Americans required to add Star of David to U.S. flags by July 4th

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Posted on June 26, 2012 by afteramerica

Has World War 3 Started?
Congress today passed a bipartisan bill requiring Americans to add Israel’s Star of David to the U.S. flag for the week of July 4th. Rep. Hugh Llewellyn III (R-Alabama) and Sen. Dale Wentworth (D-New Jersey) introduced the legislation during a special session.

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Sen. Wentworth told reporters:

“This act is to symbolize our unconditional support of the great nation of Israel, and recognizes that in many ways, Israel is already America’s 51st state. Thanks to our foreign aid, Israel’s per capita income rivals our own.”

Both Congressmen recently received $25 million in contributions from the Friends of Zionism (FIZ). In response to reporters’ questions, Rep. Llewellyn replied that, unlike the $15 million Presidential candidate Gingrich received from Sheldon Adelson, his money had no strings attached:

“Israel’s razing of villages, killing women and children, seizing Palestinian land for their settlers are purely defensive actions. The fact is, Israelis treat Palestinians exactly like we did our American Indians. We are simply trying to deflect international criticism like the photo comparison that went viral. No one should question the moral authority of the U.S. and Israel.”

GOP nominee Mitt Romney quickly placed calls both to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson to express his “deep and profound pleasure” at the bill’s passage. In an address to the Iowa Jewish Farmers Association, Romney added, “A bottle rocket falling into an Israeli corn field is a rocket into an American corn field, and we agree that it is an act of war. War with a silver lining.”

Citizens who own American flags should proceed to their nearest Post Office to receive their free Star of David patch, which includes a convenient flag-ready VELCRO® backing.
Israeli officials have made no comment on the Congressmens’ bill, except to say that the Star of David should be placed above the flag’s other fifty stars.




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Should Libertarians Accept Social Security?

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by Laurence M. VanceRecently by Laurence M. Vance: The Natural Right To Be Free
In his recent appearance on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe," Representative Ron Paul was asked by Sam Stein of the Huffington Post whether he was going to set a good example for younger Americans and opt out of Social Security.


As a libertarian and a constitutionalist, Congressman Paul recognizes that Social Security is an insolvent, unsustainable, unconstitutional welfare scheme. Although he wants younger workers to be given the opportunity to opt out of the system as we make a humanitarian transition away from the dependency of Social Security, when asked by Stein if he was on Social Security, Paul acknowledged that he was and saw no inconsistency in receiving benefits.

Social Security is properly a federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. It provides benefits for retirement, disability, survivorship, and death to about 55 million Americans at a price to approximately 157 million taxpayers of more than $800 billion a year. It is "funded" by payroll tax deductions from both employers (6.2%) and employees (4.2%) on a taxable wage base of $110,100. One must pay Social Security taxes for a minimum of forty quarters to be eligible for benefits, which are figured based on the average of a worker’s thirty-five highest years of earnings (up to particular year’s wage base), adjusted for inflation.

Social Security is the most expensive item in the federal budget. For years it generated more in tax revenue than it spent on benefits.

However, since 2010, the system has run a deficit that is projected to increase every year as more and more baby-boomers retire.

The truth about Social Security is no secret. It is a relic from the New Deal. It is the cornerstone of the welfare state. There is no trust fund. There is no retirement account in the name of each taxpayer. Social Security is an intergenerational wealth-transfer program. 

But does this mean that libertarians should not accept Social Security?

I occasionally run into, or read something written by, libertarians who say that to be a pure or consistent libertarian, one should not accept Social Security. To do so would be to sacrifice one’s principles.

Of course, these same libertarians mail letters at the government post office, drive on government roads, and conduct business with government money. But, they might reply, I am forced to do these things. The government has a monopoly on mail delivery, the vast majority of roads are owned by the government, and few businesses accept anything other than government money as a means of payment. Social Security, on the other hand, is voluntary. One can choose not to receive it. 

I don’t disparage those libertarians who refuse to accept Social Security because they want to have as little interaction with the state as possible. But I don’t think that they are purer or more consistent than those libertarians who say: "Sign me up."

Let’s say you are a libertarian who has reached retirement age (67 if born in 1960 or later). The federal government has been confiscating a portion of your income for fifty years via, not just Social Security taxes, but income tax, Medicare tax, taxes on airline tickets, excise taxes, and indirect taxes on imports (tariffs) that result in you paying higher prices for imported goods. This is all in addition to state and local taxes.

And what has the federal government spent your money on?

Various forms of welfare, maintaining an empire of troops and bases around the world, fighting senseless foreign wars, corporate welfare, agricultural subsidies, funding Planned Parenthood, public broadcasting, enforcing ridiculous regulations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and whole departments it has no business having like the Department of Education.

I think it is safe to say that at least 95 percent of what the federal government spends money on is unconstitutional.

Libertarians should see Social Security as a way to get some of their money back that was wasted on unconstitutional spending. It’s as if the government said: "Would you like a refund of some of the tax money you’ve paid in over the past fifty years? Okay, sign here and we will make a deposit in your bank account every month until you die." Now, is that any different than signing a form that says:

"Your monthly Social Security benefit amount is _____? Does the difference in wording on a government form really make any difference?

And don’t worry about getting back more than you paid in Social Security taxes. 

The Social Security Trust Fund is an accounting fiction. There is no individual retirement account with your name on it. Just figure the total amount you’ve paid in federal taxes and collect your "Social Security" (or your "tax refund" if you want to be a more pure libertarian) until that amount is reached. Don’t bother only taking 95 percent of the total because you are entitled to interest on your money.

If it be argued that the tax money you paid in over your lifetime has been spent and therefore you would have to be paid with borrowed money, I would say in reply that the tax money you are paying in this year is immediately spent as well. The refund next year of your excess withholding taxes from this year will likewise be paid in borrowed money. Are you going to refuse your tax refund next year? I didn’t think so.

Anyway you look at it, the taxpayers deserve a refund.
 
June 26, 2012Laurence M. Vance [send him mail] writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The Revolution that Wasn't, and Rethinking the Good War. His latest book is The Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. Visit his website.

Keiser Report: Gold vs Paper, 6/26/12 *video*

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Published on Jun 26, 2012 by RussiaToday

In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss the world looking for people looking for economic salvation in gold, the Eurozone and emerging markets and ask "what kind of stupid people put precious money into messy banks?" In the second half of the show Max talks to former market maker and newsletter writer, Rick Ackerman, about inflation, deflation, the euro and the student loan market.

Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) - Radical Taxpayer-Funded Non-Profit

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Posted by Charleston Voice, 06.27.12

• Views the U.S. as a nation infested with white racism and discrimination
• Seeks to counteract America's "structural racism" by means of taxpayer-funded policy initiatives
• Supports the training of local community organizers to serve as agents of social change

CENTER FOR SOCIAL INCLUSION (CSI)
150 Broadway, Suite 303
New York, NY 10038
Phone :(212) 248-2785
Fax :(212) 248-6409
Email :info@thecsi.org


URL :http://www.centerforsocialinclusion.org/

See also:  Tides Center and Tides Foundation

Founded in 2002 as a project of the Tides Center, the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) contends that “structural racism” thoroughly pervades American society and its institutions. To support this assertion, CSI cites the fact that “people of color,” as compared to whites, are much likelier to be unemployed, to attend schools that are underfunded, to drop out of school without graduating, to lack health insurance, and to be poor. By CSI's reckoning, “policy is the root” of each of these problems, and it is “also the place to find a solution.”

In pursuit of such a solution, CSI administers four major programs designed to “develop policy ideas to transform” the existing “structures and systems that perpetuate the exclusion of communities of color.” Each program emphasizes the importance of public funding, which would facilitate a redistribution of wealth from the larger pool of American taxpayers to selected nonwhite minority communities:

* Energy Democracy: Rooted in the premise that human industrial activity is responsible for the “climate change” that allegedly threatens the survival of all life on earth, this program contends that Americans ought not rely, for their energy needs, on large oil, gas, and electric corporations that “are not always responsive to community needs and concerns … because they obligate themselves to shareholder profits, not our children’s health.” As an alternative, CSI advocates a system whereby individual communities could own and operate their own locally situated, clean-energy (i.e., wind and solar) production and distribution systems.

Noting that “communities of color ... face extra barriers in ownership, financing, and access to technology” because they tend to have less capital than their white counterparts, CSI calls on federal, state, and local governments to create, with taxpayer dollars, so-called "Energy Improvement Districts." These districts would consist of tracts of land and designated buildings zoned specifically for energy-production purposes in black and Hispanic neighborhoods.

* Transportation Equity: This CSI program advocates increased public funding for mass-transit service in black and Hispanic neighborhoods, along with the creation of “more transportation-related jobs for disadvantaged people.”

* Broadband Equity: Lamenting that “too many” nonwhite minorities lack “access to high-quality, high-speed Internet” as a result of “digital redlining,” CSI asserts: “People of color, thanks to a history of housing discrimination and poverty, tend to live in older buildings and communities. Telecoms avoid investing in these communities because of the cost of upgrading the infrastructure and the impact on their profit margin.” Because “we can’t rely on the big telecommunication companies” in the private sector to make Internet service available to nonwhite communities, says CSI, public financing is required.

* Food Equity: Working “with food justice leaders and grassroots groups to generate policy strategies and solutions that will create a more equitable food system, from seed to community,” CSI promotes “the local production and distribution of healthy food as well as policies that improve available data to make it easier to identify underserved communities.” Such efforts to “reduc[e] the [food] availability differences to the lowest feasible level,” says CSI, should be funded jointly by public-sector sources and private-sector philanthropists.

Viewing “community organizers and other grassroots advocates” as those who are best equipped to bring about the foregoing policy initiatives, CSI invests considerable resources in the training of such activists. Further, the Center strives to connect these local leaders “to opportunities for state and national policy development and reform.”

CSI traces the roots of American racism directly to conservatism, which it depicts as a philosophy that is insensitive to the needs of the poor: “For more than a quarter century, right-wing rhetoric has dominated debates of racial justice – undermining efforts to create a more equal society, and tearing apart the social safety net in the process.”

The founder and president of CSI is Maya Wiley, a civil-rights attorney and policy advocate who earned a J.D. from the Columbia University School of Law in 1989. She is the daughter of the late George Wiley, who established the National Welfare Rights Organization in 1967. Prior to founding CSI, Maya Wiley was a senior advisor on race and poverty with George Soros's Open Society Institute. She also has worked for the National Legal Department of the American Civil Liberties Union; the Poverty and Justice Program of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; and the Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Moreover, Wiley has served on the boards of Human Rights Watch, the Institute on Race and Poverty (at the University of Minnesota School of Law), and the Council on Foreign Relations. She currently chairs the Tides Network Board.

CSI's board of directors consists of officials from numerous left-wing organizations, including the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, the Tides Network, the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, the New World Foundation, the Grassroots Policy Project, the American Values Institute, and Pineros y Campesinos Unidos de Noreste.

CSI is heavily bankrolled by such foundations as the Open Society Institute and the Tides Foundation.

Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) - Discover the Networks

First, Don't Vote - Gerald Celente

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Published by Charleston Voice, 06.27.12

Celente Launches 2nd American Revolution: Puts His Money Where His Heart IsTrends Journal

Previously by Gerald Celente: From Meltdown to Mayhem: Are You Ready?
KINGSTON, NY, 26 June 2012 – Gerald Celente’s forecast is clear – The 2nd American Revolution is on the horizon. And this American Patriot has done more than just sign up to join the fight, he’s established its headquarters. 

By Howard Pyle, mentor of NC Wyeth. Print hangs in our front room

Inspired by its potent symbolic value, Celente has purchased the 1750s "Franz Roggen House," a stately stone colonial set on the northeast corner of John and Crown Streets, in Kingston’s historic Stockade District. This is the only intersection in the United States that boasts pre-revolutionary stone buildings on all four corners. 

"Kingston played a critical role in the 1st American Revolution and was, for a short while, the capitol of New York State," observes Celente. "Here is where I’m taking my stand to start the 2nd American Revolution." 

"The 1st American Revolution was fought with armies and bullets," says Celente. "The 2nd American Revolution will not cost lives and limbs; it will be fought with mind and spirit."

Celente is unequivocal: "America’s democratic political system is degenerate, corrupt and ineffective. It cannot be patched up or papered over. Rather, it must be renewed, revived, and reconfigured from the ground up," he says. "The potential for positive and sweeping change is there. It can happen, but it has to be made to happen." 

How? First, "We the people" must be made aware of the urgent need for real change. Then "we" must learn to accept and embrace the concept of a full-scale intellectual revolution. "The time is ripe, Americans are ‘mad as hell and not going to take it anymore,’" says Celente, who predicts that the November election will be the turning point. "The polls prove it. There is little enthusiasm for either candidate and, once again, Americans will be left with no choice other than the choice of the lesser of two evils. 

"Stay Home, Don’t Vote!"Celente’s Revolutionary call to arms begins with a voter’s strike. 

"Stay Home, Don’t Vote" is his campaign slogan. "People have been conned into believing that if you don’t vote you’ve lost the right to complain. That’s political baloney," fumes Celente. "The true case is exactly the opposite. This is a two-headed, one party system. Republican or Democrat, considering their track records, it’s clear nothing can be expected from either Presidential candidate other than the perpetuation of the destructive and criminal policies that have brought America to its current state of perpetual crisis and socioeconomic decline. Ditto for Congress."

"What self-respecting person would cast a vote for a lesser of two evils?" asks Celente. "Not only is it immoral and undignified, it’s destructive. Lesser or greater, evil is evil. By supporting one evil or the other, the voter becomes an accessory to the crime. Only a true intellectual revolution can restore dignity, trust, morality, decency and compassion." 

"Anything else is just more of the same. Stay Home, Don’t Vote!"
As far as Celente is concerned, "We can change course, restore our country and regain our independence. United, the American people have the power to prevail and create a more ‘perfect Union.’"
June 27, 2012Copyright © 2012 Gerald CelenteGerald Celente is founder and director of The Trends Research Institute, author of Trends 2000 and Trend Tracking (Warner Books), and publisher of The Trends Journal. He has been forecasting trends since 1980, and recently called “The Collapse of ’09.”