Real Tyranny: Was Canada ever the Country we thought it was?

Don’t sing Oh Canada on the streets in Canada, or the police, dressed in riot gear will surely get you.

Did you ever think someone would ever tell you that? Pinch yourself – it’s not a dream.

Canada, have we been living in an illusion?  Has our country ever been totally free? Are our politicians really puppets for the Royal Family and the ruling class of the world?

When Stephen Harper commented to David Cameron in Haliburton that he had a lot more free time than Harper was allowed, Cameron said you just have to get up really early. That, to explain how he was given the freedom for a dip in the lake. Don’t admire the politicians, we serfs can dip in the lake anytime we choose. At least for now.

For us slaves not in the bondage of  elected office our fight for freedom continues…..

A man named Charlie Veitch was one of those 900 or so arrested in the G20 protests/assemblies in Toronto.

Here is the video of him in discussion with Alex Jones on his experience, and a little extra thrown in:

For a while now, I have been following the reports of Alex Jones on Infowars.com and could not fully believe or appreciate what Jones was discussing. I felt sorry for our American cousins. They seem to have it real bad. Thank God, I remember telling myself over and over, that we live in Canada, and these things never happen here.

Jones, show after show would tell the world that, for whatever reason, police, seething with petty power were going on rampages the world over. Why? Because they could I guess. To say that all police are of this mindset is ridiculous. There are many veteran police officers that can attest to the change that seems to be occurring throughout the U.S., and the thugs seem to be taking the jobs with authority.

The true peace officers, perhaps are deciding to get out, because they remembered the job when it was to truly serve the people – to serve and protect. Now, this thought may be exiting, and the us vs. them mentality is being instilled. This, no doubt is a dangerous combination.

What the police must understand is that they too are citizens. Their controlled power, if this is turning into a tyrannical, police state will be short-lived. And more importantly, it will serve to effect the agenda of the elite, not the free.

If the citizenry must be taken care of and stripped of rights as a first step, it will not be long before the globalists will look to take the rights and freedoms away from the police themselves. In short, the system will begin to feed off itself.

It is the economy and the people who the forces chose to abuse that pay the police force salaries. If we, the people are reduced to rubble, where will the money come from for police salaries, let alone the municipal pension plans? Yeah, you got it – bye-bye lucrative job, and forget that nice pension you had your heart set on.

In order for the global elite to effect total control, they really need the police and military ready and at wait to serve the elite and not their neighbours. And make no mistake, the elite are not living in your neighbourhood, Mr. Policeman, just those terrible demonstrators that might have been in Toronto for the G20.

Could you imagine a worse case scenario? A policeman in full riot gear, attacking a member of the demonstrating group, and looking into the man’s eyes only to realize it’s the guy down the street he bowls with on Friday nights.

Could you imagine the police officer’s dilemma in an effort to make it  up  to the man, for the huge welt on his body he imposed with his billy club?

Or worse, how would it affect the family of the man who is never coming home to his family because the adrenaline of the moment led to the baton slipping upside his skull. Where will the elite bankers be then? Will they help the policeman explain to his superiors or the victim’s family why “daddy is never coming home again”? Welcome to hell in a handbasket.

Man’s inhumanity to man.

By design, the system of mind control will have gotten the better of the authorities that were fed a story.

Perhaps they were told that there is a likely chance that there would be a terrorist attack – be on guard. Perhaps they were all forced into adrenaline-pumping hyper mode because they were told as a force that INTERPOL expected a lot of trouble, and they had better contain the people or it would get ugly.

Or, they could have known all about Alex Jones and Charlie Veitch, and Dan Dicks, and all the people who don’t like what is happening to their countries.

So, when Veitch told Alex Jones that the police mentioned Jones, and told Veitch they had a real live celebrity dissident in their hands, this would imply what the show on Saturday June 26th was all about. It was to draw out, humiliate and scare anyone that would not want to be put in bondage. To shock those that might stand up to the New World Order.

All it really did, was have those awake realize that Canada was never free.

The Queen can call for World Peace, and visit Canada in the aftermath of the holocaust that woke us up to our slavery.

Canada’s birthday will never have the same level of pride for this Canadian.

I’ll drop my head in shame, in the realization what happened last weekend, when man showed his inhumanity to man, yet again.

War With Iran? Paul Craig Roberts on The Corbett Report

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Treasury Secretary and Wall Street Journal joins us to break down the recent US sanctions on Iran and the likelihood of a strike on Iran by the US and/or Israel.

Has the New Great Depression Started Already?

Paul Krugman has just declared the onset of another Great Depression. To him a Depression is characterized by a long-term deflationary trap, but that’s not the reason Depressions are to be avoided. Depressions are bad because of long-term unemployment, which tears at people’s lives and at the fabric of society. So far, I’m with him. After all, to the best of my knowledge, I’m the first one to have used “Great Depression II” in print, back in autumn of 2007, when the stock market hit its all-time high and RedState readers responded by beating me up for bashing the Bush economic record.

Krugman claims the paternity of the New Depression in the name of the Keynesians. He says that it’s been triggered by the policy errors of the Europeans, who refuse to extend fiscal stimulus, and of the Republicans, who refuse to allow Congress to funnel more money to state and local governments. He’s going to be eating out on this for the rest of his life, because the long-term economic weakness facing us is the real thing, and his statement that we caused it by not stimulating enough will never be falsifiable. (When the crisis started, he was still insisting that only WW2 created enough government borrowing and spending to end the Great Depression.)
Does Krugman honestly believe that demand by state and local governments is enough to end the deflationary pressure caused by shredded balance sheets in the wake of the ongoing housing bubble? State and local governments do not invest or create value efficiently. The only thing that will realistically happen if we pump up their finances is that they’ll continue to pay public employees enormously high salaries and benefits. This won’t create the demand that Krugman wants, because the public employees who won’t need to be fired by Arnold Schwarzenegger and David Paterson will step up their saving rather than their spending. However, that’s really not bad at all, because balance sheet repair among banks and individuals is the real medicine that will end this prolonged economic weakness.

But if we really think the solution is to transfer cash balances from bond-market investors to private individuals, then why do it as Krugman demands, by feeding money from the Federal government to state and local governments? That would unfairly benefit public employees much more than private employees. Wouldn’t it be more equitable, not to mention effective, to just give everyone in the country a two-year income and payroll tax holiday, and pay for it with expanded deficits?

(I can hear Krugman now. He’s saying that the states and localities won’t just use their booty to avoid firing unaffordable, surplus workers whose value to governments comes primarily from their political activism. He’ll say that the states and localities will suddenly go off on a tear of infrastructure construction. To that, two responses: First: have you ever seen political officials try to create economic value? It takes a lot of blind faith to suggest that this is a good idea. And second: Japan actually did this. Didn’t help them in the slightest.)

And yet: what of those bond markets? Krugman (and Geithner, for that matter) is entirely willing to run the risk of a future credit crash by the US. Looked at from a market perspective, the question boils down to this: if we expand public borrowing to levels beyond all imagining, then are we *guaranteed* to have an economy that’s productive and dynamic enough to pay the real interest on the borrowing and to keep rolling it, for the next T+30 years?

The answer to that question depends on two things: First: can we grow enough in real terms to outpace the borrowing? (Keynesians say Yes, Axiomatically, because the spending itself is an investment. Anyone with direct business experience will be deeply skeptical of that.)

And second: will interest rates remain as low as they are now, to ensure that our borrowings remain affordable? To this, Krugman says Yes, Definitely, because rates are low now, and there’s no evidence investors will change their minds. Anyone with direct capital-markets experience is shaking his head at the deep delusion from which this argument is woven.

Beyond this, there’s a third point: America and the other developed economies are aging. This point is usually extended to become the idea of structural entitlement growth (which certain Republicans are deeply deluded to think we can mitigate). But more directly, aging means reduced productivity on the part of many workers. This alone is enough to make me suspicious of the argument that we can fund enough growth with borrowed money to get out of trouble.

It’s just not wise to borrow more than you can realistically hope to pay back. At the macro level, this means a certain amount of austerity. Let’s call it a Depression if we must, but let’s recognize how potentially dangerous it is to try to prevent it by maxing out our credit cards.

I’m in favor of continuing to use transfer payments to mitigate the horrible evil of long-term unemployment. But I think it’s frankly stupid to try to create a robust economy on debt-fueled public spending.

Obama’s good week comes in midst of troubling long-term indicators

President Obama sounded confident Sunday evening, issuing a challenge to fiscal conservatives who say he’s doing too little to reduce the nation’s growing deficit and debt.

“Next year when I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I’m calling their bluff,” Obama said at a press conference to close a two-day global financial summit in Toronto.

The president’s braggadocio came at the close of a successful few days for him. He was praised for his decision Wednesday to replace his top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, with Gen. David Petraeus. He held a warm summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at the White House Thursday.

On Friday, Democrats in Congress passed a financial regulation bill, arming Obama with a major accomplishment one day before he arrived in Toronto for a gathering of the world’s top 20 economies. In Toronto, Obama promised to move forward with a free trade agreement with South Korea, saying he will present the treaty to Congress in early 2011

For the first time in weeks, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has not been the focus. And the confirmation hearings beginning Monday for Obama’s nominee, Elena Kagan, will also likely be a boost for the president, since Kagan is expected to be confirmed rather easily.

The momentary successes, however, come in the middle of a steady decline in key polling indicators for the president.

A telling survey released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last week showed major slippage for the president in almost every key category regarding the public’s attitudes about his leadership, his job performance and his philosophy of governance.

Obama’s approval rating was at an all-time low in the NBC/WSJ polls, at 45 percent, while those who think the country is on the wrong track was at an all-time high in the surveys, at 62 percent. The poll showed growing doubts about Obama’s ability to lead in a crisis and increasing resistance to his policies, driven by the nation’s fiscal crisis, the president’s recently passed health bill, and his handling of the oil spill.

And the oil spill is certain to dominate the news cycle again in the coming days. Even a poll from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which argued that the oil spill has not significantly affected Obama’s job approval, showed a big jump in disapproval of how the president has handled the oil spill. And this survey was done after Obama jawboned BP into setting aside $20 billion for a government-appointed official to use for claims disbursements.

Some of Obama’s signature accomplishments are being criticized by those on the left as well.

Ariana Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post website, on Sunday dismissed both the $862 billion stimulus bill passed a month after Obama took office, in February 2009, and the financial regulation bill passed just Friday.

The stimulus, which Obama has said staved off another Great Depression, “does not really create jobs,” said Huffington, on CNN’s “Fareed Zakaria GPS.”

And she said that “we’re seeing this anemic Wall Street reform going through, which we all know is not going to prevent the next meltdown.”

Rolling Stone Magazine has also recently published scathing pieces on Obama’s handling of the oil spill and on the financial regulation bill.

Despite Obama’s feisty challenge to critics regarding his fiscal austerity measures, he has little to show thus far to back up his words, other than a three-year freeze of non-defense, discretionary spending, which makes up about a third of the federal budget.

The president said Sunday that pay-as-you-go rules which became law in February of this year are “starting to provide budget discipline to Congress.”

But Congress has passed several laws since February and avoided paying for them by deeming them “emergency spending,” adding $312 billion to the deficit this year, according to Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican.

“The PAYGO rules are a farce,” Coburn said.

Obama’s fiscal commission continues to meet, but will not issue a report until December. Obama’s comment that he will begin proposing “very difficult choices” next year is an indication that one of those options will be across the board tax hikes. This would violate Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on the middle class, but Democrats in Congress have already begun to question that pledge and the White House this week refused to say whether or not the pledge remains in effect.

Then there are jobs, which are not returning at the pace Obama needs to show he is turning the economy around. Unemployment remains around 10 percent.

And despite his savvy move to put Petraeus in charge, the war in Afghanistan could prove to be a huge political problem for the president if public approval continues to slip. Despite that, Obama on Sunday gave the clearest indication to date that the withdrawal date he set for July 2011 is not definitive.

“By next year we will begin a process of transition,” Obama said. “That doesn’t mean we suddenly turn off the lights and let the door close behind us.”

Conservative columnist on Sunday predicted a “collision … between the president and his base” over the war in Afghanistan.

David Axelrod, one of the president’s top advisers, remarked to Politico over the weekend that Obama does not measure his success or failure in week-long increments.

“One day, the prevailing notion in Washington is, ‘The administration is floundering. The presidency is on the line.’ A week later, you’re on a roll. He believes strongly you can’t get swept up in these manic mood swings,” Axelrod said.

After a week of strong reviews and words of praise for the president, Axelrod’s comments could be a prescient reminder that the overall journey ahead for his boss remains an uphill climb.

E-mail Jon Ward and follow him on Twitter

What is the Jones Act?

You may hear some chatter about the "Jones Act" relating to the BP Gulf Oil situation and allowing ships In.




 The Jones Act was an important piece of United States legislation passed in 1920. It supported the AmericanMerchant Marine, while also providing additional protections for sailors and ship's crew. Several clauses in theJones Act set a precedent, since they went above and beyond similar protective clauses under internationalmaritime law. The Jones Act and the benefits it provides are extremely complex, and mariners who are eligible for claims under the Jones Act should always consult an attorney who is familiar with the Jones Act.



The Jones Act is officially titled the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, although it came to be known as the JonesAct after Senator Wesley Jones, who sponsored it. The act was passed in response to concerns about the health of the Merchant Marine, and to establish protections for sailors. Prior to passage of the Jones Act, sailors who were injured on the job had few options for recovering damages or getting assistance; recognizing the inherent danger of working at sea and the value of trained seamen, the Jones Act established a system of benefits for sailors.
Two parts of the Jones Act are of particular historical importance. The first heavily promoted American built, owned, and staffed ships. This was accomplished by restricting shipping and passenger trade within the United States to American owned or American flagged ships, and stipulated that 75% of a ship's crew must consist of American citizens. In addition, the use of foreign parts and labor in ship construction and repair was also heavily restricted. This section of the Jones Act was intended to create a strong, well staffed Merchant Marine which could ably serve the United States during both peace and war.
The second important section of the Jones Act created benefits for sailors which are extremely far reaching. Any sailor who is injured at sea is entitled to maintenance and cure, meaning that the sailor's employer must pay him or her a daily stipend and provide medical care to treat the injury. In addition, sailors can also sue for damages if their injuries were caused by negligence on the part of the ship's owners or other crew members, or if they sailed on unseaworthy vessels. These damages include death benefits, in the event that a sailor is killed on the job.
Anyone who spends at least 30% of his or her time in active service on a Merchant Marine vessel can qualify for Jones Act benefits. This includes all staff on board ship, from the Captain on down. The benefits provided by the Jones Act can be significantly higher than benefits for workers on land, if a skilled attorney is involved.

On New iPhone, a Mystery of Dropped Calls

SAN FRANCISCO — For iPhone owners, it always comes back to the antenna.


Apple’s touch-screen smartphone has been a sensation since Day 1 three years ago, and many who own the device believe it to be almost perfect — if only it worked better as a phone.


So it is not surprising that as the first boxes of the new iPhone 4 landed in the hands of the earliest adopters late Wednesday, the antenna’s reception quickly became an Internet obsession. What surprised many of them: the precious little bars that signal network connections inexplicably disappeared when they cradled the phone in their hands a particular way. Sometimes, but not always, the cradling resulted in dropped calls.


In the hours before Apple weighed in on the problem, iPhone fans turned to one another on the Internet in a zealous exercise in crowd-sourcing for answers to the mystery.


They were all the more baffled because the iPhone 4 was designed to have better reception. A metal band that wraps around the edges of the device is supposed to pull in a stronger signal; software is supposed to choose the section of the signal with the least congestion.


A user calling himself FFArchitect appeared to be the first to report the phenomenon on MacRumors.com, a site for the Apple-obsessed. He said that touching the band in various places caused reception problems. His report, like many that followed, included a video demonstrating the problem.


Soon after, Gizmodo, a popular site for gadget fans, picked up on it, calling the phenomenon “weird.”


“When the guy holds the iPhone in his hands, touching the outside antenna band in two places, he drops reception,” Jesus Diaz, a writer for the blog, said. “Placing the phone down gets him 4 bars.”


From then on, report after report began to ricochet across technology Web sites, and Mr. Diaz posted updates as new stories from around the Web dropped into his in-box. “This is worrying,” Mr. Diaz wrote.


One commenter linked to an article from early this month about a Danish expert in radio antennas who predicted that touching the antenna would affect reception. Another update claimed to narrow down the problem to touching the lower left side of the phone.


The reader reports included suggestions for how to fix the problem — Update 19: use nail polish to insulate the antenna; Update 21: enclose the phone in a rubber case — and appeared to show some wisdom in this crowd. Late Thursday, an Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, acknowledged that the issues experienced by users were real but he played down their importance.


“Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance, depending on the placement of the antennas,” he said. “This is a fact of life for every wireless phone.”


Mr. Dowling declined to say whether Apple experienced the issue during testing of the phone and suggested that users not hold the phone in a way that covers both sides of a small black strip on the lower left side. Alternatively, he said, they could use one of many available cases.


Analysts and investors did not appear overly worried.


“Apple has not had one introduction that hasn’t had issues,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Company. “Sometimes these things get blown out of proportion.”


On Wall Street, shares of Apple slid a mere 0.8 percent, faring better than the broad Nasdaq index, which dropped 1.6 percent.


And given the long lines outside Apple stores in New York heat, Chicago rain and San Francisco fog, consumers appeared unconcerned by, or unaware of, the potential reception issues.


Even Brian Lam, Gizmodo’s editorial director, saw an upside to the iPhone 4, antenna problems and all. “We are paying attention to the antenna issue because it could be a big deal,” he said.


But Mr. Lam said that for years, he had not been able to use older iPhones to make calls from his home. That changed on Thursday, after he bought an iPhone 4. “I have made three hours of calls today,” he said.

Justices extend gun owner rights nationwide

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court held Monday that Americans have the right to own a gun for self-defense anywhere they live, expanding the conservative court’s embrace of gun rights since John Roberts became Chief Justice.

By a 5-4 vote, the justices cast doubt on handgun bans in the Chicago area, but signaled that some limitations on the Constitution’s “right to keep and bear arms” could survive legal challenges.

On its busy final day before a three-month recess, the court also ruled that a public law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won’t let gays join, jumped into the nation’s charged immigration debate by agreeing to review an employer sanctions law from Arizona and said farewell to Justice John Paul Stevens, who is retiring after more than 34 years.

A short distance from the court, the Senate Judiciary Committee began confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan, nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Stevens.

In the guns case, Justice Samuel Alito said for the court that the Second Amendment right “applies equally to the federal government and the states.”

The court was split along familiar ideological lines, with five conservative-moderate justices in favor of gun rights and four liberals opposed. Roberts voted with the majority.

Two years ago, the court declared that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess guns, at least for purposes of self-defense in the home.

That ruling applied only to federal laws. It struck down a ban on handguns and a trigger lock requirement for other guns in the District of Columbia, a federal city with unique legal standing. At the same time, the court was careful not to cast doubt on other regulations of firearms here.

Gun rights proponents almost immediately filed a federal lawsuit challenging gun control laws in Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park, Ill., where handguns have been banned for nearly 30 years. The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence says those laws appear to be the last two remaining outright bans.

Lower federal courts upheld the two laws, noting that judges on those benches were bound by Supreme Court precedent and that it would be up to the high court justices to ultimately rule on the true reach of the Second Amendment.

The Supreme Court already has said that most of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights serve as a check on state and local, as well as federal, laws.

Monday’s decision did not explicitly strike down the Chicago area laws. Instead, it ordered a federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling. But it left little doubt that the statutes eventually would fall.

Still, Alito noted that the declaration that the Second Amendment is fully binding on states and cities “limits (but by no means eliminates) their ability to devise solutions to social problems that suit local needs and values.”

Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor, each wrote a dissent. Stevens said that unlike the Washington case, Monday’s decision “could prove far more destructive — quite literally — to our nation’s communities and to our constitutional structure.”

The ruling seemed unlikely to resolve questions and ongoing legal challenges about precisely what sort of gun control laws are permissible.

The response of the District to the court’s ruling in 2008 is illustrative of the uncertainty.

Local lawmakers in Washington, D.C. imposed a series of regulations on handgun ownership, including requirements to register weapons and to submit to a multiple-choice test, fingerprinting and a ballistics test. Owners must also show they have gotten classroom instruction on handling a gun and have spent at least an hour on the firing range. Some 800 people have now registered handguns in the city.

Anticipating a similar result in their case, Chicago lawmakers are looking at even more stringent regulations.

But the new regulations themselves are likely to themselves be the subject of lawsuits, a fact noted by the dissenting justices Monday. Already in Washington, Dick Heller, the plaintiff in the original case before the Supreme Court, has sued the city over its new laws.

Heller argues that the stringent restrictions violate the intent of the high court’s decision. So far, a federal judge has upheld the limitations, but the case has been appealed.

Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, said his politically powerful group “will continue to work at every level to insure that defiant city councils and cynical politicians do not transform this constitutional victory into a practical defeat through Byzantine regulations and restrictions.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an ardent proponent of gun control, said the ruling allows cities “to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and terrorists while at the same time respecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.”

New York does not ban guns, but restricts who can have them.

The court also was split between liberals and conservatives in its 5-4 ruling against a Christian student group that sought official recognition from the University of California’s Hastings College of the Law.

The Christian Legal Society requires that voting members sign a statement of faith and regards “unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle” as being inconsistent with that faith.

But Hastings said no recognized campus groups may exclude people due to religious belief or sexual orientation.

The high court upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group’s First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college’s decision.

“In requiring CLS — in common with all other student organizations — to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations,” Ginsburg said in the court’s majority opinion. “CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings’ policy.” Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberals in the outcome.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote a strong dissent for the court’s conservatives, saying the opinion was “a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country.”

“Our proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom of express ‘the thought that we hate,’” Alito said. “Today’s decision rests on a very different principle: no freedom of expression that offends prevailing standards of political correctness in our country’s institutions of higher learning.”

In his final appearance on the bench, Stevens read aloud a brief letter to the other justices, after Roberts read one to Stevens.

The 90-year-old justice pointed out how times had changed since he joined the court in 1975. Then, he said, he would have addressed his remarks to his brethren.

Now, with two women as justices, he called them his colleagues.

Carbon Tax On Electricity To Send Prices Skyrocketing

First salvo of Obama’s nightmare “green economy” targets impoverished Americans













Americans already laboring under the financial duress of massive unemployment and the threat of a double-dip recession will be hit with massive electricity bill hikes if President Obama succeeds in ramming through the first salvo of his “green agenda” – a carbon tax on electricity companies which will be passed on to customers.
Obama is in a race against time to exploit fears over climate change as poll numbers show increasing skepticism towards the issue since the Climategate scandal emerged late last year.He is preparing to rush though a weakened version of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill in an attempt to get a foot in the door, before pursuing the rest of the agenda after the November mid-term elections.

Part of this effort to pass a scaled back version of the climate change bill will be a version that only includes carbon caps on electric utilities, White House advisor Rahm Emanuel has indicated.

“The idea of a ‘utilities only’ [approach] will also be welcomed,” said Emanuel on Friday.

As Raw Story points out, this would “greatly leverage the profitability of US nuclear power generator Exelon,” which Emanuel helped create.

As the Wall Street Journal noted on Friday, the idea is to get the carbon trading system, which is primarily owned by oil companies, the Rothschild family and people like Al Gore, in place before expanding it to other industries.

The elite are still desperate to impose a consumption tax on Americans as part of the move towards a “post-industrial revolution” and the kind of nightmare “green economy” that has left Spain with a 20 per cent unemployment rate. In a so-called green economy, over 2.2 jobs are lost for every “green job” created. Electricity prices in Spain have “skyrocketed” since the implemented of these policies, according to a leaked government report.

The EPA has been busy floating propaganda about how Obama’s cap and trade legislation would cost Americans an average of $79 to $146 per year. In reality, as we have documented, the stronger provisions of the bill would see around $2.9 trillion shaved off the economy by the year 2050 if enacted. The legislation would also reduce GDP by 6.9 percent – a figure comparable with the economic meltdown of 1929 and 1930.

A carbon tax would impact almost every aspect of Americans’ lives, from higher gas prices, to soaring utility bills, to exorbitant excesses related to the “energy efficiency” of their homes. It would be enforced by an army of environmental regulators and green police poking their noses into the private affairs of citizens.

The “green economy” is nothing more than a euphemism for an organized effort on behalf of big business and the government to completely eviscerate the middle class and introduce levies and regulation into every area of their lives.

Massive oil companies like British Petroleum, who Obama pretends to be fighting when he reads off his teleprompter, were amongst the founding members of the carbon trade lobby. BP has supported the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill and other so-called “green” initiatives every step of the way because, far from acting as a punishment for big polluters, they represent a financial windfall.

“As Democrats fight to advance climate change policies, they are resorting to the misleading tactics they used in their health care and finance efforts: posing as the scourges of the special interests and tarring “reform” opponents as the stooges of big business,” writes the Washington Examiner’s Timothy P. Carney.

“There’s a problem: BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a lobby dedicated to passing a cap-and-trade bill. As the nation’s largest producer of natural gas, BP saw many ways to profit from climate legislation, notably by persuading Congress to provide subsidies to coal-fired power plants that switched to gas.”

Indeed, BP has “explicitly backed” a “higher gas tax,” because the money will end up back in their coffers. If Obama limits the carbon tax to electricity companies, BP won’t be affected. However, even if the tax is expanded to include oil companies, the costs will merely be passed on to the consumer in the form of gas rate hikes. Obama’s constant call to reduce dependence on oil also helps companies like BP sell the myth of artificial scarcity, which in turn boosts the price of oil to their benefit.

Transnational oil companies like British Petroleum and Exxon Mobil have been amongst the biggest promoters of man-made global warming because they are headed up by globalists who understand that the carbon tax will do nothing to help the environment but will be used to bankroll the implementation of global government while swallowing up whatever deposable income impoverished Americans have left.

Harris: Obama knew of Blagojevich plot

BLAGO TRIAL | Price of Senate appointment of president-elect's friend

BY NATASHA KORECKI AND SARAH OSTMAN Staff Reporters

A top aide to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he believed Barack Obama knew of Blagojevich's plot to win himself a presidential Cabinet post in exchange for appointing Valerie Jarrett to the U.S. Senate.
John Harris, Blagojevich's former chief of staff, testified Wednesday in the former governor's corruption trial that three days after the Nov. 4, 2008, presidential election, the ex-governor told Harris he felt confident Obama knew he wanted to swap perks.
"The president understands that the governor would be willing to make the appointment of Valerie Jarrett as long as he gets what he's asked for. . . . The governor gets the Cabinet appointment he's asked for," Harris said, explaining a recorded call.
Harris said Blagojevich came away believing Obama knew what he wanted after having a conversation with a local union representative, who in turn spoke with labor leader Tom Balanoff, with whom Blagojevich met to discuss a Jarrett appointment. Jarrett, now a White House adviser, was seeking the appointment to Obama's Senate seat.
Defense lawyers say Harris' testimony contradicts the government's previous public statements that Obama knew nothing about deal-making involving the Senate seat appointment.
The defense on Wednesday moved to force the prosecution to turn over FBI reports of Obama's interview with federal agents in December of 2008. Obama is not accused of wrongdoing.
"Testimony elicited by the government from John Harris and wiretaps played in court raise the issue of President Obama's direct knowledge and communication with emissaries and others regarding the appointment to his Senate seat," lawyers wrote in the filing.
The filing came on the trial's third day of the extensive playback of recordings in which Blagojevich is heard repeatedly discussing ways to personally capitalize on his Senate seat appointment power. Blagojevich could be heard plotting to try to head up a charity; swearing and snapping at his wife, Patti, and dismissing the possibility of a federal position that pays $190,000 a year.
"I make $170 . . . So Fred, that has no appeal to me . . . I want to make money," Blagojevich tells national Democratic consultant Fred Yang. "I might as well go out and find a way to make money."
Obama's 2008 internal report about his staff's contacts with Blagojevich at the time indicates that Balanoff relayed to Jarrett that Blagojevich was interested in a Health and Human Services Cabinet post.
Recordings also revealed that Blagojevich had tried to get the Chicago Tribune's editorial board fired after it ran a series of disparaging write-ups about the then-governor.
Harris testified that he ignored Blagojevich's firing directive.
Also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge James Zagel refused to gag the talkative Blagojevich as prosecutors had asked. Zagel said Blagojevich keeps saying he's innocent, and that anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
The repetition, Zagel said, has rendered Blagojevich's out-of-court talk unnewsworthy.

Must-read Obama speech: 10 minutes of talk with each golden word costing you $502

Obviously, as part of his administration's plan to reduce spending to address the ginormous deficit, President Obama flew on Air Force One the other day from Washington all the way out to Columbus, Ohio, and back. About a four-hour round-trip flight.

He was on the ground in the Buckeye State for a total of 70 minutes. By another count, he was on Ohio soil barely 58 minutes, touting more what he sees as an economic recovery. (Obama had tickets to an evening White Sox baseball game back in Washington.)

In the interests of humor, the president of the United States also managed to slip in a reference to Vice President Joe "Big Effing Deal" Biden's notorious March expletive that they're selling T-shirts of.

Of those, say, 70 minutes in Ohio, a grand total of 10 were spent speaking in the middle of a closed street, a presidential photo opportunity designed to highlight construction jobs allegedly created by the $787- billion stimulus spending bill he signed in early 2009. Workers on the next-door construction site were unhappy because they were told to stay away from work for the president's visit -- and get an involuntary unpaid day off because of the president's 600-second appearance.

Ohio's unemployment rate stands at 10.7%.

With the cost of Air Force One put at around $100,000 per hour, plus the other planes carrying Secret Service, vehicles, Marine One etc., CBS' amazing Mark Knoller estimates that the trip cost American taxpayers between $500,000 and $1 million.

That's as much as $100,000 per minute of speaking time.

In his brief appearance, the president uttered 1,990 words at the microphone (he had tickets for a Washington Nationals baseball game to make that night).

That works out to $502 per word and $32,258 per paragraph.

That's a lot of money even for a liberal Democrat who's the Real Good Talker. At the lower trip estimate the...

...government laid out $251.25 per word for the Democrat's appearance in the crucial battleground state.

We have the entire text below, as provided by the White House, minus the notations for (Applause) and (Laughter). There weren't that many.

Let us know below how much you think the speech was worth. No charge for that.

-- Andrew Malcolm

For $1 million less than Obama's speech, you can receive Twitter alerts of each new Ticket item. Follow us @latimestot  or Like our Facebook page. We're also available on Kindle. (With an oil-free two-week trial.)

President Obama's remarks in Columbus, Ohio

Good afternoon, everybody. Well, it is great to be back in Ohio. Strickland said I’ve been in Ohio so much he might start charging me for it.

It is wonderful to be back in Ohio, and it is wonderful to be back in the beautiful city of Columbus. I just want to say thank you right off the top to Mayor Coleman for his outstanding leadership of this city. You’ve got one of the best mayors in the country.  You also got one of the best governors in the country in Ted Strickland. 

And I also want to just acknowledge that you’re going to have one of the best -- you already have one of the best senators in Sherrod Brown, and you’re going to have another one in Lee Fisher. So we appreciate the great work that they’re doing. I’m going to mention some of the congressional delegations here, because they’ve got a lot to do with what’s going on at this site.

My last visit here was a little over a year ago, when I came to take part in a graduation ceremony for 114 -- the 114th class of the Columbus police recruits.  Some of you may remember that.  I know the mayor does.  I don’t have to tell anybody here that these have been difficult times for Ohio and difficult times for the country.  And when I was here last, America was losing 700,000 jobs per month.  Our economy was shrinking.  Plants and businesses right here in Ohio were closing.  And we knew that if we failed to act, then things were only going to get much worse. 

That’s why, with the support of Sherrod Brown, but also members of the House of Representatives Mary Jo Kilroy, Steve Driehaus and Charlie Wilson, who are all here -- wave, guys -- that’s why these folks worked so hard to pass the Recovery Act, which cut taxes for middle-class families, that way boosting demand; cutting taxes for small businesses so that they could make payroll and keep their doors open; extending unemployment insurance and COBRA to help folks make it through some really tough times; to rebuild our infrastructure and make investments that would spur additional investments from the private sector and strengthen our country in the long run.  That’s what the Recovery Act was all about.

And since then, here in Ohio, nearly 2,400 small businesses have gotten loans to keep their doors open and their workers on payroll, 4.5 million families have gotten tax cuts to help pay their bills and put food on the table, some 450 transportation projects are underway or have been completed, and more than 100,000 Ohioans are at work today as a result of these steps.  And today, I return to Columbus to mark a milestone on the road to recovery:  the 10,000th project launched under the Recovery Act.  That’s worth a big round of applause.

And I want to thank Secretary Ray LaHood, who has been instrumental in so many of the projects that have taken place.  He has done an outstanding job, as have our other agencies in administering these programs.

Now, these projects haven’t just improved communities.  They’ve put thousands of construction crews -- just like this one -- to work.  They’ve spurred countless small businesses to hire because -- these are some big guys here, so they got to eat -- which means that you got to get some food brought in -- or the local restaurants here benefit from the crews being here at work.  It means that instead of worrying about where their next paycheck is going to come from, Americans across the country are helping to build our future -- and their own futures.

Now, as my friend Joe Biden -– who has done a great job overseeing the Recovery Act -- would say, this is a big deal. And I think it’s fitting that we’ve reached this milestone here in this community, because what you’re doing here is a perfect example of the kind of innovation and coordination and renewal that the Recovery Act is driving all across this country. 

A lot of people came together to make this day possible -- business and government, grass-roots organizations, ordinary citizens who are committed to this city’s future.  And what you’re starting here is more than just a project to repair a road –- it’s a partnership to transform a community. 

Mayor Coleman was describing for me how all these pieces fit together on the way over here.  So the city is using recovery dollars to rebuild the infrastructure.   And because of that, in part, the hospital is expanding its operations to take even better care of more people, more children, here in Columbus and throughout Ohio, which means they’re hiring more people.

So together, you’re creating more than 2,300 new jobs and sending a powerful message that this neighborhood will soon be a place where more families can thrive, more businesses can prosper, economic development that’s being sparked today is going to continue into the future.  And my understanding is, because the hospital is now growing, that means they’re putting money back into the neighborhood for housing and other facilities so that the entire community starts rebuilding.

Ultimately, that’s the purpose of the Recovery Act –-not just to jump-start the economy and get us out of the hole that we’re in right now, but to make the investments that will spur growth and spread prosperity and pay dividends to our communities for generations to come. 

Since I was here last year, we’ve begun to see progress all across the country.  Businesses are beginning to hire again.  Our economy, which was shrinking by 6% when I was sworn in, is now growing at a good clip, and we’ve added jobs for six out of the past seven months in this country.  We were losing 700,000 jobs a month; for the last six out of the last seven months, we’ve increased jobs here in the United States of America, in part because of the policies that these members of Congress were willing to step up and implement.

Now, I’m under no illusion that we’re where we need to be yet.  I know that a lot of families and communities have yet to feel the effects of the recovery in their own lives.  There are still too many people here in Ohio and across the country who can’t find work; many more can’t make ends meet.  And for these folks, the only jobs we create that matter are the ones that provide for their families. 

So while the recovery may start with projects like this, it can’t end here.  The truth is if we want to keep on adding jobs, if we want to keep on raising incomes, if we want to keep growing both our economy and our middle class, if we want to ensure that Americans can compete with any nation in the world, we’re going to have to get serious about our long-term vision for this country and we’re going to have to get serious about our infrastructure. 

And I want to say a few words about infrastructure generally.  Along with investments in healthcare education, clean energy and a 21st century financial system that protects consumers and our economy, rebuilding our infrastructure is one of the keys to our future prosperity.
 
If we’re going to rebuild America’s economy, then we’ve got to rebuild America, period -- from the ports and the airways that ship our goods, to the roads and the transit systems that move our workers and connect cities and businesses. 

Now, some of this work involves fixing infrastructure that’s already in place -- patching up roads, repairing bridges, replacing old sewer lines.  And the Recovery Act has made important investments in all these things.  I mean we’ve got a huge backlog of work just with the infrastructure that we’ve got that could put hundreds of thousands of people to work all across the country -- just repairing roads that we already have and fixing sewer lines that are badly in need of repair.

But here’s the thing, Columbus. Repairing our existing infrastructure is not enough.  We can’t build an economy that sustains our kids and our grandkids just by relying on the infrastructure that we inherited from our parents and our grandparents. 

We can’t let other countries get the jump on us when it comes to broadband access.  There’s no reason why Europe or China should have the fastest trains instead of the United States.  There’s no reason that Germany or other countries in Europe should have the newest factories that manufacture clean energy products instead of us right here in the United States. 

That’s why the Recovery Act has been making unprecedented investments in clean energy, spurring America’s businesses to build some of the world’s largest wind and solar projects right here in the United States of America.  I said this once at a State of the Union address:  America does not settle for second place.  And we’re going to make the investments to make sure we are first in the future -- not just in the past.  That’s got to be our priority.  That’s why we’re bringing high-speed Internet to 10 thousands of homes -- tens of thousands of homes, and businesses and hospitals and schools.  It’s why Ray LaHood is helping to lead a surge in new investment in high-speed rail.  That’s why we’re investing in electronic medical records. 

A year ago, American businesses had just 2% of the market in the production of electric car batteries that power the vehicles of the future.  All these hybrid cars that have electric batteries?  Those batteries were made someplace else; we only had 2% of them.  We made investments in the Recovery Act, and by 2015, U.S. companies are going to have 40% of the global market.  We have created an advanced battery manufacturing facility -- facilities right here in the United States that are going to allow us to maintain that cutting edge.

From the very first railroads to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete.  And you know, the history of Ohio is a testament to that.  Nearly two centuries ago, our nation’s first federally funded highway -- the National Road -- was extended across Ohio, bringing a generation of settlers west to this new frontier, and paving the way for the automobile that would transform our landscape. 

And for our economy to thrive in this new century, we’ve got to act with that same sense of purpose and that same spirit of innovation.  That’s why the recovery is just beginning -- just the beginning of the investments we’re going to have to make for years on our infrastructure.  It’s just the beginning of the work of increasing our mobility and our productivity, reducing congestion, reducing pollution, creating good jobs that can’t be shipped overseas. 

Because we know what we can achieve when we act boldly and invest wisely. We’re seeing it right here in this community.  We see it in this hospital and the depths of its commitment to this city. We see it in the city leaders who saw a need and an opportunity in this neighborhood and decided to act. We see it in the folks right here who are ready to get to work building this road and providing for their families. And I’m confident that we’ll soon see it in new families and businesses that are calling this area home.

It is with that vision of a brighter future -- for this city and for the country -- that we begin this project, and I am looking forward to seeing all that you achieve in the years and months to come.

So thank you. Congratulations for the great work you guys are doing. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.