Alex Jones storms the Texas Senate over TSA bill debacle

Watch. 

This is the way to do it.  He called for this spontaneously one hour before the end of his radio show.



Wish I could've been there. Good job.

Beware the "Tea Party" candidate; they are like a box of chocolates...

...you never know whatcha gonna get. 

 

Strict Constitutionalist and Austerity Candidate?

Posted by Karen Kwiatkowski on May 27, 2011 08:26 AM

Will, I love your reminder that Dan Webster “campaigned as a strict constitutionalist and apostle of austerity.” Yesterday, he joined the majority in the House in enthusiastically voting to extend the Patriot Act, without amendment or controls, for four more years. Newly elected and falsely represented “small government constitutionalists” like Webster are not working out, and the people’s secession from Washington on a human, economic, and institutional scale is far more effective than voting for a lying congressman. In addition to condoning and practicing thievery, Webster clearly accepts some new and revised version of the 9th commandment.

(emphasis enthusiastically added and endorsed!)

verbatim from Lew Rockwell blog.
remember, I am an x-voter.

New example of hyperinflation: Belarus

Socialism. Keynesian central planning.  Borrowing, borrowing, borrowing to pay for the government programs, until you can't pay it back, and no one will lend you more.

If you are a mundane, you go to jail, or you get your legs broken by a loan shark, or maybe both, or worse.

If you are a government, you bargain with other governments and creditors, then you devalue, and then you default.

What is happening in Belarus today is the result of sudden currency devaluation last week.  


The quantitative easing of the Federal Reserve in the United States is identical in theory and practice, but may be more incremental given the relative size and power of the United States.  

Economies are dynamic, however, and central economic planning is falling on it's face all over the world.  So what happens on a sudden abroad can also happen here: abrupt transition into a hyperinflationary environment (at least 20% generalized increase in prices per year, directly related to the money supply--the more dollars out there, the less each one is worth). 


 A Euro or Yen meltdown, or a large dumping of treasuries (such as the large US debt held by China) may trigger the dollar's collapse in value.

But here is what happens when the SHTF: 

---------------------------------

The devaluation lifted the local price of automobile fuels as much as 24 percent, according to Belneftekhim, an industry group for the country’s oil sector. Last night, about 50 people protested the price increase in the car park of a Minsk hypermarket.

“I can’t describe how I feel without using obscenities, this is all our government’s fault,” said Sergey, a 32-year old attending the protest who works for a computer importer. “The whole world tells them, guys, you have economic problems, you should do something, and all they did was live off getting more and more loans.”

The price of children’s diapers has “gone completely insane” in Minsk, said Natalia, a 24-year-old mother also queuing outside the refrigerator store. “I used to buy a pack for 69,000 rubles, now they cost 140,000,” or almost half the 343,260-ruble monthly child benefit paid by the government, she said.

“We have become paupers,” said Tatiana, a 70-year-old woman in the line who also declined to give her last name. “We have been squeezed into a corner by this devaluation.”

"Unless Belarus heeds Russia’s call for mass privatization of state assets, it is headed for “hyperinflation, massive un- and under-employment, and a shutdown of production" Moiseev concludes. Ah: "privatization" as Greece is about to learn, the lovely word that describes a fire sale of assets to one's creditors, courtesy of a "globalized" new world order.


(emphasis added)

----------------------------


Link to zerohedge guest post:
Welcome to hyperinflation hell: After currency devaluation, the Belarus economy implodes, sets blueprint for developed world future.

First Confederate General killed in War Between the States buried in Brooklyn

Robert Selden Garnett, the first general killed in the Civil War, was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, but his family did not want visitors to the cemetery to know it.
Named brigadier general in 1861, Garnett briefly commanded Confederate troops in western Virginia before being shot dead in the battle of Corrick’s Ford on July 13, 1861.

According to research by the cemetery, one of his last cries on the battlefield was “Three cheers for Jeff Davis!”

But that Confederate pride did not follow Garnett to the grave.

Union forces turned over Garnett’s body to his family, who buried him in Baltimore. Four years later, the family decided he should lie in Brooklyn alongside his wife and son, who had died before the war. They exhumed Garnett’s remains and secretly re-interred him in Green-Wood, leaving his grave unmarked for fear of anti-Southern sentiments. Some things never change. 150 years now.


Last words:  "Three cheers for Jeff Davis!"  

General Garnett endeared himself to me when I read that.

Rest of the story here, in the NY Times.

Hat tip to Michael at Southernnationalist.com

The greatest conceit: governments thinking that central planning of the economy is possible

Things Are Spinning Out of Control
The pretense of centralized control of history is wearing thin.

The single greatest conceit of the Status Quo in the U.S., China and Euroland is that systems and trends can be tightly controlled. That conceit is slowly being revealed as hubris, as all sorts of things are spinning out of the control of the centralized authorities and financial elites in each geopolitical power center.

Does anyone really think the people of Greece will stand idly by while the state treasures of their nation are transferred to the banks which foolishly lent billions to a visibly risky enterprise? The banks, of course, lent freely to insolvent governments throughout the European Union, confident in the backstop of the E.U. itself.

Good article on zerohedge.com about the coming collapse of the global economic structure and central banks.

Quote of the day 5/25

What goes up must come down
spinning wheel got to go round
Talking about your troubles it's a crying sin
Ride a painted pony
Let the spinning wheel spin

You got no money, and you, you got no home
Spinning wheel all alone
Talking about your troubles and you, you never learn
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel turn

--Blood Sweat and Tears, Spinning Wheel, 1969

(I was thinking of the economy and the boom-bust cycle)

Feds playing chicken with Texas over nullification of TSA

by Connor Boyack, with Brian Roberts and Michael Boldin

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice upped the ante in a high-stakes political game of chicken. Lobbying against pending legislation in the Texas legislature which would criminalize any searches conducted without probable cause, U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy sent a letter to a few high-ranking members of Texas’ government warning against promoting the bill and threatening a complete closure of all flights to and from the state.

“If HR [sic] 1937 were enacted, the federal government would likely seek an emergency stay of the statute,” Murphy wrote. “Unless or until such a stay were granted, TSA would likely be required to cancel any flight or series of flights for which it could not ensure the safety of passengers and crew.”

No doubt written with the threatening intent one reads into it, Murphy added: “We urge that you consider the ramifications of this bill before casting your vote.”

Previous to the federal government’s threat, the Texas legislature had considered the ramifications of the bill. More importantly, they were responding to a clear need to uphold the Fourth Amendment and ensure that each person enjoys the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” — a right which the U.S. Constitution mandates “shall not be violated.”

From The Tenth Amendment Center, breaking news

Rand Paul speaks truth to power in the Senate

How lucky are we to have a Senator who doesn't just pay lip service to the Constitution, but one who believes in Jeffersonian original intent of the Constitution.

Our modern day Calhoun.

I go off half cocked commenting on a comment on a blog I never read

As I was reading Rebellion Blog tonight, I read the following paragraph in the post "How the Northern view shaped the Civil War":

Of course. Billy Yank (the average Northern soldier, not the uninformed pest who drops nasty comments on this and other Southern blogs) fought out of loyalty to his nation, not to "free the slaves." Problem is, the powers that be exploited those loyalties to enrich themselves and expand their power. As I've argued before, wars are fought for power and treasure, not to do good deeds.


Curious about the uninformed pest, I clicked on the link and ended up reading an uninformed post on a blog called kindredblood.wordpress.com. Don't feel obligated to bookmark it, by the way.


In the comments section, one of the respondents, it seems to me someone who has never attempted to look at another perspective of how this country might have or should have evolved differently, said this, getting my dander up:

Cornbread Bridgemanon May 22, 2011 at 12:14 am said:

Border Ruffian, are you going to “ruff me up” if I don’t subscribe to your line of thinking? I simply believe that there are good and bad people in both the north and the south. (seems reasonable)  I do not think that the people of the south have a monopoly on morals, courage, and intelligence like many in the “Lost Cause” movement feel that are exclusive to those born south of the Mason-Dixon Line. (terrible gross generalization)

Soldiers on both sides of the issue in the war were, for the most part, good men. There were some bad men in uniform on both sides, there were deserters and bandits in both the blue and the gray. It isn’t necessary to continually disparage Union veterans in order to remember and honor your Confederate ancestors. (Veterans of the Union Army are not typically disparaged by modern supporters of the Confederate cause, just the political and military leadership, and the choices that they made)

Look at the true history. The real veterans of the war attended reunions of savage battles together and became friends with those that they had fought against. This hatred of men who served honorably and their descendants after 150 years is ridiculous. It reminds me of the Blacks that want reparations for their ancestors being slaves over 150 years ago. (not sure I follow this, but OK)

Then, this concluding statement of the comment (that probably no more than a couple of dozen people will ever read) made me decide to forego exercise tonight and write a response:

"Does anyone truly believe that things would have been better had we splintered into a group of individual states or mini-nations instead of being the United States of America? I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point."

Here is what I wrote:

Honourablemeanson May 23, 2011 at 10:08 pm said:

Your comment is awaiting moderation. 

“Does anyone truly believe that things would have been better had we splintered into a group of individual states or mini-nations instead of being the United States of America? I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point.”

I do. I wave THAT flag every day.

To think that way, you have to check your premises and think outside the box you were raised in. I am the product of both New York suburban public schools and an Ivy league education...(not your typical Confederate flag-waver)

Why have one experiment in democracy or one experiment in economics that affects 350 million people, rather than 50 experiments? Don’t you think that more progress could have been made?

Everytime the Supreme Court makes a decision that effects 350 million people, almost inevitably incrementally increasing Federal power at the expense of local power and the power of each individual citizen, (remote unaccountable sovereignty)

Everytime the President gets us into a war without Congressional approval, (monarchical rule)

Everytime Congress passes a 2000 page bill that less than 1% of the Congressmen have read,

Everytime I think of the Representatives voting for TARP, despite 50% of the constituents who called to voice an opinion said “No”, and the other 50% said “Hell, No!”,

Everytime the Congress passes a law governing moral issues or individual choices, whether it is a Christian conservative republican or a progressive/socialistic Democrat and the freedom of the individual to choose is diminished if they remain “law abiding”,

Everytime the Congress raises the debt ceiling and impoverishes my children,

Everytime Congress reinforces crony capitalism and statism and the progressive media blames all the woes of the country on “capitalism” and “the free market” (modern equivalent of Clay and Lincoln’s favored “American system),

Everytime that an unaccountable SWAT team bursts into a home without a warrant, or a TSA goon puts her hand on and under the breast implant of a 68 year old mastectomy patient to make sure it’s not C4 instead of saline,

Everytime the Federal Reserve devalues our already faith-based currency and robs every one of us of our purchasing power, so that the government can pay back its debts in cheaper dollars than it leant out,

Everytime a public school teaches a kid that the “national” origin of the United States (as opposed to the compact theory) is the only way to think about the founding of this nation,

Everytime government money goes to subsidies, special projects, or new agencies to endear a politician to his constituency, at the expense of someone else (the taxpayer) who produced the wealth but will never benefit himself,

Everytime I think of people saying we are “a free country” but the South was brought back into the Union at the point of a gun,

Everytime I think of the cultural war of the past 50 years waged by progressives against the remnants of Southern culture,

Everytime I see what the victory of the Union made possible in this nation,

Everytime I think of the evolution of this continent’s political entity from voluntary federated republic to involuntary “nation” to militarist empire, trying to spread democracy to other cultures at the point of a gun, to empire teetering on the verge of collapse:

I wave the flag of the People who are sovereign, and had accountable representative servant government, the flag of the Jeffersonian.

When you hear a modern Southerner or a wartime Confederate leader like Robert E. Lee refer to the noble aspects of the Confederacy, this is what they are referring to…

But other than the above, I agree with you that “I don’t think any person with any degree of intelligence will argue that point.”

Link

Also, check out my comment on this guy's "Maps for thought" page, where he tries to junk Southerners as fat, lazy and stupid...

http://kindredblood.wordpress.com/maps-for-thought/#comment-1040

Rand, like Ron, decries the folly of US foreign policy toward Israel

From the American Spectator:

During his Senate campaign, Rand Paul walked a careful line on foreign policy: he shared his father's basic skepticism of interventionism but tried to be much more respectful of the majority viewpoint within the Republican Party. Sometimes that led him to state his positions differently from his father; sometimes it led him to take different positions than his father.

So it was interesting to read the Kentucky senator's statement on President Obama's Middle East speech. As expected, Paul slammed Obama's liberal interventionism: "Our mistakes in foreign policy have always been from hubris. We somehow believe that we can dictate the policies of the world, and enforce them with our military and economic strength. While this might sound like a good idea to many, it has its limits and its consequences." Yet even in opposing the Libya war, Paul took a pro-Israel line: "For example, instead of seeking proper authority from Congress and the Constitution to go to war with Libya, President Obama empowered the United Nations and the Arab League, two bodies that together endanger the security and sovereignty of our ally Israel."

Senator Paul continued his criticism of Obama's stance on Israel:

It is the United Nations who is threatening to impose a Palestinian state without a guarantee of safety for Israel. It is members of the Arab League who foment hostilities or refuse to recognize the right to safety and security of Israel.

But far worse than that, today it was an American President who stood before the world and once again demanded Israel act against her own strategic interest in the name of a false peace.

Peace from weakness or peace from outside coercion of Israel is a fool's errand. Unfortunately, the President today proved himself willing to play that fool.

Israel and her enemies have fought wars for the better part of the past 60 years. And terror-supporting countries in the region have spent the better part of those years feigning interest in peace while lobbing rockets across borders.

For President Obama to stand up today and insist that Israel should once again give up land, security and sovereignty for the possibility of peace shows an arrogance that is unmatched even in our rich history of foreign policy.

Paul then concludes on a noninterventionist note:

I agree with the President. This is in fact a moment of opportunity. It is time to seize control of our foreign policy from those who have spent the past decade policing the world, trying in vain to build nations after destroying them, and bankrupting our children and grandchildren in the process.

This opportunity will pass us by if we simply repeat the same mistakes, over again.

UPDATE: Ron Paul's statement is strikingly similar, with some twists (the elder Paul is tougher in his antiwar language and hints he thinks it might be in Israel's long-term interests to voluntarily make concessions).

emphasis added.

POOF!

Reposted, deleted by blogger during big downtime...


Hat tip to market-ticker.org









This is what happened to me with silver. I sold my shares on April 27 th after a nice run.  I bought a double long ETF in silver yesterday, thinking the demons had been exercised.  That double long ETF lost 17% today, in one day.

Bummer.  I'm in for long, though, I can wait...