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From Zerohedge

The Hindenburg Omen Has Arrived

Hindenburg Omen Confirmation #1

Hindenburg Omen Confirmation #2

Hindenburg Omen Confirmation #3

Obama’s ‘Organizing for America’ targeting Okla. districts
By ANDREW W. GRIFFIN

Oklahoma Watchdog, editor

Posted: July 30, 2010

andrew@oklahomawatchdog.org

OKLAHOMA CITY – Nearly two years after liberal community organizing group ACORN hurriedly abandoned their south Oklahoma City office, there is concern that a similarly-minded group, Organizing for America, is looking to resume working in the Sooner State.

Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Matt Pinnell recently met with Oklahoma Watchdog and explained that Democrats in Oklahoma are looking to organize the grass roots with “Sneaky Sunday” meet-up events where OFA activists can discuss strategies and move forward with their plans.

Organizing for America is the successor organization to Obama for America, the liberal activist organization that is fighting for “a new kind of politics” that embraces a more socialistic approach to governing.

Pinnell provided a screenshot of a “Sneaky Sunday” OFA organizational meeting that was expected to address House District 87, represented by Rep. Jason Nelson and Senate District 40, represented by Sen. Cliff Branan.

Pinnell also discussed at Capitol Beat OK that President Obama‘s liberal allies are working hard in Oklahoma.

Democrat Dana Orwig is working to unseat Nelson. A call to Nelson seeking comment on the OFA activities in his district has not been returned.

On August 7, a “Vote 2010” OFA event will take place in HD 87 where they “will be knocking doors and making phone calls to those people who came out for the first time in 2008 and voted for President Obama.”

“Oklahoma is the reddest state in the country,” Pinnell said. “So, the Democrats are trying to find a different strategy in their efforts to get elected.”

When Will Financial Armageddon Begin?
By Greg Hunter

USAWatchdog.com

A little more than two years ago, economist John Williams of shadowstats.com predicted a “severe recession” was coming and soon. At the time, I was working as an investigative correspondent for CNN. I interviewed Williams for a story about the coming financial crisis. Most so-called experts, at the time, did not see the financial meltdown coming, let alone that all the banks were in trouble. Williams’ assessment of the economy was spot on in 2008. I don’t see how you can characterize what we have now as anything but a “severe recession.” Accurate information is the first and foremost reason to use someone as a source when you are a journalist. In my experience, what I have gotten from Williams has been stellar. (Click here for the 2008 CNN story featuring Williams and his predictions for the President in 2012.) (Click here for shadowstats.com)

Williams also predicted 2 years ago we would have a “hyperinflationary depression” within 10 years. Then, about a year ago, he revised his prediction and narrowed the window to “five years.” The day before last Friday’s dismal jobs report, Williams said, “. . . the timing of the looming U.S. financial Armageddon is coming into better focus, with increasingly high risk of it breaking within the next six months to a year.”

“Financial Armageddon . . . within the next six months to a year.” I called Williams to see why the odds of calamity have accelerated. He told me on the phone last night, “What is happening now to bring the timing into focus is the economy IS turning down. It is no longer the perspective the economy is going to turn down. That, in turn, will eventually trigger all the problems with the dollar, the debt and the deficit.”

America Is at Risk of Boiling Over
And out-of-touch leaders don't see the need to cool things off.

It is, obviously, self-referential to quote yourself, but I do it to make a point. I wrote the following on New Year's day, 1994. America 16 years ago was a relatively content nation, though full of political sparks: 10 months later the Republicans would take the House for the first time in 40 years. But beneath all the action was, I thought, a coming unease. Something inside was telling us we were living through "not the placid dawn of a peaceful age but the illusory calm before stern storms."

The temperature in the world was very high. "At home certain trends—crime, cultural tension, some cultural Balkanization—will, we fear, continue; some will worsen. In my darker moments I have a bad hunch. The fraying of the bonds that keep us together, the strangeness and anomie of our popular culture, the increase in walled communities . . . the rising radicalism of the politically correct . . . the increased demand of all levels of government for the money of the people, the spotty success with which we are communicating to the young America's reason for being and founding beliefs, the growth of cities where English is becoming the second language . . . these things may well come together at some point in our lifetimes and produce something painful indeed. I can imagine, for instance, in the year 2020 or so, a movement in some states to break away from the union. Which would bring about, of course, a drama of Lincolnian darkness. . . . You will know that things have reached a bad pass when Newsweek and Time, if they still exist 15 years from now, do cover stories on a surprising, and disturbing trend: aging baby boomers leaving America, taking what savings they have to live the rest of their lives in places like Africa and Ireland."

July 17, 2010
American Jeopardy: What is Fascism?
By John Griffing
Over the years, words lose meaning and often take on new forms that in no way represent their original usage. This can be observed in the now taboo word "fascism." Fascism is now most closely associated with the system of government that effected the slaughter of over 6 million Jews and other political prisoners. But at its core, fascism is really no more than a system where government, through agreements with the private sector, controls virtually all property and income indirectly.

Prosperity and economic growth become the domain of government. The philosophical aim is to eliminate recessions by eliminating robust growth -- the underlying philosophy being that if there is no boom, there will be no bust. This system usually appeals to populations coming out of severe economic depressions and upheaval, as in pre-Nazi Germany during the period of the 1930s.

The problem with the system is obvious: property-owning democracy must take a back seat to the interests of the state. And, by blurring the distinction between the private sector and the public sector, individual liberty can often be conditioned on complicity with state aims, as manifested in the private sector sphere. Why else would German companies like Degesch be willing to supply the infamous Zyclon-B for use in the extermination of their fellow men if not conditioned upon the continued viability of the company and all employees concerned? Money talks, and when the state controls the powers of production directly or indirectly, it controls the livelihood of millions. Human beings are capable of such immense evil in exchange for clothing and a full pantry.

CNSNews.com
Obesity Rating for Every American Must Be Included in Stimulus-Mandated Electronic Health Records, Says HHS
Thursday, July 15, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius speaks to reporters at HHS headquarters in Washington on July 1, 2010. (CNSNews.com/Penny Starr)
(CNSNews.com) – New federal regulations issued this week stipulate that the electronic health records--that all Americans are supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year--must record not only the traditional measures of height and weight, but also the Body Mass Index: a measure of obesity.

The obesity-rating regulation states that every American's electronic health record must: “Calculate body mass index. Automatically calculate and display body mass index (BMI) based on a patient’s height and weight.”

The law also requires that these electronic health records be available--with appropriate security measures--on a national exchange.

The new regulations are one of the first steps towards the government’s goal of universal adoption of electronic health records (EHRs) by 2014, as outlined in the 2009 economic stimulus law. Specifically, the regulations issued on Tuesday by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Dr. David Blumenthal, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, define the "meaningful use" of electronic records. Under the stimulus law, health care providers--including doctors and hospitals--must establish "meaningful use" of EHRs by 2014 in order to qualify for federal subsidies. After that, they will be subjected to penalties in the form of diminished Medicare and Medicaid payments for not establishing "meaningful use" of EHRs.

from ZeroHedge

The Dangers of a Failed Presidency

By Michael Krieger, of KAM LP

If moderation is a fault then indifference is a crime.

-Jack Kerouac

Virtue is persecuted more by the wicked than it is loved by the good.

-Buddha

Having fallen from the eternal, the Evil One's desires are endless, insatiable. Having fallen from pure Being, he is driven by the desire to possess, to fill his emptiness. But the problem is insoluble, always. He is compelled to have and to hold, to possess and consume, and nothing else. All he takes, he destroys. Certainly he rules the material, as he is called the Prince of this World in the gospels - but only of the things of this world.

-Denis de Rougemont

from American Thinker

July 12, 2010
Sarah Palin Outs Darth Vader
By Stuart Schwartz
Darth Vader is out of the closet...and we have Sarah Palin to thank.

The intrepid crusader from the north cut to the heart of Obamacare a year ago, slashing through the professor-speak and government gobbledygook with a searing summary on Facebook of its bottom line: "death panels." With those words, the grounds for debate had shifted, the mainstream media ideological blackout was circumvented, and now, although it may have been Obama's new head of Medicare, Harvard's Dr. Donald Berwick, who stepped on the shuttle at Boston's Logan International Airport, it is Darth Vader who has exited at Reagan National.

Darth Vader -- really? The man responsible for the death of a gazillion inhabited worlds, through whom the evil Emperor Palpatine -- described as " a middle-aged politician ... who gains power through deception and treachery"...sound familiar? -- sought to enslave the universe in the fictional Star Wars saga? Surely, an exaggeration! Yes, and deliberately so, for Berwick starts off his gig as head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid as an enthusiastic proponent of, as one British media commentator noted, a system that routinely denies "some poor suffering victim a remedy that is available in other countries." At the same time, it views the elderly as simply less worthy of care, an expendable segment of the population for whom doctors and heart specialists provide less treatment past the official "cut-off" of 65 years, a British health research journal documented.

from RedState

IRS: New Health Care Law Imposes ‘Significant’ New Burdens

Even the IRS Says this Bill Looks Like Overkill

Posted by Brian Faughnan
Sunday, July 11th at 3:04PM EDT

Advocates of the president’s health care bill made a lot of promises in the run-up to passage of the law. They said health care costs would go down, people could keep insurance that they were happy with, the law would not increase the budget deficit, and small business would not be burdened by the new law. In the months since the law was signed, federal officials have begun to admit that all of those assurance were false. The latest shoe to drop comes from the IRS, which now says that businesses and charities will face significant new burdens - burdens which even this agency says may be ‘disproportionate’ to any benefit from the law:

The new regulations, which kick in at the start of 2012, require any taxpayer with business income to issue 1099 forms to all vendors from whom they purchased more than $600 of goods and services that year. That promises to launch a fusillade of new paperwork: An estimated 40 million taxpayers will be subject to the requirement, including 26 million who run sole proprietorships, according to a report released this week by National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson…

“The new reporting burden, particularly as it falls on small businesses, may turn out to be disproportionate as compared with any resulting improvement in tax compliance,” the Taxpayer Advocate Service wrote in a report released this week.

Grade 1

[...]

Understanding human beings can love people of the same gender & people of another gender.

[...]

Grade 2

[...]

Understanding making fun of people by calling them gay (e.g. "homo," "fag," queer") is disrespectful and hurtful.

Grade 3

[...]

Understand media often presents an unrealistic image of what it means to be male or female, what it means to be in love & what parenthood & marriages are like.

[...]

Grade 5

Understanding that sexual intercourse includes but is not limited to vaginal, oral, or anal penetration.

Understanding sexual orientation refers to a person's physical and/or romantic attraction to an individual of the same and/or different gender, and is part of ones' personality.

[...]

Grade 6

[...]

Understand gender identity is different from sexual orientation.

Understand the media usually does not portray sexuality realistically.

[...]

Grade 7

[...]

Discuss the Supreme Court decision that has ruled that, to a certain extent, people have the right to make personal decisions concerning sexuality & reproductive health matters, such as abortion, sterilization and contraception.

[...]

Grades 9-12

[...]

Understand erotic images in art reflect society's views about sexuality & help people understand sexuality.

[...]

Understand sexual orientation is determined by a variety of factors.

from American Thinker

July 11, 2010
Ratcheting to Ruin
Monty Pelerin
The U.S. government moves closer to a debt death spiral. Arguably, we are already in the beginning phase of this spiral as this rather scary observation points out:

The nation's debt leapt $166 billion in a single day last week, the third-largest increase in U.S. history, and it comes at a time when Congress is balking over higher spending and debt has become a key policy battleground.

The one-day increase for June 30 totaled $165,931,038,264.30 - bigger than the entire annual deficit for fiscal year 2007 .... The figure works out to nearly $1,500 for every U.S. household, or more than 10 times the median daily household income.

With no spending restraints, the economy moves inexorably toward its date of collapse.

The excesses and imbalances created by the explosion of debt over the last thirty years virtually ensure a depression, regardless of what policy actions the government chooses. That was determined before Obama took office. His spending only accelerated the debt spiral, never had any chance of success and sped up our date with economic destiny.

The tipping point of debt that Ludwig von Mises warned against was passed long ago:

There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit (debt) expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit (debt) expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh , had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

‘A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.’

‘A democracy will continue to exist up until the time
that voters discover they can vote themselves
generous gifts from the public treasury.’

‘ From that mom ent on, the majority always vote for the candidates

who promise the most benefits from the public treasury,

with the result that every democracy will finally collapse

due to loose fiscal policy,

which is always followed by a dictatorship.’

‘The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years’

‘During those 200 years, those nations always progressed
through the following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;

2. from spiritual faith to great courage;

3. from courage to liberty;

4. from liberty to abundance;

5. from abundance to complacency;

6. from complacency to apathy;

7. from apathy to dependence;

8. from dependence back into bondage’