law. And now we learn that Lanny is resigning, having done his job to protect those banks, and having been exposed as a fraud.

Lanny Breuer is leaving his position as head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

As assistant attorney general, Breuer led the effort to pursue allegations of fraud and corruption at major banks in the wake of the financial meltdown. The Post said it was unclear when Breuer will leave, and didn’t offer a reason. A DOJ spokeswoman told FRONTLINE that the department wouldn’t comment on the report.

Breuer was featured in FRONTLINE’s documentary The Untouchables, which aired on Tuesday and explored the reasons why no Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for fraud in connection with the financial crisis. Breuer told FRONTLINE that the DOJ had pursued charges when officials found evidence of fraud. “But in those cases where we can’t bring a criminal case — and federal criminal cases are hard to bring — I have to prove that you had the specific intent to defraud. …If we cannot establish that, then we can’t bring a criminal case,” he said.

And now I will make a few remarks.

I find it telling that humans, in this case Americans, continue to pretend that they live in a legitimate, fair society, despite massive and compelling evidence to the contrary. Or a society which—once again?—things might be set right. As usual, that observation tells us a lot more about humans (and Americans) than it does about the specific injustices and corruption in these pro-forma ”prosecutions” of the banks, which are merely typical examples of how elites control complex human societies. As such, this kind of behavior is exactly what we would expect to see, independent of the messy details about how elite control is implemented.

As usual, if you research this particular manifestation of typical human corruption, of elite control, you will find much wailing and gnashing of teeth, for example, at places like Naked Capitalism.

I mean, why does FRONTLINE (video below) even bother to make these documentaries? So I’m here to ask disconcerted “progressives” and do-gooders some simple questions—

What the fuck did you expect to happen with the banks?

What is it, exactly, that you are complaining about?

Do you actually expect that this typical human corruption might be eradicated?

If you have not already seen PBS Frontline’s The Untouchables, I encourage you to do so.

Dave Cohen – Decline of the Empire

Now I’ve heard all the stupid I can stand.

NEWTOWN, Conn. – Talk about Sandy Hook Elementary School is turning from last month’s massacre to the future, with differing opinions on whether students and staff should ever return to the building where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators.

Some Newtown residents say the school should be demolished and a memorial built on the property in honor of the victims killed Dec. 14. Others believe the school should be renovated and the areas where the killings occurred removed, like Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., after the 1999 mass shooting.

So now if some nutjob decides to commit homicide we now turn the place where it happens into a parking lot and send the bill to the taxpayers?

There’s dumb and then there’s idiotic.  In the private sector you might choose to do such a thing, but it’s your money.  In this case the money was already spent and now these people propose to spend it again, by force.

The irony of the government sticking a gun up the nose of everyone who lives in Sandy Hook to force them to pay for demolition (and the replacement school for said kids) is not lost on me, but I bet it is lost on those who think there’s this invisible “money tree” from which all such projects come.

This sort of fantasy-land unicorn garbage pisses me off.  A madman committed a crime.  There is not even a point in gathering evidence, as the person who you would prosecute is dead, having taken his own life.

If the government is telling us the truth, that there was one shooter and nobody else, then the damage this clown caused should be repaired, security fixed (next time don’t be a jackass and put wired glass in the windows near the door you intend to buzz people through) then use the facility you already forced the residents to pay for.

It’s a building, not a person.

As for those who are advocating demolition, let them pay for both it and the replacement facility, in full and in advance, or shut the hell up.

Grow up people.

 The Market-Ticker

Discussion (registration required to post)

Brooksley Born

Brooksley Born, the one-time Chairman of the CFTC, warned repeatedly of the derivatives ticking time bomb.  The first sign she had been right all along was in 1993 with Bankers Trust, which literally robbed Proctor & Gamble of hundreds of millions of dollars through investment transactions that were blatantly fraudulent.  Alan Greenspan’s response was to say that ‘the government doesn’t regulate fraud.’

Alan Greenspan

In 1998, again Brooksley Born’s warnings were proven prophetic when Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) lost more than $4.5 billion in less than four months, threatening to destabilize the entire global economy.  Despite grueling testimony on four separate occasions, presenting compelling evidence, the bankers and their lobbyists prevailed in keeping derivatives unregulated and allowing the fraud to continue.  In fact, the only thing in which Brooksley’s testimony resulted was the CFTC being barred from any further attempts to regulate the non-transparent derivatives market.

It wasn’t until the financial collapse of 2008 that Alan Greenspan admitted that he had been wrong all along.  The problem is that nothing has changed.  Despite Greenspan’s admission, and hundreds more hours of testimony on the dangers of derivatives, the bankers and their lobbyists, and the current Federal Reserve, have successfully blocked all efforts to regulate the time bombs that not only still exist, but continue to this day to expand and proliferate.  Nothing has changed from 1993, except the hidden problem grows bigger by the day.

This is one hour of video every American should watch…

Watch The Warning on PBS.

FedUpUSA

Oh, so now Bank of America gets to determine what a lawful business is and isn’t?

What we have experienced is that our web site orders have jumped 500 % causing our web site E commerce processing larger Deposits to BANK OF AMERICA ..Well, this through up a huge RED Flag with Bank of America . So they decided to hold the deposits for further review , meaning that the orders/payments that were coming in through the web ,( being paid by the customer and that were shipped out by American Spirit Arms ),the BANK was keeping (UNDER REVIEW )..as you could imagine this made me furious…

After countless hours on the phone with BANK OF AMERICA I finally got a Manager in the right department that told me the reason that the deposits were on hold for FURTHER REVIEW …

HER EXACT WORDS WERE … ..” WE BELIEVE YOU SHOULD NOT BE SELLING GUNS and PARTS ON THE INTERNET “

Fuck you Bank of America.

MOVE YOUR DAMN MONEY FOLKS AND TELL THEM WHY.

It’s not enough to sell hinky deals in the housing market, to play “head in sand” with Countrywide, to improperly foreclose (even on houses they don’t actually have a loan on!) and more.  Now we have them deciding to effectively steal by conversion, even if only temporarily a lawful business’ funds that supports Constitutionally-guaranteed Rights.

Fuck that and fuck you Bank of America.

Oh, and if you happen to walk into a business that you can determine BANKS with BOA?  Walk out and tell them why too.  I’ve already done this locally several times after seeing a “Bank of America” sticker on their credit-card machine.

I will not give these jackasses any of my funds, even momentarily, if I can reasonably avoid doing so.

The Market-Ticker

Discussion (registration required to post)

Large U.S. cities that the rest of the world used to look at in envy are now being transformed into gang-infested hellholes with skyrocketing crime rates.  Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Camden, East St. Louis, New Orleans and Oakland were once bustling with economic activity, but as industry has fled those communities poverty has exploded and so has criminal activity.  Meanwhile, financial problems have caused all of those cities to significantly reduce their police forces.  Sadly, this same pattern is being repeated in hundreds of communities all over the nation.  The mainstream media loves to focus on mass shooters such as Adam Lanza, but the reality is that gang violence is a far greater problem in the United States than mass shooters ever will be.  There are approximately 1.4 million gang members living in America today according to the FBI.  That number has shot up by a whopping 40 percent just since 2009.  There are several factors fueling this trend.  Unemployment among our young people is at an epidemic level, aboutone out of every three U.S. children lives in a home without a father, and there are millions of young men who have come into this country illegally and have no way to legally support themselves once they arrive in our cities.  Gangs provide a support system, a feeling of “community”, and a sense of purpose for many young people.  Unfortunately, most of these gangs use violence and crime to achieve their goals, and they are taking over communities all over America.  If your community is not a gang-infested war zone yet, you should consider yourself to be very fortunate.  If nothing is done about this, the violence and the crime that is fueled by these gangs will continue to spread, and eventually nearly every single community in the United States will be affected by it.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the large cities all over America that are degenerating into gang-infested war zones…

East St. Louis

East St. Louis has a national reputation for being a city that you want to avoid.  The following is from a recent Bloomberg article about the growing crime in that community…

Dodging open manholes where thieves had swiped cast-iron covers, Stephen Wigginton drives the crumbling streets of his hometown, East St. Louis, Illinois, pointing out new landmarks in America’s most violent city.

There’s the shopping mall where a police officer was shot in the face, a youth center that saw a triple homicide in September, and scattered about the city of 27,000 are brightly lit gas stations that serve as magnets for carjackers, hit-and-run robbers and killers.

“It’s the Wild West,” said Wigginton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois.

Today, the murder rate in East St. Louis is 17 times higher than the national average, but financial problems have forced huge cuts to the police budget.  The number of police patrolling the streets of East St. Louis was reduced by 33 percent between 2008 and 2011.  Police in the city admit that they are outgunned and outmanned, but there is not much that can be done about it.

Camden

Camden, New Jersey is another city that has experienced huge cuts to the police budget.  Their police force shrank by about a third between 2008 and 2011.  Today, Camden is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities in America and it has a murder rate that is about ten times higherthan New York City.

The gangs have a very strong hold over Camden, and kids kill kids on a regular basis in the city.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article about the horrible violence that is plaguing Camden…

At the vigil last week, residents prayed that Camden would simply find peace and that the masked gunman who killed Jewel Manire and Khalil Gibson would be caught.

As it grew darker, Michael Benjamin stood toward the back of the crowd, his son huddled even closer now, and shook his head.

“I’ve known at least 45 kids who’ve been killed in my lifetime,” he said, the boy holding his finger. “I stopped counting in 2004, though.”

Chicago

In recent years there have been massive cuts to the police budget in Chicago due to financial difficulties.  At the same time, gang activity has dramatically increased in the city.

As a result, Chicago has become known for murders and violence.  The murder rate in Chicago was about 17 percent higher in 2012 than it was in 2011, and Chicago is now considered to be “the deadliest global city“.

If you can believe it, the number of murders in Chicago during 2012 wasroughly equivalent to the number of murders in the entire country of Japan during 2012.

And the primary reason for all of this violence in Chicago is the gangs.  As I have written about previously, there are only about 200 police officers assigned to Chicago’s Gang Enforcement Unit.  It is their job to handle the estimated 100,000 gang members living in the city.

Approximately 80 percent of all murders and shootings in the city of Chicago are gang-related, and as the gangs continue to grow in size the violence in the city is going to get even worse.  If Barack Obama wants to do something about violence in America, perhaps he should start with his home city.

Detroit

I write a lot about Detroit, but that is because they are a perfect example of where the rest of America is headed if something dramatic is not done.

Detroit used to be one of the greatest manufacturing cities the world has ever seen, but over the past several decades the economic infrastructure of Detroit has been gutted and now there is very little industry left in the city.

Over half the children in the city live in poverty and a sense of hopelessness hangs in the air.  At the same time, financial problems have forced the city to lay off huge numbers of cops.  Back in 2005, there were about 4,000 police officers in Detroit.  Today there are only about 2,500and another 100 are scheduled to be eliminated from the force soon.

Meanwhile, crime in Detroit just continues to get even worse.  There were377 homicides in Detroit in 2011.  In 2012, that number rose to 411.

Things have gotten so bad that even even the Detroit police are telling people to “enter Detroit at your own risk“.

New Orleans

New Orleans was a crime-infested city even before Hurricane Katrina hit it in 2005, but life has never quite been the same since that time.

The gangs have a very strong presence in the city, and there simply are not enough financial resources to keep crime in check.

If New Orleans was considered to be a separate nation, it would have the2nd highest murder rate on the entire planet.  There are some areas of New Orleans that you simply do not ever want to venture into at night.

Meanwhile, the police force has been such a mess in recent years that the federal government finally decided to step in.  It is hoped that the “reforms” will mean less crime in New Orleans in future years, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Oakland

Today, there are 626 police officers in Oakland, California.  That is about a 25 percent decline from the 837 police officers that were patrolling the streets of Oakland back in December 2008.

Predictably, criminals have stepped in and have taken advantage of the situation.  At one point in 2012, burglaries in the city of Oakland were up43 percent over the previous year.

If you can believe it, more than 11,000 homes, cars and businesses were burglarized in Oakland during 2012.  That breaks down to approximately33 burglaries a day.

Stockton

Police cuts in the city of Stockton, California have been so severe that the Stockton Police Officers’ Association ran a billboard advertisement with the following message at one point: “Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California: Stop laying off cops!”

At the same time, crime in Stockton continues to get even worse.  there have been more than 250 gold chain robberies in Stockton since the month of April, and there is no indication that crime in the city is going to slow down any time soon.

So what is the solution?

Should we have everyone turn in their guns?

No, that would just make the problem even worse.  The gangs aren’t going to turn in their guns.  The only people who would turn in their guns would be law-abiding citizens.  That would just make them even more vulnerable to the violence and crime that are starting to spread like wildfire all over the nation.

We don’t have a gun problem in America.  What we have is a gang problem.

In 2006, the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center reported that Mexican drug cartels were actively operating in 50 different U.S. cities.  By 2010, that number had risen to 1,286.

Many of these gang members run up long criminal records, but our overcrowded prison systems just keep releasing them back into the streets.  The results of this philosophy have been predictable.  The following is from a recent article by Daniel Greenfield…

A breakdown of the Chicago killing fields shows that 83% of those murdered in Chicago last year had criminal records. In Philly, it’s 75%. In Milwaukee it’s 77% percent. In New Orleans, it’s 64%. In Baltimore, it’s 91%. Many were felons who had served time. And as many as 80% of the homicides were gang related.

Chicago’s problem isn’t guns; it’s gangs. Gun control efforts in Chicago or any other major city are doomed because gangs represent organized crime networks which stretch down to Mexico, and trying to cut off their gun supply will be as effective as trying to cut off their drug supply.

This is not a time to take away the ability of law-abiding American families to defend themselves.  Instead, people need to put even more emphasis on self-defense as police forces all over the country are cut back.

Just recently, the city attorney of San Bernardino, California told citizens living there to “lock their doors and load their guns” because the police force in that city is being cut back again.

And that is good advice.  As the economy continues to decline and as millions more Americans fall into poverty, the violence is going to get even worse.

What would you do if a desperate criminal broke into your house and started searching through your home room by room?  That is the horrifying situation that one young mother down in Georgia was recently faced with…

She quickly retreated to an attic crawlspace with the children, but not before she also picked up her handgun.

The burglar, whom police identified as Paul Ali Slater, did a room-by-room search of the home, and when he reached the attic, she was ready.

Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman told WSBTV: ‘The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he’s staring at her, her two children and a .38 revolver.’

She reportedly fired all six rounds, missing only once. The other shots hit Slater about the face and neck.

Sheriff Chapman told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ‘The guy’s face down, crying. The woman told him to stay down or she’d shoot again.’

What would have happened if she had not had any way to defend herself and her children?

That is something that we all need to think about.

For the last couple of decades, we have been fortunate to live in an era of falling crime rates.  Unfortunately, that era is now over.  Large cities all over the country are degenerating into gang-infested war zones, and what we are seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg.

After the economy collapses, millions of people are going to become incredibly desperate and things are going to get much, much worse than this.

So what are you seeing in your area of the country?  Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below…

The Economic Collapse

The Gannett Company

Gannett Company, Inc. claims to be “A media and marketing solutions company with a diverse portfolio of broadcast, digital, mobile and publishing companies.” Gannett owns many media outlets including:

Print media:
USA Today of Tysons Corner, Virginia (1,830,594, 2nd overall)
The Arizona Republic of Phoenix, Arizona (308,973, 14th)
Detroit Free Press of Detroit, Michigan (245,326, 20th)
The Indianapolis Star of Indianapolis, Indiana (182,933, 32nd)
The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky (159,275, 42nd)
The Cincinnati Enquirer of Cincinnati, Ohio (157,574, 43rd)
The Tennessean of Nashville, Tennessee (127,538, 61st)
Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester, New York (119,399, 65th)
Asbury Park Press of Neptune City, New Jersey (112,683, 68th)
The Des Moines Register of Des Moines, Iowa (109,095, 73rd)
The News Journal of Wilmington, Delaware (87,138, 89th)
The Journal News of White Plains, New York (79,525, 96th)
Pacific Daily News of Guam

Broadcast media:
WBIR-TV (NBC) in Knoxville, Tennessee
WXIA-TV (NBC) and WATL (MyNetworkTV) in Atlanta (Pacific and Southern Company, Inc.)
WUSA (CBS) in Washington, D.C.
KPNX (NBC) in Phoenix
WTSP (CBS) in Tampa-St. Petersburg (Pacific and Southern Company, Inc.)
KARE (NBC) in Minneapolis-Saint Paul
KUSA-TV (NBC) and KTVD (MyNetworkTV) in Denver
WKYC-TV (NBC) in Cleveland
KXTV (ABC) in Sacramento, California
KSDK (NBC) in St. Louis
WZZM-TV (ABC) in Grand Rapids, Michigan
WFMY-TV (CBS) in Greensboro, North Carolina
WJXX (ABC) and WTLV (NBC) in Jacksonville, Florida
WGRZ-TV (NBC) in Buffalo, New York
KTHV-TV (CBS) in Little Rock, Arkansas
WLTX (CBS) in Columbia, South Carolina (Pacific and Southern Company, Inc.)
WMAZ-TV (CBS) in Macon, Georgia (Pacific and Southern Company, Inc.)
WCSH-TV (NBC) in Portland, Maine (Pacific and Southern Company, Inc.)
WLBZ-TV (NBC) in Bangor, Maine

Gannett Digital:
Captivate Network
CareerBuilder (50.8%)
Classified Ventures (20%)
DealChicken
eHarmony
GannettLocal
HighSchoolSports.net
Metromix
PointRoll
ShopLocal
Cars.com
Reviewed.com

With such a vast audience, Gannett wields considerable influence in America. Unfortunately, Gannett frequently pushes statist propaganda, behaving like an ideal MSM Lapdog for those currently in power.

The Des Moines Register

A recent article published in The Des Moines Register (a Gannett company) illustrates this fact to a painful degree. After the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut, Donald Kaul came out of retirement (again) to rail against gun ownership, the Second Amendment, and to call the NRA a “terrorist organization.” In his “…program for ending gun violence in America,” Kaul calls for the Second Amendment to be repealed, for the NRA to be declared a terrorist organization, and to “…tie Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, our esteemed Republican leaders, to the back of a Chevy pickup truck and drag them around a parking lot.”

Had he named Democratic congress members as his targets, he would already have been visited by the FBI, but since his suggestion fits the Progressive Playbook, nary an eyebrow was raised. One is forced to wonder if Mr. Kaul has any home security plans beyond dialing 911. Here is his home address, why not pay him a visit and ask?

The Journal News

Another Gannett media company (The Journal News of White Plains, New York) again, in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy, published a map of all pistol permit holders in Rockland and Westchester, NY. Soon afterward, a veritable avalanche of “negative correspondence” inundated The Journal News. This highly negative reaction so alarmed Journal News Rockland Editor Caryn A. McBride that The Journal News hired armed security guards from New City-based RGA Investigations, which are now manning the newspaper’s headquarters. Here is her home address (280 Bronxville Rd Apt 4B Bronxville, NY 10708-2819 Phone: 914-954-3412) I’m sure she would welcome a call or a visit to discuss her fears.

The hypocrisy in this is nearly tangible…and if questioned, would surely be dismissed as a “necessary precaution” for the safety of their staff. It is unclear if this map stunt of theirs has affected their readership (they’ll never tell) but their local competitor (The Rockland County Times) has reported an influx of new subscribers that stated they cancelled their subscriptions to The Journal News due to the gun story. Some folks out there are apparently awake, and unwilling to continue to support such a hypocritical organization. Handily, one such person published a map of Journal News staff, for your convenience.

The Detroit Free Press

The Detroit Free Press (another Gannett company) just published an article entitled Headlines we’d like to see in 2013. As annual year-end lists go, there isn’t much surprising there, but where this list bothers to get political, it takes a hard left. One of their dream headlines for 2013 reads, “Tea party is over: Voters recall dozens of lawmakers over ‘fiscal cliff’ shenanigans”. The interesting part of this is that The Detroit Free Press doesn’t seem to see the “shenanigans” perpetrated by any other group…they lay the blame for the fiscal cliff situation solely at the feet of those that were sent there to stop such nonsense. Sit. Stay. Good MSM Lapdog.

The Indianapolis Star

The Indianapolis Star recently published an article called The power of an economic NATO, which glorifies the concept of another NAFTA-like agreement, this time with Europe. In keeping with The Program, columnist David Ignatius opines, “What’s appealing about the trans-Atlantic initiative, in particular, is that it could be a big job creator for economies on both continents…” obviously having missed the effects of NAFTA on our economy. He goes on to state, “I like the idea of an “economic NATO” because it addresses fiscal problems through growth and expansion,” but the problem is that Europe isn’t growing or expanding. A more accurate assessment of Europe would use words like “teetering” and “faltering”. Would such a trade partner help us expand and grow our way out of our current miasma?

Ross Perot warned us of a “giant sucking sound” as our jobs flew out of the country post-NAFTA, and as we all know now, it came to pass. Considering the depressed economies in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland, and the low wages their unemployed would be willing to work for, one must employ pure magical thinking to believe yet another such agreement would have different results. What was it that Albert Einstein said about insanity?

The Courier-Journal

On December 29th, The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Kentucky came out with this lovely piece: NRA call for guns at schools obscene, in which Tom Diaz, a former gun owner and former NRA member who now works for the Violence Policy Center, is quoted as telling NPR, “The gun industry realized that it really loses every argument where you can have facts,’’ apparently “proving” that the NRA needs to lie to support the Second Amendment of our Constitution, by mere assertion. Blind assertion doesn’t cut it, Mr. Diaz, and the Courier-Journal should be ashamed for not calling you out on this.

The article goes on to list the President of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre’s suggestions at a recent news conference, snidely and childishly dismissing each, calling them “paranoid and delusional.” For proof of the folly of LaPierre’s suggestions, the article only cited one source – The New York Times, and that only in regards to an assertion that the NRA is being funded by video game makers via the gun manufacturers…again, with no real proof. The rest of Mr. LaPierre’s suggestions were merely ridiculed, as by a know-it-all teenager…but hey, it all fit The Program, and that’s all that matters to a Gannett Company, right?

The Cincinnati Enquirer

On December 23^rd, The Cincinnati Enquirer published this piece: The culture of violence which, in accordance with The Plan, ridicules the NRA and Second Amendment supporters. The article states that Nancy Lanza, the Sandy Hook killer’s Mother, was killed by her stockpiled weapons in a bald-faced attempt to demonize the weapons themselves, as if her son Adam had nothing to do with her death. The more the mantra of Guns Are Bad is repeated, the more people may be amenable to giving up their right to own one, or so The Plan goes. The Cincinnati Enquirer ought to be ashamed to publish such intellectually dishonest assertions, but apparently they ceased being real journalists, and eagerly embraced their new lives as MSM Lapdogs…all in the name of the statist agenda.

Statism Abounds

One cannot long peruse a Gannett publication without running afoul of statist propaganda. Whether discussing our Second Amendment rights, the TEA Party, or our economy, the constant drum-beat of statism permeates every outlet in Gannet’s arsenal, and Gannett is not alone. The rhythm of statism being continually and perpetually pounded out into the Main Stream Media in America is evident to all but the most brain-washed observer. Are they actually colluding to keep every media outlet on the same page, or does it just appear that way? Who do these people (that control what is said in the MSM) work for…themselves, or some other, possibly more sinister puppet-master? What is the goal of desensitizing the American public to statism, and who will benefit once the American people give all control over to their government?

With multiple examples of failed statist regimes in our history (some of them recent) one may have been lead to believe that statism was on its last legs politically. With standard-bearers such as Gannett, this is sadly not the case, and we all need to be vigilant in our defense of our rights until such organizations are exposed as the statist puppets they are, and they assume their rightful place in the ash heap of history.

Randy – FedUpUSA