The Biggest Obama Scandals Are Proven and Ignored – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic

Has this president broken the law, lied under oath, or authorized war crimes?Yes, President Obama has broken the law on multiple occasions. Despite clearly stating, in a 2008 questionnaire, that  the commander-in-chief is not lawfully empowered to ignore treaties duly ratified by the Senate, Obama has willfully failed to enforce the torture treaty, signed by Ronald Reagan and duly ratified by the Senate, that compels him to investigate and prosecute torture. As Sullivan put it earlier this year, “what Obama and Holder have done or rather not done is illegal.”Obama also violated the War Powers Resolution, a law he has specifically proclaimed to be Constitutionally valid, when committing U.S. troops to Libya without Congressional approval.  Or as Sullivan put it in 2011, “Im with Conor. The war in Libya becomes illegal from now on. And the imperial presidency grows even more powerful.” On the subject of war crimes, Sullivan wrote that “Obama and attorney-general Eric Holder have decided to remain in breach of the Geneva Conventions and be complicit themselves in covering up the war crimes of their predecessors – which means, of course, that those of us who fought for Obamas election precisely because we wanted a return to the rule of law were conned.” In a separate entry, he went so far as to say that Obama is “a clear and knowing accessory to war crimes, and should at some point face prosecution as well, if the Geneva Conventions mean anything any more.” That seems rather farther than Noonan went in her column.Obama has not, as Sullivan points out, traded arms for hostages with Iran, or started a war with no planning for the inevitable occupation that would follow. But there are different questions that could be asked about Obama that would perhaps be more relevant to his behavior.Has he ordered the assassination of any American citizens in secret without due process? Did he kill any of their teenage kids without ever explaining how or why that happened? Has he refused to reveal even the legal reasoning he used to conclude his targeted killing program is lawful?Has he waged an unprecedented war on whistleblowers?Has he spied on millions of innocent Americans without a warrant or probable cause?Does he automatically count dead military-aged males killed by U.S. drones as “militants”?Did he “sign a bill that enshrines in law the previously merely alleged executive power of indefinite detention without trial of terror suspects”?There is more, as Sullivan knows, and it all amounts to a scandalous presidency, even if it happens that few Republicans care about the most scandalous behavior, and have instead spent almost a year now obsessing about Benghazi. The IRS scandal and Department of Justice leak-investigation excesses are worrisome, but the biggest scandals definitely go all the way to the top, and are still largely ignored even by commentators who have acknowledged that theyre happening. Sullivan has noted the stories as they broke, and seemed, for fleeting moments, to confront their gravity, noting the violation of very serious laws, and even once stating that Obama deserves to be prosecuted! Yet in response to Noonan, he writes, “So far as I can tell, this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong.” How inexplicably they forget.And Sullivan is hardly alone. At the New York Times, Mother Jones, The New Yorker, and beyond, exceptional journalists take great care to document alarming abuses against the rule of law, the separation of powers, transparency, and human rights perpetrated by the Obama Administration. On a given subject, the coverage leaves me awed and proud to be part of the same profession. But when it comes time for synthesis, bad heuristics take over. Confronted with the opportunism and absurdity of the GOP, Obamas sins are forgiven, as if he should be graded on a curve. His sins are forgotten, as if “this president has done nothing illegal, unethical or even wrong.”Yes. He. Has.

via The Biggest Obama Scandals Are Proven and Ignored – Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic.

Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats – POLITICO.com

The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.

Beneath the philosophical debates about amnesty and border security, there are brass-tacks partisan calculations driving the thinking of lawmakers in both parties over comprehensive immigration reform, which in its current form offers a pathway to citizenship — and full voting rights — for a group of undocumented residents that roughly equals the population of Ohio, the nation’s seventh-largest state.

Read more via Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats – POLITICO.com.

Immigrant

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We are a nation of immigrants, but does that mean that we should have wide open borders?  At the height of European migration, when France gave us the Statue of Liberty, did we not have and use Ellis Island where many were in fact sent back?  When they came they didn’t get anything from the govt, even as some were able to homestead, but illegal immigrants get a wealth of aid all while calling America racist.  Does the fact that my ancestors came here as early as 500 years ago mean that the US should always have an open door, regardless of the struggles the American people face?  Our immigration policies, the same which allow terrorists citizenship and reward criminal activity while denying a home schooling Christian family from Germany the chance to stay are insane, and if they show racism, ask yourself why the Romeike family face deportation while Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is a US citizen, and his brother was allowed to remain even after we were told of his terrorist ties.

Violations of the Constitution by American Presidents – Lincoln and the War Between the States

Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War

We have all been taught that Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator who freed the slaves during the Civil War, but according to the Independent Review, “contrary to popular belief, the war was not fought primarily over slavery.” This statement counters everything we have been taught since grammar school. It appears that in reality most Northerners did not object to slavery; quite to the contrary, they graciously accomplished trade and most business matters with the south, without protest. Supposedly, the war was fought because of the different economic policies of the northern and southern states, wherein some of these policies were related, but other matters had absolutely nothing to do with slavery.

 

Therefore, the war with the south, which is more correctly identified as the “war between the states,” was a convenient vehicle to ensure the southern tax base was retained to fund the treasury to feed expansion. Lincoln may have made many decisions for what he considered the greater good of the country, but on the surface it appears that sinister forces were at work. Scholars have debated the issue of why the war was fought for over a hundred years, without an absolute conclusion. As far as this book, this is not the issue I wish to explore. The issue is how the Constitution has been suborned, misinterpreted, ignored or simply bypassed by the politicians, and in some cases by the judicial system itself, so I will leave the great debate to the scholars.

 

Let me be very clear about this. I am not attempting to demonize some of the most important figures, such as Abraham Lincoln, in American history, as many revisionists have reviled both Jefferson and Washington and other revolutionary visionaries because they owned slaves. We know little of the mindset of many of these people over one hundred to two hundred years ago. As incomprehensible as their thinking may have been in today’s society, in many quarters slaves were considered sub-human, to be used for menial labor in much the same manner as we use robots today. Therefore, the Founding Fathers did not see any contradiction between slavery and the “All men are created equal” clause of the Declaration of Independence.

 

Lincoln claimed in his First Inaugural Address “No state upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union.”

 

Closely examining the Articles of Confederation, Article II states,

Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”

By the standard definition in any randomly chosen dictionary, delegated means to pass down a chain-of-command to a subordinate agent by a superior authority – in this case, the individual state is passing authority to the Federal government. To reinforce this argument, The Declaration of Independence, in part, states quite clearly,

“That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States… and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

“Power to levy War?” “Contract Alliances?  These words sound very much like the authority any nation would grant itself.

 

Remember that the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution very specifically designed the new government on the basis of a union of strong and independent states with a minimal Federal government solely responsible for defense and the judiciary, to avoid the pitfalls of powerful central governments such as England. In fact, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1 of the Constitution specifically states

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”

Common defence and general Welfare meant that their intention was simply to maintain a Federal army and the development of a nationwide judicial system. That was the main purpose of the Federal government – and not the mutation we have today. According to various legal interpretations, Lincoln had no more claim to bind Georgia or Alabama than it had in binding China or France to the Union. The key here is that somehow Lincoln and his supporters chose to believe that the states had magically surrendered their status as sovereign nations as justification to wage war against the south. Lincoln’s actions clearly violated the tenth amendment to the Constitution that states,

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Legal experts, ad nauseum, can debate this argument but one seemingly indisputable fact stands out like a Times Square billboard. By almost all legal interpretations, the Constitution is fundamentally a treaty between separate and sovereign nation-states, which those states agreed to support, as opposed to being bound to obey by law. This is a very important point that illustrates the rape of the Constitution commencing with the administration of Lincoln. There are thousands of legal interpretations that are both pro and con on this issue, so consult your library (or the Internet) if you wish to pursue this matter in greater depth.

 

Lincoln suspended habeas corpus (a writ to release a party from unlawful restraint) and people were seized and confined on the possible suspicion of disloyalty. At least 13,000 civilians were held as political prisoners, often without trial or with minimal hearings before a military tribunal. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court ruled that the suspension of habeas corpus was unconstitutional, but was overruled by Lincoln. Does this not ring a bell? The Patriot Act was not the first instance of suspension of the people’s rights under the Constitution.

 

Once Lincoln and his supporters had made the decision that states had surrendered their sovereignty, the Civil War caused a tremendous expansion of the size and power of the Federal government. A progressive income tax was imposed on the people to pay for the war, the start of the extortion of our paychecks that we live with today.

 

One of the key provisions of the Constitution is that it is a “living” document. Our Founding Fathers recognized that they could not foresee the needs of the people 100 or 200 years in the future, so they developed the system of amendments to permit continual update of the document. However, a very important point must be emphasized in that two-thirds of the states must ratify any change. Obviously since the south represented about one-half of the states in the Union, Lincoln would not have been able to modify any provision of the Constitution dealing with states rights – he would not have obtained approval on this issue.

 

Frank Meyer, in the August, 1965, issue of National Review, wrote an article that in part stated,

“Lincoln’s pivotal role in our history was essentially negative to the genius and freedom of our country.”

Pretty harsh words I would have to say. He also wrote:

“Lincoln…moved at every point …to consolidate central power and render nugatory (of little importance) the autonomy of the states…It is on his shoulders that the responsibility for the war must be placed.”

Many historians would agree with the following statement,

“If the premise upon which the US broke from England is legitimate then the ENTIRE PREMISE upon which Lincoln prosecuted the war against the Confederacy was ILLEGAL AND CRIMINAL.”

There is no question the Lincoln freed the slaves, a terrible blot on the country, but “does the means justify the end?”

 

As un-American and contrary as this may sound, an argument can be made that if this democracy falls within the next 50 years because of excessive Federal government control and taxation, Lincoln’s freeing of the slaves by fighting the war may have been too high a price to pay for his usurpation of the Constitution.

read more at Violations of the Constitution by American Presidents.

The Middle Class In America Is Being Wiped Out – Here Are 60 Facts That Prove It

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The middle class in the United States is being systematically destroyed, and nobody is doing much of anything to stop it.  Our incomes are shrinking, our share of the income pie is at an all-time low, our jobs are being sent overseas, debt burdens have soared to unprecedented heights and millions of formerly middle class Americans have fallen into poverty.  America once had the largest and most vibrant middle class that the world has ever seen, but now it is rapidly being shredded.  Unfortunately, this is particularly true for younger Americans.  Today, families that have a head of household that is under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.  That is astounding.  The truth is that there are not enough decent jobs for the hordes of young people that are entering the marketplace each year.  Once upon a time, a college degree was just about a guaranteed ticket to the middle class, but in 2011 more than half of all college graduates under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed.  Sadly, statistics tell us that the younger you are, the less likely you are to have a chance to live “the American Dream”.  Nearly half the country already lives in a household that receives direct financial assistance from the federal government, and that percentage grows with each passing day.  We are rapidly being transformed from a country of middle class citizens into a country of impoverished government dependents.  If dramatic changes are not made, the middle class in America will continue to decline every single year.  What would our society look like if the middle class disappeared entirely at some point?

The following are 60 facts that prove that the middle class in America is being wiped out…

Check out the rest of the article via The Middle Class In America Is Being Wiped Out – Here Are 60 Facts That Prove It.

75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe

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#1 In December 2008, 31.6 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, a new all-time record of 47.7 million Americans are on food stamps.  That number has increased by more than 50 percent over the past four years, and yet the mainstream media still has the gall to insist that “things are getting better”.

#2 Back in the 1970s, about one out of every 50 Americans was on food stamps.  Today, about one out of every 6.5 Americans is on food stamps.

#3 According to one calculation, the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#4 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all Americans have received money from a safety net program run by the federal government at some point in their lives.

#5 For the first time ever, more than a million public school students in the United States are homeless.  That number has risen by 57 percent since the 2006-2007 school year.

#6 Median household income in the U.S. has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#7 Families that have a head of household under the age of 30 have a poverty rate of 37 percent.

#8 The percentage of working age Americans with a job has been under 59 percent for 39 months in a row.

#9 In September 2009, during the depths of the last economic crisis, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  In November 2012, 58.7 percent of all working age Americans were employed.  It is more then 3 years later, and we are in the exact same place.

#10 When you total up all working age Americans that do not have a job in America today, it comes to more than 100 million.

#11 According to one recent survey, 55 percent of all small business owners in America “say they would not start a business today given what they know now and in the current environment.”

#12 The number of jobs at new small businesses continues to decline.  According to economist Tim Kane, the following is how the decline in the number of startup jobs per 1000 Americans breaks down by presidential administration

Bush Sr.: 11.3

Clinton: 11.2

Bush Jr.: 10.8

Obama: 7.8

#13 The U.S. share of global GDP has fallen from 31.8 percent in 2001 to 21.6 percent in 2011.

#14 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#15 There are four major U.S. banks that each have more than 40 trillion dollars of exposure to derivatives.

#16 In 2000, there were more than 17 million Americans working in manufacturing, but now there are less than 12 million.

#17 According to the Pew Research Center, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971.  Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are.

#18 The Pew Research Center has also found that 85 percent of all middle class Americans say that it is harder to maintain a middle class standard of living today than it was 10 years ago.

#19 62 percent of all middle class Americans say that they have had to reduce household spending over the past year.

#20 Right now, approximately 48 percent of all Americans are either considered to be “low income” or are living in poverty.

#21 Approximately 57 percent of all children in the United States are living in homes that are either considered to be either “low income” or impoverished.

#22 According to one survey, 77 percent of all Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck at least part of the time.

#23 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#24 The average amount of time that an unemployed worker stays out of work in the United States is 40 weeks.

#25 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#26 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, an all-time record 49 percent of all Americans live in a home where at least one person receives financial assistance from the federal government.  Back in 1983, that number was less than 30 percent.

#27 Right now, more than 100 million Americans are enrolled in at least one welfare program run by the federal government.  And that does not even count Social Security or Medicare.  Overall, there are almost 80 different “means-tested welfare programs” that the federal government is currently running.

#28 When you account for all government transfer payments and all forms of government employment, more than half of all Americans are now at least partially financially dependent on the government.

#29 Barack Obama has been president for less than four years, and during that time the number of Americans “not in the labor force” has increased by nearly 8.5 million.  Something seems really “off” about that number, because during the entire decade of the 1980s the number of Americans “not in the labor force” only rose by about 2.5 million.

#30 Electricity bills in the United States have risen faster than the overall rate of inflation for five years in a row.

#31 According to USA Today, many Americans have actually seen their water bills triple over the past 12 years.

#32 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#33 Right now, approximately 25 million American adults are living with their parents.

#34 As the economy has slowed down, so has the number of marriages.  According to a Pew Research Center analysis, only 51 percent of all Americans that are at least 18 years old are currently married.  Back in 1960, 72 percent of all U.S. adults were married.

#35 At this point, only 24.6 percent of all jobs in the United States are good jobs.

#36 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#37 Recently it was announced that total student loan debt in the United States has passed the one trillion dollar mark.

#38 If you can believe it, one out of every seven Americans has at least 10 credit cards.

#39 One survey of business executives has ranked California as the worst state in America to do business for 8 years in a row.

#40 In the city of Detroit today, more than 50 percent of all children are living in poverty, and close to 50 percent of all adults are functionally illiterate.

#41 It is being projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18 years of age.

#42 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#43 If you can believe it, 53 percent of all Americans with a bachelor’s degree under the age of 25 were either unemployed or underemployed last year.

#44 The U.S. economy continues to trade good paying jobs for low paying jobs.  60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#45 Our trade deficit with China in 2011 was $295.5 billion.  That was the largest trade deficit that one country has had with another country in the history of the planet.

#46 The United States has lost an average of approximately 50,000 manufacturing jobs a month since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.

#47 According to the Economic Policy Institute, America is losing half a million jobs to China every single year.

#48 The U.S. tax code is now more than 3.8 million words long.  If you took all of William Shakespeare’s works and collected them together, the entire collection would only be about 900,000 words long.

#49 According to the IMF, the global elite are holding a total of 18 trillion dollars in offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands.

#50 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#51 2012 was the third year in a row that the yield for corn has declined in the United States.

#52 Experts are telling us that global food reserves have reached their lowest level in almost 40 years.

#53 One recent survey discovered that 40 percent of all Americans have $500 or less in savings.

#54 If you can believe it, one recent survey found that 28 percent of all Americans do not have a single penny saved for emergencies.

#55 Medical costs related to obesity in the United States are estimated to be approximately $147 billion a year.

#56 Corporate profits as a percentage of GDP are at an all-time high.  Meanwhile, wages as a percentage of GDP are near an all-time low.

#57 Today, the wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

#58 The wealthiest 400 families in the United States have about as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of all Americans combined.

#59 The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have a net worth that is roughly equal to the bottom 30 percentof all Americans combined.

#60 At this point, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.

#61 Nearly 500,000 federal employees now make at least $100,000 a year.

#62 In 2006, only 12 percent of all federal workers made $100,000 or more per year.  Now, approximately 22 percent of all federal workers do.

#63 If you can believe it, there are 77,000 federal workers that make more than the governors of their own states do.

#64 Nearly 15,000 retired federal workers are collecting federal pensions for life worth at least $100,000 annually.  The list includes such names as Newt Gingrich, Bob Dole, Trent Lott, Dick Gephardt and Dick Cheney.

#65 U.S. taxpayers spend more than 20 times as much on the Obamas as British taxpayers spend on the royal family.

#66 Family homelessness in the Washington D.C. region (one of the wealthiest regions in the entire country) has risen 23 percent since the last recession began.

#67 If Bill Gates gave every single penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for about 15 days.

#68 During fiscal year 2012, 62 percent of the federal budget was spent on entitlements.

#69 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, approximately one out of every 6Americans is on Medicaid.

#70 It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#71 Medicare is also growing by leaps and bounds.  As I wrote about recently, it is being projected that the number of Americans on Medicare will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.

#72 Thanks to our foolish politicians (including Obama), Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years.  That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.

#73 Amazingly, the U.S. national debt is now up to 16.3 trillion dollars.  When Barack Obama first took office the national debt was just 10.6 trillion dollars.

#74 During the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. government accumulated about as much debt as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.

#75 Today, the U.S. national debt is more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was originally created back in 1913.

Please share this article with as many people as you can.  Time is running out, and we need to wake up as many people as possible.

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75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe.

34 Signs That America Is In Decline

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The following are 34 signs that America is in decline…

#1 According to the World Bank, U.S. GDP accounted for 31.8 percent of all global economic activity in 2001.  That number dropped to 21.6 percent in 2011.  That is not just a decline – that is a freefall.  Just check out the chart in this article.

#2 According to The Economist, the United States was the best place in the world to be born into back in 1988.  Today, the United States is only tied for 16th place.

#3 The United States has fallen in the global economic competitiveness rankings compiled by the World Economic Forum for four years in a row.

#4 According to the Wall Street Journal, of the 40 biggest publicly traded corporate spenders, half of them plan to reduce capital expenditures in coming months.

#5 More than three times as many new homes were sold in the United States in 2005 as will be sold in 2012.

#6 America once had the greatest manufacturing cities on the face of the earth.  Now many of our formerly great manufacturing cities have degenerated into festering hellholes.  For example, the city of Detroit is on the verge of financial collapse, and one state lawmaker is now saying that “dissolving Detroit” should be looked at as an option.

#7 In 2007, the unemployment rate for the 20 to 29 age bracket was about 6.5 percent.  Today, the unemployment rate for that same age group is about 13 percent.

#8 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs.  Today, less than 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.

#9 If you can believe it, approximately one out of every four American workers makes 10 dollars an hour or less.

#10 Sadly, 60 percent of the jobs lost during the last recession were mid-wage jobs, but 58 percent of the jobs created since then have been low wage jobs.

#11 Median household income in America has fallen for four consecutive years.  Overall, it has declined by over $4000 during that time span.

#12 The U.S. trade deficit with China during 2011 was 28 times larger than it was back in 1990.

#13 Incredibly, more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities in the United States have been shut down since 2001.  During 2010, manufacturing facilities were shutting down at the rate of 23 per day.  How can anyone say that “things are getting better” when our economic infrastructure is being absolutely gutted?

#14 Back in early 2005, the average price of a gallon of gasoline was less than 2 dollars a gallon.  During 2012, the average price of a gallon of gasoline has been $3.63.

#15 In 1999, 64.1 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance.  Today, only 55.1 percent are covered by employment-based health insurance.

#16 As I have written about previously, 61 percent of all Americans were “middle income” back in 1971 according to the Pew Research Center.  Today, only 51 percent of all Americans are “middle income”.

#17 There are now 20.2 million Americans that spend more than half of their incomes on housing.  That represents a 46 percent increase from 2001.

#18 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate for children living in the United States isabout 22 percent.

#19 Back in 1983, the bottom 95 percent of all income earners in the United States had 62 cents of debt for every dollar that they earned.  By 2007, that figure had soared to $1.48.

#20 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#21 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#22 The value of the U.S. dollar has declined by more than 96 percent since the Federal Reserve was first created.

#23 According to one survey, 29 percent of all Americans in the 25 to 34 year old age bracket arestill living with their parents.

#24 Back in 1950, 78 percent of all households in the United States contained a married couple.  Today, that number has declined to 48 percent.

#25 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives direct monetary benefits from the federal government.  Back in 1983, less than a third of all Americans lived in a home that received direct monetary benefits from the federal government.

#26 In 1980, government transfer payments accounted for just 11.7 percent of all income.  Today, government transfer payments account for more than 18 percent of all income.

#27 In November 2008, 30.8 million Americans were on food stamps.  Today, 47.1 millionAmericans are on food stamps.

#28 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps.

#29 As I wrote about the other day, according to one calculation the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the combined populations of “Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.”

#30 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.  It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.

#31 In 2001, the U.S. national debt was less than 6 trillion dollars.  Today, it is over 16 trillion dollars and it is increasing by more than 100 million dollars every single hour.

#32 The U.S. national debt is now more than 23 times larger than it was when Jimmy Carter became president.

#33 According to a PBS report from earlier this year, U.S. households that make $13,000 or less per year spend 9 percent of their incomes on lottery tickets.  Could that possibly be accurate?  Are people really that foolish?

#34 As the U.S. economy has declined, the American people have been downing more antidepressants and other prescription drugs than ever before.  In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.

Read the full article at » 34 Signs That America Is In Decline Alex Jones’ Infowars: There’s a war on for your mind!.

Alex Jones – Secede from the New World Order Transcript

It is the 15th day of November, 2012. I am Alex Jones your host. And I can undoubtedly, with butterflies in my stomach, which I never have, even speaking in front of thousands of people in a hall, I can unequivocally tell you that this is going to be the most important broadcast hands down that I have ever done. Now we have not been blindsided by the secession movement, but it’s almost like a bus that ran me over ten years ago, it’s old news to us. But the new news is that it’s now breaking nationwide and worldwide, and is a symbol and an indicator of the sleeping giant that is America awakening.

And the entire globalist program has been built and designed to block what you are about to see unfold. I’m going to make some announcements here today, and I’m going to lay out some plans from my deep study of the Constitution that can save this Republic if you execute them. Victory is in our grasp. People don’t know they’re in tyranny until it really starts to get bad.

Ladies and gentlemen, petitions to the White House under federal law have to be responded to when they reach a certain number. It’s now more than 15 states, it was 7 last night, that have reached that threshold.

But secession itself is a red herring. I hope you’re listening to me. What we really want is a new Declaration of Independence issued July 4, 1776. The purest American values, the purest essence of the United States was secession from a corrupt, distant corporate empire backed up by military force. We are recaptured by the progeny; by the literal and figurative offspring of those robber barons 235 years ago. We are at the crossroads, and the entire enemy battle plan that we’ve reverse engineered is designed to suppress states’ rights movements. Because the states created the federal government and it is not their right, it is not their duty, We the people that make the states, it is an absolute imperative beyond duty. It is survival that we secede from the New World Order that has conquered us through fraud; that we declare the fraud null and void and then reconstitute the Republic with a new Congress of the several states.

A new Declaration of Independence. We can’t wait until July 4th. And everything we’ve forward with the nullification movement, the states’ rights movement. The system has prepared for this; sold Obama as the next Lincoln, and said any state’s right movement is civil war. Glenn Beck is saying it’s illegal and civil war. It is the essence of America. And there’s a new Ron Paul video he put out this morning at Infowars.com that we just posted where he says that secession is the ultimate American value.

America is already gone. We must recognize that, pull out the New World Order, prosecute the criminals that have hijacked the Republic that don’t flee, and then reconstitute the Republic. But we must first separate or die to then rejoin. We’ll be back, stay with us.

Today is a day that will be remembered forever in the hearts and minds. In future generations of not just Americans, but people worldwide who have rediscovered liberty and freedom. We are living on the edge ladies and gentlemen. This will be my most important broadcast in my 17 years of being on air. This is it, ladies and gentlemen.

We have warned of this, we have exposed it, we have seen the globalists preparation and now things are unfolding exactly as we knew they would. But last night at about midnight after re-watching Ron Paul’s most powerful and thought provoking speech, his farewell speech, watching it for the second time last night – we’re going to play some clips of it coming up – everything crystalized. I already knew it intellectually. I’d already said it on air a hundred times in different ways, but it hit me with that electricity I’ve only felt a few other times in my life – the knowing.

The knowing. The absolute destiny of this Republic. The conviction that if I prosecute the war against the New World Order, if you take up the Infowar and discredit and expose the enemy and take up states’ rights and take up a new Declaration of Independence. The plans were laid by our forebears. The first amendment, the second amendment, the fourth amendment, the tenth amendment, the ninth amendment, all chief, all key, all armaments for our protection for seeing the crisis we’ve now entered.

The enemy’s tools is the dumbed-down population, a drugged-population, a selfish, evil, greedy population. And they don’t even outnumber us. It’s a fraudulent election system, we know that. If the parasites didn’t have the producers, they would fall. And we are now here at the crossroads. And we have Edwin Viera joining us, constitutional lawyer at the start of the next hour; we have Lew Rockwell joining us as well. And I’m going to make some huge announcements here and try to be calm. I’ve written like 7 pages of notes here I want to go over with you here today. Now this is not complex, but this is not dumbed-down radio. This is a blueprint. And if constitutional lawyers pick this up, if Ron Paul can be drafted. If you put the energy in tomorrow, next week, next year, this is the beginning. Everything else has just been a build-up, the orchestra tuning up before the orchestra begins their true presentation. We are at the threshold of absolute history.

We are plunging into absolute, certified, bonafide, razor-sharp, total evil. Obama did something off the charts today. He signed a secret executive order handing over the Internet to the NSA and foreign banks. Unprecedented. We are now going under emergency rule right now. This has all been planned out, all war-gamed.

But we, through historical research, and thousands of whistleblowers from inside the system, many of which were killed or imprisoned – remember many people died to bring you this information – the only reason I’m alive right now is because people were willing in the 60s, 70s and 80s to be imprisoned and killed. They killed thousands of people. They arrested Congressmen and tortured them. They, they hijacked aircraft and handed over Congressmen to the North Koreans. They can try to keep this down. Those of us that came before the current awakening. We stand on their shoulders. So this isn’t a game. I want to telegraph that to you right now.

And what I’m going to say today, and what I’m taking up now is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever done, and I feel no fear. I only feel fear that I will not execute this properly, and it’s not fear, it’s more of a gripping, bracing realization as if the hand of God is wrapped around my heart saying ‘Don’t screw this up. You may be killed doing this, so in your greatest moment of resistance, ringing the bell, signaling the beginning of the second American revolution. The restoration and the spirit of 1776. Don’t screw this up, Jones.’ And I’ll tell all of you this as well, you don’t screw this up either. This is time for dedication. This is time for commitment, and the spiritual decision to sign your John Hancock in your words and your deeds towards the restoration of our Republic and putting us back on the course of liberty and justice for all.

And what am I going to call for here? I’m going to call for what is in the Declaration of Independence. The founding document of July 4, 1776. That is what I’m calling for. It is America. It is the birth of America. It’s when it all started. And we have the tools, we have the information. We have all of it before us, in our hands if we will only take it up from this inspired document. The example of freedom worldwide and breathe life back into it and set those brushfires in the minds of men and women everywhere.

Let me lay out some basic facts here before I get into the battle plan in the infowar. And the enemy will undoubtedly try to come down physically upon us, but that is part of the historical tide. And that is another side of our victory. The 1.6 billion bullets, the checkpoints, the foreign troops, the Army admitting re-education camps. That’s a sign of weakness of the collectivist borg corporate bankster state. The poison they’ve poured out upon us, their venom that was meant to paralyze those of us that love liberty has only energized us while paralyzing and fogging their vision. They are confounded. They are confused. They are believing their own propaganda and lies. But I see in their eyes the seeds of their destruction and their failure.

If only you will take up the gifts God has given us, the weapons that God gave our forebears. So long lying in their armories, collecting dust, we will resurrect these weapons and we will use them tirelessly against the enemy. We will prosecute a war to restore the Republic and run the moneychangers from the temple.

Now here are some of the points I’m going to break down. And I know Paul Watson and others are going to be codifying this into action plans and articles.

Number 1, Ron Paul, the video’s up at Infowars.com, has said secession is the essence of America. And the birth of our Republic. It is more American than even George Washington, because he flowed forth from that. It is the fount, the center, the core, the very blood of the Republic. It is July 4th. It is the freedom, it is the dignity, it is the absolute center of the universe on this planet for liberty and resistance to tyranny.

It is our armor, it is our mind, it is our sword, it is our shield, it is our will.

Now, I will expose the trap. The globalists are counterfeiters. They will secession and they will repackage it as civil war and as racism, and you’re already seeing that. You’re already seeing them jump on that, they were ready.

It was secession from the British empire by British citizens who were having their rights violated, exactly as we are today, after a long train of abuses, that led to them pulling out of that corrupt system, to form a new union, to form a new system. Read the Declaration of Independence. And that is was not just their right, but their duty to do so.

And so we’re saying rediscover that, reissue a new Declaration of Independence. It may take a year, it may take two years, but accelerate the program. The idea. Literally storm your state houses, not demanding more government handouts, but as we stormed them over the TSA last year, and that’s what the media called it, march in not asking but demanding that they throw the TSA out of our state. Unanimously voted in the House, killed by Dewhurst in the Senate. Now we have removed him and he lost his Senate race. Now they’re back with even more votes in the Senate.

We are going to force the issue with the globalists, because here’s the key. We’re not seceding from the federal government. We are recognizing and declaring what is self-evident that the federal government has been hijacked by foreign banking cartels. You can go into the legislatures with the Times of London, CNBC, Time magazine, hundreds of publications bragging that we’ve been conquered. So we are pulling out of the occupied, false federal New World Order system. We are seceding from the New World Order hijackers to reconstitute the Republic. I have the battle plan. We’re going to draft Ron Paul. Stay with me. Call everyone you know.

Just a cast away in my own Republic. A country occupied by foreign banks that openly brag they’ve taken my Republic over and that they’re going to give us $100,000 fines for washing our cars, that’s the San Diego Herald Tribune. That they’re going to arrest us for hay dust in our barns. That they’re going to forcibly inoculate our children without asking us, totally illegal. That they’re going to shut down and take over the Internet and sign a secret executive order to do it.

Once you get to the point of tyranny, it just drops off a ledge. And the media, I’ve literally got probably 60 articles here, CBS News, NBC, you name it, showing Fort Sumter on fire that started the Civil War. Union ships bombarding the fort. I mean this is so amazing the type of things that are going on. And the media is saying ‘It’s racist. People don’t like having a black president.’ Really? Was there secession calls four years ago? No. We know Obama’s a puppet. They’re saying, ‘We’re going to raise your taxes. We’re gong to pass VAT and carbon taxes.’ That’s now in the news. ‘We’re going to give it foreign banks. We’re going to have the federal government take over your life. We’re going to legalize all the illegals. We’re going to open the country up. North American Union.’ And people are like, ‘No, you’re not.’ And they’re like, ‘Yes we are.’

‘Hey, your state says they’re going to enforce the law and not let the TSA stick their hands down people’s pants? Well, I tell you what we’re going to do then. We’re going to send in F16s to shoot down aircraft that try to enter Texas.’ That was last year. The federal government’s out of control. It’s been taken over. They brag in hundreds of publications that America’s been conquered. The post-America world, on and on and on.

Fifty years ago, the richest country in the world. The highest education. Highest IQ. The longest lived. Now, we’re at the back of the pack. We have been overrun by criminals with a bunch of fancy propaganda. And Ron Paul gave a speech yesterday, his farewell, where he said we have state-run media, they’ve set up FEMA camps, we’re going into world government. That’s what’s going to cure this, is slamming the facts down, because they’re right there.

Not listening to some of the people that have infiltrated Campaign for Liberty saying ‘Don’t talk about world government. You know, work with the system.’ Oh, Obama’s got a mandate. Thank God Ron Paul’s taken Campaign for Liberty back over. And listen, I’m going to lay out my battle plan when we come back from break. I’m so excited I’ve just given you some of the basic facts here. But I’m going to tell you this. Call everyone you know, whether you’re listening on a local AM or FM station, whether you are listening on XM 166, whether you are listening to the Internet streams on PrisonPlanet.com or Infowars.com. Call everyone you know and tell them to tune in now, because I’ve got a battle plan based on history, based on our Republic, based on the Bill of Rights and Constitution, and based on the fact that we’ve got close to double the nations that we had 100 years ago because people want freedom. And when you’ve got a corrupt central government – Mexico used to be twice the size it is now. Not in the North; in the South. Guatemala and other countries peeled off. That is the natural thing is to, when you get your federal government hijacked, you pull out, then you reconstitute, then you go restore the federal government.

I mean look, if foreign enemies parachuted in and took over the White House and the Congress and announced, ‘We’re your new government,’ like something out of Amerika with a “k” with Kris Kristofferson, you’d say, ‘Hey, the states have got to get together to kick these guys out. That’s not our legitimate government.’ That wouldn’t be secession. That would be the states organizing to reconstitute the Republic. But to do that, they’ve got to exercise their states’ rights of secession.

Not secession to make Texas its own country. Not secession to make Oklahoma its own country. Not secession to make Missouri its own country, or Illinois. Secession to say, ‘Here’s our Bill of Rights and Constitution that our state constitutions are based on. This is what we follow. Not the U.N. Not the New World Order. Not the Patriot Act. Not the NDAA. Federal Reserve out. New World Order out. Get out!’

Read at http://www.infowars.com/transcript-alex-jones-secede-from-the-new-world-order/

 

It’s Bush’s Fault!

I find it funny how so many are saying that Obama won and we should just “shut up” and not talk about him.  Of course that makes zero sense.  Seriously, not only did Bush win his reelection, but they are STILL talking about him.  Obama didn’t exactly win a landslide either, no matter how they spin it.  Three million votes, that’s it, and there are questions hanging over this election, bigger questions than in either of Bush’s campaigns.  Considering there is a full effort to radically transform the United States, something that has nothing to do with race, gender, or birth control, coupled with a sour economy that is likely to get worse, don’t expect people to fall in line with the Obama faithful.  That’s simply not going to happen.  If Romney had won, the liberals would still fight.  In fact, that was one advantage I saw in a Romney victory; the media would actually watch him instead of spouting off his talking points.  As the federal government moves beyond it’s limits further and takes a one size fits all approach to the states and the people (regardless of who is in the White House or the Congress), trampling our rights in the process, there will be division, and yes, it will get louder.