By Joseph Abrams

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

The revolution will not be televised: it’s been blinking along on a giant bakery sign in St. Louis, Mo., instead.

McArthur’s Bakery in St. Louis, Mo. (David McArthur).

Fed up with his congressman’s vote on a sweeping climate-change bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June, the proprietor of McArthur’s Bakery took to his street sign and posted a clear message to all passersby:

“Russ Carnahan voted to … close us and other … small business.”

The revolution will not be televised: it’s been blinking along on a giant bakery sign in St. Louis, Mo., instead.

Fed up with his congressman’s vote on a sweeping climate-change bill that passed the House of Representatives in late June, the proprietor of McArthur’s Bakery took to his street sign and posted a clear message to all passersby:

“Russ Carnahan voted to … close us and other … small business.”

David McArthur, vice president of the 52-year-old family operation, a Gateway City institution, is one of a growing number of business owners and taxpayers nationwide who are mobilizing against the so-called cap-and-trade bill, which would levy harsh fines on energy consumption that harms the environment.

McArthur told FOXNews.com that every aspect of his business relies on the forms of energy targeted by the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and that his congressman, Carnahan, was supporting “a direct tax increase on small business” by voting for it.

“We make (our product) with electricity, we bake it with gas, we refrigerate and freeze it with electricity and we distribute it with gas and oil,” said McArthur, who said he worries that high prices could cost his company up to $15,000 a year in an industry with a very tight margin for profit.

Click here for photos. 

The legislation requires that the country reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020. Big energy plants and producers would have a cap on emissions like carbon dioxide, but could purchase “credits” from other companies that have met their reduction goals. The Obama administration says it will pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the plan would have a minimal effect on most taxpayers, costing an average family about 25 cents a day in its first years of implementation.

But the effect on small businesses could be wide-reaching.

 ”He’s killing small business — he’s killing us,” McArthur said of Carnahan, who was one of a majority of Democrats who voted for the bill in a closely fought 219-212 vote.

McArthur, who penned a scathing letter to Carnahan, is not alone in taking the message directly to his congressman. Dozens of small protests were organized at the end of June at federal buildings and outside the offices of national lawmakers who voted for the bill.

Mike Wilson, who led a protest in Cincinnati of about 100 people on June 27 across from the offices of Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, said he was appalled by the 1,500-page legislation, which was fast-tracked by House leaders for a vote Friday. A 310-page amendment was slapped onto the bill Friday morning.

“It was, quite frankly, criminal passing a bill that you didn’t read,” said Wilson, founder of the anti-tax group Cincinnati Tea Party.

Wilson says he is part of a national movement opposed to the bill that was organizing protests from Napa to Nashville, and that will continue to assert pressure as the Senate prepares to vote on the bill later this year.

Crowds were not as large as those at the April 15 anti-tax Tea Party protests, from which the base of these rallies is being formed.

But the protesters aren’t the only ones monitoring how members of Congress are voting on the issue.

The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors announced they have started a public scorecard on how lawmakers vote on priority legislation for business owners — and are keeping a close eye on all the congressmen who have supported cap-and-trade.

The NFIB says escalating fuel costs are the second-biggest problem small business owners face, and argued that the legislation is putting a premium on alternative energy sources without considering the needs of entrepreneurs.

“At a time when our nation faces near 10 percent unemployment and stalled economic growth, now is not the time to impose an $846 billion energy tax on small business,” wrote Susan Eckerly, senior vice president for public policy at the NFIB.

In the days since McArthur flashed his feelings on the bakery’s electronic billboard, he was contacted by Carnahan’s office and agreed to take the message down. He is happy to have a new line of communication to Carnahan, but he said that the current crisis is putting enough pressure on his business without added pressure from the bill.

“We have not had the ability to make money for the last three years,” McArthur said. “Another year and a 50-year icon in St. Louis is gone.”

David McArthur, vice president of the 52-year-old family operation, a Gateway City institution, is one of a growing number of business owners and taxpayers nationwide who are mobilizing against the so-called cap-and-trade bill, which would levy harsh fines on energy consumption that harms the environment.

McArthur told FOXNews.com that every aspect of his business relies on the forms of energy targeted by the American Clean Energy and Security Act, and that his congressman, Carnahan, was supporting “a direct tax increase on small business” by voting for it.

“We make (our product) with electricity, we bake it with gas, we refrigerate and freeze it with electricity and we distribute it with gas and oil,” said McArthur, who said he worries that high prices could cost his company up to $15,000 a year in an industry with a very tight margin for profit.

Click here for photos. 

The legislation requires that the country reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent by 2020. Big energy plants and producers would have a cap on emissions like carbon dioxide, but could purchase “credits” from other companies that have met their reduction goals. The Obama administration says it will pump hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the plan would have a minimal effect on most taxpayers, costing an average family about 25 cents a day in its first years of implementation.

But the effect on small businesses could be wide-reaching.

 ”He’s killing small business — he’s killing us,” McArthur said of Carnahan, who was one of a majority of Democrats who voted for the bill in a closely fought 219-212 vote.

McArthur, who penned a scathing letter to Carnahan, is not alone in taking the message directly to his congressman. Dozens of small protests were organized at the end of June at federal buildings and outside the offices of national lawmakers who voted for the bill.

Mike Wilson, who led a protest in Cincinnati of about 100 people on June 27 across from the offices of Rep. Steve Driehaus, D-Ohio, said he was appalled by the 1,500-page legislation, which was fast-tracked by House leaders for a vote Friday. A 310-page amendment was slapped onto the bill Friday morning.

“It was, quite frankly, criminal passing a bill that you didn’t read,” said Wilson, founder of the anti-tax group Cincinnati Tea Party.

Wilson says he is part of a national movement opposed to the bill that was organizing protests from Napa to Nashville, and that will continue to assert pressure as the Senate prepares to vote on the bill later this year.

Crowds were not as large as those at the April 15 anti-tax Tea Party protests, from which the base of these rallies is being formed.

But the protesters aren’t the only ones monitoring how members of Congress are voting on the issue.

The National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors announced they have started a public scorecard on how lawmakers vote on priority legislation for business owners — and are keeping a close eye on all the congressmen who have supported cap-and-trade.

The NFIB says escalating fuel costs are the second-biggest problem small business owners face, and argued that the legislation is putting a premium on alternative energy sources without considering the needs of entrepreneurs.

“At a time when our nation faces near 10 percent unemployment and stalled economic growth, now is not the time to impose an $846 billion energy tax on small business,” wrote Susan Eckerly, senior vice president for public policy at the NFIB.

In the days since McArthur flashed his feelings on the bakery’s electronic billboard, he was contacted by Carnahan’s office and agreed to take the message down. He is happy to have a new line of communication to Carnahan, but he said that the current crisis is putting enough pressure on his business without added pressure from the bill.

“We have not had the ability to make money for the last three years,” McArthur said. “Another year and a 50-year icon in St. Louis is gone.”

In this video of 17 year old, Melika Willoughby of Wisconsin who stood up and spoke before a huge crowd of over 8300 Tea Party protesters in Madison, stands up for the rights of individual American citizens and especially her generation who are facing ungodly taxation to pay for the Constitutionally contemptuous legislation and actions by all three branches of The Federal Government and The State of Wisconsin, which has led to spending that is nothing less than usurpation and tyranny in the purest form.  And Melika isn’t the only older teenager fighting for her unalienable rights.

A huge group of young adults have created a group called

Click name for hotlink to their website and to join, young people who want to fight to keep any of your future earnings.  Fight for your rights, young people!  The U.S. Congress, the President and The Supreme Court does not give a damn about you and I, for one, am just sick about it.  I am so sorry for my generation who have not, at least yet, fought for your freedom, liberty or your rights like our Revolutionary patriots, founding fathers and our armed forces fought for us.  It is so disgusting and then, if that weren’t bad enough, we didn’t even make sure that you were taught about freedom or the meaning, spirit and intent of our founding documents.

This group is expanding rapidly and already has chapters in at least 125 Universities.

I have a feeling that the tyrants in Washington D.C. and in Assemblies of our States better watch their step.  Our young are starting to realize their rights, the one and only meaning of freedom and the spirit and intent of every word in the Constitution.  Our country will soon be taken back by our young men and women who endeavor to fight for their God given rights to keep and spend their own money as written in The Constitution.

U.S. Congress and Governor Doyle, your days as despotic usurpers are numbered.  And I have a feeling that our young men and woman will have a little something to say about your king’s ransom pension and retirement health programs that few Americans, who pay for it, can even dream of.

Charlie Rangel Takes an All-Expenses Paid Trip to the Caribbean on CitiBank’s dime… After Voting for Their Bailout

I don’t know about you but I’ve had it with all this corruption. It’s time to tar and feather all politicians! Every stinking one of them!

 

‘Shameful’: Big shots on Wall Street, in Congress still don’t get it

 

Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY) loves and "enjoys" TARP Bailouts!

 

 

 

 

 

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New York’s Charles Rangel and five other Democratic members of the House enjoyed a trip to the Caribbean sponsored in part by Citigroup (see above) in November – after Congress had approved the $700 bailout for financial firms (including Citigroup).

The members no doubt will object to the terms “junket,” but that shoe fits. The National Legal and Policy Center, a watchdog group, has asked Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to investigate the Nov. 6-9 excursion to the island of St. Maarten.

It was called the Caribbean Multi-Cultural Business Conference, but “the primary purpose … for most participants appeared to be to take a vacation,” said the NLPC. And not only was the timing lousy, but “corporate sponsorship of such an event was banned by House rules adopted on March 1, 2007, in response to the (lobbyist Jack) Abramoff scandal,” the group pointed out.

Joining Rangel on that trip were Donald Payne of New Jersey, Sheila Jackson-Lee of Texas, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Donna Christenson, delegate from the U.S. Virgin Islands.

If they haven’t already, they should reimburse the taxpayers for all expenses related to that trip – and from their own funds, not from another taxpayer pocket.

My God, I sure hope you realize the proportions of this problem that isn’t even being addressed WHAT-SO-EVER yet.  Where is the U.S. Congress going to get that money, if they are having a problem coming up with ONLY $700 BILLION?

  Wake Up….  Fellow Countrymen, Rise Up Fellow Countrymen and be counted.

WE MUST FIGHT for FREEDOM from Government by and through the

practical application of The Constitution AS IT WAS WRITTEN, TO

THE VERY WORD, SPIRIT, INTENT AND MEANING as it was meant on the day it was drafted.

Without this, fellow countrymen, we will lose our prosperity not only for the few years 5 – 10 that we are going to have to go through now, but we will have the equal distribution of poverty and misery for a thousand years if the SOCIALISTS in Congress and their buddies in THE FEDERAL RESERVE, which is a private company owned by forty mostly foreign individuals, have their way.

The Federal Reserve owners have created a private club of the super powerful called The Trilateral Commission.  You can read their website for yourself: www.trilateral.org .  It is their mission to create a “One World Government”; a SOCIALIST Government where they decide how much of your earnings you will be allowed to keep, what you will be allowed to buy, where you will be allowed to live, what you will be allowed to drive, probably even how many children you will be allowed to have.  Is this the sort of “freedom” you are looking forward to?  Of course not.  That is an abomination of the term freedom.

Freedom means freedom from government.  Freedom from Government is the greatest generator of wealth and individual prosperity this world has ever known.  We must re-engage the force and power of The Constitution NOW, so that we can regain the power, prosperity and happiness that freedom brings and has brought for the vast majority of Americans before both Houses of Congress legislated constitutionally contemptuous legislation that through time has brought us to this point.

People, according to our Founding Fathers, freedom has always been up to us individually but united.  Not, conversely, up to government which always is the problem and always causes a rising problem to eventually become worse, never better.

This whole prosperity generating experiment of freedom (from government) now is in our hands.  Our first step, , , ,   realize it.

Capt. Karl, this writer, is highly alarmed that so many comentators are not representing us or the DIRECT cost to our families which will come to us via the taking of money out of our paychecks before we even receive them in additional Federal Income Tax “withholding”. 

This blogger must ask the question: “Why is it so very rare that any of these TV commentators, on ANY TV CHANNEL, are talking about how much MORE in earnings is the IRS going to take from our paychecks in the near and distant future?”  Are they going to take 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, or 80% of our check away from us for this?  How much of our paychecks are they going to take?

And, then, when the ADDITIONAL PROBLEM, above all problems, hits which is $90,000,000,000,000.00, over the infinite horizon, (NINTY TRILLION DOLLARS and No Sense) UNFUNDED Liabilities of JUST Social Security and Medicare, which will exist by January when the new Congress and President takes over.  Who is going to pay for that I wonder?

So people, you MUST REALIZE, this is the end of “The Matrix” or we are going to lose our freedom and settle for the chains and bondage of the soup kitchens of the Welfare State in the near future and beyond.

We must FIGHT for Freedom (from Government) or suffer the horror of a thousand years of darkness in the clutches of Socialism or Communism.

This is a Time for Choosing.  Do we want FREEDOM (from Government) where we are the Masters and Government is the Servants or are we going to settle for tyranny, oppression, corruption, and despotism resulting in the equal distribution of misery for all?  Do we want all of us equally broke by Government stealing from our earnings to make sure that nobody gets ahead of anybody else no matter how hard or how successful a person and his or her skills might be?  The time for us to make this decision has honestly come to you and me now.  We must realize the veracity of this fact, so that we can get on with all of us individually making our decision on this matter of freedom or socialism.  But we need to man up and make the hopefully informed choice for ourselves and not let a bunch of bureaucrats decide for us and place us in a financial and political cage; for that is not freedom.

Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

On Concurring in Senate Amendment With An Amendme
09/29/2008

(see complete tally)

Capt. Karl and the First Mate have written the following letter to our representatives, Congressman Steve Kagen, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Herbert Kohl, and President Bush.  You are welcome to copy any part of or this entire letter and send it to your representatives.

We must get back control over our Government before we lose the last remaining remnants of our freedom (from Government and massive debilitating taxation).

Letter to Congressman Steve Kagen, Senator Russ Feingold, Senator Herbert Kohl, and President Bush:

I have predicted this national financial crisis for 2 years. We know that while all the reasons for the financial crisis that we have heard, like sub-prime mortgages and bad loans, are valid we also know that the foundational essence causing these is the fact that the Federal Government has behaved and engaged in unconstitutional actions since the inception of The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which has resulted in a usurpation of freedom and our power over government.  This tyranny and despotism in the hands of both houses of the U.S. Congress has got to come to an end.

To resolve this problem we MUST totally REVERSE the Governmental trends that placed us in this position.  The Government must respect and completely obey the LAW to the very word, spirit, intent and meaning of The Constitution as it was meant at the time of its drafting by Thomas Jefferson as edited by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.

We The People are willing, I believe, to egregiously suffer for a few years to see the Federal Government REVERSE ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL LEGISLATION AND GROWTH so that it is nothing more than an agent of the independent states as per the ENUMERATED powers provided there in.  That only congress directly coin and mint money and determine the value there of.

No matter what happens this is the only cure to the problem. We fix this now or later, but if we are to keep our freedom we must take our spoon of medicine.  Let the Economic Stabilization Act Die and CHANGE Government to FULLY COMPORT to the intent and spirit of the constitution.

************************************************************

If the Government refuses to obey the law, I and many hundreds of thousands of us will be willing to demonstrate against the lawless in both Houses of Congress!  We are NOT going to let them tax us to death, force our expenses, bills and energy costs to go so high we can not afford it and we WILL NOT LET THEM TAKE AWAY OUR FREEDOM (from Government) as was intended by the numerous volumes of writings and documents by our Founding Fathers starting with The Declaration of Independence and The Constitution of The United States of America. 

Have you read the Constitution and the Declaration?  If not you would be SHOCKED as to how things are supposed to be and how Congress has changed our situation, unconstitutionally, on us.  You must read these documents and the various writings of our Founding Fathers so that you really and fully understand what freedom really means and how our lives and power OVER our Servant Governments (but in a Republic sense for pure Democracy is true Socialism or Communism where 51% vote to control and steal money from the other 49%), State and Federal, are supposed to be.

The Liberty Tree Lantern has been working hard to help you to understand a complex situation that is the result of UNCONSTITUTIONAL legislation by both houses of Congress that is, right now, resulting in the complete financial melt down of our financial markets, our economy, our individual prosperity and our freedom.  All of this nightmare of which all of us are about to partake is the result of several pieces of Federal Legislation but most especially because of The Federal Reserve Act of 1913.  The other reason for it is that we let them get away with absolute contempt for our Constitution.

We must always remember that it is our INDIVIDUAL responsibility to stay informed with regards to the meaning, spirit and intent of our founding documents, WHICH MEANS THAT THIS IS THE ONE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT to be taught to our children in school, along with American History, American Heritage, our UNIQUE and very special AMERICAN Culture which had the guts to fight for God and his freedom for us, which means FREEDOM from Government and, there by, self governance.  We must, in the future, also teach children why FREEDOM (from Government), is the greatest generator of individual wealth, for the vast majority of people, compared to all government styles in the history of mankind.  And, we must teach our children in school that they must fight the forces of government, by way of enforcing The LAW of The Constitution, on our Government at every turn.

I am writing to you as if it is all over, meaning certainly our prosperity and if WE THE PEOPLE don’t rise up in the streets to demand that our Federal Government OBEY the LAW, even the last remaining bit of our freedom (which means freedom from Government) will be over.  And, with it, any possibility of individual prosperity for the future or our posterity.  If we don’t have the American Cowboy / Patriot guts to tell our U.S. Congress to OBEY THE LAW of The Constitution, as it was meant and written, it is GAME OVER!

September 22, 2008 – 13:12 ET

STU: You said it would be more like $2 trillion.

GLENN: Sovereign funds no, that’s not it. The $700 billion bailout, the latest story here is that it is probably going to be $1.3 trillion. Do not believe that. It’s not $1.3 trillion. It is over $2 trillion that this bailout is going to cost. And here’s the great thing, this according to Bloomberg just a few minutes ago. Bush administration widened the scope of its $700 billion plan to avert financial meltdown by including assets other than mortgage related securities.

You must hear this. Please have some meat I’ll give you dessert here in a second, but you must hear this because it only makes you you’ll only question me saying the bailout is a good thing even more. You’ll say… what! Officials made changes two days after unveiling plans for an unprecedented intervention in financial markets. The change will potentially allow purchases of car loans, credit card debt and other devalued assets that may force an increase in the size of the package. No! It’s not going to be, not going to be over $700 billion. It’s going to be over $2 trillion.

Now, why is this happening and why am I willing to say AIG was the only one that I would have considered bailing out last week, but I still was not for the bail I have not been for any bailouts. Why would I now be for bailouts? Let me give you the story on what happened this weekend in Nancy Pelosi’s office. Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson, the secretary of treasury, did everything they could last week to try to bail everything out. I believe they made things worse but I know a lot of financial people don’t but I believe you just, we went, we started going down the bailout route. What they were trying to do is build another firewall. Well, they didn’t put the fire out. You can build firewall after firewall after firewall. You’ve got to put the fire out. And nothing they did fixed it, and every time they would fix it, they will say, well, this one’s going to fix it, and it didn’t. The fire just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

So over the weekend Nancy Pelosi’s office, you know, had the white hydrangeas that you, by the way, are paying for sitting there on the table and a bunch of Democrats and Republicans were sitting in there and here comes Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke. Ben Bernanke, by the way, an expert on the Great Depression. That is his expertise. That is his field of study was what happened in the Great Depression.

Well, last week Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America had a shotgun wedding. They got together. Regulators pumped in another $85 billion for AIG. I said, where did you even come up with that amount, last week; it’s not going to fix it; it’s going to get worse. Then on Wednesday night they saw the market absolutely freeze. No one in business could borrow anything from any bank. Nobody was and that means that all business in America would have stopped Thursday morning, stopped. October 30th, 1929. That’s what this that’s what Wednesday was. You have to remember, the Great Depression didn’t the stock market crashed in October 29. The Great Depression was up and down, stocks looked good and then bad and then things would get better and then, “We’re getting better, we’re getting out of it” and then it crashed again. It wasn’t until government came in and just absorbed everything in 1933 after FDR that then it was done for ten years. Then it was the Great Depression for ten years.

Bernanke comes in and he says the credit lines in the financial system, lifeblood in the economy completely frozen. It was threatening to halt all lending in the U.S., forcing businesses to close and lay off workers. They were also seeing massive amounts of money being moved out of the country.

Remind me, Stu, to talk about the money that was short selling last week from Britain and Dubai.

Bernanke says you could see massive failures of businesses within days that goes beyond the banking system to large name brand companies. Big, big, gigantic companies are ready to go under in America. The people who left the meeting said they were shocked by the description of Armageddon from Bernanke. This was this weekend. They looked shaken. Chris Dodd said it was as sobering a meeting as any of us have ever attended in our careers here.

This is what’s really going on behind the scenes. You are getting a little puppet show in front of you. Now, how does that bring me to the bailout? I think government being involved is really bad because I will tell you the things that they won’t tell you. I have done my homework this weekend. I have as Stu will be able to tell you, I have connections to people who do not want can’t go on the record, cannot go on the record.

Stu, do you trust these people?

STU: Oh, yeah.

GLENN: Okay. It is not something they are not people that are stand to make money. They are people that truly, truly care that talk to me because they believe you need to know but they can’t say anything because if they said something, it’s over. Correct?

STU: Yeah. And I think more importantly than that maybe even, at least for their actual comments is that they are less alarmist than you.

GLENN: Oh, yeah.

STU: They don’t they are not jump to conclusions people, they are not jump to conspiracy, they are not jump to

GLENN: Oh, no. They think I’m crazy, some of the stuff I mean, I get e mail from some of them and they’re like, “You don’t really believe that, do you.” I mean, they are really these are rock solid people.

STU: But on this issue, you know.

GLENN: And, Stu, have they ever because you know all of my conversations. Have they ever said what they said to me in the last few days?

STU: No. They’re getting scarier and scarier.

GLENN: Yeah. Always optimistic, always like, “Hey, look, we can ” it’s a different ball game, gang. The world changed last week. Here’s what’s happening. We are now digging fire lines. That’s what we’re doing. And the choice is now. And to use this example remember, I’m a guy who believes you let the forest burn; it’s good. There is something to a forest burning. It replenishes the Earth. It becomes stronger, the soil has more nutrients in it. It’s actually a good thing. You let the forest burn. So understand that I believe that in the economy, I believe in failure, I believe in let the forest burn. With that being said, there comes a time when you’re in a firefight that you must dig a fire line. Let the forest burn, but you’ve got to move everybody, “Okay, everybody come to the hospital and by the police department and city hall and grab all your belongings, grab everything and we’re building a fire line right here, but we’ve got to save the hospital. We’ve got to save the grocery store or the farms. We’ve got to save it. So build a fire line. Do not put the forest out because the forest is going to burn.”

Are you with me so far, Stu?

STU: I’m sorry. What? I was just checking out the sports center showing all the NFL highlights in it. No, I think I understand where you are.

GLENN: So where I am now is what you’re being told about this bailout is that this is a bailout and it’s going to help everybody. Now we can stop it. No, we’re not. What we’re doing is we’re allowing it to burn without burning everything to the ground. We are trying to save whatever we can so we have something that we can hold onto. That’s what’s happening. If the fire burns out of control, it burns everything down. It burns mom and pop grocery store and it burns General Motors and it burns General Electric, it burns all of it down to the ground because there’s just, the money is just not there. Nobody everybody’s in panic mode and what they’re trying to do is bring it down as softly as they can, but this is not going to be a soft landing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, prepare. We’re about ready to hit the runway, although I have to tell you right now nobody wants you to know this, but there is no runway below us. It’s actually a forest, but hey, we’re doing the best we can so the plane just doesn’t fall out of the sky. Buckle your seat belts.” That’s what’s happening. The President can’t get on. Nobody can get on and say, “We’ve got two choices, gang. We’re just going to turn the engines off or we’re just going to, you know, they are just going to let them go and they will eventually turn themselves off and the plane will fall out of the sky,” “Or, we know that’s a forest beneath us and we know this is going to do just a buttload of damage but at least we’ll have pieces of the plane we can put together and there’s stuff on the plane that we need.” And here’s a crazy idea. There’s people on the plane!

That’s what congress is considering right now. This, I believe, has to pass, and you will see it in the next few days. You’re going to see, I think, gigantic failures. You are going to see big failures come in the next few days and it’s just, it’s not done yet. It’s not done yet. And if the government doesn’t okay this, well, that’s what’s going to happen.

Now, here’s the semi good news. If the weasels stay out of it, the people that are writing this right now, some of them are weasels, quite frankly I think some of them are evil, but a lot of them are really good and, in fact, I believe that Wednesday night was 9/11 in the financial industry. They know what happened. However, they’re still the Pentagon hasn’t been hit yet and there’s still somebody up in the air that’s flying towards the White House. It was 9/11 the World Trade Center has been hit and that’s what’s happening in the financial market right now. And there are good people that are trying to they are the 9/12ers. They don’t care about necessarily and I’m not talking about all of them they don’t care necessarily about their one financial institution. They are trying they are doing service for America. There are good people that understand what’s going on and there are good people that are involved in this plan. There are also those people, those good people, they are trying to keep the weasels away because the way this is being written right now is let’s say the Glenn Bank is the good and honest bank. Let’s say the Stu Bank is the evil Stu Bank.

STU: What kind of example is that? Why aren’t we

GLENN: That’s a good one.

STU: Why are you talking

GLENN: So the Glenn Bank is in trouble. No fault of Glenn, but he’s got all kinds of problems and many of them psychological in nature, and the money, the assets that he has, some of them are defaulting and if he doesn’t get them off his books, he’s going to go away and he’s going to go out of business.

Same thing with the Stu Bank. Well, the way this bailout is going to work is everybody comes, “Bring out your dead, bring out your dead.” And so you wheel it up and the Glenn Bank brings out the dead and they really are dead and they’re like, I’m really sorry, man, I did everything I can to save them. And the Stu Bank comes out and they’re like, “You’re not dead yet, I’m not dead yet.” They’re like, “Yes, he is.” “No, I’m not.” “Yes, he is,” “no, I’m…” [gunfire]. The Stu Bank was intentionally coughing on people.

STU: You are calling me a murderer, aren’t you?

GLENN: And he was saying, “What? My people aren’t sick at all.” And now he’s saying, “What? Look, they should be over here.” So Stu gets an F for the way he handled his business. I get an A for the way I handled my business. Everybody brings out their dead, they are evaluated and they’re marked, Stu Bank, Glenn Bank. They are marked. Stu Bank gets an F. Glenn Bank gets an A. The federal government is taking all of these assets and they are holding them. And they are holding them for three or four years. In the meantime the Stu Bank and the Glenn Bank need to raise money and to need to get their financial house in order to be able to buy these things or offset the losses when they come back. So I get an A. So when it’s time for the government to sell these assets, let’s say I bought a dollar’s worth of stuff for $10 is the government, that’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to say, “All right, you know what, all you dead people at the Stu Bank, I’m going to give you 10 cents for every dollar’s worth.” And Stu takes that, okay? And he gets his financial house in order. When we sell them, here’s what happens. We sell them and we go, “Oh, Stu, that’s right. You were really a shifty company, yeah. We just sold it for 80 cents. No soup for you.” And we get the 70 cents and it goes right directly into the treasury of the United States.

The Glenn Bank comes and they say, “Oh, yeah, I remember you. You were a good guy. Yeah, we just sold yours for 80 cents. We’re going to give you 20 cents of that 80. We’re keeping the rest. And Stu, by the way, still no soup four.” That way they are going to punish the bad and reward the good. Those who were just swept up into it and weren’t doing anything, they’re going to get it, except because the American people remember this is the way it’s supposed to work. The American people get money out of it because those assets aren’t always going to be bad. The market will come back and you’ll be able to sell those assets. But the guy who was screwing us, he shouldn’t get help. He shouldn’t get any. He’s got to pay for it. He’s going to get screwed in the end. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Me personally, I don’t believe a single weasel in Washington. I don’t believe any of these people are actually going to do jack and not put, you know, gummy bears and the big huge presents under the Christmas tree. They are looking at this as, you know what, this is what I’m going to get out of this; so I don’t buy it. I will just tell you the plane is falling out of the sky. We must land the plane as softly as we can. This is going to be very bad. It is not going to it is something that we are it’s worse. I mean, it’s now you’ve got the government involved as well, but you’ve got to save somebody and you’ve got to have some of these assets when you land the plane.

Help you at all, Stu?

STU: Yeah, I mean, you are right it doesn’t make me it doesn’t make me feel anything but dirty because I mean, the source of my optimism on the economy is that we have the free market and our economic resiliency is based on capitalism which I believe not only to be the most effective but also a moral system.

GLENN: Yes.

STU: So the problem with this is we’re taking that out of the equation.

GLENN: Yeah.

STU: We’re taking capitalism out of capitalism.

David G. Klein

The initiative is a reform born out of the Progressive Era, when there was general agreement that powerful interests had too much influence over legislators. It was adopted by most states in the Midwest and West, including Ohio and California. It was largely rejected by Eastern states, which were dominated by political machines, and in the South, where Jim Crow legislators feared giving more power to ordinary people.

But more power to ordinary people remains unpopular in some quarters, and nothing illustrates the war on the initiative more than the reaction to Ward Connerly’s measures to ban racial quotas and preferences. The former University of California regent has convinced three liberal states — California, Washington and Michigan — to approve race-neutral government policies in public hiring, contracting and university admissions. He also prodded Florida lawmakers into passing such a law. This year his American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) aimed to make the ballot in five more states. But thanks to strong-arm tactics, the initiative has only made the ballot in Arizona, Colorado and Nebraska.

“The key to defeating the initiative is to keep it off the ballot in the first place,” says Donna Stern, Midwest director for the Detroit-based By Any Means Necessary (BAMN). “That’s the only way we’re going to win.” Her group’s name certainly describes the tactics that are being used to thwart Mr. Connerly.

Aggressive legal challenges have bordered on the absurd, going so far as to claim that a blank line on one petition was a “duplicate” of another blank line on another petition and thus evidence of fraud. In Missouri, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan completely rewrote the initiative’s ballot summary to portray it in a negative light. By the time courts ruled she had overstepped her authority, there wasn’t enough time to collect sufficient signatures.

Those who did circulate petitions faced bizarre obstacles. In Kansas City, a petitioner was arrested for collecting signatures outside of a public library. Officials finally allowed petitioners a table inside the library but forbade them to talk. In Nebraska, a group in favor of racial preferences ran a radio ad that warned that those who signed the “deceptive” petition “could be at risk for identity theft, robbery, and much worse.”

Mr. Connerly says that it’s ironic that those who claim to believe in “people power” want to keep people from voting on his proposal: “Their tactics challenge the legitimacy of our system.”

He’s not alone. Liberal columnist Anne Denogean of the Tucson Citizen opposes the Connerly initiative, but last month she wrote that BAMN “is showing a disgusting lack of respect for the democratic process and the right of all Arizonans to participate in it.” She detailed how members of this organization harass petitioners and film people who sign the petition, while telling them they are backing a racist measure.

The police had to be called when BAMN blocked the entrance of a Phoenix office where circulators had to deliver their petitions. “BAMN’s tactics,” she concluded, “resemble those used by anti-abortion activists to prevent women from entering abortion clinics.”

But BAMN proudly posts videos on its success in scaring away voters, or convincing circulators to hand over their petitions to its shock troops. “If you give me your signatures, we’ll leave you alone,” says a BAMN volunteer on one tape to someone who’s earning money by circulating several different petitions.

What about voters’ rights to sign ACRI’s petitions? BAMN organizer Monica Smith equates race-neutral laws with Jim-Crow segregation laws and slavery. She told Tuscon columnist Denogean that voters are simply being educated that ACRI is “trying to end affirmative action . . . We let them know it’s up on the KKK’s Web site.” Mr. Connerly has repudiated any support from racists.

Other opponents of Mr. Connerly deplore the blocking and name-calling. Arizona State Rep. Kyrsten Sinema told me that initiatives have been used to pass ideas such as campaign finance and redistricting reform often opposed by entrenched legislators. “People have a right to sign a petition, hear the arguments and then vote,” she says. Ms. Sinema thinks Arizonans can be persuaded to vote down ACRI’s measure, much as they voted down a ban on gay marriage in 2006.

The war against citizen initiatives has other fronts. This year in Michigan, taxpayer groups tried to recall House Speaker Andy Dillon after he pushed through a 12% increase in the state income tax. But petitioners collecting the necessary 8,724 signatures in his suburban Detroit district were set upon. In Redford, police union members held a rally backing Mr. Dillon and would alert blockers to the location of recall petitioners. Outsiders would then surround petitioners and potential signers, using threatening language.

Mr. Dillon denied organizing such activity. Then it was revealed two of the harassers were state employees working directly for him. Another “voter educator” hired by the state’s Democratic Party had been convicted of armed robbery. After 2,000 signatures were thrown out on technical grounds, the recall effort fell 700 signatures short.

Note:  The Liberty Tree Lantern, is very concerned about a Combination Civil / Re-Revolutionary War.  This article and especially the above two paragraphs shows how a government stooped in Socialism, such as Michigan, will fight directly with us to force more and more taxes on us.  Look, folks, you MUST understand, Mr. Dillon, used “police” union members, That means actual Policemen folks, to prevent our fellow countrymen from using FREEDOM (from Government) to prevent a 12% tax increase. 

You must, you need to understand the severity of the nature of the eternal evil nature of all governments throughout history. All governments, especially Socialist leaning governments, always suck the prosperity from the people they govern for what they claim; “Is in your best interest.”.

This case in point, hopefully, will give you a perspicacious understanding as to why we must become as strong and as hardnosed as our State and especially Federal Governments to make them obey the law of our Federal and State Constitutions.  Only in this way can we protect ourselves and our property and perhaps, with a lot of luck, avoid the impending war.

Ever since voters in virtually every state with direct democracy passed term limits in the 1990s, state legislators have been hostile to the process. Now Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Colorado have all passed legislation to prohibit people from out-of-state from circulating a petition, and also to ban payment to circulators on a per-signature basis.

To his credit, Colorado’s Democratic Gov. Bill Ritter vetoed such curbs. In March, a Sixth Circuit federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that an Ohio law barring per-signature payment violated the First Amendment. Similarly, a Ninth Circuit panel just voted unanimously to strike down Arizona’s residency law for circulators.

Some judges think the “blocking” of signature gatherers has gone too far. In 2006, Nevada Judge Sally Loehrers decreed a “civility zone” that barred opposing sides from coming within arms’ length of each other at petition signing sites. “The blockers were off the streets within two days,” says Paul Jacob, the head of Citizens in Charge, which promotes the initiative process.

Last year, Mr. Jacob was charged with conspiracy to defraud the state of Oklahoma in a bizarre prosecution that claimed he brought in out-of-state signature gatherers in violation of the state’s residency requirement. Yet local public sector unions opposed to Mr. Jacob hired out-of-state outfits such as the Voter Education Project, an AFL-CIO offshoot that specializes in harassing signature drives.

Representative government will remain the enduring feature of American democracy, but the initiative process is a valuable safety valve. So long as elected officials gerrymander their districts and otherwise make it nearly impossible for voters to oust them, direct lawmaking will be popular. That’s why attempts to arbitrarily curb the initiative, or to intimidate people from exercising their right to participate, must be resisted. It’s a civil liberties issue that should unite people of good will on both the right and left.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com¹.

This Capt. Karl attended a “grassroots” citizen taxpayer rally in Madison Wisconsin, at our State Capital last year.  There were hundreds of Wisconsin citizens there demanding “No New Taxes”.  Do you know who the State of Wisconsin Government threw in our faces only separating us and them by plastic barrier tape?  Policemen, firemen, prison guards from State government all of whom not only were very threatening to us and vulgarly and offensively cussing up a storm in complete and utter anger, but were also being paid by our State taxes to do so.  We took off of work and sacrificed income to be at the taxpayer rally and the State workers by the hundreds, were paid to be there.  Can you imagine?

One of the State Prison Guards had to be at least 6’4” tall and about 270 lbs.   At the end of the rally, just as the police took down the plastic barrier tape, he rushed up to Vicki McKenna of WISN talk radio and literally stood three inches from her face and screamed at her for being a guest speaker at the rally.  I am proud to say that little Vicki stood her ground and fired back like a real trooper.  The police were unbelievably slow to get to the conflict which was up on the patio used as a stage.  Scary huh?  That is why the Founding Fathers wrote our Constitution the way they did and why it is up to us INDIVIDUALLY to enforce the laws of The Constitution and invoke the “commonsense” of The Declaration of Independence.

Next time there is a taxpayer or other rally to protect our rights, our property and our freedom, how about if you join with us and show them that Americans are not afraid to fight Government tyranny?!  After all, in the real world, in fact and in deed, it is truly us against them (Government, Government Officials and Government workers).  Our Founding Fathers, according to multitudes of recorded writings, knew this is how it was going to be, that it would be up to us individually but united to fight to protect our property and our rights and they were certainly right. 

Reference: Advice to my Country, Mattern, 34-35.

——–

Both Houses of Congress has taken such liberties with both our founding documents as to be nothing less than breathtaking.  And, if we don’t recapture our breath, the fresh prosperous and precious air of freedom, we shall surely suffocate.

We must as individual countrymen understand that each of us are responsible for the preservation of freedom.  Freedom is what gives us the power to be the masters over our servant government.  Freedom is what gives us the power to compel our Government to legalize the exploration and drilling for our vast resources of oil and natural gas, where they actually “exist”, rather than in the virtually worthless lease areas that the U.S. Congress so conveniently let’s us explore now.

The vast majority of our hardships are as a result of a U.S. Congress that has no respect for the rule of law, what-so-ever.  The majority of the men and women in Congress are little more than hoodlums, tyrants and despots of the most heinous kind.  They are beguiling minions of the devil himself who I can’t decide whether it is Congresswoman Majority Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senator Harry Reid.  For what they have done to The Constitution of The United States of America this writer believes is nothing less than treason and they should be hung.

I have spent over 1 ½ years researching what the U.S. Congress has done in terms of unconstitutional acts and it is extraordinary.  Even you reading this who have never read The Constitution can very simply understand how The U.S. Congress has violated the law of the 9^th and 10^th amendments.  Read these short but concise laws which are the very ultimate supreme law that supersede and are above all laws enacted by Congress:

 Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.  This Amendment is a dovetail to the “enumerated” powers of the Federal Government:

The enumerated powers are a list of specific responsibilities found in Article 1 Section 8 of the United States Constitution, which enumerate the authority granted to the United States Congress. Congress may exercise only those powers that are granted to it by the Constitution, limited by the Bill of Rights and the other protections found in the Constitutional text.

The classical statement of a government of enumerated powers is that by Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland:

This government is acknowledged by all, to be one of enumerated powers. The principle, that it can exercise only the powers granted to it, would seem too apparent, to have required to be enforced by all those arguments, which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted.

These, folks, are the specific things that should have been drilled into our heads when we were in school.  We should have memorized them word for word, because if we had the vast majority of us, INDIVIDUALLY, would be far wealthier and certainly live in true freedom.  For the Federal Government would be a very small office, by today’s standard, in deed.

Then the sovereign and independent State Governments would be far larger and more powerful than they are today, but they would be forced to compete for us.  They would be forced to provide the best possible environment for us to be independently successful, create wealth and have as much freedom and few laws as possible.  Because, if a State taxed us too much or made too many restrictive laws, we would simply move ourselves and our wealth to a better State that knew how to treat their free masters.

The first step in restoring our freedom and prosperity is to realize the propriety of Mr. James Madison’s statement in the first paragraph above; for without the “sense” of its meaning as intended in every single nuance of each and every word, in spirit and intent and importance the security of our prosperity and freedom is not secure from the ravages of The U.S. Congress.