Should we working slobs stop using the US dollars. Abandonment of a debased national currency has happened in many (3rd World) countries, and may have to happen here to stop this. why I feel this way.
I cant imagine how hard the rising cost of living must be effecting our elderly on very fixed incomes.
now think of all of the persons that work for walmart and get .25 more than min wage .they
have to pay 600.00 for rent 160.00 elec , they get food stamps of maybe 125.oo and have to put 200.00 with it to just get though the month, gas to get to work and back and to pick up the 2.5 kids comes up to about 80.00 a week car ins 0f 125.00 a month .
as you can see both in that family has to work there is no other way to get around it, and would make you mad is that those who rent know that and move rent up more and more but keep the same stove that is 12 years old ,and they some times put a new coat of paint up now and then every 3 years. you pay a down payment and they work that right away from you, they should call it a gift fund as you will never get all of it back .
Rents have definitely gone up. Food is very expensive. Insurance keeps going up.
I was on the phone today with a friend in Maine.
She says that the state has passed a law that says everybody can have health insurance. Insurance companies can't say no, so how do they compensate? They raise the premiums. She just had a baby and is paying $650 a month in premiums for her and the baby. (Husband is on a separate policy.) Next year her premium goes up to $800 -- she can't afford it!
Anyone who has been to the supermarket lately knows that the cost of food is increasing. Energy costs have risen 2.9 percent over the past year, but food costs have increased 3.7 percent.
I am becoming increasingly frustrated over the fact that the cost of everything is up (gas, electric, water, taxes, groceries, dinning out, day care, insurance, etc etc). However the American people are still being paid the same. The average I am becoming increasingly frustrated over the fact that the cost of everything is up (gas, electric, water, taxes, groceries, dinning out, day care, insurance, etc etc). However the American people are still being paid the same. The average cost of living raise is only 2%, that is not enought to amount to a hill of beans.
As the OP noted, prices on everything (other than wages) are increasing. When prices of most everything go up across the board it is a sign the currency those prices are posted in is becoming worth less -- sometimes on the way to worthless.
If you also note that the dollar is going worthless to other currencies -- FT.com / MARKETS / Currencies - Dollar hits fresh 15-year low -- while wages here (as measured in US dollars) stay near the same, it points to one thing. The working slobs of America, who are forced to use and trade in the dollar are taking a pay cut to support the upper-end of America, who profit from the debt and debasing of the currency, because they now trade in Euros, Yen, oil, and metals, while enjoying tax cuts that increase debt and further debase the dollar.
About the only way out for the working slobs is to stop using US dollars. Abandonment of a debased national currency has happened in many (3rd World) countries, and may have to happen here to stop this.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Some thing is just wrong
Today I was wondering--
how does Gas compare to other things I buy pretty regularly...
price of milk: $2.99/gal
price of Dr Pepper: $8.00/gal (.75/can)
price of Chai at SB: $28.00/gal (3.50/large)
glad they don't list those things like that!
The other day milk was selling in a New England supermarket at $4.79 a gallon. Down the street, regular gasoline was going for about $3.04 a gallon.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
how does Gas compare to other things I buy pretty regularly...
price of milk: $2.99/gal
price of Dr Pepper: $8.00/gal (.75/can)
price of Chai at SB: $28.00/gal (3.50/large)
glad they don't list those things like that!
The other day milk was selling in a New England supermarket at $4.79 a gallon. Down the street, regular gasoline was going for about $3.04 a gallon.
The 400-page report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, entitled Livestock’s Long Shadow, also surveys the damage done by sheep, chickens, pigs and goats. But in almost every case, the world’s 1.5 billion cattle are most to blame. Livestock are responsible for 18 per cent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
why pay some one for that they did not do
Washington DC lawyer Richard Stepp
is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law. The US Postal Service is claiming lost revenue, due to the proliferation of E-mail, is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign: "There is nothing like a letter." Since the average person received about 10 pieces of E-mail per day in 1998, the cost of the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents a day - or over $180 per year - above and beyond their regular Internet costs.
Note that this would be money paid directly to the US Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and noninterference. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureaucratic efficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from coast to coast.
If the US Postal Service is allowed to tinker with E-mail, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States.
Congressional representative, Tony Schnell (R) has even suggested a "$20-$40 per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the governments proposed E-mail charges. Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of E-mail surcharge "a useful concept who's time has come" (March 6th, 1999 Editorial). Do not sit by and watch your freedom erode away!
Dear Internet Subscriber:
Dear Internet Subscriber:
Please read the following carefully if you intend to stay online and continue using email: The last few months have revealed an alarming trend in the Government of the United States attempting to quietly push through legislation that will affect your use of the Internet. Under proposed legislation the U.S. Postal Service will be attempting to bilk email users out of "alternate postage fees". Bill 602P will permit the Federal Govt to charge a 5 cent surcharge on every email delivered, by billing Internet Service Providers at source. The consumer would then be billed in turn by the ISP. Washington D.C. lawyer Richard Stepp is working without pay to prevent this legislation from becoming law.
The U.S. Postal Service is claiming that lost revenue due to the proliferation of email is costing nearly $230,000,000 in revenue per year. You may have noticed their recent ad campaign "There is nothing like a letter". Since the average citizen received about 10 pieces of email per day in 1998, the cost to the typical individual would be an additional 50 cents per day, or over $180 dollars per year, above and beyond their regular Internet costs. Note that this would be money paid directly to the U.S. Postal Service for a service they do not even provide. The whole point of the Internet is democracy and non-interference. If the federal government is permitted to tamper with our liberties by adding a surcharge to email, who knows where it will end. You are already paying an exorbitant price for snail mail because of bureacratic efficiency. It currently takes up to 6 days for a letter to be delivered from New York to Buffalo. If the U.S. Postal Service is allowed to tinker with email, it will mark the end of the "free" Internet in the United States. One congressman, Tony Schnell (r) has even suggested a "twenty to forty dollar per month surcharge on all Internet service" above and beyond the government's proposed email charges. Note that most of the major newspapers have ignored the story, the only exception being the Washingtonian which called the idea of email surcharge "a useful concept who's time has cometax-free e-mail,
By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful.
State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail.
At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort, coordinated by groups including the National Governors Association, will pay off by permitting them to collect billions of dollars in new revenue by next year.
If that doesn't happen, other taxes may zoom upward instead, warned Sen. Michael Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. "Are we implicitly blessing a situation where states are forced to raise other taxes, such as income or property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue?" Enzi said. "I want to avoid that."
A flurry of proposals that pro-tax advocates advanced this week push in that direction. On Tuesday, Enzi introduced a bill that would usher in mandatory sales tax collection for Internet purchases. Second, during a House of Representatives hearing the same day, politicians weighed whether to let a temporary ban on Net access taxes lapse when it expires on November 1. A House backer of another pro-sales tax bill said this week to expect a final version by July.
"The independent and sovereign authority of states to develop their own revenue systems is a basic tenet of self government and our federal system," said David Quam, director of federal relations at the National Governors Association, during a Senate Commerce committee hearing on Wednesday.
Internet sales taxes
At the moment, for instance, Seattle-based Amazon.com is not required to collect sales taxes on shipments to millions of its customers in states like California, where Amazon has no offices. (Californians are supposed to voluntarily pay the tax owed when filing annual state tax returns, but few do.)
Ideas to alter this situation hardly represent a new debate: officials from the governors' association have been pressing Congress to enact such a law for at least six years. They invoke arguments--unsuccessful so far--like saying that reduced sales tax revenue threatens budgets for schools and police.
But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill. The NetChoice coalition, which counts as members eBay, Yahoo and the Electronic Retailing Association and opposes the sales tax plan, fears that the partisan shift will spell trouble.
One long-standing objection to mandatory sales tax collection, which the Supreme Court in a 1992 case left up to Congress to decide, is the complexity of more than 7,500 different tax agencies that each have their own (and frequently bizarre) rules. Some legal definitions (PDF) tax Milky Way Midnight candy bars as candy and treat the original Milky Way bar as food. Peanut butter Girl Scout cookies are candy, but Thin Mints or Caramel deLites are classified as food.
The pro-tax forces say that a concept called the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement will straighten out some of the notorious convolutions of state tax laws. Enzi's bill, introduced this week, relies on the agreement when providing "federal authorization" to require out-of-state retailers "to collect and remit the sales and use taxes" due on the purchase. (Small businesses with less than $5 million in out-of-state sales are exempted.)
Michigan, Utah Impose Dreaded E-Mail Tax
The two states that have enacted these e-mail laws, Michigan and Utah, can potentially collect millions of dollars per year from e-mail senders.
Cleverly, neither of the two acts uses the word "tax" — and almost no one has recognized the new laws as having this kind of effect.
What The Law Says Vs. What It Does
The Michigan and Utah laws are similar, but not identical, so I'll use the Michigan law here as an illustration. The Michigan act sets up a state "Do Not Contact" registry. Anyone may add e-mail addresses, instant messaging addresses, and telephone numbers to the registry.
Drafters of successful legislation know they need to give it an appealing name, regardless of a bill's actual effect. The Michigan law, therefore, was promoted in the legislature as the "Michigan Children's Protection Registry Act." Obviously, no politician wants to be portrayed as "against protecting children," which is a big reason why bills like these pass.
Under the act, people who send certain otherwise-legitimate e-mail messages (which I'll define later) are guilty of a felony if they send even a single message to an address that's in the registry. If convicted, senders are subject to civil penalties up to $5,000 per message, a criminal fine up to $30,000, and one to three years in prison. Anyone who sends e-mail is required to pay fees every 30 days to check their e-mail list against the state registry.
The Web site that accepts the list registrations for Michigan, known as Protect MI Child, repeats some of the law's great-sounding language about defending children against adult-oriented e-mail. But a closer look reveals that the law has no features that will actually protect children against spam or reduce spam in any way.
Why The Laws Won't Prevent Spam
Instead of protecting children, the laws allow politicians to boast, "We're doing something about spam," while doing nothing but raising state revenues. The legislation is clearly an attempt to evade the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act, which prohibits states from writing antispam laws, and the U.S. Supreme Court, which has struck down laws that restrict adults under the guise of protecting children. As implemented by Michigan, the law is certain to be ineffective in preventing unwanted messages. Consider the following:
• Not limited to state residents. Although the Michigan law talks about protecting the residents of that state, I was able to register any e-mail address I wished. The registry site asks for a street address within the state, but no one bothers to verify this. (I entered the address and phone number of a large Detroit newspaper.) The Michigan registry accepts any e-mail address in the world. You'd have to be a Michigan resident to sue under the law, but wherever in the world you live, your address can get on the list.
• Not limited to minors. The service doesn't even pretend to verify that an e-mail address belongs to a minor. Anyone can enter any address simply by claiming that a minor has access to it. An owner of a domain name can even register an entire dot-com. No one checks the date of birth you happen to claim for your "child."
• No right of class action. If the Michigan law was actually intended to stop unwanted messages, it would include the ability for private parties to file class-action lawsuits against those who advertise in spam. The law, however, provides no such right. You can certainly be charged with a felony and accused of "child abuse" by any kook seeking the act's civil penalty of $5,000 per message. But this sum would never attract an effective lawsuit against a hardcore spammer from a serious lawyer, whose expenses would exceed $5,000 in a single day.
• No exception for solicited e-mail. Remarkably, neither the Michigan nor the Utah law makes any exceptions for legitimate messages that the recipient wants and signed up for. The Michigan law, for example, states, "The consent of a minor or third party to receive the message is not a defense." Individuals can get on the registry, then sign up for your newsletter and sue you, seeking the civil penalty.
• It's a tax on legitimate senders, not a deterrent to spammers. If the Michigan law served a genuine public purpose, there would be no cost for legitimate senders to prune their e-mail lists of Do Not Contact addresses. The state's cost of maintaining the registry would be recouped from fines paid by convicted bad guys. The law's drafters, however, know that no big-time spammers are ever going to be caught using this law. They know the fees required to check the registry are nothing but a tax on legitimate e-mailers.
Spammers have perfected a variety of technical means to hide their identities, such as using e-mail servers in China. By contrast, legitimate publishers -- faced with felony charges that could mean crippling p.r. fallout -- are the only ones who will pay to check their e-mail lists against the Do Not Contact registries.
What Sites Are Your E-Mails Prohibited From Linking To?
The Michigan law makes it a felony to send e-mail to an address on the Do Not Contact list "if the primary purpose of the message is to, directly or indirectly, advertise or otherwise link to a message that advertises a product or service that a minor is prohibited by law from purchasing, viewing, possessing, participating in, or otherwise receiving."
I've seen a few arguments that the "primary purpose" wording would protect publishers of legitimate e-mail newsletters. But that language is vague and hasn't yet been tested. I wouldn't want to stand up before a judge and argue that the primary purpose of one of my e-mails wasn't to link, "directly or indirectly," to other sites that advertised forbidden products.
The list of forbidden products and services, while almost entirely undefined, is certainly very broad. Whether you're guilty of a felony could very well depend on which judge your case is assigned to. Can you be certain your company's e-mail messages will never link to sites advertising products that minors may not "purchase or possess"? How about R-rated DVDs, legal prescription drugs, wineries, fireworks (including sparklers), lotteries (even official state-run lotteries), car rentals, mortgage and financial products, and abortion services (in some states), just to name a few possibilities.
You might say, "That's ridiculous." Yes, it is, but that's how the laws are written, and a single individual can drag your company's name through the court system. As the nonprofit Institute for Spam and Internet Public Policy (ISIPP), headed by attorney Anne Mitchell, points out, "These new laws will affect nearly every commercial email marketer in the United States, and even those outside the United States who maintain some physical presence in the United States."
The fees are being set at high enough levels that interest groups are busily working to impose the charges elsewhere, too. Let's say that only 12 states in total adopt this revenue source. At the rate Michigan is currently charging, your company would be paying $1,000 per year for every 1,000 subscribers to your supposedly "free" e-mail newsletter. And Michigan's statute allows the rate to quadruple.
Conclusion
We'll look at the true costs -- and how such laws got passed in the first placeMonday, October 15, 2007
North American Union here yet ?
North American Union here yet ?
George Bush continues to ridicule questions about a possible North American Union as a "conspiracy theories" while continuing to press an active integration with Mexico and Canada in the remaining months of his second term.
The Bush administration is not listening to the American people, "not even when the House and the Senate vote overwhelmingly in bi-partisan majorities to take the funds for the Mexican trucking demonstration project as a last ditch effort to stop the Department of Transportation from letting unsafe Mexican trucks from rolling across the borders."
Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin issued a joint statement announced the creation of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The creation of this new agreement was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. Instead, the U.S. Department of Commerce merely created a new division under the same title to implement working groups to advance a North American Union working agenda in a wide range of areas, including: manufactured goods, movement of goods, energy, environment, e-commerce, financial services, business facilitation, food and agriculture, transportation, and health.
SPP is headed by three top cabinet level officers of each country. Representing theUnited States Mexico Canada
Its not funny in a ha ha way , however if this all is a large conspiracy theories as Bush said then why is the SPP on the White House web page ?
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn
What real gets me is how the states say they are not going to do it, how ever most States have or are buying land to make the highways .
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
* Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
* The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
* The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.
The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
The SPP - Real ID - Home land security are all below-the-radar-strategy's
I would love to say Look for a very strong backlash coming from the Canadian people, but also from the American and Mexican peoples, once they clearly understand what the Bush-Calderon-Harper trio has been concocting in near complete secrecy and with nearly no public debate whatsoever, over the last few years.
However I have to think that only a few will if ever stand up and say any thing , well lets say that in anther way , I dont think any large group will take action to stop what is coming.
At the same time you have to think what is the poit of the Real ID as it is being sold to the American people when all of this hits the fan.
Now In fact, it could mean a more ambitious project that could go even further than the EU toward economic and political integration in North America. In Europe, the more than two dozen participating countries have retained control over their armed forces and over their foreign policies and, what is very important, no single country exercises a hegemonic control over the entire alliance. That would not be the case in North America, however, because of the overwhelming importance of the United States vis-a-vis the other two countries.
I can see why the Mexican people would like this but the Canadian people will never accept it I would think, the current minority government could pay dearly politically if it continues pushing in that direction.
Many Canadians justly fear that the kind of "Deep Integration" that is being planned and promoted in relative secrecy could lead to the abandonment of an independent Canadian foreign policy, the loss of independence of the Canadian Armed forces, and the loss of national control over Canada's national resources, forcing Canada to abandon the economic rents over its oil and gas reserves, but also over its water and its hydroelectric power.
George Bush continues to ridicule questions about a possible North American Union as a "conspiracy theories" while continuing to press an active integration with Mexico and Canada in the remaining months of his second term.
The Bush administration is not listening to the American people, "not even when the House and the Senate vote overwhelmingly in bi-partisan majorities to take the funds for the Mexican trucking demonstration project as a last ditch effort to stop the Department of Transportation from letting unsafe Mexican trucks from rolling across the borders."
Bush, President Fox and Prime Minister Martin issued a joint statement announced the creation of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” (SPP). The creation of this new agreement was never submitted to Congress for debate and decision. Instead, the U.S. Department of Commerce merely created a new division under the same title to implement working groups to advance a North American Union working agenda in a wide range of areas, including: manufactured goods, movement of goods, energy, environment, e-commerce, financial services, business facilitation, food and agriculture, transportation, and health.
SPP is headed by three top cabinet level officers of each country. Representing the
Its not funny in a ha ha way , however if this all is a large conspiracy theories as Bush said then why is the SPP on the White House web page ?
Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn
What real gets me is how the states say they are not going to do it, how ever most States have or are buying land to make the highways .
As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.
NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.
* Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”
* The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.
* The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.
The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.
A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
The SPP - Real ID - Home land security are all below-the-radar-strategy's
I would love to say Look for a very strong backlash coming from the Canadian people, but also from the American and Mexican peoples, once they clearly understand what the Bush-Calderon-Harper trio has been concocting in near complete secrecy and with nearly no public debate whatsoever, over the last few years.
However I have to think that only a few will if ever stand up and say any thing , well lets say that in anther way , I dont think any large group will take action to stop what is coming.
At the same time you have to think what is the poit of the Real ID as it is being sold to the American people when all of this hits the fan.
Now In fact, it could mean a more ambitious project that could go even further than the EU toward economic and political integration in North America. In Europe, the more than two dozen participating countries have retained control over their armed forces and over their foreign policies and, what is very important, no single country exercises a hegemonic control over the entire alliance. That would not be the case in North America, however, because of the overwhelming importance of the United States vis-a-vis the other two countries.
I can see why the Mexican people would like this but the Canadian people will never accept it I would think, the current minority government could pay dearly politically if it continues pushing in that direction.
Many Canadians justly fear that the kind of "Deep Integration" that is being planned and promoted in relative secrecy could lead to the abandonment of an independent Canadian foreign policy, the loss of independence of the Canadian Armed forces, and the loss of national control over Canada's national resources, forcing Canada to abandon the economic rents over its oil and gas reserves, but also over its water and its hydroelectric power.
Some even fear that the next big step would be the abandonment of the Canadian dollar, in favor of the U.S. dollar, and the loss of independent monetary and fiscal policies.
If this is not the case, where are the safeguards for Canada's sovereignty and independence? where are the safeguards for American sovereignty and independence?
What are the democratic foundations of such an enlarged political union?
What are the political and economic costs relative to the expected economic gains?
There exists no study to my knowledge that evaluates these overall questions in order to form the basis for an enlightened public debate.
I am sure there is its just not for us to see.
Therefore, we have to conclude that the plan for a very "Deep Integration" of Canada within North America is basically flawed, if not fundamentally democratically subversive.
There has been no thorough public debate on the issue for the American people.
There has been no thorough public debate on the issue, even though the minority government would certainly have to consult and persuade Canadians before tabling any special legislation that would need to be enacted before the project could be implemented.
Such a public debate has not taken place yet.
On the contrary, everything seems to have been planned to keep it away from the public eye with all discussions being held behind closed doors.
This should be enough to raise suspicions, you would think
even though the ongoing discussions are not yet legally binding that we know of so far.
In a more or less near future, however, the ad hoc arrangements so discussed are likely to lead to a new formal agreement or even a new treaty between the three countries. This is presently denied, but the logic of the operation militates in favor of the last option.
I personally think the issue is of such paramount importance that sooner or later we need a countrywide referendum on the entire "Deep Integration" project. A general election is not sufficient to settle such a complicated issue, because a single political party can gather a minority of votes and squeeze into power between numerous opposition parties. No fundamental democratic legitimacy for such an important political project can be obtained through a general election. For that, a special national referendum would be required so that the sovereign people can decide.
Indeed, the real overall goal of the "Deep Integration" project goes much further and would ultimately lead to the creation of a North American Union of a political and not only an economic nature, within which the three countries, but especially a smaller country such as Canada, could lose much of their national sovereignty. It would be an economic and political arrangement resembling the European Union, which encompasses more than two dozen countries, but in North America it is to be feared that such a union would have an imperial twist. It would transform NAFTA into a common market and would force the two smaller partners to change all their relevant laws and regulations to conform to American laws and regulations, including toeing the American line on defense and foreign policies. As can be seen, we are quite far from the idea of simply having facilitated border controls for products and people. What these secret meetings are envisaging is more like a new political and comprehensive alliance between the United States, Canada and Mexico. But because of the force of gravity, this also means, in practice, that the United States will turn Canada, and to a certain extent Mexico, into quasi colonies of the U.S. Indeed, the United States is a political elephant that does pretty much what it wants, especially under the Bush-Cheney administration, while Canada and Mexico are, at best, a small beaver in one case, and a small fox in the other. This could have the consequence of considerably reducing the quality of democratic life in Canada. And that's where the rubber hits the road. Once a medium size country accepts a de facto merger of its defence policy with the policy of a much larger one, and all the more so with the United States , it becomes very difficult for the former to maintain an independent foreign policy. Other than the the idea that United States would want to be a empire. Its national sovereignty risks being forever diminished and compromised.
26 cfr ch 1(4-1-03 edition)
I am not at any time telling you that you do not have to pay taxs however information that can be found on the internet and in the IRS books and the law on tax will tell you a lot more information you will have to look at all the laws and sub laws to see and make sure you look at past laws as far back as 1954 to see what tax laws have been changed .
26CFR CH 1 (4-1-03)
voluntary compliance
That you should pay tax , now this not about ALL TAXS let me say this once more not about all taxs just tax on your labor as a American worker. you do work get payed for the work done you are not to be taxed.
There are to many to post here on the Supreme Court case's on irs Tax
its the lower courts that seem to make you pay not The Supreme Court also its the lower courts that put you in jail . Did you know that if the IRS comes after you that they will not fight you in the Supreme Court only in the lower courts and the lower courts will some times not let you use Supreme Court findings for your case.
26CFR CH 1 (4-1-03)
voluntary compliance
That you should pay tax , now this not about ALL TAXS let me say this once more not about all taxs just tax on your labor as a American worker. you do work get payed for the work done you are not to be taxed.
There are to many to post here on the Supreme Court case's on irs Tax
its the lower courts that seem to make you pay not The Supreme Court also its the lower courts that put you in jail . Did you know that if the IRS comes after you that they will not fight you in the Supreme Court only in the lower courts and the lower courts will some times not let you use Supreme Court findings for your case.
IRS Abuse Reports
These IRS Abuse Reports are Sent Daily
to all
U.S. Congressmen
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
IRS Abuse Report #150
Date: Sat, 15 Feb 1997
To: sue@irs.class-action.com
From: JW
Recently, I was told the following by an IRS employee,
and I quote:
'We at the I.R.S. are doing the job we were commissioned
by Congress to do. We are people, like you and your
neighbors, and we don't deserve abuse and attacks from
the citizens we serve.'
Thanks to your web site, I looked him square in the eye
and said:
‘You moron, blaming your employer for making you steal
people's money and harass them is the biggest cop-out I
have ever seen. YOU are responsible for your own
actions. If it weren't for robotic nitwits like you to
carry out unjust laws, we would live in a free society.
It is not just Congress to blame. Any honest person
would find employment elsewhere where he could PRODUCE
profit instead of coercing profit away from those that
do. There is no escaping the fact that YOU are to blame
for assisting in the carrying-out of any injustice your
employer/government asks of you.
Fully-integrated honesty makes it dreadfully clear. I
think it's time you use it and become a valuable,
productive, and conscious MAN. Earn an honest living
instead of destroying what others have worked so hard
for. Blaming what you do on your employer absolves you
of no guilt at all. The admonitory finger of Reason
still points right at you, mister. You absolutely
deserve to be ‘treated shabbily for doing [your] job,’
for by doing it you show yourself to be nothing but a
shabby excuse for a man.
Thanks to Neo-Tech your days are numbered.’
IRS Abuse Report #151
Date: Wed Feb 19 14:48:20 1997
To: sue@irs.class-action.com
From: GP
My husband and I recently (October 1996) settled with
the IRS by an Offer-In-Compromise. This ended a 7-year
battle where the IRS lost files for over 2 years, lied,
never had any accountability, ruined our credit, seized
our bank account WITHOUT prior notification, levied my
husband's income WITHOUT prior notification, and so on.
To be able to pay for the amount as defined by the IRS
as to what they would accept for an Offer In Compromise
(which really didn't compromise anything on the IRS's
part), we had to refinance our home. We closed on
10/8/96 and a check for $23,116 was sent via Federal
Express for delivery on 10/9/96.
Today (2/19/97) I find that there are still liens filed
against my home. I contacted the IRS and was advised
that the Collections division that handles Offers still
show in their computer system that our debt is OWED!!!
THIS IS AN OUTRAGE!!!! We paid our debt and the IRS is
still inflicting their pain on me and my husband. Our
credit is still being flagged for debts that we don't
even owe.
I either want the $23,116 that we paid out PLUS interest
OR I want to see the IRS done away with.
IRS Abuse Report #152
Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997
To: sue@irs.class-action.com
From: AA
I too am on the payment plan with the IRS. I am also
permanently disabled with a congenital cardiac condition
that I recently had surgery for. I waited too long for
the surgery so there was permanent damage to my heart
muscle. I am 49. I do not receive public assistance, I
was fortunate enough to have private disability
insurance coverage. I have worked since I was 14 and
never received any public assistance. A large part of my
insurance payments each month goes to the IRS on a
payment plan to pay back taxes they say I owe. I cannot
afford a tax attorney so I keep paying but with
penalties and interest the principle doesn't go down. I
have been threatened with bank account seizure, which
doesn't amount to much but my credit is still good and I
want to protect it. I don't have property for them to
seize except a car that my wife needs for work. So I
will keep paying, probably for the rest of my life. I
thought the amendment against slavery passed. I suppose
the IRS overseers haven't read the constitution.
IRS Abuse Report #153
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997
To: sue@irs.class-action.com
From: RF
Dear Sir: On February 12 1997, I had the unfortunate
opportunity of the IRS to enter my place of business and
proceed with the closure of same. I was sent a certified
letter on Jan 09,1997 stating that I had thirty days to
respond and I did on Jan 20, 1997 with a registered
letter. The next communication that I had with the IRS
was on February 12. When they entered my business and
proceeded to close such business. They had the locks
changed, put out bids on merchandise that had cost at
wholesale $1919.00 for $638.00. Made the community think
that I had done something Illegal and almost destroyed
my creditability as a business. What really angers me is
their ability to enter a business and do whatever they
like whenever they like. My business is a florist and
bridal, needless to say that the week they entered my
business was the week of Valentines, a florist’s busiest
week of the year. By entering my shop, the IRS, cost me
approximately $8000.00 of business. Is there nothing we
as business people and taxpayers can do other than go
along with the GESTAPO of THE UNITED STATES??? Is there
not a new law that was passed in '96 that prevents the
IRS from Malicious Collection?
IRS Abuse Report #154
Date: Tue Mar 4 18:39:38 1997
To: sue@irs.class-action.com
From: AA
My 73 year old mother (who lives alone on a low fixed
income). She was audited by the IRS last year for her
1993 tax return, which had been prepared by a tax
accountant. She had never been audited before and has
never done anything out of the ordinary or dishonest on
her tax returns. According to the tax accountant in
1993, she owed the IRS about $800, which she scraped
together and paid on time with her return. The IRS wrote
back and said her return was in error. THEY actually
owed HER $1300, they sent her check back and included a
check to her for the $1300! She happily put the check in
her bank account and counted it a blessing.
Now, after last years audit, the IRS told her they had
made a mistake on her 1993 tax return, and that she
actually owed them $3000 plus the $1300 they had paid
her WITH INTEREST!!!, and they wanted the full amount
IMMEDIATELY, or large penalties would begin to accrue.
She had no say in the matter whatsoever. After
consulting with a known good tax accountant, she had to
take the money out of her retirement savings to pay off
the IRS, and the whole incident cost her a great deal of
stress and grief, not to mention the money. Do the
heartless thugs at the IRS have nothing better to do
than harass an elderly woman out of her retirement
savings, because they and/or an accountant screwed up?
These thieves should be put behind bars where they
belong, not running the most corrupt and feared
government institution in our country. Abolish the IRS!
lawsuit against the U.S. Government
n July 2004 almost 2000 Americans filed a landmark lawsuit against the U.S. Government seeking to have the federal Judiciary declare
-- for the first time in history -- the constitutional meaning of the First Amendment Petition clause including the Right of the People to enforce the Right of Petition if Redress is denied.
We The People believes the Right to Petition
is, in fact, the "capstone" Right of the Bill of Rights and that its effect is the direct exercise of Popular Sovereignty -- the First Great Right of the Founding documents that declares government is the servant of Men.
On August 31,2005 Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the government does not have to answer the American people's questions,even though it is guarnteed in the first Amendment
-- for the first time in history -- the constitutional meaning of the First Amendment Petition clause including the Right of the People to enforce the Right of Petition if Redress is denied.
We The People believes the Right to Petition
is, in fact, the "capstone" Right of the Bill of Rights and that its effect is the direct exercise of Popular Sovereignty -- the First Great Right of the Founding documents that declares government is the servant of Men.
On August 31,2005 Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the government does not have to answer the American people's questions,even though it is guarnteed in the first Amendment
By Elizabeth Schwinn
Special to MSNBC.com
Updated: 10:44 a.m. CT April 16, 2007
Just in time for tax season, the U.S. Justice Department is suing the founder of a charitable organization for allegedly peddling a national tax-fraud scheme that it says has cost the government $21 million.
The government charges in its lawsuit filed earlier this month that Robert L. Schulz of Queensbury, N.Y., used the charity, the We the People Foundation for Constitutional Education, to falsely tell donors that they could legally avoid having federal income taxes withheld from their paychecks.
Schulz, a high-profile tax protester, denies any wrongdoing and maintains that the foundation simply educates people about the U.S. Constitution.
Until the government responds to the foundation's petition challenging its legal authority to collect income taxes and the authority of the Internal Revenue Service to withhold them from people's paychecks, Schulz said he and his followers shouldn't have to give it any money.‘A right ... to withhold our taxes’
"We have a First Amendment right to withhold our taxes if the government does not respond to our grievances," he said.
Schulz also maintained that the Justice Department lawsuit is invalid because he doesn't sell the information on his Web site, he gives it away. The foundation requests a donation for the material.
Donations to the foundation, which have totaled some $2 million since 2000, have helped it pay for civic education, legal advocacy, and activism efforts in support of its beliefs.
Click for related content |
Because the foundation is a charity, the donations are tax-deductible for donors who pay income taxes.
Some experts say they are puzzled that the foundation, listed as a legitimate charity by the IRS, hasn't lost its tax-exempt status.
"It is not charitable to provide tax advice to the public," said Bruce R. Hopkins, a lawyer in Kansas City, Mo. who has written several books on nonprofit law.
As is its policy, the IRS declined comment on a specific case. In general, organizations can qualify for nonprofit status if they show their mission is educational, a spokesman said.
Organizing opposition, taking out ads
Schulz and the foundation have been leading players in the anti-tax movement. We the People has sponsored meetings of tax protesters and paid for full-page newspaper advertisements, including a 2001 ad in USA Today that proclaimed, “Congress has yet to pass a law that requires most Americans to file a tax return or pay income tax.”
After the USA Today ads ran, an outraged Congress held hearings on tax protesters, and the federal government stepped up its enforcement efforts.
Since then, life has become more difficult for tax protesters. The Justice Department has obtained more than 230 injunctions since 2001 to stop promoters of tax-fraud schemes.
“People who sell tax scams are asking for trouble for themselves and their customers who participate in them,” says Eileen J. O’Connor, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Tax Division.” They and their customers temporarily enrich themselves at the expense of law-abiding taxpayers. The Justice Department and the Internal Revenue Service are determined to stamp out these scams."
The Internal Revenue Service says the arguments made by tax protesters are frivolous and has posted a rebuttal of the latest anti-tax claims on its Web site.
In recent years, the tax agency has successfully prosecuted people who have promoted schemes to escape taxes or who have boasted publicly of their ability to avoid making income-tax payments, including Irwin Schiff, Lynne Meredith, Larken Rose and Richard Simkanin. All are in jail. The IRS is continuing to pursue criminal investigations of others.
People like Irwin Schiff, who represent the new Internet-based tax protest movement, are different from previous income-tax opponents, according to J.J. MacNab, a financial planner in Bethesda, Md., who has testified before Congress on tax schemes and is writing a book about tax protesters.
New breed of tax protester
In the past, MacNab said, people withheld their tax payments as an act of civil disobedience, for example against the Vietnam War. They knew and accepted jail or fines as the consequences of their behavior.
By contrast, the new protesters are in it for themselves, she wrote in testimony submitted earlier this year to the Senate Finance Committee. "They want the benefits of withholding funds from government (personal enrichment, punishing government programs they don't like) without any of the negative consequences. They are not practicing civil disobedience; they are following a cult-like belief system made up of absurd pseudo-legal theories and wild-eyed conspiracy tales."
Schulz, a former environmental engineer, said he gets no personal benefit from his crusade. According to the 2005 Form 990 tax filing for the foundation, which received $250,000 in donations that year, he collects no salary for his efforts.
Schulz says it's the principle that matters. "The Constitution doesn't defend itself," he said.
But he adds that his fight against the federal government has not been easy or pleasant. "The IRS can turn anybody's life upside down," he said.
FBI -CIA SUED
On August 31,2005
Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the government does not have to answer the American people's questions,even though it is guarnteed in the first Amendment
This was about information asked by the American people on the IRS laws
Federal Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled the government does not have to answer the American people's questions,even though it is guarnteed in the first Amendment
This was about information asked by the American people on the IRS laws
Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI
By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press Writer August 7, 2007 - 10:50pm
Associated Press Writer August 7, 2007 - 10:50pm
NEW YORK (AP) - Airlines and aviation-related companies sued the CIA and the FBI on Tuesday, asking a federal court to let them interview investigators who can tell whether the aviation industry was to blame for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or whether it had acted reasonably.
The separate lawsuits in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asked a judge to order the government to let the aviation companies gather the information as part of their defense against lawsuits brought by victims or families of victims of the 2001 attacks.
In the CIA lawsuit, companies including American Airlines Inc., United Airlines Inc., US Airways Group Inc., Delta Air Lines Inc., Continental Airlines Inc. and The Boeing Co. asked to interview the deputy chief of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit in 2001 and an FBI special agent assigned to the unit at that time.
In the FBI lawsuit, the companies asked to interview a "limited number of former and current FBI employees" who had participated in investigations of al-Qaida and al-Qaida operatives before and after Sept. 11, 2001.
Government spokeswoman Yusill Scribner said she had no immediate comment on the lawsuits.
A victims' compensation fund established by Congress has paid $6 billion to 2,880 families of those who died in the attacks and more than $1 billion to 2,680 injured victims.
But 41 cases filed on behalf of 42 victims remain pending in federal court in Manhattan because some victims decided to pursue the usual court route rather than accept payouts from the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund of 2001.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Saying No To Bush & Saudis
At least one high-profile presidential candidate has come out against the Bush Administration's proposed $20 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia. "Congress needs to stand firm against the president," John Edwards said in a press release this week. "The administration's proposed arms deal with Saudi Arabia isn't in the long-term interests of our country or the region. This deal has serious shortcomings--it doesn't force Saudi Arabia to stop terrorists from going into Iraq, make a real effort to help stabilize Iraq, lead regional security talks or assure the arms will not be used for offensive purposes. Congress should do the right thing and block the deal." A group of Democrats in the House are preparing to introduce legislation to block the deal "the minute Congress is officially notified," according to Reps. Jerry Nadler and Anthony Weiner. Democrats picked up their first GOP co-sponsor when New Jersey Republican Mike Ferguson announced his opposition to the deal on Tuesday. "I am deeply disappointed with the Bush Administration's decision to begin negotiations with Saudi Arabia on a $20 billion arms package of advanced weaponry," Ferguson said at a press conference, "and it is our hope that Congress will take every step necessary to block this transaction." The deal has members of both parties scratching theirs heads. If Dubai wasn't fit to run our ports, they reason, why should the Kingdom of Saud get our arms? [UPDATE: 114 members of the House, including 16 Republicans, sent a letter to President Bush this afternoon stating their "deep opposition" to the arms deal and vowing "to vote to stop it."] |
BACKROOM NEGOTIATIONS
BACKROOM NEGOTIATIONS |
The controversial legislation, which supporters say is needed to protect the nation from illegal immigrants, may be be passed in conference as early as Friday. Both chambers of Congress have already passed their versions of the bill; the Senate version does not contain REAL ID but it is expected to be added during negotiations. Senate Democrats say they are being kept out of discussions in much the same way that the House Democrats were barred from negotiations in late 2004.
Late last year, the Republican House leadership snubbed the White House by not allowing the Intelligence Reform Bill to go to a floor vote. The House version of REAL ID (HR 418), championed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), was to be attached to the Intel bill.
As RAW STORY reported in February, some members of the Republican caucus were split on many of 418’s controversial provisions. In an effort to soothe Republican dissent, Sensenbrenner held a series of secretive closed door meetings, along with a leading conservative Republican member with ties to Jerry Falwell and James Dobson, in order to convince the members of his delegation to support the bill by suggesting that the far Christian right would “rain down fire and brimstone.”
Sensenbrenner is said to have cut a deal; the bill would be attached as a rider to another bill in 2005. He then pulled it from the Intel bill, which then passed late last year.
REAL ID was then attached to the Iraq and Afghan military appropriations bill, which also includes money for tsunami aid. The Senate version of the appropriations bill did not include REAL ID, but Republicans are re-adding it in conference.
Many see use of the must-pass appropriations bill as a carrier for REAL ID to be a manipulation of the legislative process to pass a measure that wouldn’t be approved on its merits alone.
“An emergency appropriations bill to fund troops in the field and to aid victims of a major natural disaster should not be loaded up with a series of provisions that will lead to the creation of a national identification card,” ACLU attorney Tim Sparapani said.
Others, including the Senate Democratic leadership, take issue with the Republicans’ methodology, saying they believe it is part of an increasingly alarming pattern of single party rule:
“Democrats have been completely shut out of the backroom negotiations
that I understand have taken place this week about the REAL ID Act,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said.
“This is not the way the United States Senate should be doing business, and this is certainly not the way the American people expect that the laws that govern their daily lives will be produced," he added. "This is yet another example of the Republican leadership's abuse of power."
In a put out by the White House in support of the Real ID legislation to the Republican caucus, the Bush administration urged the conferees to pass the bill quickly for national security issues.
“The Administration strongly urges the conferees to include the Real ID Act of 2005 in the final version of the bill,” the statement said. “This important legislation will strengthen the ability of the United States to protect against terrorist entry into and activities within the United States.”
“In particular,” it added, “the legislation tightens procedures for non-citizen entry into and presence in the United States, facilitates the building of physical barriers where appropriate to protect U.S. borders, and facilitates the strengthening of State standards for the security and integrity of drivers' licenses.”
Detractors note that all of the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the United States legally, obtaining entry visas through the US embassy in Saudi Arabia. All also had legal driver’s licenses.
The most contentious provisions of HR 418 and unchanged in Real ID fall under what many see as a series unconstitutional attacks on civil liberties and in no way address the events of Sept. 11.
One of the new provisions of HR 418 would require individuals seeking refuge in the U.S. from repressive or abusive regimes to provide documented proof of their persecution or abuse as well as the abusing government’s motivation.
“Can you imagine a Christian living in the Sudan going to ask the government to provide the U.S. with ‘motivation’ for persecuting Christians?” one aide said. “What do you think would happen to that person?”
Another section of the bill allows the Homeland Security Secretary to waive all federal, state, and local law for the construction of “barriers,” and is viewed by some as in direct opposition to the Constitution.
Primarily, the Secretary would have discretion to suspend environmental, eminent domain and labor laws. The provision is worded, however, in such a way as to not limit construction to the external border of the country and actually includes roads as “barriers.”
Such suspension of labor laws could affect child labor, standards of compensation and safety, any and all compensation for the loss of property, adverse environmental affects and any damages resulting from toxins.
One Democratic aide told RAW STORY that “that moderate Republicans have privately expressed concern over the possible loss of the Latino vote, backlash from unions, and the concern that this in no way strengthens the border.”
The bill lays out the groundwork for a National ID card/driver’s license program and how it is administered. The National ID card provision does not follow the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission and instead turns the DMV worker into an INS worker.
Groups opposing the bill run the gamut of the political spectrum, from the ACLU to Gun Owners of America.
“In considering this bill, the U.S. House will vote on whether to empower the federal government to determine who can get a driver’s license – and under what conditions,” Gun Owners of America said in a statement. “Since you need a driver’s license to purchase a gun from a dealer, this will give [the government] the expanded ability to impose even greater forms of gun control – something which it has long coveted. This will become even more apparent if an anti-gun Democrat like Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2008.”
Who Is The Council For National Policy And What Are They Up To? And Why Don’t They Want You To Know?
When a top U.S. senator receives a major award from a national advocacy organization, it’s standard procedure for both the politician and the group to eagerly tell as many people about it as possible.
Press releases spew from fax machines and e-mails clog reporters’ in-boxes. The news media are summoned in the hope that favorable stories will appear in the newspapers, on radio and on television.
It was odd, therefore, that when U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) accepted a “Thomas Jefferson Award” from a national group at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in August, the media weren’t notified. In fact, they weren’t welcome to attend.
“The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting,” reads one of the cardinal rules of the organization that honored Frist.
The membership list of this group is “strictly confidential.” Guests can attend only with the unanimous approval of the organization’s executive committee. The group’s leadership is so secretive that members are told not to refer to it by name in e-mail messages. Anyone who breaks the rules can be tossed out.
What is this group, and why is it so determined to avoid the public spotlight?
That answer is the Council for National Policy (CNP). And if the name isn’t familiar to you, don’t be surprised. That’s just what the Council wants.
The CNP was founded in 1981 as an umbrella organization of right-wing leaders who would gather regularly to plot strategy, share ideas and fund causes and candidates to advance the far-right agenda. Twenty-three years later, it is still secretly pursuing those goals with amazing success.
Since its founding, the tax-exempt organization has been meeting three times a year. Members have come and gone, but all share something in common: They are powerful figures, drawn from both the Religious Right and the anti-government, anti-tax wing of the ultra-conservative movement.
It may sound like a far-left conspiracy theory, but the CNP is all too real and, its critics would argue, all too influential.
What amazes most CNP opponents is the group’s ability to avoid widespread public scrutiny. Despite nearly a quarter century of existence and involvement by wealthy and influential political figures, the CNP remains unknown to most Americans. Operating out of a non-descript office building in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Fairfax, Va., the organization has managed to keep an extremely low profile an amazing feat when one considers the people the CNP courts.
New York Times reporter David Kirkpatrick was finally able to pierce the CNP veil in August when he attended a gathering of the group in New York City just before the Republican convention, where the organization presented Frist with the “Jefferson Award.”
The Times described the CNP as consisting of “a few hundred of the most powerful conservatives in the country” who meet “behind closed doors at undisclosed locations…to strategize about how to turn the country to the right.”
Accepting the award, Frist acknowledged the group’s power, telling attendees, “The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement.”
The CNP meeting was perhaps more important than what took place on the carefully choreographed GOP convention stage a few days later, said Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
“The real crux of this is that these are the genuine leaders of the Republican Party, but they certainly aren’t going to be visible on television next week,” Lynn told The Times days before the start of the GOP convention. “The CNP members are not going to be visible next week, but they are very much on the minds of George W. Bush and Karl Rove every week of the year, because these are the real powers in the party.”
The Times’ Kirkpatrick was able to obtain the CNP’s current membership list and reported that its roster includes Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Wayne LaPierre of the National Rifle Association and Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. A CNP financial disclosure form for 2002 lists Norquist and Howard Phillips, founder of the ultra-conservative Constitution Party, as directors. The current president of the group is Donald P. Hodel, former executive director of the Christian Coalition.
Other CNP directors include names that would not mean a lot to most people, but they are key players in the right-wing universe. Becky Norton Dunlop is vice president for external relations at the Heritage Foundation. James C. Miller III is former director of Citizens for a Sound Economy. Stuart W. Epperson owns a chain of Christian radio stations. E. Peb Jackson is former president of Young Life. T. Kenneth Cribb Jr., vice president of the CNP, was a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald W. Reagan and runs the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a group that funds right-wing newspapers on college campuses. Ken Raasch is a businessman who works in partnership with popular artist Thomas Kinkade.
Others who have been affiliated with the CNP include TV preachers Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, longtime anti-feminist crusader Phyllis Schlafly, Iran-Contra figure turned right-wing talk radio host Oliver North, former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), wealthy California savings and loan heir Howard Ahmanson, former House Majority Leader Dick Army (R-Texas), Attorney General John Ashcroft and Tommy Thompson, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Republican Party glitterati and top government officials frequently appear at CNP meetings. During the gathering before this year’s GOP convention, The New York Times reported that several Bush administration representatives were scheduled for speeches. Undersecretary of State John Bolton spoke about plans for Iran, Assistant Attorney General Alexander Acosta talked about human trafficking and Dan Senor, who worked for Paul Bremer in Iraq, was scheduled to talk about the war there.
The Times said the CNP meeting was focused on the Bush-Cheney re-election efforts and quoted an anonymous participant who called the gathering a “pep rally” for the president’s campaign. Passing a federal marriage amendment and using that subject as a wedge issue was also a top priority.
The newspaper noted that another CNP meeting that took place shortly after the American invasion of Iraq included visits from Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. A Canadian newspaper reported that Rumsfeld provided the gathering’s keynote address and that Cheney was scheduled to speak. (See “People & Events,” June 2003 Church & State.)
In April of 2002, according to an ABC News story that ran online, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was the keynote speaker at a CNP meeting in a northern Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C., where White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Timothy Goeglein, a White House liaison to religious communities, also spoke.
Heavy-hitters such as these show that the CNP is a force to be reckoned with, and Republican politicians ignore the group at their peril. In 1999, GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush appeared before a CNP gathering in San Antonio, and, in a closed-door meeting, assured the members of his right-wing bona fides. Bush critics demanded that the president release the text of his remarks, but he refused. Nonetheless, rumors soon surfaced that Bush promised the CNP to implement its agenda and vowed to appoint only anti-abortion judges to the federal courts.
How did this influential organization get its start? To find the answer, it’s necessary to go all the way back to 1981 and the early years of the Reagan presidency.
Excited by Reagan’s election, Tim LaHaye, Richard Viguerie, Weyrich and a number of far-right conservatives began meeting to discuss ways to maximize the power of the ultra-conservative movement and create an alternative to the more centrist Council on Foreign Relations. In mid May, about 50 of them met at the McLean, Va., home of Viguerie, owner of a conservative fund-raising company.
Viguerie had a knack for networking. Shortly before helping launch the CNP, Viguerie and Weyrich initiated the Moral Majority and tapped Falwell to run it, making the obscure Lynchburg pastor a major political figure overnight. Viguerie’s goal was to lead rural White voters in the South out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party by emphasizing divisive social issues such as abortion, gay rights and school prayer.
Back when the CNP was founded, it was a little less media shy. In the summer of 1981, Woody Jenkins, a former Louisiana state lawmaker who served as the group’s first executive director, told Newsweek bluntly, “One day before the end of this century, the Council will be so influential that no president, regardless of party or philosophy, will be able to ignore us or our concerns or shut us out of the highest levels of government.”
From the beginning, the CNP sought to merge two strains of far-right thought: the theocratic Religious Right with the low-tax, anti-government wing of the GOP. The theory was that the Religious Right would provide the grassroots activism and the muscle. The other faction would put up the money.
The CNP has always reflected this two-barreled approach. The group’s first president was LaHaye, then president of Family Life Seminars in El Cajon Calif. LaHaye, a fundamentalist Baptist preacher who went on in the 1990s to launch the popular “Left Behind” series of apocalyptic potboilers, was an early anti-gay crusader and frequent basher of public education and he still is today.
Alongside figures like LaHaye and leaders of the anti-abortion movement, the nascent CNP also included Joseph Coors, the wealthy beer magnate; Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt, two billionaire investors and energy company executives known for their advocacy of right-wing causes, and William Cies, another wealthy businessman.
Interestingly, the Hunts, Cies and LaHaye all were affiliated with the John Birch Society, the conspiracy-obsessed anti-communist group founded in 1959. LaHaye had lectured and conducted training seminars frequently for the Society during the 1960s and ’70s a time when the group was known for its campaign against the civil rights movement.
Bringing together the two strains of the far right gave the CNP enormous leverage. The group, for example, could pick a candidate for public office and ply him or her with individual donations and PAC money from its well-endowed, business wing.
The goals of the CNP, then, are similarly two-pronged. Activists like Norquist, who once said he wanted to shrink the federal government to a size where it could be drowned in a bathtub, are drawn to the group for its exaltation of unfettered capitalism, hostility toward social-service spending and low (or no) tax ideology.
Dramatically scaling back the size of the federal government and abolishing the last remnants of the New Deal may be one goal of the CNP, but many of the foot soldiers of the Religious Right sign on for a different crusade: a desire to remake America in a Christian fundamentalist image.
Since 1981, CNP members have worked assiduously to pack government bodies with ultra-conservative lawmakers who agree that the nation needs a major shift to the right economically and socially. They rail against popular culture and progressive lawmakers, calling them the culprits of the nation’s moral decay. Laws must be passed and enforced, the group argues, that will bring organized prayer back to the public schools, outlaw abortion, prevent gays from achieving full civil rights and fund private religious schools with tax funds.
The CNP does not directly fund these activities itself. In fact, a glance at the group’s publicly available financial statements reveals a modest budget. In 2002, the CNP operated with income of just over $1.2 million. The national office has just a handful of staff members.
(In no way a grassroots organization, the CNP gets much of its money from far-right foundations. The Coors family and Richard DeVos, founder of Amway, have been among the CNP’s largest financial backers. The group received $125,000 from a Coors family philanthropic arm, the Castle Rock Foundation, and the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation. Richard DeVos was also one of the CNP’s early presidents and Jeffrey and Holly Coors have been members for many years.)
The CNP’s budgetary figures don’t tell the whole story, however. Financial data shows that the bulk of its money $815,227 in 2002 is spent on “educational conferences and seminars for national leaders in the fields of business, government, religion and academia to explore national policy alternatives.” An additional $69,108 was spent on “weekly newsletters…distributed to all members to keep them apprised of member activities and public policy issues.”
In other words, the CNP is merely a facilitator. While the group has an affiliated arm CNP Action that does some lobbying, in the main it does not work directly to implement the schemes its members devise during the three yearly meetings. The well-heeled leaders and their affiliated organizations are expected to come up with their own funds to pay for the plots hatched during the meetings.
Despite the group’s obsessive desire for secrecy, some information has leaked out over the years, mainly due to the persistent efforts of a few writers and researchers.
In 1988, writer Russ Bellant noted in his book The Coors Connection, which details the beer dynasty’s funding of right-wing causes and groups, that many CNP members have been associated with the outer reaches of the conservative movement. Bellant found that among the far right, there is a certain cachet to being a CNP member. Members pay thousands of dollars yearly to keep their CNP membership. Bellant noted that at the time, individuals paid $2,000 per year for membership and those seeking a spot on the CNP’s board of directors shelled out $5,000 each.
Research undertaken by a now-defunct watchdog group, the Institute for First Amendment Studies (IFAS), shed some more light on the group’s activities. For many years running, IFAS founder Skip Porteous was able to obtain CNP membership lists, which he posted online.
Bellant noted that Tom Ellis, a top political operative of the ultra-conservative Jesse Helms, followed LaHaye as the CNP president in 1982. Ellis had a checkered past, having served as a director of a foundation called the Pioneer Fund, which has a long history of subsidizing efforts to prove blacks are genetically inferior to whites.
Bellant’s book, as well as work by the IFAS, reveals other CNP members who have flirted with extremist and hateful propaganda.
In addition to obsessing over communist threats and buttressing white supremacist ideology, the CNP has included many members bent on replacing American democracy with theocracy.
LaHaye, like the whole of the nation’s Religious Right leaders, nurtures a strong contempt for the First Amendment principle of church-state separation, because it seriously complicates their goal of installing fundamentalist Christianity as the nation’s officially recognized religion. LaHaye has worked within the CNP and other groups to replace American law with “biblical law.” (See “Left Behind,” February 2002 Church & State.)
Former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed has also been involved with the CNP and addressed the group during the August GOP meeting in New York. Asked about his relationship with the CNP by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Aug. 29, Reed fell back on the common ploy of asserting that the group is just a ramped-up social club.
“I think it’s like-minded individuals who believe in conservative public policy views. And they get together a few times a year,” said Reed (whose CNP topic was “The 2004 Elections: Who Will Win in November?”).
Reed, now a top official of the Bush-Cheney campaign, said he is no longer a CNP member, asserting that he quit because “I was just busy doing other things.”
The CNP goes way beyond LaHaye and Reed in its effort to embrace the Religious Right. For many years, the late leader of the Christian Reconstructionist movement, Rousas J. Rushdoony, was a member. Reconstructionists espouse a radical theology that calls for trashing the U.S. Constitution and replacing it with the harsh legal code of the Old Testament. They advocate the death penalty for adulterers, blasphemers, incorrigible teenagers, gay people, “witches” and those who worship “false gods.”
Another CNP-Reconstructionist tie comes through Howard Phillips, the Constitution Party leader. Phillips, a longtime CNP member, is a disciple of Rushdoony and uses rhetoric that strikes a distinctly Reconstructionist tone. In a 2003 Constitution Party gathering in Clackamas, Oregon, Phillips told party members and guests, “We’ve got to be ready when God chooses to let us restore our once-great Republic.” A report by the Southern Poverty Law Center said that Phillips proclaimed that his party was “raising up an army” to “take back this nation!”
The CNP has provided more prominent Religious Right figures, such as Dobson, with a forum to promote church-state merger and shove the Republican Party toward the right. In 1998, Dobson appeared before a CNP gathering where he admitted he voted for Constitution Party nominee Phillips in the 1996 presidential election instead of Republican candidate Bob Dole. Dobson threatened to bolt the Republican Party and take “as many people with me as possible” if the GOP did not stop taking Christian conservatives for granted. (Dobson’s speech, like all addresses before CNP functions, was not intended for media coverage. A transcript was published by the IFAS, which was able to gain access to the meeting. The transcript remains available on the Internet at www.buildingequality.us/ifas /cnp/dobson.html.)
Dobson railed against the Republican-controlled Congress for apparently giving short shrift to the “pro-moral community” and easily acquiescing to a “post-modern notion, that there is no moral law to the universe.” That notion, Dobson said, has spread throughout the nation like a cancer.
For Dobson, the moral law of the universe is clear and should be evident to all lawmakers. The universe “has a boss,” he said. “And He has very clear ideas of what is right and wrong.”
Dobson blasted the Republican-led Congress for increasing funding to Planned Parenthood and the National Endowment of the Arts and for espousing a “safe sex ideology” that he said includes advocacy of the use of condoms to help prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
All of this, Dobson said, directly contravenes God’s law.
“It’s a lack of conviction that there is a boss to the universe and that there are moral standards that we are held to and we need officials that will stand up and respect them,” Dobson said.
Dobson concluded his lecture by begging CNP members “shamelessly, to use your influence on the party at this critical stage of our history. You have a lot of influence on the party. A lot of you are politicians. I beg you to talk to them about what’s at stake here because they’ve laid the foundation for a revolt and I don’t think they even know it because they’re so out of touch with the people that I’m talking about.”
Dobson seemed fully aware that he was speaking to an ultra-partisan group. Indeed, the ABCNews.com report noted that some CNP members have bragged about helping “Christian conservatives” take over Republican state party operations in several Southern and Midwestern states.
The CNP’s current executive director, a former California lawmaker named Steve Baldwin, has tried to downplay the organization’s influence on powerful state and national lawmakers. He has remained cagey about the CNP’s goals, insisting it is merely a group that counters liberal policy arguments.
In many ways, Baldwin himself exemplifies the CNP’s operate-in-secret strategy. As a political strategist in California in the early 1990s, Baldwin was one of the key architects of the “stealth strategy” that led to Religious Right activists being elected to school boards and other local offices.
“Stealth candidates” were trained to emphasize pocketbook issues such as taxes and spending. But once elected, they would pursue a Religious Right agenda, such as demanding creationism in public schools. A spate of the candidates won election in Southern California in the early 1990s, but most were later removed by the voters when the true agenda became apparent.
Baldwin tried to use the stealth strategy during his own campaign for the California Assembly in 1992. He lost that race but fared better in 1994, winning election to a seat in the 77th Assembly District. While in office, he helped lead efforts by Religious Right conservatives to take over the state GOP and, briefly, the entire Assembly.
Baldwin had to leave the Assembly in 2000 after serving six years due to California’s term-limits law. According to one California media outlet, his hard-right views had by then alienated most other members of the Assembly.
But Baldwin refused to let up. In the spring of 2002, while working at the CNP, he penned a controversial article for the law review at TV preacher Pat Robertson’s Regent University. The piece, “Child Molestation and the Homosexual Movement,” linked pedophilia to homosexuality.
The article went on to become a staple in the Religious Right’s anti-gay canon, despite the fact that its claims were challenged by legitimate researchers.
“It is difficult to convey the dark side of the homosexual culture without appearing harsh,” wrote Baldwin. “However, it is time to acknowledge that homosexual behavior threatens the foundation of Western civilization the nuclear family.”
What might the future hold for Baldwin and the CNP? Already Jenkins’ vision of a day when powerful politicians would pay heed to the group has come to pass. With social issues such as same-sex marriage increasingly dominating the Religious Right’s agenda, the organization is not likely to want for things to do.
Americans United, which has monitored the activities of the CNP for years, says the groups holds radical views and is especially dangerous because of its success in connecting Religious Right activism with the secular right’s deep financial pockets.
AU’s Lynn said he hopes the media begins to pay more attention to the CNP and expose its goals.
“If the CNP gets its way,” Lynn said, “the First Amendment, along with the rest of the U.S. Constitution, will be replaced with fundamentalist dogma. In order to ensure religious liberty for future generations of Americans, the CNP’s agenda must be derailed.”
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