School Superintendent Gives Up $800,000 In Pay .. Take Heed Wall Streeters & Corporate Big-Wigs

Here at See No Evil we love to publish feel good stories about Americans who stand above the crowd. 

School Superintendent Larry Powell..We Salute You! 

 This Citizen deserves all the attention he is receiving. It is high time we hear about people giving back to the communities that have given them so much...instead of those who are just taking, taking, taking.

Although $800K over 3 years is not a huge amount, it is a significant amount to most people. In his own words "There is no reason for me to be stockpiling money". 

Take heed Wall Streeters and big-wig corporate execs....we ARE watching you! What need is there for you to be stockpiling your millions and billions?

Wake Up America!

FRESNO, Calif. - Some people give back to their community. Then there's Fresno County School Superintendent Larry Powell, who's really giving back. As in $800,000 — what would have been his compensation for the next three years.

Until his term expires in 2015, Powell will run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students, all for less than a starting California teacher earns.

"How much do we need to keep accumulating?" asks Powell, 63. "There's no reason for me to keep stockpiling money."

Powell's generosity is more than just a gesture in a region with some of the nation's highest rates of unemployment. As he prepares for retirement, he wants to ensure that his pet projects survive California budget cuts. And the man who started his career as a high school civics teacher, who has made anti-bullying his mission, hopes his act of generosity will help restore faith in the government he once taught students to respect.

"A part of me has chaffed at what they did in Bell," Powell said, recalling the corrupt Southern California city officials who secretly boosted their salaries by hundreds of thousands of dollars. "It's hard to believe that someone in the public trust would do that to the public. My wife and I asked ourselves 'What can we do that might restore confidence in government?'"

Powell's answer? Ask his board to allow him to return $288,241 in salary and benefits for the next three and a half years of his term. He technically retired, then agreed to be hired back to work for $31,000 a year — $10,000 less than a first-year teacher — and with no benefits.

"I thought it was so very generous on his part," said school board member Sally Tannenbaum. "We get to keep him, but at a much lower rate."

His move was so low-key, his manner so unassuming, that it took four days after the school board meeting for word of his act to get out to the community. There were no press releases or self-congratulatory pats on the back.

"Things like this are what America is all about," said friend Alan Autry, Fresno's former celebrity mayor who played Capt. Bubba Skinner on the TV series "In the Heat of The Night."

"America is as much about overcoming obstacles in difficult times as it is opulence," Autry said. "This reminds me of the great sacrifices made throughout our history, especially the Great Depression."

No one has been more surprised about the positive reaction than Powell, a lifelong educator who didn't realize that what he did was newsworthy. He chuckles at his desk when yet another e-mail arrives from a colleague blown away by his generosity. Two days after word got out he had received 200 messages on his Facebook page.

"When you make good choices, good things happen to you," said Powell, who tends to talk in the kind of uplifting phrases that also make him a sought-after motivational speaker.

He even sees as an asset his childhood contraction of polio, which left him with a limp and a brace, and now a lingering post-polio syndrome.

"It's the most spectacular thing that has happen to me in all my life," he said. "People stepped up to help me be successful."

Powell might credit others, but others say Powell's drive always has come from within. Despite the right leg brace and experimental operations to stop the growth of his healthy leg, he became a champion high school wrestler in Fresno and set a record for one of the most dreaded of all gym class drills — the 20-foot rope climb, which he completed in 1.8 seconds. Today he carries a six handicap in golf.

After moving into school administration he became deputy superintendent, and was appointed to his current job before running for the office in 2006.

The ordained Baptist minister, who serves on the board of a national anti-bullying group that sprang from the Columbine shootings, is so popular he even counts among his friends his contract bargaining nemesis, the former head of the employees' union.

"For a leader to step up to help the budget is phenomenal," said Mike Lepore. "It gives you hope. It gives you the feeling that everything is being done to try to make education work. It's Larry. It really is."

Powell will still earn a six-figure retirement, especially hefty by the standards of California's farming heartland. But because his salary comes out of the district's discretionary budget, for the next three years he'll be able to steer the money he is giving up where he wants: to programs for kindergarten and preschool, the arts and a pet project that steers B and C students into college by teaching them how to take notes and develop strategy skills.

"Our goal has never been to have things," Powell said of himself and his wife, Dot. "We want to give back."

Article courtesy of AP

Bloomberg Denies Clergy From Offering Prayer at 9-11 Ceremony

New York mayor Bloomberg' decision to exclude clergy members from the 9-11 memorial "service" is flat-out UnAmerican! 

Who gave these ungodly politicians the right to decide how we memorialize our fallen citizens?

It is in GOD we trust...

 Wake Up America!

Memorial for Mychal Judge, New York Fire Department chaplain, and other firefighters lost in World Trade Center attack.

Some New York politicians and religious leaders are criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg for not offering clergy members a role in the high-profile ceremonies marking 10 years since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, The Wall Street Journal reported.

"This is America, and to have a memorial service where there's no prayer, this appears to be insanity to me," said Rudy Washington, a former deputy mayor under Rudolph Giuliani. "I feel like America has lost its way."

A spokewoman from Bloomberg's office told The Journal that the focus, as in past years, will be on the family members of the fallen. Rabbi Joseph Potasnik told the paper he understood the mayor's decision, saying, "I don't know how to make it possible for everyone to have a place at the table."

But opponents say faith played an important role in the country after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

There was a plethora of interfaith events, and New York Magazine even named New York Fire Department chaplain Mychal Judge, who died in the attack and is immortalized in a picture being carried from a tower, the "most famous victim of the World Trade Center attack."

City Council member Fernando Cabrera, who is a pastor at a Bronx church, told The Journal he was "utterly disappointed" by the absence of clergy.

"They were the spiritual and emotional backbone, and when you have a situation where people are trying to find meaning, where something is bigger than them, when you have a crisis of this level, they often look to the clergy," he said.

Article courtesy of FoxNews

Japanese Find Millions In Lost Tsunami Cash - And Return It!

What would YOU do if you found a safe full of money after a natural disaster? In Japan, there is almost no question to that dilemma. Returning the cash to its rightful owner is the right thing to do.

In this country, mobs of looters are what we are treated to on the news after a catastrophe. Until America finds its moral compass again, we will not be the standard to which the rest of the world compares itself.

If disaster struck, and millions of dollars in cash turned up, do you think it would be returned to its rightful owners?

In Japan, it was.

During the four months since the giant tsunami struck Japan's northern coast, more than 5,700 safes containing approximately $30 million has been recovered from the three hardest hit prefectures, Japan’s National Police Agency recently announced.

Remarkably – since residents of the tsunami zone have scattered across the country and even the world – 96 percent, or nearly $29.6 million in cash, has already been returned to its rightful owners, or if authorities feared the owner had died in the disaster, their closest relative.
Detective job to find rightful owners
The majority of the safes recovered in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima were collected by Japan’s Self Defense Force, police, and volunteers while combing through destroyed homes and buildings and clearing debris left behind by the devastating wave; some individuals also came forward with lost valuables.

Masao Sasaki, with the Iwate prefectural police, said that determining who the money belonged to and then actually finding them proved to be a great challenge and often involved excruciating detective work.

"In some cases, entire communities were completely washed away. Even if we had information on the address of the owner, there would be no building left, landlines were destroyed,” Sasaki explained. “So we went around to the various evacuation centers and started checking through the rosters."

In Iwate prefecture alone, where more than 23,000 structures along the coast were destroyed, 2,400 safes containing a total amount of $10 million was collected. Incredibly, 91 percent of it has already been returned.

Considering that up until June there were more than 330 evacuation centers in Iwate, and people were constantly moving to new locations, it was no small feat to return that much money.

“You can just imagine the difficult work involved in tracking down the owners,” Sasaki said. "In some cases where the owner was thought to have perished, we had to find the closest kin who could have been anywhere inside or outside Iwate.

It’s not unusual for Japanese, especially the elderly, to keep cash at home. In particular, fishermen, who made up a large portion of the coastal population, traditionally preferred cash transactions and often even paid salaries in cash.

Thankfully, many of the safes also held bank books, certificates of land rights, name chops (traditional stamps used in lieu of signatures on personal documents) or some other form of identification. But because they were drenched in mud and water, each item often had to be carefully cleaned and dried, at times using a shirt iron in order to extract useful clues.

"It was important to be able to return these items properly cleaned, but our first and utmost priority was to find the owners and return their belongings as quickly as possible," said Sasaki.

Asked how they were able to return 91 percent of the lost valuables, Sasaki said it was simply the laborious work and perseverance of the prefecture’s officers.

Venturing into the nuke zone
It was a tougher task in Fukushima prefecture, where extra precaution was required to reach some of the areas affected by the nuclear accident.

When their officers entered the 12-mile-radius exclusion zone, they had to put on hazmat suits and equip themselves with survey meters so they could check the radiation levels.

"It might have taken a little longer in Fukushima," said Yoshiyasu Sato of the local prefectural police headquarters. "We had to start from the outer perimeter of the exclusion zone and slowly work our way in.”

But according to Sato, even though it took four months, the police have pretty much completed their task: they have already returned 96 percent of the $7.2 million found in some 900 safe boxes.

And in the Miyagi prefecture they had an even greater rate of return. More than 2,400 safes were collected that contained approximately $13.5 million –amazingly 99 percent of that has been returned to its owners or closest kin.

Almost done
In Iwate, as they get closer to completing the task of clearing away the rubble, the number of safes and other belongings recovered has dropped. But, Sasaki said, “the collection is still not completely zero, the numbers have come down, but items are being turned in sporadically.”

In total, if you included the money retrieved from lost wallets and purses, $48.3 million worth of cash was collected from the disaster zone. Out of that total amount, 85 percent has found its way to its rightful owners.

While the sheer amount of cash collected and returned is astounding, it is also another reminder of the scope of the damage brought by the March earthquake and tsunami which claimed the lives of more than 20,000 people and completely wiped out at least 112,000 homes and buildings.

Article by Arata Yamamoto, NBC News

Minneapolis Nurses Fight Back Against Union Intimidation! (Video)

Labor Unions are one of the reasons this country has lost its competitive edge. Unions are bullies in the playground that need to be given a big "TIME-OUT" and then shown new rules to play by...if at all.

Nurse: "I wanted to protect my patients"

With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, three Minneapolis nurses have filed federal unfair labor practice charges against nurse union officials for illegally threatening them with disciplinary action for refusing to participate in a recent strike.

Recently, a local TV news crew interviewed two of the nurses about the atmosphere of hostility and distrust created at the children's hospital as a result of the union boss-ordered strike.

One nurse tells KARE-11 that she exercised her right to resign from the union and go back to work because "I wanted to protect my patients."

Union officials claim some nurses received the threatening letters due to a "clerical error" but refused to be interviewed on camera.

Over the years, Foundation attorneys have won settlements for workers illegally threatened by union bosses with fines up to $40,000 simply for returning to work to provide for their families.

Article by National Right to Work

Was CIA behind Operation Fast and Furious?

Why did the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) let criminals buy firearms, smuggle them across the Mexican border and deliver them into the hands of vicious drug cartels? The ATF claims it launched its now-disgraced Operation Fast and Furious in 2009 to catch the “big fish.” Fast and Furious was designed to stem the “Iron River” flowing from American gun stores into the cartels’ arsenals. The bureau says it allowed gun smuggling so it could track the firearms and arrest the cartel members downstream. Not true.

During the course of Operation Fast and Furious, about 2,000 weapons moved from U.S. gun stores to Mexican drug cartels - exactly as intended.

In congressional testimony, William Newell, former ATF special agent in charge of the Phoenix Field Division, testified that the Internal Revenue Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were “full partners” in Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Newell’s list left out the most important player: the CIA. According to a CIA insider, the agency had a strong hand in creating, orchestrating and exploiting Operation Fast and Furious.

The CIA’s motive is clear enough: The U.S. government is afraid the Los Zetas drug cartel will mount a successful coup d’etat against the government of Felipe Calderon.

Founded by ex-Mexican special forces, the Zetas already control huge swaths of Mexican territory. They have the organization, arms and money needed to take over the entire country.

Former CIA pilot Robert Plumlee and former CIA operative and DEA Director Phil Jordan recently said the brutally efficient Mexican drug cartel has stockpiled thousands of weapons to disrupt and influence Mexico’s national elections in 2012. There’s a very real chance the Zetas cartel could subvert the political process completely, as it has throughout the regions it controls.

In an effort to prevent a Los Zetas takeover, Uncle Sam has gotten into bed with the rival Sinaloa cartel, which has close ties to the Mexican military. Recent court filings by former Sinaloa cartel member Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, currently in U.S. custody, reveal that the United States allowed the Sinaloas to fly a 747 cargo plane packed with cocaine into American airspace - unmolested.

The CIA made sure the trade wasn’t one-way. It persuaded the ATF to create Operation Fast and Furious - a “no strings attached” variation of the agency’s previous firearms sting. By design, the ATF operation armed the Mexican government’s preferred cartel on the street level near the American border, where the Zetas are most active.

Operation Fast and Furious may not have been the only way the CIA helped put lethal weapons into the hands of the Sinaloa cartel and its allies, but it certainly was an effective strategy. If drug thugs hadn’t murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry with an ATF- provided weapon, who knows how many thousands more guns would have crossed the U.S. border?

To be sure, Operation Fast and Furious suited the ATF’s needs. It was all too willing to let guns walk to increase its power, prestige and budget in Washington. It actively recruited so-called straw purchasers and happily used American gun dealers as pawns. And it was only one agency in a mosaic of federal agencies helping the CIA actualize its covert plans.

The fact that Operation Fast and Furious was part of the CIA’s black-bag job in Mexico does not excuse the ATF for violating the very federal laws it was created to enforce; for contributing to the deaths of hundreds of innocent citizens, including a Border Patrol agent trying to live up to his oath; or for being unrepentant, uncooperative and unresponsive to the wishes of the American people for honesty, integrity and loyalty to the U.S. Constitution.

Nor should the FBI get a free pass for subverting the criminal-background-check system designed to prevent illegal firearms purchases. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department - all major players in the CIA’s grand schemes - should not escape scrutiny, either. In fact, we should not shrug off the activities of any of our federal agencies that broke the law on the Sinaloa’s - and thus the Mexican government’s - behalf.

The Obama administration clearly thinks the entire federal government should help keep the profoundly corrupt Calderon government in power - no matter what. If that means sending lawyers, guns and money to unconscionable criminals, so be it. In this, Obama officials are wrong.

By choosing sides in a brutal war between opposing criminal syndicates rather than sealing our southern border, the Obama administration is fueling brutality and carnage and killing any hope of Mexican democracy. All that aside, either we are a nation of laws or we are not. If we live by our principles, Congress must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the people in the Obama administration who enabled this reckless gun scheme.

Article by Robert Farago and Ralph Dixon, Courtesy of The Washington Times

Texas Senator John Cornyn Blasts ATF’s Reported Promotion of Supervisors in Ill-Fated Gun Operation

How do you punish 3 of your top supervisors for running a rogue program that sends thousands of firearms into Mexico eventually winding up in cartel hands? And.. some of which end up killing a Border Patrol agent? If you are the ATF you promote them, of course!

Wake Up America!

These Bull Sh*t government agencies are not working for you!

A top Republican senator slammed the Justice Department for reportedly promoting the supervisors of the failed anti-gunrunning sting operation Fast and Furious, which is under a federal and congressional investigation after weapons linked to program were used in a December attack in Mexico that killed a U.S. border patrol agent.

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives promoted three key supervisors of Operation Fast and Furious who came under fire for pushing the program even after it clearly spiraled out of control.

The three supervisors -- William Newell and David Voth, both field supervisors who managed the program out of the agency’s Phoenix office, and William McMahon, who was the ATF’s deputy director of operations in the West -- are being transferred to Washington for new management positions at the agency’s headquarters, the newspaper reported.

“Until Attorney General (Eric) Holder and Justice Department officials come clean on all alleged gun-walking operations, including a detailed response to allegations of a Texas-based scheme, it is inconceivable to reward those who spearheaded this disastrous operation with cushy desks in Washington,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Cornyn sent a letter to Holder last week demanding answers following reports of alleged Texas-based “gun-walking” programs similar to “Fast and Furious.”

Holder insists that he didn’t know about the operation as it was being carried out. But Republican leaders say he should have known.

Spokesmen for the ATF did not return phone calls to the newspaper seeking comment.

At a congressional hearing in June, three ATF agents said they were repeatedly ordered to step aside while gun buyers in Arizona walked away with AK-47s and other high-powered weaponry headed for Mexican drug cartels. So far, 20 small-time gun-buyers have been indicted, but the investigation is still under way.

ATF Acting Director Kenneth Melson admitted last month to congressional investigators that his agency, in at least one instance, allowed sales of high-powered weapons without intercepting them -- and he accuses his superiors at the Justice Department of stonewalling Congress to protect political appointees in the scandal over those decisions.

The operation was designed to track small-time gun buyers up to major weapons traffickers along the U.S. border with Mexico. Critics estimate that 1,800 guns targeted in the operation are unaccounted for, and about two-thirds of those probably are in Mexico.

Courtesy of Fox News

Jon Stewart: 'The Media Is Pretending Ron Paul Doesn't Exist..' (Video)

The ONE Presidential candidate who has not changed his stance on fiscal responsibility, sound monetary policies, and foreign policy during his entire tenure in Congress is being blatantly ignored by the mainstream media. 

Jon Stewart exposes the shameful duplicity using his insightful and hilarious style.

More proof that you are being duped by the "news" you turn to for "information".

Wake Up America! 

Jon Stewart: 'The Media Is Pretending Ron Paul... by RevolutionNewsDotUS

The Video Congress Does Not Want You To See (Video)

While most of the country is experiencing an economic meltdown, 1 in 7 members of Congress have seen dramatic increases in their net worth. How is this possible? Because those leeches don't have to play by the same rules you and I do.

Wake Up America!!

Warren Buffett: Stop Coddling the Super-Rich!

Warren Buffett has urged U.S. lawmakers to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments. 

Billionaire Warren Buffett urged U.S. lawmakers Monday to raise taxes on the country's super-rich to help cut the budget deficit, saying such a move will not hurt investments.

"My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice," The 80-year-old "Oracle of Omaha" wrote in an opinion article in The New York Times.

Buffett, one of the world's richest men and chairman of conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc , said his federal tax bill last year was $6,938,744.

"That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income - and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent," he said.
 

Lawmakers engaged in a partisan battle over spending and taxes for more than three months before agreeing on August 2 to raise the $14.3 trillion U.S. debt ceiling, avoiding a U.S. default.

"Americans are rapidly losing faith in the ability of Congress to deal with our country's fiscal problems. Only action that is immediate, real and very substantial will prevent that doubt from morphing into hopelessness," Buffett said.
Story: 3 ways to get more return on your savings

Buffett said higher taxes for the rich will not discourage investment.

"I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone - not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 - shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain," he said

"People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off."

Article courtesy of MSNBC.com 

USDA Waited For People To Die Before Recalling Ground Turkey It Knew Was Contaminated

 The USDA (United States Department of Abberations) and the FDA (Fraud and Drug Administration) are NOT YOUR FRIENDS! Nor or your best interests in their agendas. They are in the back pocket of the big corporations and do their bidding. 

Wake Up America!

Adding yet more evidence to the proof that the U.S. government maliciously promotes dangerous food borne illness outbreaks rather than trying to prevent them, evidence has emerged today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture knew ground turkey produced by Cargill was widely contaminated with salmonella, yet it did nothing about it and waited for fatalities to occur. This breaking news has been published by the Wall Street Journal (See article)

At a time when the federal government is conducted SWAT-style armed raids on raw milk farmers, accusing them of selling "pathogenic" milk, another regulatory department of that same government brazenly stands by and allows deadly pathogen-contaminated meat to be openly sold without offering any warning whatsoever to the public.

Once the fatalities start to mount, of course, then the USDA springs into action and announces a recall. This, of course, has the effect of spreading fear about contaminated food -- something that both the USDA and FDA then use to call for stronger food safety legislation such as the recently-passed Food Safety Modernization Act. (Problem, reaction, solution, see?)

In this case, the USDA announced a Cargill recall on August 3, 2011, affecting 36 million pounds of ground turkey that may be contaminated with salmonella. But this was only after at least one person died and 77 others were sickened by the contaminated meat, says the WSJ.

The important fact in this story is that the USDA knew about the salmonella contamination in 2010 and did nothing about it. Its own tests showed Cargill's turkey to be contaminated with salmonella at four different retail stores selling the meat, and still the USDA did nothing.

How did all this happen?
 

Astonishingly, current USDA regulations allow a meat production facility to pass inspection even if 49.9% of the meat is contaminated with salmonella. So even when the USDA is inspecting facilities, they can be downright filthy from a pathogenic point of view, with nearly half of all the meat contaminated, and the USDA still gives it a stamp of approval! It is in this way that the USDA, which is of course a complete prostitute of the meat industry, openly allows grossly contaminated meat to be sold to an unsuspecting public which thinks that meat is "USDA inspected."

Sure it is! But the inspection only means that slightly less than HALF the meat you buy can be contaminated with pathogenic bacteria.

Meanwhile, when it comes to raw farmers, federal officials conduct armed raids on places like Rawesome Foods even when no one is harmed! Notice the outrageous double standard? When it comes to raw milk, the feds scream about how dangerous it is (even though no one has been harmed) and how deadly the raw milk bacteria are (even when they're friendly probiotics). But when it comes to raw meat, deadly pathogens are perfectly fine with the feds, and they even wait around for people to die from consuming it before bothering to issue a recall.

And they never conduct raids on Cargill factories, or Tyson chicken farms, or any of the other huge corporate food production factories that produce the bulk of the contaminated food supply in America. Two-thirds of all store-bought chickens are contaminated with salmonella too, didn't you know? 

So this whole idea of "food safety" and the hope that Big Government is somehow going to make our food supply safer is a complete joke. It's the government that stays silent even when it knows about dangerous food contamination and then waits around for people to die so that it can call for tighter food regulations and more funding for its own departments.

This is very nearly a "false flag food attack" on America. It's designed to actually cause fatalities and generate press headlines on the dangers of foods so that the public will react with a call for stronger food regulations. But the real source of the problem, of course, is that both the USDA and the FDA are complete sellouts who routinely attack and intimidate innocent American farmers while totally ignoring the real food crimes being committed by the large food conglomerates that operate with impunity.

Article by Mike Adams, Natural News

The Next American Revolution

 

What is the Authority for Rebellion? 

 

By Mark Alexander

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

(The following essay may cause heartburn and knee-jerk reactions, especially in those who are predisposed to "give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety." But as Benjamin Franklin concluded, they "deserve neither liberty nor safety." For such feeble souls, Samuel Adams advised, "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" For those who are not cast among that faint-hearted lot, please read on.)

I receive hundreds of messages every day from Patriots across the nation. For the last three years, one thematic question has emerged with ever-increasing frequency. To paraphrase that question: "What is the authority to rebel against the central government?"

That question is most often asked by those who have taken their oath of allegiance to our Constitution, particularly active duty, reserve and veteran military personnel. Typical is this note from a disabled combat Patriot this week: "Please clarify for me when my solemn oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign AND [his emphasis] domestic,' kicks in."

Such questions were once deemed too radical and discordant for consideration in civil discourse. However, as Rule of Law enshrined in our Constitution has been all but completely usurped by the rule of men through the Left's so-called living constitution, the frequency and tenor of questions about the future of Essential Liberty for our once-great Republic is propelling them into mainstream debate.

The unfortunate ascension of Barack Hussein Obama and his socialist cadres had a silver lining: It revitalized the spirit of American Patriotism in tens of millions of our countrymen. The imminent threat to Liberty posed by Democratic Socialism is the catalyst driving this great awakening and it is spreading.

To the question of the authority to rebel against government, we turn to the Constitution's guiding document, our Declaration of Independence. It clearly affirms the "unalienable rights" upon which our Constitution was instituted, and those rights supersede the authority of the Constitution itself as they are the inherent rights of man.

This authorizing language reads as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."

So, is it time for another American Revolution?

The answer to that question depends upon the answer to a more fundamental question: Is it too late to restore authority of our Constitution? Moreover, will the current dire circumstances result in a sunset or sunrise on Liberty?

In my enthusiastic analysis, the degraded state of the union presents a great opportunity for restoration of Rule of Law, and this sunrise on Liberty is already in progress under the broad heading of the Tea Party movement. Further, having been in close proximity to revolutions on foreign soil, I am intimately aware that restoration (or revolution without shots fired) is a far more desirable path than the violent one -- not that the latter must ever be excluded as an option.

But behind every sunrise is a sunset. As Ronald Reagan warned thirty years ago, when the "Reagan Revolution" temporarily restored our nation's course toward Liberty, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States when men were free."

Make no mistake; there are formidable obstacles to the restoration of Liberty. The most daunting of these impediments is complacency, the result of either a false sense of comfort, institutionalized ignorance or both. The votes of some 43 percent of Americans have already been co-opted Barack Obama socialist programs and policies. Nonetheless, I still believe that the ballot box is a viable alternative to the bullet box at this juncture. Every effort to work within what remains of our Constitution's framework to restore its Rule of Law, as outlined in The Patriot Declaration must be exhausted.

If the 2012 election cycle does not provide sufficient momentum toward the goal of restored Liberty, there are substantial measures of civil disobedience that can ratchet up the pressure -- measures which will find support among true conservatives in both the House and Senate.

Either way, we face a long, uphill battle. It has taken many years to degrade Rule of Law, and it will take many years to fully restore it.

As for timing, Obama has already dropped a debt bomb on our economy, the goal of which is to "fundamentally transform the United States of America." The greatest systemic risk to Liberty that this act of economic violence poses is the destruction of free enterprise by way of taxation, regulation and insurmountable debt. Accelerating the Left's effort to crush free enterprise, Obama and his Senate majority rejected the House's Balanced Budget Amendment as part of the recent "budget deal" to increase U.S. debt. The result: As of this date, our nation's total outstanding debt is now in excess of our total annual gross domestic product (economic output), for the first time since 1947. Then, most of the debt was associated with WWII. Now most of the debt is associated with socialist spending programs for which there is no constitutional authority.

It should, of course, be the highest aspiration of every Patriot to restore our Constitution's Rule of Law, a fundamental principle of which is the separation of economy and state. But is there still time, and are we sufficiently resolute?

Leading the forces arrayed against us are the statist extremists, the "useful idiots" on the Left who now vilify as "terrorists" those seeking to restore Rule of Law.

In a closed-door Democratic Caucus meeting this week hosted by Veep Joe Biden, Demo Rep. Mike Doyle said of the recent budget negotiations, "We have negotiated with terrorists. This small group of terrorists have made it impossible to spend any money." Biden, to his everlasting shame, concurred: "They have acted like terrorists."

Biden, Doyle, and the Kool-Aid-drinking legions of the Left are formidable. But history shows that Barack Obama's model for prosperity, is a blueprint for economic collapse, a model that is antithetical to prosperity and ultimately at odds with Liberty.

Patriots, we have an obligation to secure Liberty for our posterity, and in the words of John Adams, "Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to James Madison dated January 30, 1787: "I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. ... An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."

Today, Tea Party "terrorists" should expect no such accommodation, as "honest republican governors" are few and far between.

That same year, Jefferson famously wrote more pointedly to John Adams's son-in-law, William Smith, "What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if the rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."

Short of the bullet box, it is my fervent prayer that on 6 November 2012, an unprecedented army of American Patriots will use the ballot box to further alter the course of our nation toward Liberty and Rule of Law.

That notwithstanding, American Patriots remain well aware of both the authority for rebellion and more importantly the obligation to overcome tyranny, as enumerated in the Declaration of Independence. There may come a time to fight, and our Founders wisely extended to us the means for rebellion. We also fully understand the cost outlined in its closing: "For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."

We do.

Courtesy of The Patriot Post

Ex-CIA Agent Explains How Bloggers Can "Dump Congress On Its Ass"

Robert D. Steele, gives credence to all who speak out against our illegal government. As more and more ex-employees come out with what the REAL mission of our government is, the truth shall come to light and the truth shall set us free..

Wake Up America!

Slouching Toward Guatemala

This is a great piece written by Fred Reed. 

Wake Up America or we WILL be slouching toward Guatemala!

God it's wonderful – really diverting in a macabre sort of way, at least if you have a diseased sense of humor and enough Padre Kino red. Which I do. As I write the world's only delusional superflower, perennially in love with itself, navel-gazing as narcissistically as ever, ignorant, self-indulgent, gurbling like an insane relative in the attic and fondling electro-trinkets from Japan, is broke. Yes, we see a beautiful dive from the high board, two somersaults and a half-twist, into the Third World. And so richly deserved.
 

Congress, a collection of whores, con-men, and penny-ante sharpers from East Jesus, Nebraska, ponders the Great Question: Default now, and admit manfully to being the economic lepers everyone else already knows we are? Or raise the debt ceiling, keep spending like a spoiled Swarthmore sophomore with daddy's credit card, and collapse a bit later?
 

It's just lovely. The World’s Greatest Economy holding out the begging bowl to China. “Alms? Alms for the poor?” Maybe I don't have enough Padre Kino after all. Maybe there isn't enough.
 

On the lobotomy box, congressmen come and go, not talking of Michelangelo, like mayflies but without the brains, calling each other names. They seem to think that they are in an off-year election. I mean, it's only the future of the country. What, me worry? What if a huge cosmic flyswatter came down on Cap Hill and turned them into barely historical smears? How the hell do you start a cosmic flyswatter?
 

The Republicans want to protect the wars, the rich, and the military companies. The Democrats want to protect the entitlements. Well, OK, I guess killing Afghans matters more than feeding Granny in Spokane. Unless of course you are Granny. Who really cares? I mean, how many “defense” contracts does she have?
 

But actually the Dems have the best of the argument of national security. Entitlements are our friend. Welfare is the price we pay for not having the cities burn. Mailbox money is our protection, not gaudy aircraft carriers like the USS Thundertrinket, zooom-kerpow.
 

It's the Empire, stupid. You want spending cuts? Easy, if you don't want to rule the world for three more years before going down history's cloaca. Pull out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Korea, Japan, and NATO tomorrow. Pull out. Pull out. Coitus interruptus. Stop wasting precious engineering talent and nonexistent money on pointless funsy weapons of no utility: the F35, the Airborne Laser.
 

Come to think of it, don't bother. It's too late. The only sensible answer is cheap Mexican red. The US really is poised to enter Central America. You know, continental drift. It can't be stopped. South Korea and Finland among others are far more advanced in their internets. Health care in America is first-priced and second-rate. The country is thirty-third in infant mortality. Schooling would be pathetic if we could raise it to that level, the universities largely farces. The Russians and Chinese have manned space programs; we don't. Industry flees Gringolandia or has fled. The great moiling gerbiltry out there hasn't figured it out. 

Wait.
 

I hear babbling about “the recovery.” Which recovery is that? There ain't none, boys and girls. There won't be one. We are not in a temporary recession or correction or what have you. We are going poor. The last dance just finished, and the band is leaving.
 

And it is self-inflicted. There is, I grant you, a pleasing monumentality about truly phenomenal stupidity. A certain brilliance is needed to be so witless. In this sense the American political system is a work of genius, relying on the principle of Sufficient Ditz-Rabbitry.
 

You don't need to fool all of the people all of the time. Enough of the people, enough of the time is entirely adequate. Lincoln knew this but, being a politician, didn't point it out. Here is the basis of what Americans believe to be a democracy. Curious: Mexicans know they have a corrupt government, but Americans don't. In the US, books are written about the scams and cons and rips practiced on the public. Few read them, though, and those who do already know what is in them. Enough of the people, enough of the time. If the talking heads on the blinking hamster-diverter don't talk about the swindles, the rubes never know.
 

The country is in fact ruled by the interlocking directorates of Wall Street, Washington, and the media, Triamese twins joined at the head and aimed at sucking money from the easily fleeced. We're not talking Senior Civics and the Federalist Papers. It's straight drain-the-dullards. And it works. Boy does it.
 

Can you name anything in America today that is not a disguised fraud? Credit cards are not a convenience, but a way of luring suckers into borrowing crippling amounts of money at usurious interest. The sub-prime circus was carefully designed to do just what it did. 

There's the student-loan racket, and Big Pharma: A tiny bottle of ophthalmic salt water from Bausch & Lomb, called Muro, costs $23 in Washington, and about $6 in Mexico. That's our government, fixing prices that weren't broken. Pure Third World.
 

I dunno. What's going to happen when what's left of the cream-flow dries up? Maybe it's the Padre Kino, but...in the last depression of '29, most of the country was rural or close. People, many of them, lived on farms, and didn't need much money.
 

Today most of the population is utterly dependent on remote mechanized farms winch are dependent on supplies of gasoline and chemicals and then on trucks to take the crop to cities that, if the foregoing chain broke down, could not possibly support themselves. The discovery that food doesn't really come from Safeway will astonish.
 

I guess I'm paranoid, and no real unrest and disruption could really occur. I guess. I mean, probably. I think. And that's a good thing, because with so many people dependent on entitlements, to the extent that they can't eat without them, and everything dependent on intricate systems that can't handle chaos – hooboy. Think: What happens to skyscrapers if there's no electricity for elevators?
 

I say invest in drug cartels. Some say gold, but you can't smoke gold. When times get bad people want booze, grass, crack, scag, crank, Oxys, and maybe shrooms for the more advanced. Investment is low, and governmental interference has proved minimal.
 

I hope I'm crazy. I'd better be

Written by Fred Reed, Fred On Everything