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Published on Chris Martenson (http://www.chrismartenson.com) Looting America: Treasury Secretary Paulson Threatened Senators with Martial Law By cmartenson Created 12/02/2008 - 09:04 Some people think of Hank Paulson as our Treasury Secretary. I think of him as a 19 year veteran of Wall Street banking. At every turn of this entire bailout he has specifically advantaged banks over taxpayers, banks over industry, banks over homeowners, and banks over the future health and prosperity of this country. Is this surprising for a banking veteran? No, not really. But the tactics he used certainly are. Consider this: [1] Sen. James Inhofe (R-Ok.)...

From the analysis of the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK and his team have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of the events leading up to his death. By identifying six different mosses in his alimentary tract, they suggest that the Iceman may have travelled, injured himself and dressed his wounds. The Iceman is the first glacier mummy to have fragments of mosses in his intestine. This is surprising as mosses are neither palatable nor nutritious and there are few reports...

Sen. John McCain avoided reporters during the lame-duck session of Congress last week. But Tuesday, shortly after President-elect Obama had his own news conference about the economy, McCain broke his silence by speaking with reporters in Phoenix. This came after the two former contenders met last week, and Tuesday, McCain continued to make nice. When asked what advice he had for right-wing supporters who say the prospect of an Obama presidency terrifies them, he was categorical. "Respect this landmark election, respect the fact America faces great challenges, and Americans expect us to work together. That does not mean we won't...

Though widely viewed as an arch conservative in the major media, Bruce Bartlett increasingly finds himself alienated from the president of his party. Bush's policies, he warns, have been anything but conservative. Bartlett faults Bush for moving away from free trade, adopting Keynesian economic theories, increasing government regulation and doing an extremely poor job of developing and selling conservative initiatives, such as Social Security reform. As such, George W. Bush, he says, has been a disaster for conservatism. Criticism of Bush from the right has largely been confined to fringe elements outside the mainstream of the conservative movement. Bartlett...

OBAMA & SCARY REVERSE SPEECH MESSAGES In the 1990s reverse speech analysis was discovered by David John Oats, a Nobel Laureate nominee for this discovery. The process is simple. When our forward speech is played in reverse at certain cyclic intervals our subconscience speaks in a discernable forward audible language. This hidden speech is always truthful; it is NEVER a lie. It reveals the true concealed feelings and intent of the individual despite the incongruent and masking surface message being communicated in the forward speech. In cases of the following example of a composed song, it goes beyond the individual...

I've been getting grief for not supporting John McCain. Some may say, in fact, I'm being dangerous or petty at the expense of our nation by not being a dutiful Republican. As if surely any Republican President is better than any Democrat President. Most will say that it's selfish to just let Obama win the White House simply because I differ from our nominee. What with a more-than-likely Democrat House and Senate, stepping aside and letting Obama win will shut us totally out of power and give him free reign to do as he pleases, after all. They ask: Where...

The U.S. government, like so many creaky monarchies and dubious regimes in history, may be conspiring to repudiate its own debt, suggests a former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. U.S. Treasury debt obligations have long been considered the most secure and most certain of repayment in full, including interest. It's part of the reason the dollar has stayed strong, and why the United States has been able to borrow so much, so cheaply, for decades. Increasingly, that trust is for the first time becoming questionable. "Congress, with the complicity of the White House and the Fed,...

Bush Derangement Syndrome: Russia as a Strategic Partner The president must withdraw the U.S.-Russia civil nuclear-cooperation pact. By Andrew C. McCarthy It was a relief to see President Bush take some meaningful action in response to Russia’s aggression against Georgia on Wednesday — something beyond looking sternly into Vladimir Putin’s soul between beach volleyball serves in Beijing. Thursday’s announcement that U.S. missile batteries will be installed in Poland is also welcome. More telling, though, is the step the president hasn’t taken: a necessary step, but one tantamount to a concession that the administration’s Iran policy has been a farce. The...

Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said “Iraq” when he apparently meant “Afghanistan” on Monday, adding to a string of mixed-up word choices that is giving ammunition to the opposition. Just in the past three weeks, McCain has mixed up Iraq and Afghanistan, Somalia and Sudan, and even football’s Packers and Steelers. Ironically, the errors have been concentrated in what should be his area of expertise - foreign affairs.

The ethanol industry, until recently a golden child that got favorable treatment from Washington, is facing a critical decision on its future. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to temporarily waive regulations requiring the oil industry to blend ever-increasing amounts of ethanol into gasoline. A decision is expected in the next few weeks. Mr. Perry says the billions of bushels of corn being used to produce all that mandated ethanol would be better suited as livestock feed than as fuel. Feed prices have soared in the last two years as fuel has begun competing with...

I thought this was interesting and thought provoking at the very least: For those who may be confused by the controversies surrounding the "New World Order", a One-World-Government, and American concern over giving the UN more power; those unaware of the issues involved; and those wishing more background, I offer the following. Originally presented for an Honors Class, "Dilemmas of War and Peace," at New Mexico State University, the paper was ridiculed and characterized by Dr. Yosef Lapid, (an acknowledged and locally quoted "expert" on Terrorism and Middle Eastern affairs) as "paranoid... possibly a symptom of mental illness." You may...

We don't have just two choices Hordes of Democrats and Republicans are unimpressed by their choices for president this year. Many on both sides are willing to crawl across broken glass, this time to avoid voting for their party's candidate. The two major parties, neither one of which are even mentioned in the Constitution, think they have us in a corner where we must vote for either Barack Obama or John McCain, or the other guy will win. But it isn't true; especially in states where it's already a foregone conclusion who will win? Everyone knows McCain will win Texas'...

WASHINGTON -- Speculative traders' interest in crude oil has grown to the point that they now account for roughly 70% of all trading in West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange, compared with 37% in 2000, according to an investigation by a congressional subcommittee that forms part of an escalating political assault on Wall Street's role in the run-up in oil prices. The subcommittee's findings, based on data obtained from federal commodity-futures regulators, are the latest sign that Washington is gearing up to try to limit the role of hedge funds, investment banks and other speculative traders...

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it...

All part of his daring master plan to make his name as widely reviled among the right as Ralph Nader’s is among the left. Polls in Georgia and North Carolina over the last two weeks show Mr. Barr winning 8 percent and 6 percent respectively of the presidential vote, and in both cases helping keep likely Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama within striking distance of Mr. McCain in those states — which, taken together, account for more electoral votes than Florida, Pennsylvania or Ohio… [InsiderAdvantage pollster Matt] Towery said North Carolina and Georgia are exactly the places that Mr....

Probably almost everyone is familiar with the hyperinflationary episode that engulfed Germany after the First World War. That nation’s economy was crippled by monetary problems that resulted in dreadful personal hardships, even though up to that time Germany had achieved one of the highest living standards in the world. The newly formed German government, named for the city where their constitution was drafted after the Kaiser’s abdication in 1918, kept pumping up the money supply. The process started relatively slowly, but quickly the pace of money creation accelerated. The Weimar government was paying its bills on credit – just like...

The Emancipation Proclamation, more than any act, exposes the real President Lincoln and hits at the core of why the mythical day of June 19 is celebrated. Issued on the 22nd day of September in 1862, [the Emancipation Proclamation] stated that on the first day of January 1863, "all persons held as slaves within any state or designated part of a state, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." Clearly, this was a war measure for suppressing the so-called rebellion. If the Confederate States of America stop rebelling...

As congressional Republicans contemplate the prospect of an electoral disaster this November, much is being written about the supposed soul-searching in the Republican Party. A more accurate description of our state is paralysis and denial. Many Republicans are waiting for a consultant or party elder to come down from the mountain and, in Moses-like fashion, deliver an agenda and talking points on stone tablets. But the burning bush, so to speak, is delivering a blindingly simple message: Behave like Republicans. Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we...

WASHINGTON - May 23, 2008 - Fingerprints are considered to be among the most personal of information, and fingerprint databases created and proposed in the name of national security have generated much debate. Recently, “Server in the Sky” - a proposed international database of the fingerprints of suspected criminals and terrorists to be shared among the U.S., UK and Canada - has ignited a firestorm of controversy, as have cavalier comments made by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that fingerprints aren’t “personal data.” Yet earlier this week, a measure creating a federal fingerprint registry totally unrelated to national security passed...

You so called conservatives that will vote for McCain for president if he wins the nomination will hurt the conservative movement for decades. How do you think you will feel when McCain wins, Will you Jump up and down? THE RINOS WIN!!!, THE RINOS WIN !!!!, McCain Will then pass Liberal laws. Are you going to support him. But If my man Hillary wins Now at least I know who I'm fighting against from that day forward. Hillary and the DEMS. I been a freeper for 8 years, GO check my comments yhat go way back before you call me...