The Quiet Closing of Congress and Government

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113th Congress, America, Barack Obama, civil war, Congress, Democrats, divided, Economy, Education, Elite, Federalism, Food Stamps, History, housing assistance, Infrastructure, Medicaid, Medicare, middle class, national defense, Poor, Poverty, power, power control, power grab, President, President Barack Obama, Republicans, Rich, Sequestration, SNAP, Social Security, States, Tea Party, U.S, U.S. Government, United States, Washington D.C., wealthy

Conservative Republicans in our nation’s capital have managed to accomplish something they only dreamed of when Tea Partiers streamed into Congress at the start of 2011: They’ve basically shut Congress down. Their refusal to compromise is working just as they hoped: No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform.

It’s as if an entire branch of the federal  government — the branch that’s supposed to deal directly with the nation’s problems, not just execute the law or interpret the law but make the law — has gone out of business, leaving behind only a so-called “sequester” that’s cutting deeper and deeper into education, infrastructure, programs for the nation’s poor, and national defense.

The window of opportunity for the President to get anything done is closing rapidly. Even in less partisan times, new initiatives rarely occur after the first year of a second term, when a president inexorably slides toward lame duck status.

But the nation’s work doesn’t stop even if Washington does. By default, more and more of it is shifting to the states, which are far less gridlocked than Washington. Last November’s elections resulted in one-party control of both the legislatures and governor’s offices in all but 13 states — the most single-party dominance in decades.

This means many blue states are moving further left, while red states are heading rightward. In effect, America is splitting apart without going through all the trouble of a civil war.

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, for example, now controls both legislative chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in more than two decades. The legislative session that ended a few weeks ago resulted in a hike in the top income tax rate to 9.85%, an increased cigarette tax, and the elimination of several corporate tax loopholes. The added revenues will be used to expand early-childhood education, freeze tuitions at state universities, fund jobs and economic development, and reduce the state budget deficit. Along the way, Minnesota also legalized same-sex marriage and expanded the power of trade unions to organize.

California and Maryland passed similar tax hikes on top earners last year. The governor of Colorado has just signed legislation boosting taxes by $925 million for early-childhood education and K-12 (the tax hike will go into effect only if residents agree, in a vote is likely in November).

On the other hand, the biggest controversy in Kansas is between Governor Sam Brownback, who wants to shift taxes away from the wealthy and onto the middle class and poor by repealing the state’s income tax and substituting an increase in the sales tax, and Kansas legislators who want to cut the sales tax as well, thereby reducing the state’s already paltry spending for basic services. Kansas recently cut its budget for higher education by almost 5 percent.

Other rightward-moving states are heading in the same direction. North Carolina millionaires are on the verge of saving $12,500 a year, on average, from a pending income-tax cut even as sales taxes are raised on the electricity and services that lower-income depend residents depend on. Missouri’s transportation budget is half what it was five years ago, but lawmakers refuse to raise taxes to pay for improvements.

The states are splitting as dramatically on social issues. Gay marriages are now recognized in twelve states and the District of Columbia. Colorado and Washington state permit the sale of marijuana, even for non-medical uses. California is expanding a pilot program to allow nurse practitioners to perform abortions.

Meanwhile, other states are enacting laws restricting access to abortions so tightly as to arguably violate the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. In Alabama, the mandated waiting period for an abortion is longer than it is for buying a gun.

Speaking of which, gun laws are moving in opposite directions as well. Connecticut, California, and New York are making it harder to buy guns. Yet if you want to use a gun to kill someone who’s, say, spray-painting a highway underpass at night, you might want to go to Texas, where it’s legal to shoot someone who’s committing a “public nuisance” under the cover of dark. Or you might want to live in Kansas, which recently enacted a law allowing anyone to carry a concealed firearm onto a college campus.

The states are diverging sharply on almost every issue you can imagine. If you’re an undocumented young person, you’re eligible for in-state tuition at public universities in fourteen states (including Texas). But you might want to avoid driving in Arizona, where state police are allowed to investigate the immigration status of anyone they suspect is here illegally. And if you’re poor and lack health insurance you might want to avoid a state like Wisconsin that’s refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, even though the federal government will be picking up almost the entire tab.

Federalism is as old as the Republic, but not since the real Civil War have we witnessed such a clear divide between the states on central issues affecting Americans.

Some might say this is a good thing. It allows more of us to live under governments and laws we approve of. And it permits experimentation: Better to learn that a policy doesn’t work at the state level, where it’s affected only a fraction of the population, than after it’s harmed the entire nation. As the jurist Louis Brandies once said, our states are “laboratories of democracy.”

But the trend raises three troubling issues.

First, it leads to a race to bottom. Over time, middle-class citizens of states with more generous safety nets and higher taxes on the wealthy will become disproportionately burdened as the wealthy move out and the poor move in, forcing such states to reverse course. If the idea of “one nation” means anything, it stands for us widely sharing the burdens and responsibilities of citizenship.

Second, it doesn’t take account of spillovers — positive as well as negative. Semi-automatic pistols purchased without background checks in one state can easily find their way easily to another state where gun purchases are restricted. By the same token, a young person who receives an excellent public education courtesy of the citizens of one state is likely to move to another state where job opportunity are better. We are interdependent. No single state can easily contain or limit the benefits or problems it creates for other states.

Finally, it can reduce the power of minorities. For more than a century “states rights” has been a euphemism for the efforts of some whites to repress or deny the votes of black Americans. Now that minorities are gaining substantial political strength nationally, devolution of government to the states could play into the hands of modern-day white supremacists.

A great nation requires a great, or at least functional, national government. The Tea Partiers and other government-haters who have caused Washington to all but close because they refuse to compromise are threatening all that we aspire to be together.

Source:  http://www.nationofchange.org/quiet-closing-washington-1370783562

 

Exposed: Canadian Oil and Gas Workers, Major Union Oppose Keystone XL Pipeline

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Alberta Tar Sands, Barack Obama, Canada, Canadian oil and gas workers, Canadian Tar Sands, CEP, Dirty Fossil Fuels, environment, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, exports, greed, Gulf of Mexico, Keystone XL, Keystone XL Pipeline, Leaks, mayflower arkansas, oil spills, tar sands oil, TransCanada, U.S, unions, United States

As President Obama weighs whether to give the Keystone XL pipeline his approval, climate scientists have warned that the volume of greenhouse gases released by the pipeline could push the planet over a climate tipping point. Proponents of the pipeline — which would pump 900,0000 barrels a day of bitumen crude from Alberta’s boreal forests to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico — promise that the economic benefits far out weigh whatever environmental damage ensues. Touting jobs numbers that have long been debunked, a large portion of American labor leadership is still providing working-class cover for the project’s corporate backers.

Amidst the ongoing jobs-vs-environment debate, however, one voice is noticeably absent: the bitumen workers in Canada who are largely against long-term tar sands extraction and the building of the pipeline.

“We’re diametrically opposed to the construction of it,” said David Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP), which represents 35,000 Canadian oil and gas workers, including thousands laboring in the country’s tar sands. “The Keystone XL is not good for the economy, it’s not good for the environment, it violates all kinds of First Nations rights.”

Read more here:  http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/16700-exposed-canadian-oil-and-gas-workers-many-unions-now-oppose-keystone-xl-pipeline

 

Global March Against Monsanto May 25th!

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Barack Obama, Congress, corruption, Deadly, Demonstrations, dirty politics, food supply, Genetically modified food, Genetically modified organism, global, GMOs, greed, Monsanto, Occupy Monsanto, poison, Toxic, U.S, U.S. Government, United States, Washington D.C., world-wide

YOU can join in the activities, too! Check this site to see if there’s a march planned near you:
http://occupy-monsanto.com/march-against-monsanto-may-25-2013/
And learn more about the event at this FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto

Let Monsanto know that We the People won’t tolerate their genetic poisoning of the planet and the food supply!

Info. & links:
GCU@Occupy-Monsanto.com
www.Occupy-Monsanto.com
Twitter.com/GMO917
Facebook.com/GeneticCrimesUnit

John Loeffler, Fountain City, Wisconsin, U.S.A.

 

U.S. Govt. Grants ISPs Immunity To Help Spy On Americans Internet Use!

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Americans, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Congress, congressional oversight, corporations, covert operations, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, DHS, DOD, Enhanced Cybersecurity Services, Fourth Amendment, Illegal, internet, ISPs, justice department, law, National Security Agency, NSA, Obama, Obama Administration, Privacy Act, spying, U.S, U.S. Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution, U.S. Government, Unconstitutional, United States, Wiretapping

In these post-constitutional days it’s not just the government that is out to violate your rights. Count on Corporate America to be a co-conspirator.

In one-two knock-out punch to the Fourth Amendment, officials within the Obama Administration have secretly authorized major telecom firms to intercept communications carried on portions of their networks, C/NET reports, noting that the practice, under federal wiretapping laws, would otherwise be illegal. Carriers include AT&T and other major ISPs – Internet service providers.

Per C/NET:

The secret legal authorization from the Justice Department originally applied to a cybersecurity pilot project in which the military monitored defense contractors’ Internet links. Since then, however, the program has been expanded by President Obama to cover all critical infrastructure sectors including energy, healthcare, and finance starting June 12.

(Question: Before entering politics, wasn’t President Obama some sort of constitutional professor? I’m just asking because that seems relevant here – and because no one in the Praetorian Washington Press Corps is going to. And what copy of the Bill of Rights is Attorney General Eric Holder using?)

‘Alarm bells should be going off’

The justification for this blatant privacy violation, of course, is the same that it always is: It’s for our own safety. But that excuse is just a smokescreen, as Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, observes.

“The Justice Department is helping private companies evade federal wiretap laws,” he said. Rotenberg’s organization obtained over 1,000 pages of internal government documents and provided them to C/NET.

“Alarm bells should be going off,” he told the online magazine.

According to the report, the documents showed that the National Security Agency (NSA), which is located on the grounds of Ft. Meade, Md., and the Defense Department were heavily involved in lobbying for the secret legal authorization. NSA Director Keith Alexander actually participated in some of the discussions personally.

“Despite initial reservations, including from industry participants, Justice Department attorneys eventually signed off on the project,” C/NET said, indicating that Justice officials knew good and well what NSA and DoD was requesting was unconstitutional – that is, before they decided to play along.

As part of the agreement, the Justice Department said it will grant legal immunity to any participating network providers, backed up with what participants in the confidential discussions said were “2511 letters,” in reference to the Wiretap Act codified at 18 USC 2511 in federal statutes.

“The Wiretap Act,” C/NET reported, “limits the ability of Internet providers to eavesdrop on network traffic except when monitoring is a ‘necessary incident’ to providing the service or it takes place with a user’s ‘lawful consent.'”

Apparently not.

No help from Congress

One industry rep told the online magazine that the 2511 letters give ISPs legal immunity – stay-out-of-jail cards, if you will – and a promise from the Justice Department not to prosecute them for any criminal violations of the Wiretap Act. C/NET said it wasn’t clear how many of the 2511s were issued.

Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn, in 2011, publicly disclosed some details of the original project, called the DIB Cyber Pilot. In May 2012, the project was transformed into an ongoing program, which was much broader but still voluntary. It was then the Department of Homeland Security became involved in it for the first time. Renamed the Enhanced Cybersecurity Services program in January, it is currently being expanded once again, this time to all tech and information firms that operate “critical” infrastructure.

If you’re wondering why Congress isn’t outraged and taking action, you should know that this is likely being done with tacit congressional approval. Both the House and Senate intelligence committees, in their oversight role, have almost certainly been briefed about this little Fourth Amendment violation, so don’t expect any help from the Legislative Branch – though clearly Congress has a role, as well as a duty to act. Last month the non-partisan Congressional Research Service published a report concluding the Executive Branch most likely does not have the authority to circumvent the Privacy Act unless Congress changes the law.

I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.

Source:  http://www.naturalnews.com/040196_Fourth_Amendment_cyber_spying_ISPs.html

 

Keystone XL: Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario!

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"dilbit disaster", AAR, Alberta Clipper, Alberta Tar Sands, Anita Dunn, Association of American Railroads, attorney, Barack Obama, barges, Berkshire Hathaway, Big Oil, bitumen, BNSF, Brandon Pollak, Broderick Johnson, Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Canadian Pacific Railway, corporations, corruption, crude oil, Democratic National Committee, Department of Transportation, DeSmogBlog, dilbit, dirty politics, Dunn, employees, fraud, government insiders, greed, investors, John Kerry, Kalamazoo River, Keystone Pipeline, Keystone XL, Keystone XL Pipeline, Lake Superior, lobbyists, Minnesota, Mississippi River, Obama, Obama Administration, oil spills, Organizing for America, power-hungry, railroad, Railway, Rivers, Robert Bauer, Shell Oil, SKDKnickerbocker, tar sands oil, Tar Sands Pipelines, TransCanada, TransCanada Corporation, U.S. State Department, Warren Buffet, White House

Double-dipping is a “no go” in the real world of eating chips and salsa with a circle of friends but an everyday reality in the world of lobbyists and PR professionals.

Enter double-dipper Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director for President Barack Obama who now runs the firm SKDKnickerbocker (Squier Knapp Dunn), a firm that “brings unparalleled strategic communications experience to Fortune 500 companies, political groups and candidates, non-profits, and labor organizations.”

Dip one: TransCanada Corporation, which SKDK does public relations work for, as revealed in an Oct. 2012 New York Times investigation. TransCanada is the multinational corporation currently building the contentious southern half of theKeystone XL (KXL) tar sands pipeline, following the dictates of a March 2012 Obama Administration Executive Order. Within months, the fate of the border-crossing Alberta to Port Arthur, TX KXL export pipeline will also likely be decided by the U.S. State Department.

Dip two: Another SKDKnickerbocker client is the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the American Petroleum Institute trade association equivalent for the freight rail industry. Even without KXL – as covered previously on DeSmogBlog – tar sands crude can be moved to targeted markets via freight rail (coupled with pipeline capacity increases of other tubes and potential barging along Lake Superior).

Beneficiaries of tar sands transport via rail include AAR dues-paying member Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF), owned by major Obama donor Warren Buffett via his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway. Shell Oil – a major Alberta tar sands extractor – also pays AAR member dues, which indicates Big Oil understands the strategic importance of rail transport.

Dunn’s firm, in short, stands to gain from tar sands extraction with or without a KXL northern half, a classic case of double-dipping.

Keystone XL: Dunn’s Obama/Kerry Connections Portend a Dunn and Done Scenario

Dunn has maximized her White House insider access status since leaving the Administration in 2009 and starting SKDK.

“Dunn regularly attends closed-door political strategy briefings with top Obama aides; White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving her communications job,” the Oct. 2012 New York Times piece explained. “She is now serving as a paid adviser to the Democratic National Committee.”

Dunn’s husband Robert “Bob” Bauer also maintains extremely close ties to the Obama Administration, serving as Obama’s personal and political attorney.

“Bauer also will play that role for Obama’s new political network, Organizing for America, and the Democratic National Committee, which is administering the network,” explained a Feb. 2009 article in Politico, “Bauer’s new, unmatched legal power.”

In Nov. 2009, Obama named Bauer White House Counsel, a job he left in June 2011 to return to his private practice at Perkins Coie, “focusing on serving as general counsel to the President’s reelection campaign, general counsel to the Democratic National Committee and personal lawyer to President Obama,” according to the Perkins Coie website.

SKDK’s Bill Knapp, described by the New York Observer‘s Ben Smith (now Editor-in-Chief of BuzzFeed) as “one of the Democratic Party’s most sought-after operatives” helped develop the media strategy and advertising” for Kerry for President 2004 that culminated with a defeat to George W. Bush, while Bauer worked as legal Counsel for Kerry’s campaign. Furthermore, Dunn served as Communications Director from 1987-1990 for then-U.S. Sen. Kerry. The Kerry-lead State Department has the final say on whether the KXL north proposal becomes a reality.

As icing on the cake, numerous TransCanada lobbyists have passed through the government-industry revolving door, entering both executive-level agencies and President Obama’s inner-circle.

Brandon Pollak, served as Deputy National Director of Grassroots Fundraising for the Kerry for President 2004 campaign. Broderick Johnson went from lobbying for TransCanada to becoming Obama’s senior campaign advisor for his 2012 race against Republican Mitt Romney.

With all of these lobbyists using their ties to the White House and State Department, it looks as if the KXL decision is already a checkmate, Dunn and done scenario.

If KXL Fails, There’s Always Rail, Barge, Increased Pipeline Capacity Supplements

Dunn’s firm will cash in with or without KXL due to its client relationship with AAR. Even without KXL – or for that matter even with it – massive amounts of tar sands dilbit are already transported to market by freight rail, a midstream market brought to the public’s attention after the March 2013 Canadian Pacific Rail spill of 30,000 gallons of tar sands bitumen in Minnesota. Canadian Pacific is also an AAR dues-paying member.

In its Aug. 2011 Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), the State Department said that rail currently has the capacity to transport over 1 million barrels of tar sands per day to market.

“Even in a situation where there was a total freeze in pipeline capacity for 20 years, it appears that there is sufficient capacity on existing rail tracks to accommodate shipping…through at least 2030,” the SEIS explained. “[S]tatistics from the Department of Transportation,…conservatively estimated that the existing cross-border rail lines from Canada to the U.S. could accommodate crude oil train shipments of over 1,000,000 bpd (barrels per day).”

As a case in point, BNSF is eager to see KXL fail, seeing it as an economic opportunity of epic proportions for its rails.

“Whatever people bring to us, we’re ready to haul [and if KXL] doesn’t happen, we’re here to haul,” Krista York-Wooley, a spokeswoman for BNSF said in a Feb. 2012 interview with Bloomberg.

Then there’s the option of barging tar sands crude to markets utilizing Lake Superior as a thoroughfare, which Calumet Specialty Products Partners is considering. Platts referred to this proposal as “the Great Lakes option for getting Canadian oil to market.”

Lastly, in Nov. 2012, Enbridge – whose Line 2 recently spilled 600 gallons of oil in Viking, MN and whose Line 6B spewed over 1 million gallons of tar sands bitumen into the Kalamazoo River in what’s now referred to as the “dilbit disaster” – applied for a permit to increase capacity of its Alberta Clipper tar sands pipeline approved by the Obama State Dept. in Aug. 2009. The permit requests an increase in capacity from 450,000 barrels per day to 800,000 barrels per day. The company also applied for a permit to increase Line 6B’s capacity to 500,000 barrels per day in May 2012, up from 240,000 barrels per day.

“We’re very concerned this has flown under the public’s radar,” Peter LaFontaine of the National Wildlife Federation told Bloomberg in a May 1, 2013 story. “The public doesn’t seem to have the same sort of attention for pipeline expansions as they do for pipeline construction. But we’re talking about a lot of crude.”

Cashing in on Destructive Game of Tar Sands “Whac-A-Mole”

In a Nov. 2012 article on rail serving as an alternative midstream method to pipelines for tar sands, Grist Senior Editor Lisa Hymas described the situation as one akin to a game of “Whac-a-Mole.”

“It’s like a big game of Whac-a-Mole, except what’s at stake isn’t a cheap teddy bear at Chuck E. Cheese but the health of the planet and civilization as we know it,” she wrote.

Rather than cashing in on juvenile toys with tokens gained from winning several rounds of Whac-a-Mole, though, Dunn and SKDK are gaining real-life tokens – fat wads of cash – cashing in on this high-stakes game of tar sands Whac-a-Mole.

Source:  http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-s-former-communications-director-s-firm-does-pr-keystone-xl-pipeline-tar-sands-rail-transpor-0

 

Obama Nominates Confessed Bank Scammer, Loan-Shark Mortgage Predator!

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Appointments, banks, Barack Obama, Citigroup, Commerce Department, corruption, crime, crooks, deception, Elite, fraud, Goldman Sachs, greed, Hyatt Hotels, loan sharks, mega-banks, mortgages, nursing homes, Obama, Penny Pritzker, power, Superior Bank, U.S Treasury

Obama has named Penny Pritzker Secretary of Commerce. As the President says, It’s a milestone:  the first female fraudster to hold that post. No longer will criminal bankers have to lobby the administration – because now they’ll have one of their own in the Cabinet.

We never heard of this guy Barack Obama until 2004. Less than three years before taking the presidency, he was in the Illinois state senate, a swamp of scammers, backhanders, and party machine tools – not a stellar launch pad for the White House. And then, one day, state Sen. Barack Obama was visited by his fairy godmother. Her name is Penny Pritzker.

Pritzker’s net worth is listed in Forbes as $1.8 billion, which is one hell of a heavy magic wand in the world of politics. Her wand would have been heavier, and her net worth higher, except that in 2001, the federal government fined her and her family $460 million for the predatory, deceitful, racist tactics and practices of Superior, the bank-and-loan-shark operation she ran on the South Side of Chicago.

Superior was the first of the deregulated go-go banks to go bust – at the time, the costliest failure ever. US taxpayers lost nearly half a billion dollars. Superior’s depositors lost millions and poor folk in Sen. Obama’s South Side district lost their homes.

Penny did not like paying $460 million. No, not one bit. What she needed was someone to give her Hope and Change. She hoped someone would change the banking regulators and the Commerce Department so she could get away with this crap.

Pritzker introduced Obama, the neophyte state senator, to the Ladies Who Lunch (that’s really what they call themselves) on Chicago’s Gold Coast. Obama got lunch, gold and better – an introduction to Robert Rubin. Rubin is a former Secretary of the Treasury, former chairman of Goldman Sachs and former co-chairman of Citibank. Even atheists recognized Rubin as the Supreme Deity of Wall Street.

Rubin opened the doors to finance industry vaults for Obama. Extraordinarily for a Democrat, Obama in 2008 raised three times as much from bankers as his Republican opponent.

So what did Citibank’s Rubin get for showering Obama with gold? Obama agreed to take care of Rubin’s poodles, Larry Summers and Tim Geithner. They became Obama’s first cabinet picks: Summers as Economics Czar and Geithner as his czarina, Secretary of the Treasury.

Geithner and Summers were the gents who, under Treasury Secretary Rubin, designed the deregulation of banking. In effect, they had decriminalized the kind of financial flim-flammery that brought the planet to its knees while bringing Rubin, Pritzker and the banksters loads of lucre.

So, in 2008, Summers and Geithner were put back in the saddle – Obama’s horse but Rubin’s saddle.

Rubin received more than $100 million from Citigroup, the gargantuan commercial bank/investment bank/casino created by deregulation. It is worth a mention that Rubin’s centi-million-dollar payoff went unchallenged by Citi’s new owner, the US Treasury, which had put up more than a trillion dollars in loans and guarantees to pull Rubin’s creature out of bankruptcy.

Rubin rocked, but Penny was pissed off. Pritzker had taken this state senator/community organizer from the ghetto, made him a US Senator, then, as Obama’s campaign finance chairwoman, raised a mind-blowing three-quarters of a billion dollars to make him president.

In return, in 2008, Obama decided to make his patron Penny the Secretary of Commerce. But then, in November 2008, just as Obama was about to submit her nomination to Congress, a bunch of Pritzker’s victims marched on Washington. They were not from her busted bank, but unhappy workers from the lucrative nursing homes that her family owns through a string of complex offshore trusts. Obama slammed the door on Penny pronto.

The Pritzker family made its billions mostly from Hyatt Hotels and Hyatt nursing homes. Penny, on the Hyatt board of directors, is an infamously combative anti-union apostle. UNITE HERE, the union that represents Hyatt workers, has called for an international boycott of Hyatt hotels. In 2012, UNITE HERE and its parent, the AFL-CIO, were crucial to Obama’s winning Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. So, in this last campaign, Obama had to keep his billionairess heiress on the down-low.

Obama appeared to keep the door shut on Pritzker throughout the 2012 campaign, reducing her to hosting an election fundraiser at her Gold Coast digs, which she had to bill as a Goldman Sachs PAC event. This marks possibly the first time and last time anyone used Goldman Sachs as a PR cover.

But today, with the unions’ money and votes already pocketed and counted, Obama can give working folks The Finger and give Penny her pound of flesh: the Commerce post.

The New York Times says that, “At Commerce, Ms. Pritzker could provide the president with a new way to reach out to the business community.” The last time Pritzker reached out to the business community was to sell them sub-prime mortgage securities, worthless bags of financial feces manufactured by Superior Bank.

By giving Penny, the Piggy Banker, Commerce, we have to change Obama’s rating to sub-prime.

I do note that some woman’s organizations are applauding the appointment of the first female to the Commerce post.  But I prefer to honor the victims of the Chicago femme fatale.  Most of Penny’s victims, busted bank borrowers and underpaid health care workers, are women, too. But, unlike those wounded and destroyed by Pritzker, she worked hard for her money: it was not easy inheriting her first billion from her daddy.

Source:  http://www.nationofchange.org/billionaire-bankster-penny-pritzker-breaks-obama-s-cabinet-1367591751

THE MOTHER OF ALL CONSPIRACIES OR THE TERRIBLE TRUTH?!

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Agenda 21, Al Gore, algae, algae jet fuel, Americans, Baltic Sea, Barack Obama, Berkshire Hathaway, Billionaires, bio-fuels, Blackstone Group, BP, Bush Administration, carbon dioxide, chemtrails, Chesapeake Bay, clean energy, climate change, CO2, Colorado, Congress, Constellation Energy, conversion, Corexit, Craig Venter, Dead Zone, Death, Deepwater Horizon, Deepwater Horizon oil spill, depopulation, destruction, DNA, DOD, earth, Elite, Elitists, Energy, environmental catastrophe, environmental disaster, Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, ExxonMobil, farmers, fertilizer, GE, George Soros, Global Warming, globalists, GM, Goldman Sachs, Great Lakes, greed, Gulf of Mexico, Halliburton, Holocaust, Koch Brothers, Lake Erie, Life, major waterways, Martek Biosciences, Mississippi River, money, Nalco, New World Order, nitrates, nitrogen, Obama Administration, oceans, Ogallala Aquifer, oil, oil companies, One World Government, OriginOil Inc., Pat Stryker, planet, politicians, power-hungry, President, renewable oil, research, seas, sell, Sequestration, South America, stocks, Synthetic Genomics, T. Boone Pickens, technology, Transocean, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Military, United States, University of Chicago, Warren Buffet, water, Water resources, water scarcity, water shortages, world

I bring this information to the public with a very heavy heart. Some journalists revel in being able to expose the type of dramatic conspiracy contained in this article. I take no such pleasure in bringing this to your attention. I will receive no awards or accolades, nor do I seek any. I am setting myself up to be criticized as “one of those conspiracy theorists” with too much time on his hands who has nothing better to do with my time than to invent wild tales of corruption in an attempt to draw attention to myself. I will not be invited on Coast to Coast AM, to reveal my findings to an audience of 12 million people. Perhaps, 10-20 thousand people will actually take the time to read the stunning facts contained in the following paragraphs. What I am trying to accomplish is to start a chain reaction that will culminate in waking up a majority of the public in order to rise up against the abject evil that runs our country. This article is controversial, and I might not actually believe it myself except that every fact in this article is true.

This article is structured in such a way that if the reader takes the time to follow the evidence trail, there can only be one conclusion that makes any sense.

Specifically, this article will detail the following:

1. The globalists through their government minions are in the process of destroying massive bodies of water including, but not limited to Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The destruction is not because of neglect, it is willful destruction with very ulterior motives in mind.
2. The globalists are using nitrates from fertilizer and Corexit to accomplish their desire to create a dead zone in the aforementioned bodies of water.
3. The globalists are creating water dead zones which will allow the proliferation of algae growth and the oil companies have initially led the charge to convert our energy usage from oil to algae.
4. Prominent globalists are involved in this conspiracy and have contributed massive resources to this endeavor.
5. Prominent globalists are attempting to buy up as much water as possible to exacerbate the destruction of water resources in the aforementioned areas. In other words, Americans are looking at extreme water scarcity from which the globalists can wage wars and force submission to their will, while at the same time carry out their stated depopulation agenda.
6. My instincts tell me that this conspiracy has more breadth and depth than what is revealed here and it is my sincere hope that my fellow researchers will afford some much needed attention to these issues, because I strongly believe there is more to learn and we do not have much time because humanity’s fate hangs in the balance.

How many times in the history of the insurance industry, have individuals or businesses been caught setting fire to their homes and businesses in order to receive a lucrative payout of insurance money? This is exactly what BP and Exxon are doing. They are intentionally burning down their own home (oil) in order to construct a behemoth palace (bio-fuels).

From Parts Five and Six of this series, it was conclusively proven that BP, Goldman Sachs, Transocean and Halliburton prepositioned (e.g. BP stock dumping) themselves to make money from the destruction of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig. However, there is a lot more going on in the Gulf than a handful of corporations each making hundreds of millions of dollars from their contrived role in the oil spill. The motive to destroy the Gulf holds the promise of making certain entities and individuals multi-trillions of dollars.

The Obama administration and many others (individual billionaires, select politicians, BP, Exxon, Nalco, GM, GE, Goldman Sachs, University of Chicago, and many others including the Department of Defense) are all deeply invested in bio-fuels. These billionaire psychopaths will willingly sacrifice the Gulf and all of its residents for this multi Trillion Dollar industry representing a new era of energy applications.

Algae Will Replace Oil As the Nation’s Energy Source

Nitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are being used to systematically create dead zones in large bodies of water in the United States. The use of nitrogen fertilizers and Corexit are accomplishing the same result. This is no coincidence, as the tragedy in the Gulf was perpetrated to accomplish this end.

Farmers apply nitrogen fertilizer to crops to increase yield. Farmers are compensated by the government for crop yield. Therefore, farmers overload the soil. Plants absorb only 30 to 50% of the nitrogen, so as much as 70%, or 87 pounds per acre will end up running off into the nearest body of water. The only thing that grows in this environment is algae. Therefore, nitrogen has a decided evil side as it is creating huge problems with major bodies of water that we are only now beginning to understand. The EPA is aware of the problem, yet remains silent on the issue.

Chesapeake Bay is polluted beyond repair in which massive fish kills, general habitat degradation and bacteria proliferation threatens the health of humans. The damage is rampant. This massive pollution, resulting from the nitrogen runoffs resulting from agricultural endeavors, fills the Chesapeake Bay and, again, the only substance which flourishes in the bay is algae.

Each and every spring, excess fertilizer is deposited into the Mississippi River which eventually ends up in the Gulf of Mexico, thus causing a massive algae bloom that leads to a giant oxygen-deprived “dead zone” where fish can’t survive. And the same thing is going on in the Great Lakes in places like Lake Erie.

Following the Gulf oil spill, and against all common sense, the most lethal form of dispersant, Corexit, was used to treat the oil spill. Instead, what happened is that the spill has resulted in the creation of the second largest dead zone body of water in the world; second only to the Baltic Sea. And, as the reader will discover later in this article, the new energy craze among the so-called environmentalists is algae.

In isolation, we seem to only be looking at a pollution problem that the EPA should deal with. Simply put, the use of nitrogen fertilizer and Corexit should be banned. However, when we look at the totality of the Corexit/nitrogen problem being used to destroy our water supplies, one should immediately sit up and take notice.
Once one understands that Algae proliferates in an otherwise dead zone of water, then one will understand why Corexit was used in the Gulf. And when one understands that fact, one can only conclude that Gulf oil spill was not an accident as it marks the ushering in of a new era in which the bio-fuel, algae, will replace oil. And, amazingly, the oil companies are among those who are behind this plot to destroy major bodies of water in order to allow for the propagation of algae.

President Obama is also participating in this conspiracy against humanity. On March 15, 2013, President Obama announced that it is his intention to move American vehicles away from oil to bio-fuels. Obama, amazingly in this period of Sequestration, has asked Congress for two billion dollars to expand research in this area. And isn’t it an interesting coincidence that the President’s science advisor,John Holdren, in 2009, advocated for “fertilizing” the oceans? I remember that most people thought Holdren had lost his mind when he proposed this as a solution for global warming. However, in the context of creating dead zones through the use of Corexit and nitrogen fertilizers, his suggestion makes a great deal of sense in light of today’s heightened interest in bio-fuels. This cannot be described as anything but psychopathic thinking in that the EPA would allow nitrogen fertilizers to destroy major bodies of water in which only algae can grow. And that this administration would even entertain the idea of creating oceanic dead zones through fertilizing these bodies of water is nothing but pure insanity. It is dangerous to the entire well-being of the planet. But of course, we are dealing with psychopaths.

How many brush fires equals an all-out forest fire? How many coincidences does it take to make a conspiracy? For those who think that there are some interesting thoughts presented here, but the conspiracy angle of destroying major bodies of water to foster the growth of algae needs more proof, let’s take a look at a variable which will connect all the dots.

Amazingly, the oil companies are attempting to lead the way in the process of converting our energy sources from oil to bio-fuels such as algae.

Burning Down Their Own Houses

I began to realize that many of our major bodies of water were being destroyed and all that was necessary to reverse the destruction was to halt the use of nitrogen fertilizers. Then I discovered that Corexit creates the same kind of dead zones just like nitrogen which also was unnecessary in its use because a less virulent dispersant could have been used in the Gulf. Did you know that Corexit is banned in 19 countries? It was at that moment that the light went on for me as I realized that we were witnessing the systematic destruction of major bodies of water on a grand scale. This was coupled with my discovery that the oil companies appear to be preparing to transition from oil to algae.

In August of 2009, BP entered into a partnership with Martek Biosciences to study the use of algae to convert sugar into biodiesel. Eight months later, BP’s and Transocean’s “negligence” led to the oil spill which gravely impacted the food chain, poisoned all life forms in the Gulf and dealt an eventual death blow to the Gulf by creating a massive series of dead zones where nothing will grow, except for algae, for generations to come.

BP is not alone with regard to a major oil company’s foray into the algae business. ExxonMobil entered into a partnership with Synthetic Genomics in order to develop energy’s next king, bio-fuels from algae. From this work, it was discovered that Corexit increases the bioaccumulation of petroleum hydrocarbons into golden-brown algae. For oil companies to be involved in algae conversion is the metaphorical equivalent of burning down your own house in order to collect the insurance money, and this is precisely what they did to the Gulf.

These facts certainly beg the question as to why BP and Exxon Mobil would be investing in a technology which would threaten their only viable product, namely oil?

Why Algae?

Algae has the potential to avoid most of the problems of conventional bio-fuels production, such as competition with food crops, and in principle can have dramatic effects on carbon dioxide emissions, even consuming emissions from sources such as coal-fired power plants.

The major problem with using algae as the next bio-fuel is that the fuel yields from algae are still too low for it to be a break-even proposition. However, if that problem were to be solved, algae would be king because it is such a low-maintenance substance. In a related and stunning development, Exxon has partnered with Craig Venter, the pioneer of DNA research. Venter has a stellar record of achievement in his work on the human genome. If anyone can solve the algae yield problem, Venter would the guy. However, if Venter cannot solve the problem of algae yield, OriginOil, Inc. is developing a novel technology which will transform algae into a source of renewable oil. Below is a depiction of the process.

It Is Not a Conspiracy Until You Follow the Money

Readers need to keep in mind, that Exxon and BP began moving into the algae business several months prior to the Gulf oil spill and BP and its partners have been caught pre-positioning their stock moves to maximize profits and minimize losses IN ADVANCE of the oil spill event. And now they are leading the way to convert the nation from oil to algae energy use. These twin giant oil companies have had a lot of help in making this massive conversion a reality. George Soros is involved in “clean energy conversion” away from oil. Readers may recall from Part Six of this series proved that Soros financial interests were among the top five of financial institution which dumped BP stock a few short weeks before the oil spill, thus, making him a co-conspirator. And now Soros is heavily invested in Gulf algae farms as he has invested $1 billion dollars in the endeavor.

The US military invested $35 million dollars in algae jet fuel. Blackstone Group consulted with the Chesapeake Bay region energy provider Constellation Energy to sell company to Warren Buffet and his company Berkshire Hathaway. Buffet is majorly involved in bio-fuels and the algae laden Chesapeake Bay is prime hunting ground for this globalist. Al Gore is also involved in various algae projects as well. The same cast of characters keep rearing their ugly faces in their attempt to subjugate humanity while at the same time make a King’s ransom in the process.

Conclusion

T. Boone Pickens is well on his way to controlling the vast Ogallala Aquifer. Pat Stryker and Koch brothers are involved in garnering Colorado’s water resources in the beta test battleground for Agenda 21. Did you know that that it is illegal in Colorado to reuse irrigation water and to catch rain water? We should be asking ourselves why. Additionally, the Bush family controls the biggest water aquifer in South America. Meanwhile, the globalists are destroying vast amounts water resources in the United States. It seems that the globalists are hell-bent on creating water scarcity.

I do not believe that the globalists only motive is to destroy the Gulf and fresh water supplies so that their new biofuel craze can take hold. I think this is a byproduct to what the central planners are truly after, control over all water which will result in control over who lives and dies. This and more will be covered in the next installment of the Great Gulf Coast Holocaust.

Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.

The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.

Source:  http://www.thesleuthjournal.com/the-mother-of-all-conspiracies-pt-7/

 

The World is a Battlefield

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Barack Obama, Dick Cheney, Dirty Wars, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, Donald Rumsfeld, drone strikes, Drones, George W. Bush, global, Global Dominance, Jeremy Scahill, Karl Rove, National Security Agency, NSA, Obama, terrorism, U.S, United States, War, world-wide

Jeremy Scahill on ‘Dirty Wars‘ and Obama‘s Expanding Drone Strikes!

And Americans wonder why the world despises us so, and creates terrorist events in the U.S.! Maybe we should stop waging wars in the 7+ countries we are currently engaged in!

 

Is Barack Obama Really Barry Soetoro?

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Barack Obama, Barry Soetoro, birth name, deception, Federal Government, felony, Lawyers, lies, multiple, name change, Obama, President, Records, sealed, United States

When did Barack Obama change his name?

Answer:

He did not change his name. Barack Obama has always been Barack Obama. For a brief period of time, he did have a nickname, “Barry” Obama.This above answer is not correct in any respect. Obama was adopted by his stepfather, which changed his name to Barry Soetoro. This is the name reflected on his Indonesian school records, as well as; his high school yearbook. By Obama’s own admission he changed his name back in 1982.

This has generated new claims of Obama’s deceptive nature, for it appears that his selective service record reflects the name Barrack H Obama. Other than the misspelling of his own name, he claims to have registered in 1979 after high school graduation while living in Hawaii. However, registration was not available in 1979, and the misspelled registration shows Sept 1980. This is the time he maintains he was attending Occidental when he was actually a resident of Los Angeles.

This presents a dilemma in regards to the fact that failure to register was, and still is a serious felony. However, falsifying such a registration by using anything but his lawful name compounds that crime in in multiple ways.

Failure to register would have made him ineligible for his financial aid in college, which would be a third criminal felony of defrauding the federal government.

The registration alone would immediately disqualify him from holding any Executive branch position, as well as; nullify his Senate election. This is what some believe to be the true reason he has expended over one and a half million dollars to keep all his records sealed, not because he might fail to meet the Constitutional birth requirements to serve legally as POTUS.

In fact, the three strike law would qualify him for a legal sentence of life in prison without parole.

Unfortunately there are no records that would validate or invalidate when or even if he reverted back to his birth name, for he continues to block access to all records that would clarify the answer, even his kindergarten records are blocked by Obama’s legal dreamteam.

Source:  http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Barack_Obama_change_his_name

 

CISPA CYBER-SECURITY BILL PASSES HOUSE!

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Barack Obama, CISPA, Congress, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act, Cybersecurity Bill, invasion, law, lawmakers, Obama, privacy, Senate, U.S. Government, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, United States, United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, White House

The US House of Representatives has passed the controversial Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protect Act (CISPA).

Lawmakers in the House voted 288-to-127 Thursday afternoon to accept the bill. Next it will move to the Senate and could then end up on the desk of US President Barack Obama for him to potentially sign the bill into law. Earlier this week, though, senior White House advisers said they would recommend the president veto the bill.

Should CISPA earn the president’s autograph, private businesses will be encouraged to voluntarily share cyberthreat information with the US government. The authors of the bill say this is an effort to better combat the reportedly increasing attempts to harm America’s critical computer networks and pilfer the systems of private companies for intellectual property and other sensitive trade secrets.

Read more here:  http://rt.com/usa/congress-house-bill-cispa-031/