Debt ceiling crisis is political theater
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
July 27, 2011
In my last column I suggested that an unintended outcome of the debt ceiling impasse could be Congress’ loss of the power of the purse. In this column I suggest an intended outcome that the ongoing political theater might be designed to produce.
President Obama has said that he will not resort to the various powers open to him to keep the government running should Congress fail to deliver a debt ceiling increase. This is a suspicious statement, as it is not credible that a president would leave troops at war unpaid and without supplies, Social Security checks unsent and stand aside while the US dollar collapses and the credit rating of the US government is destroyed.
There are national security directives and executive orders already on the books, as well as the 14th Amendment, that Obama can invoke to set aside the debt ceiling. Congress would sigh with relief that Obama had prevented the lawmakers from destroying the country.
So what might be going on?
One possibility is that the political theater is operating to bring about otherwise politically impossible cuts in the social safety net. If the drama continues to the absolute deadline without a deal, Obama, who perhaps favors cutting the safety net as much as do the Republicans, would have to accept the Republican package in order that the troops are not cut off from supplies, Social Security checks can continue to go out, and the dollar be saved. Having opposed the Republicans to the last minute, Obama can say that he had no other recourse.
What American wants the troops deserted on the field of battle and the elderly without groceries? Who other than the rich can stand the higher prices from dollar devaluation?
It would be a perfectly orchestrated scenario for getting rid of the New Deal and the Great Society that use up money that could be spent on wars and bailouts and tax cuts for the rich.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts
Part 2
Bankers can’t run everything
Wachovia Bank
July 24, 2011
On this edition of the Still Report, Bill Still discusses the current debt ceiling crisis and the absolute need to end fractional reserve lending where banks loan out money they don’t have.
Sovereign nations don’t have to borrow their money into existence, yet the U.S has done so since 1913. You cannot “pay down” the National Debt because all of our money is created out of debt. To reduce the debt would be to reduce the national money. The only solution is to do what’s been done many times throughout U.S. history, issue debt-free U.S. Notes, instead of Federal Reserve Notes and break free of the debt money system. The problem is the same for every nation on earth, as is the solution. Nations don’t have to borrow; nations can create.
Freedom Is a Young Idea and We’re Throwing It Away
Ron Paul
July 21, 2011
JEFFREY BROWN: And finally tonight an interview with Republican presidential candidate, Ron Paul. It’s the first in our series of conversations with the contenders seeking to take on Barack Obama in next year’s election. Judy Woodruff sat down with the congressman from Texas on Capitol Hill earlier today.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Congressman Ron Paul, thank you for talking with us.
REP. RON PAUL: R-Texas: Good to be with you today.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You’re running against a long list of Republicans seeking the presidential – the Republican presidential nomination, many of them very conservative – one in particular, Michele Bachmann, appealing to the tea party. Why are you more qualified than any of them?
REP. RON PAUL: I see them as defending the status quo much more so than I do because, you know, if you look at my foreign policy, nobody’s coming close, although they’re getting more sympathetic. I want to bring all the troops home. When it comes to personal liberties and what’s going on at our airports, I don’t like the Patriot Act, and they tend to support the Patriot Act. When it comes to monetary policy, they try to avoid it , yet money is one-half of all our transactions. We’re in a mess; so I concentrate a whole lot on the Federal Reserve and monetary policy. And of course, the spending is big issue with me, but it’s been that way for a long time.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, speaking of spending, Washington is in the grips right now of this huge divide – split over what to do about the debt limit, what to do about the deficit. You have said you’ve never voted to raise the debt limit, which pits you against not only the president and the Democrats, but the Republican leadership, both houses of Congress, most of the business community. Are they wrong when they say this would lead to an economic calamity? Are they just not telling the truth?
REP. RON PAUL: I think they’re misled. I think they believe what they’re saying, but I think they don’t understand economic policy because they’re afraid of a default, and they’ve been frightened. But this is the way so often government works. They try to frighten the people, such as frighten people about being attacked by nuclear weapons that don’t exist so we go to war needlessly. But the bailout – frighten the people so you bail out everybody, and forget about the people who are losing their houses. So, yes, there’s a lot of that.
But my point is, is it’s serious; the debt is too big. You can’t solve the problem of debt by raising the debt limit, and that’s what they were trying to do.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you’ve been – you’ve had this position for years and years. But the decades you’ve served in the Congress, you haven’t been able to win folks over to your point of view. What makes you think you can win a majority over if you were president?
REP. RON PAUL: I think there’s a big shift because I can compare what’s happening now to four years ago, and it’s dramatically different. But, even last year we noticed a big difference, say, on the monetary issue.
So maybe I don’t have as much influence in direct legislation here, but the people – I believe I am closer to the people, because the people are scared and are sick and tired of it and they want smaller government.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, on this question of spending and cutting, you’ve said you would bring the government’s budget into balance the first year in office you were president. We’re talking, what, over a trillion-dollar deficit. What would you cut?
REP. RON PAUL: OK. I would start with military operations overseas. They hurt us and they hurt our national defense. And we can save hundreds of billions of dollars when you add up all the militarism and all the foreign aid and all the mischief we create, why do we have troops in Korea and Japan – all these things. So you could save a lot. That wouldn’t be enough. Then you’d have to start cutting spending on the programs that aren’t essential like the Department of Education. We spend a lot of money; it doesn’t improve education. The Department of Energy – we don’t need Department of Energy. All those subsidies in Department of Agriculture – we don’t need that. We don’t need the intervention of the Department of Commerce. You can go on and on. But you don’t have to go and cut health care or medical – or Social Security in order to start getting our house in order.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you have talked about dramatically scaling down or reforming Medicare and Social Security. And so what would those programs look like if you could wave a magic wand and make it the way you’d like it?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, I haven’t talked a whole lot about that. Most of the time, I talk about is, if we’d have acted responsibly, we wouldn’t be facing this crisis. I would like to offer young people going into the workforce the chance to opt out, opt out of Social Security. But that won’t work unless you do these cuts I’m talking about, the militarism as well as all these departments that make no sense at all. You could do that, but politically, it’s difficult because the other day, when we were voting on this resolution for the budget – the debt increase, I said, there’s two groups: One group wants to – won’t cut a nickel out of the military and the other won’t cut a nickel out of entitlement system. And that’s why we’re at this point.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You’ve also spoken of big changes in Medicare, structural changes. How would you change Medicare?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, once again, I haven’t emphasized that at all. But I would want people to opt out of the system. I would want people to have medical-savings accounts. Young people should be able to opt out and build up a medical savings account and take care of their own programs.
But that won’t work unless you’re willing to cut spending. And I think the most popular place to cut is all this spending overseas and the corporate welfare in this country, because most of the money that we spend here that’s supposed to poor really helps the large corporations, say, the housing bubble. Who got help? See, the rich got bailed out. They got bailed out both by the Congress and the Federal Reserve. And they were making all the profits. So it was – it’s corporatism that is so bad, whether it’s medicine or even in education or the military-industrial complex. It’s corporatism. That is the welfare that is huge compared to the welfare of food stamps.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But without some government regulation, which I know you are against, what’s to keep corporations from running – doing whatever they want?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, because I talk about a lot less regulation – I don’t like the regulatory agencies, but that doesn’t mean the free market doesn’t have regulation. The regulations in the free market are much stricter because if a company gets into trouble and goes bankrupt, the law – the economic law, which should be enforced by government, that company goes bankrupt. So instead of bailing them out, these companies should have gone bankrupt.
But you have sound money and free markets; you can’t counterfeit money, like the Federal Reserve does.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And just to be clear, what would the Federal Reserve look like under a Ron Paul presidency?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, there’s two different things. My goal would be, there’s no need for the Federal Reserve. Under a presidency you don’t get rid of the Federal Reserve overnight. In my – even in my book, “End the Fed,” I don’t say we should close the door and walk away. I ask for competition.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Let’s go to some of the international issues you touched on very quickly. You want to bring troops home. What should the U.S. footprint be internationally? What is the U.S. role in the world?
REP. RON PAUL: Well, it should be a footprint of trade and friendship, as we were advised and as the Constitution permits. The footprint shouldn’t be a military footprint. It shouldn’t be –
JUDY WOODRUFF: So bring –
REP. RON PAUL: The footprint we’re leaving now – our drone missiles dropping bombs and killing innocent civilians, launched from the United States with computers. That’s not the kind of footprint I want.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Afghanistan. How quickly would you bring the troops home?
REP. RON PAUL: As quick as the ships could get there. It’s insane on what we’re doing. And I’ll tell you one thing about this business about the military: We just had a quarterly report, and they listed all the money that all the candidates got from the military. I got twice as much as all the other candidates put together on the Republican side, and even more than Obama got, which tells me that these troops want to come home as well because they know exactly what I’m talking about.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Two other quick things internationally. You said you opposed the U.S. raid into Pakistan that led to the killing of Osama bin Laden. You also are – would do away with, in essence, the CIA. Why do – why did you oppose the raid, and what would you put in the place of the CIA?
REP. RON PAUL: Well the question to me was, could it have been done differently? I was just saying it could be done differently. I mean, all this does was raise questions. And I predicted that this would lead to a lot of resentment. And just think of the chaos in Pakistan and the mess that we have; we both bomb them, and we give them money, and then the people hate their own government because their own government’s a puppet of ours.
My frustration with bin Laden was, it took so long.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And the CIA, you would –
REP. RON PAUL: I would – I don’t think the CIA should be a military arm of the government dropping bombs secretly. You can’t even – you can’t even separate the two. You don’t even know who is controlling the bombing of this country now.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Couple of questions about your campaign. You have a son who was elected to the United States Senate, a Rand Paul from the state of Kentucky. This is your third try for president. There was some talk that he was looking at running for president. How did you discuss that between the two of you, that it was going to be you and not him who was running?
REP. RON PAUL: We never talked about it. It never came up.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Never had a discussion?
REP. RON PAUL: It just never came up.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally, Congressman, you look healthy. You certainly keep up a vigorous schedule. You would be 77 years old if you were elected president upon taking office, which is quite a bit older than the oldest president upon taking office, Ronald Reagan. Is age at all a factor for you in this campaign?
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REP. RON PAUL: I think it is. I think age is very important, and sometimes I meet people when they’re 45, and they’re very old. And I think it’s the age of the ideas a person’s presenting, and is that person able to present these ideas? Freedom is a young idea. It’s only been tested for a couple hundred years. And we had a taste of it, and we’re throwing it away. But what I see others are doing, the others, especially – and many of the other candidates, they have old ideas. It’s totalitarian, it’s the control of government, governments policing the world, militarism, telling people how to run their lives, running the economy, telling people what they can put in their mouths and whether or not they can even drink raw milk. It’s just – it’s just absolutely out of control. But the idea that individuals are free, that they have a natural right to their life and the liberty, they ought to be able to keep the fruits of their labor, that is a young idea. So I would say, people ought to go with a young idea and somebody that can express them. And interestingly enough, it’s the young people that fully endorse my campaign.
JUDY WOODRUFF: We are watching that. Spoken very passionately. Congressman Ron Paul, we thank you for talking with us.
REP. RON PAUL: Thank you.
Dr. Ron Paul writes that to believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions. It is the seed of America.
Alan Sabrosky implicates Israel in the 9/11 events
Alan Sabrosky
July 17, 2011
In this edition of the show Susan Modaress interviews Alan Sabrosky, US Marine Corps Veteran. Alan Sabrosky a writer and consultant, specializing in national and international security affairs discloses intriguing facts on the implication of Israel in 9/11 events that are by and large unheard of in mainstream media.
Zero: an investigation into 9/11
An Investigation into 9/11, has one central thesis – that the official version of the events surrounding the attacks on 9/11 can not be true.
Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup
Dramatically narrated by Daniel Sunjata of FX s Rescue Me, and an outspoken advocate for the First Responders, Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup first examines mysterious and infamous events that reshaped world history from the Reichstag Fire in 1933 that catapulted Hitler to dictatorship – to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in 1964 that led to the Vietnam War, and then takes viewers on a turbulent journey through several pivotal moments in history before delving into the most significant catastrophe in recent memory, 9/11.
Out of the grieving thousands left behind on September 11th, a small group of activist families emerged to demand answers.
Please order Dr. Griffin's newest book
A word or two on what is not being said about Rupert Murdoch
Christopher Bollyn
May 27, 2011
Kevin Barrett speaks with Christopher Bollyn, author of Solving 9/11 – a key resource for anyone seeking the full truth about the 9/11 coup d’état. (Read it online for free!)
listen 01:28:12
Direct link to mp3 file:
20110527-kevin-barrett-christopher-bollyn.mp3
American Freedom Radio (Source):
http://www.americanfreedomradio.com
Christopher Bollyn:
http://www.bollyn.com/may-27-bollyn-on-kevin-barrett-show
Kevin Barrett:
http://truthjihadradio.blogspot.com/
Solving 9/11 – The Deception That Changed The World is available as a PDF file of about 265 pages.
http://www.bollyn.com/public/Solving_9-11_-_The_Deception_That_Changed_The_World.pdf
Chapter XV – The Destruction of the Evidence
http://www.bollyn.com/the-cover-up
Chapter XVI – Making Sense of the 9/11 Cover Up
http://www.bollyn.com/making-sense-of-the-911-cover-up
by Gilad Atzmon
September 16, 2011
An investigation of Jewish identity politics and Jewish contemporary ideology using both popular culture and scholarly texts. Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the ‘Jewish State’, we should ask what the notions of ’Judaism’, ‘Jewishness’, ‘Jewish culture’ and ‘Jewish ideology’ stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the ‘holocaust religion’; the meaning of ‘history’ and ‘time’ within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.
Tony Farrell discovered damning evidence that both 7/7 and 9/11 were false flag attacks
Tony Farrell
July 13, 2011
Alex Jones speaks with Tony Farrell, who served with British South Yorkshire Police for 12 years as a Police Intelligence Analyst. It was Farrell’s job to produce annual Strategic Threat Assessment Matrix reports as part of counter-terror operations. When Farrell discovered damning evidence that both 7/7 and 9/11 were false flag attacks, he blew the whistle and told his superiors that “internal tyranny” and “state sponsored terror” were far greater threats than Islamic radicalism. Despite several of his superiors agreeing with him, Farrell was subsequently dismissed and his case is currently on appeal.
It is almost as if Obama’s entire life and career has been an intelligence operation
Dr. Jerome Corsi
July 11, 2011
Alex Jones talks with author and investigative journalist Jerome Corsi about the Obama birth certificate fiasco. Corsi is the author of Where’s the Birth Certificate?: The Case that Barack Obama is not Eligible to be President, now available at the Infowars Store. In the book, Corsi assembles evidence that Barack Obama is constitutionally ineligible for the office of the presidency and has spent millions of dollars in legal fees to avoid providing the American people with something as simple as a long-form birth certificate.
listen 00:26:40
Direct link to mp3 file:
20110711-alex-jones-jerome-corsi.mp3
Infowars (source):
http://www.infowars.com
Jerome Corsi:
http://www.jeromecorsi.com/
A Nuclear catastrophe never seen before
Dr. Helen Caldicott
July 10, 2011
Dr. Helen Caldicott describes how the nuclear disasters that began in Japan on March 11, 2011, with the massive 9.0 point earthquake and resulting tsunami, present catastrophes the likes of which human kind has never seen before. We discuss what happened, the medical and health consequences around the world, why public information has not been forthcoming, and what can be done to protect ourselves. In response to the question, what can be done to prevent similar disasters in the future, Dr. Caldicott’s suggested action somewhat reminiscent of the 1960s civil right’s movement in the United States. (source)
listen 00:29:00
Direct link to mp3 file:
20110626-barry-vogel-helen-caldicott.mp3
PXR (Source):
http://www.prx.org/pieces/65198-a-nuclear-catastrophe-never-seen-before-dr-helen#description
Helen Caldicott:
http://nuclearfreeplanet.org/
After a nuclear World War III has destroyed most of the globe, the few remaining survivors in southern Australia await the radioactive cloud that is heading their way and bringing certain death to everyone in its path. Among them is an American submarine captain struggling to resist the knowledge that his wife and children in the United States must be dead. Then a faint Morse code signal is picked up, transmitting from somewhere near Seattle, and Captain Towers must lead his submarine crew on a bleak tour of the ruined world in a desperate search for signs of life. Both terrifying and intensely moving, On the Beach is a remarkably convincing portrait of how ordinary people might face the most unimaginable nightmare.
Helen Caldicott’s latest antinuke book searingly debunks the claim that the impending “nuclear power renaissance,” purported by some to be the only answer to global warming, is “clean and green.”
An Actionable Plan for 9/11 Truth and Justice
Senator Mike Gravel
July 1, 2011
Alex Jones talks with former Democratic Senator from Alaska and 2008 presidential candidate, Mike Gravel, about the 9-11 Initiative Campaign for a citizens’ 9-11 commission. Gravel is the founder of the 9-11 Initiative Campaign. The organization is attempting to put a ballot initiative for a new investigation before voters in one or more of 26 states.
listen 00:14:46
Direct link to mp3 file:
20110701-alex-jones-mike-gravel.mp3
Alex Jones (Source):
http://www.infowars.com
Mike Gravel:
http://9-11cc.org/
In the United States today, the phrase `conspiracy theory’ functions as a sort of giant cudgel, used to scare us out of talking openly about a broad (and ever-growing) range of scandals that the powerful cannot afford to let the people comprehend. In this new book, David Ray Griffin takes devastating aim at that repressive tactic, exposing it for what it really is. All those who cherish democracy, and intellectual freedom, owe it to themselves to read this brave analysis—and owe its author their sincerest thanks.
eddieleaks.org 
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