Thanks for the input Bob. I consider myself more of an investor than a trader so we have different goals. When I take a position it's with the anticipation of holding it for as long as possible.

 

 

Exactly right (1Tim 6:10) most people get this wrong. Money is a medium of exchange, in and of itself it can not be 'evil'.

All Hail Emperor Obama

By Cal Thomas

6/19/2012

"This notion I can somehow just change the laws unilaterally is just not true. We are doing everything we can administratively, but fact of the matter is there are laws on the books that I have to enforce. And I think there's been great disservice done to the cause of getting the DREAM Act passed and getting comprehensive immigration passed by perpetrating the notion that somehow, by myself, I can go and do these things. It's just not true." -- Barack Obama, September 2011

 

President Obama is no longer president in the constitutional sense. He appears to have elevated himself to the role of emperor, deciding unilaterally what should be the law and what should not, bypassing Congress and placing himself in the role of Julius Caesar.

First it was the revelation that he has a "hit list" from which he alone decides who lives and who dies by drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.

With last Friday's announcement that he intends to effectively grant amnesty to a category of illegal aliens, according to criteria he has set -- their age, a spotless criminal record, a minimum level of education, and/or military service -- the president has technically, possibly deliberately and it can be argued illegally, violated his oath of office in which he swore to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" so help him God. Whose help does the president seek when he acts as if he is God?

 

The Constitution empowers Congress, not the president, to make laws, but President Obama has bypassed that body to become a Congress of one and a law unto himself.

 

The president has announced his administration won't enforce a law passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton -- the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) -- because he believes it is unconstitutional. But he will craft his own immigration policy -- given that the Dream Act is still in limbo -- by immediately halting the deportation of and giving work permits to illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children. So not only is he president; Emperor Obama has usurped the power of Congress and the Supreme Court.

 

In an age of political pandering, this crass appeal for Hispanic votes has to rank near the top of anyone's list. While the Washington Post fixates on the 40th anniversary of the Watergate break-in and recalls Richard Nixon's disdain for the Constitution, there is silence about this president's similar disregard for that document's constraints on executive power.

 

Official unemployment for American citizens remains above 8 percent. Now, 800,000 noncitizens can work legally, in some cases for lower wages, thus robbing some citizens of what should be their priority place in the job line. Will those newly enfranchised noncitizens who can't find work get food stamps and welfare checks drawn on borrowed money from China? You know they will. That is part of the president's vote-buying contract.

 

The Obama re-election team apparently has calculated that every vote lost by an angry unemployed American citizen will be made up for with votes from Hispanics and result in a net plus for the president. That is a dangerous gamble, especially since it assumes Hispanics who are legal citizens, or legal residents, will applaud those who violated laws they had to obey when they came to America.

 

If a Republican president behaved in such a cavalier manner toward Congress and the Constitution he would be impeached. Again, consider Nixon and Watergate.

 

The president's appeal, he maintains, is about "fairness" and other notions that have nothing to do with the law. There is a constitutional and legal way to regulate people who are "undocumented." It is through Congress, which made the laws illegals have violated. The decree of a president who unilaterally and unconstitutionally decides which laws he will uphold, in the case of DOMA, and which laws he will create, in the case of illegal aliens, in order to cynically pander for Hispanic votes, is how dictators rule.

Now Korea Is Cleaning Our Clock

Hazardous Games

  IchibomB.....

 

Random Thoughts

By Thomas Sowell

6/20/2012

Random thoughts on the passing scene:

 

Many people may have voted for Barack Obama in 2008 because of his charisma. But anyone familiar with the disastrous track record of charismatic political leaders around the world in the 20th century should have run for the hills when they encountered a politician with charisma.

 

What is scarier than any particular political policy or issue is the widespread tendency to treat political issues as personal contests in talking points -- competitive skill in fencing with words -- rather than as serious attempts to find out what the facts are and what the options are.

 

People who are wondering what to get as a graduation present this year should consider "The Passage of Power" by Robert Caro, the recently published 4th volume in his monumental biography of Lyndon Johnson. Its revelations of the cynical, fraudulent and vicious politics in Washington should counter the pious graduation speeches that young people hear about the nobility of "public service."

 

The new French president, a socialist, says frankly that he does not like rich people, that "my real enemy is the world of finance," and apparently he has plans for much higher tax rates on high incomes. Has he not noticed how easy it is for the rich to move to some other country where the tax rates are lower -- or to send their money there?

 

For a long time, Democrats have gone to Washington to win at all costs, while too many Republicans went to Washington to compromise with Democrats. The rise of the Tea Party may change that.

 

Increasing numbers of people seem to have convinced themselves that they are entitled to a "fair share" of what someone else has earned. Whole nations now seem to think that they should be bailed out from the consequences of their own reckless spending by nations that lived within their means.

 

Those who favor huge cuts in military spending seem not to understand that our military exists not simply to win wars, but to present such overwhelming superiority to potential enemies as to prevent having to fight a war in the first place.

 

Some people who are belatedly seeing what Obama is really like are saying that he has changed. This is probably easier to say than admitting that you were blind to the man's whole history before, and were taken in by his rhetoric and geniality.

 

Wishful thinking is not idealism. It is self-indulgence at best and self-exaltation at worst. In either case, it is usually at the expense of others. In other words, it is the opposite of idealism.

 

The visceral hostility of liberals against Sarah Palin is something that liberals themselves ought to be concerned about. After all, she is just someone who has a different opinion about politics and a different social background and style. What I fear the liberals most resent is their perception that she is someone who is talking back to her betters.

 

 

 

Does anyone seriously believe that short dresses, exposing bony knees, make women look more attractive?

 

In most discussions of the problems of American public schools, the low intellectual quality of people who come out of our schools of education is the 800-pound gorilla that keeps getting ignored. Such teachers cannot give their students intellectual abilities that they themselves don't have

.

Did we have to wait for the Solyndra and other government "investment" disasters to learn what economic nonsense political "investments" are? Reckless spending to win votes, or campaign contributions, from the recipients of government largesse is still reckless spending, regardless of what other words are used to try to dignify it -- whether these words are "stimulus," "jobs," "investment" or whatever.

 

In liberal logic, if life is unfair then the answer is to turn more tax money over to politicians, to spend in ways that will increase their chances of getting reelected.

 

 

 

Thomas Sowell

Presidential Overreach

By Bill Bunkley

6/19/2012

President Barack Obama has demonstrated, once again, that he is an amateur who has no problem battering and bruising the U. S. Constitution in order to win four more years for his “Dismantle America” tour. He is single-handedly making a mockery of our foundational document. Question is: Will he get away with it?

The latest episode of Obama’s “Believe It Or Not” presidency is a reckless, self-serving move to pander to yet another special interest group he polls well with: Hispanic Americans.

 

The president decreed that by executive order he would not deport certain children of illegal aliens. It was part of his proposed “Dream Act.” This same president explained a year ago he had no such power to make a unilateral move without Congress.

He was against the move before he was for it.

 

So what changed?

Political expediency changed—reckless political expediency to be sure.

And what triggered the John Kerry moment?

A freshman senator by the name of Marco Rubio.

A U. S. senator who is not only a leading Hispanic on the short list to be Mitt Romney’s pick for vice-president, but a senator who was on the verge of announcing a counter proposal to Obama’s Dream Act.

 

The details of the much anticipated plan by Senator Rubio was in a holding pattern pending release of his just written memoir, “An American Son.” In it Rubio chronicles the journey of his parents and grandparents from communist Cuba and growing up in their world adjusting to life and work in America. Faith, family and hard work are woven through this extraordinary story of immigrants coming to America and making it. His parents’ dedication and support for young Rubio’s success lies at the heart of the senator’s perspective in dealing with the challenges of children of immigrants—be they legal or illegal.

The rising Senator and the positive attention he’s been getting is one of Team Obama’s primary concerns. They have been watching, polling and discussing his influence among Hispanic voters for months.

 

So before Marco Rubio could fully launch his new book and utilize that momentum to discuss his plan for the children of illegals, the Obama camp made a preemptive strike—hoping to siphon off any significant momentum that Rubio could build with the Hispanic base.

With an important Hispanic gathering coming up this week in Orlando that both the President and Mitt Romney (and Marco Rubio) will be speaking at, the president’s handlers decided it was time to make their move.

 

With his support quickly eroding, the Obama camp knows it can ill afford to lose any more support from any individual voting bloc. Their fear wasn’t that they would lose the Hispanics vote to Romney, but that just enough of the more conservative leaning Latinos might jump ship to the GOP. Any defections in any area will be costly, especially in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California. Defections that are still possible when Marco Rubio steps up his upcoming meet and greet agenda.

But, should this be decided by our elected Congress members or an imperial President?

How long does winning at all costs, including trespassing on the responsibilities of our legislative branch, have to play out before the American public says, “enough is enough”?

 

What controversial federal issue will Congress be blindsided with next? While we may not know the answer to that today, we know one thing for certain. Either the American public must demand a stop to this repetitive overreach or this president will bulldoze the structural foundation of this nation.

American voters did not elect Barack Obama to be the imperial President of the United States. It is not to up to him to impose and implement his views as if Congress was just some ceremonial branch of our government.

 

Unethical campaign tactics and dirty tricks have been around forever. Our senses have been dulled in recent years due to the bombardment we receive each election cycle from negative media campaigns.

 

But this must be seen for what it is: It is a step beyond the bounds of good governing that must not go forward without consequences. If presidential executive authority can be abused in this fashion without restraint, one can only imagine what awaits us in the future.

The current presidential overreach and abuse of the Constitution must be stopped and stopped now, for the sake of the nation.

WHO DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS – PART 1

 

19th June 2012 by James Quinn

 

 

 

Jesse's Café Américain

 

 

 

The Secret State and the Tyranny of the Faceless and the Lifeless

 

June 19, 2012

 

 

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.

For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero


"Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like."

Edward Thurlow, Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England

Golem XIV, aka David Malone, highlights a lesser understood aspect of the corporatism that seems to be taking the developed nations by storm.

The recent moves by the Supreme Court and the Congress to extend personhood and the rights of individuals to corporations as 'super people' are more dangerous than most realize.

All individuals are not equal in terms of influence and power. And if organizations such as corporations can become 'individuals,' that Frankenstein monster will be able to dominate as effectively as any tyrants in history.

The cure is transparency and accountability, and the recognition that the human individual alone is uniquely protected by the Bill of Rights. Corporations are not asked and expected to fight and die for the benefit of the State. They do not suffer and bleed, nor stay awake at night in worry about their children and their care. Corporations are lifeless.

The Sarbanes-Oxley law was designed to give the people who use corporations as their instruments no place to hide. But as we have seen, it is a law rarely used, and itself under determined resistance to be overturned as was Glass-Steagall.
 

"Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."

John Dalberg Lord Acton

Corporations are but the artificial constructions of men, often designed to eliminate individual risk and accountability. When things go wrong, no one seems to know what happened. Money just vaporizes away. When recklessness leads to horrific accidents such as Bhopal, the corporation retreats into the aether of words and corporate laws, often held in disinterested foreign hands.

The modern Corporation aspires to the power of the unaccountable State.

Corporations are without sin, no matter what actions or even atrocities they may as a collective commit in pursuit of profits, because they are lifeless. They do nothing, really, except to hide and often excuse the actions of real men and women. Corporations live only in the courts. It is all upside.

And it is the great irony of our time that the platforms and agendas of the Tea Party reformers and the Christian Right have been perverted by their representatives and their money men to become the proponents of the anti-human, the corporate ascendancy over human rights and individual life. And that the elected reformers of the progressive left have largely sold themselves to Wall Street since the 1990's.

The definition of 'individual' as a living being with a soul thereby granting them inalienable rights, which is at the very heart of the American experience, is under determined assault by the power of the global monied interests, not from some godless enemy, but most effectively from the corruption of power within.

 

Secret State
By Golem XIV
June 19, 2012

"...We are all now sadly familiar with the role of Off-shore tax havens. They allow companies to avoid having to pay tax. They also allow companies to hide any dealings they may not want scrutinized by prying regulatory authorities. Tax havens are, as Nicholas Shaxson in his wonderful book Treasure Islands has suggested, better thought of as ‘secrecy jurisdictions’. They are purpose built for shrouding in impenetrable and legally protected secrecy any morally dubious financial arrangements which might be embarrassing or costly if revealed to regulators or governments. The world of Off-shore provides a legal and moral nul-space in where most things can be arranged for a price.

But that nul-space is growing and more than simply growing it is maturing.

Recently Off-shore havens have added to financial secrecy another valuable service – data and communications secrecy. There are now companies based in off-shore havens which offer to protect emails and data caches from prying regulatory or legal scrutiny...

Suddenly not only is it possible for corporate finances to be moved beyond the reach of national oversight and regulation, but now corporate emails and other data can also be removed from national democratic and legal oversight. Corporation can now operate within any nation, making their profits there. but without the elected government, the tax officials, financial regulators, courts or police having any power to see what the corporation is doing. The police could not force the disclosure of emails because those emails would not be under UK jurisdiction. It would be entirely possible for a company to be breaking the law, exactly as News International did, but now most if not all (depending on how careful they were) the evidence required to bring their illegal activities to light, would be beyond the reach of any authority in this country...

I look at it and think to myself – so now we have vast financial power shielded from any national, democratic regulation or legal oversight. We have data similarly hidden away from the pesky prying eyes of civilian democratic and legal accountability and we now also have the parts of the global military that routinely operate outside of democratic oversight and who regularly break the most fundamental national and international laws, being organized to operate together under an aspiring supra-national command...

In the week of May 21st of this year in Tampa Florida, Special Operations Forces from 90 countries got together at a Special Forces Convention. You can see a video of what they got up to here.

The purpose of convention, which is a regular thing now, is (from their web site):

The International Conference objective will be that U.S. and International SOF leaders recognize USSOCOM as a Global Command and gain a better understanding on how to become active partners in that partnership.

Who is USSOCOM? It is the umbrella US military command for all US Special forces. So here we have a programme the purpose of which is to integrate the operations and even the command structure with the US at the top, for the Special Forces of 90 nations. Is this anything to be concerned about? Well on one level, if you have Special forces why not have them work together well? Seems sensible. Except that Special Forces are by design the part of any nation’s armed forces which operate routinely and as a matter of course, outside of the law and beyond democratic oversight...

What this this and other documents now clearly indicate is that through this command and others the US can now commit troops to hostile actions without the Congress having to give its consent or even be informed. Now of course we all know this happens. SO what is new. In a sense nothing. In another sense it clearly shows how our governments, or at least elements within them, are keen to follow global finance’s lead in being able to operate outside of democratic oversight, outside its own laws and outside of any democratic accountability. This I think is, if not a new desire, a new maturation of the capability.

There is a clear disdain for democracy being voiced among those who run and own global finance, who make up the supra-national world of the IMF, the WTO and other non-national, non-democratic global technocratic bodies. We all know what disdain the global financial and media companies have for the laws which ‘regulate them’. We know how far outside their own laws and international law our governments have gone in rendition and torture of civilians.

It seems to me you don’t have to subscribe to any conspiracy theory to find this enough to worry about.

Bernanke Torpedoes Obama Reelection With Bleak Outlook, No QE3

 

WHO DESTROYED THE MIDDLE CLASS – PART 2

 

21st June 2012 by James Quinn